Field Trip Awesome

I took my kids on a field trip to a local nature outreach center. My kids visited three different ecosystems -- a forest, a meadow, and a pond -- and learned about the different adaptations that animals have in order to survive in their environments.

I thought the field trip was great. My outdoors-challenged students thought otherwise. Here are some of their comments throughout the day:

"Yo, I be thirsty. Where's the water fountain?"

"I just tripped over two rocks. If I trip over another one, I'm suing."

"Ewwww, there's a fly." "Oh my god!" "That jawn tryin' to land on me!"

"Where the frogs?" "They got 'em at Petco."

"Do we got an elevator or escalator comin' up this hill?" "Can I call a cab?"

Notes From a Monday

Not so manic... Attendance was fairly decent in the morning and in the afternoon. However, half my class was out for testing 2nd period, so I had a grand total of 7 kids (out of 15). Fourth period was even worse -- 9 kids showed up, out of 24.

Some of my favorite moments:

-- Upon learning that we were starting our ecology unit, one of my students proclaimed, "Oh, I think that's the part I like!"

-- Insecure About Other People Being As Smart As He Is told me he would rather study for a multiple choice and essay-style final exam rather than do the project-style final I assigned. Not sure to what extent that is true and to what extent he is trying to show off to his classmates.

-- One of my most obnoxious students came to class on time, sat down quietly, and not only took notes but also was the only person to complete her homework during the 5 minutes left over at the end of class.

Highlights from the Ground

--Recently Reformed Nice Girl came to class with a positive attitude today. So positive, in fact, that she set a goal for herself to make it through the entire class without cursing, AND she succeeded. I was duly impressed.

--Makes Barnyard Animal Noises and Rooster interrupted my lesson on translation (in biology, the cellular process of making proteins) in order to start howling at the imaginary moon. Nobody in the class found this weird. Rooster then started cock-a-doodle-doo'ing. The rest of the students, being the arbiters of propriety that they are, found this completely inappropriate, and we (myself included) momentarily forgot about biology and lost ourselves in fits of giggles.

--In Environmental Science, we each computed our carbon footprint using an online climate change calculator. Several of my students were severely off-task. Approaching them in person was unsuccessful. However, when I admonished one of them via gchat, he immediately got to work. Go figure.

--Dreams of Becoming a Paramedic wore lens-less Harry Potter glasses today. When she took them off for a moment, I stole them from her and put them on my own face. My class had no problem paying attention to me after that.