T-10 to Launch

Friday seems like a whirlwind, I'm done with this week’s task of trying to train the classroom teachers to use our new online math activities at IXL. Friday, surprisingly, was my largest turnout of teachers this week.

I have ordered my bottle rocket launcher and a new bike pump for my 4th grader's bottle rockets. I have started collecting bottles from teachers at school and even told the kids that if they have any they should bring them in for class. I explicitly told them NOT to buy soda bottles just for this project. The last thing I want is the classroom teacher or myself getting phone calls from parents asking why their kids are telling them they have to buy soda bottles. I am still going to have to buy a number of bottles myself. But it is soo going to be worth it. My kids were filled with questions I couldn't answer them all before class was over. I told them we would be starting next week but I like to give them something to look forward to between classes. This will be much cheaper than robots and should take about three class periods to get them created with one more class period to do the launches. Even if we need extra classes to finish, for whatever reason, we will have plenty of time to complete the project before school ends. If I time this just right I should have time to end the year with an extra lesson in internet safety. I know that I am going to miss my fourth graders once they leave and I feel like I barely had any time to teach them all I wanted. But I guess that is the nature of being a teacher, I will have a lot of refining to do for next year to pack more lessons into the limited time I have.

I am going to try to partner with some of the other teachers to do another one of my favorite experiments. I figured that since I am going to be buying some soda I might as well buy some diet soda and mentos and make good use of the soda. If you have never tried what is called the "Mentos Experiment" It is an awesome experience. Just add mentos to any bottle of soda and stand back and enjoy the fountain of soda that follows. The students in my younger classes should enjoy watching that. We can time the blasts and possibly estimate height and create an excel sheet of the results.

In other news I will be missing my first day of school all year on Tuesday. My principal would like me to receive training on the new SMS --- student management system for BCPSS and I will be out of the building all day. I asked my principal if I should plan to have a sub or cancel class and we both agreed that we were torn on the idea. I explained that I was skeptical about having just anyone in my classroom and coming back to a years worth of hard work down the drain. The usual subs that we have are not what you would call tech savvy or remotely youthful. I am hoping to persuade them to just cancel class so I do not have a mess to clean up. I am probably worrying too much about nothing, but, we will see.