Techsploration Tom

11/18/10

Techsploration Tom came to school today! He gave a fantastic presentation on electricity! He had the coolest gadgets and was a dynamic presenter. He pulled students up to demonstrate how static electricity is created - so neat!

We took the students out for a recess, then the classes rotated in for a science lesson. I didn't teach science today, but I did get a good experience on how to rotate students in to a Creative Arts lesson. It's strategically difficult and takes a lot of energy, but it is worth it! Techsploration Tom loved me! He loved my energy and excitement towards science. I was also the person that sat through all of his lessons, so we got to talk quite a bit. I was also pulled up on stage to "sing the science blues" - it was pretty funny! Me singing - yikes! The students said that I did a great job, but all I did was yell out the words in some assemblage of a rhythmic tone.

Disaster struck when I saw two students looking at the Hokusai books and giggling. My heart sunk - somehow I missed that this book had two drawings of naked bodies. I looked through all of the books before putting them out for students to view - but these images were at the end of the book, and I just missed them. I went into immediate damage control - talked to the boys before they moved to a different classroom, then ran to get Amy and tell her about the issue. We took them out of class (there were four in total) and had a discussion about what they saw. They all seemed okay with it, were more giggly about it than anything else. One boy said that he had seen similar images before at an art gallery that he went to with his family. The principal came in and joined the conversation (my heart sunk again - what would she think of me?). It turned out that she was an art major and she did a great job of normalizing it for the children. PHEW! Crisis solved.

After the craziness of the day - and a job offer by Techsploration Tom - it was finally time for reading buddies, where our students read to 1st grade students. That was until the principal came up to talk to the entire 5th grade about their behavior in the lunch room. For some reason, these students can't control themselves in the lunch room! It was supposed to be a five minute conversation, but ended up taking 20 minutes (the students were really passionate about the issues) - no more reading buddies today!

Instead I read more from our read aloud book, Morning Girl.