Cal Acad Opening

On Sunday we went to the opening weekend of the Cal Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. It was fabulous! So many wonderful things to see and do and learn about and play with.

Highlights for me were the 4 story indoor rain forest, the living roof, the penguins, the live dissection viewing room, and all the beautiful photography of sciency things.

Here are a few photos.

Bad Seeds?

OK, so 8th graders are getting better, and left the field open for the 7th graders to fill in in their theoretical absence.

An example, on Thursday last week, I tried to do a hands-on "Food Web" activity with a ball of string and animal and plant cards. After a bit of a struggle the activity sort of worked. The bad part came at the end when some brilliant 7th grader announced, "Hey, let's all jump in and get tangled up!!" So all of a sudden, there were 17 arguing/shouting voices (16 kids' and one of mine), 32 arms moving around rapidly, 32 kicking legs, one chair, and 50 yds of yarn all jumbled up in the middle of the room. A huge mess, and dangerous too. They lost their lab privileges for a week because of that.

The week before, we were unable to play a running around game outside because it kept turning into an argument and fight.

Today they were a lot better, especially the instigators (yes, there are 3 or 4 who usually are the ones to start the problems. But at age 12, it's better to follow the herd than to do as the teacher says.). But I bet that as the week progresses, their halos will tarnish and fall apart, revealing a few kids who get to do FUN book work and worksheets while the rest of the class gets to do a lab.

Aggghhh

8th


graders



already



driving


me


crazy

Aaaaahhhh, school's back in session!

School started again last week, and it's going well! The kids are fresh and happy to be back with their friends. And they're still content to DO their work, mostly on time! We'll see how long that practice continues!

The 7th graders are wonderful. Smart and curious and excited about science. Oooohhh, what do we GET to do this year in science??!! The 8th graders, not quite as excited, but at least their summer break seems to have slightly diminished their raging hormone induced apathy towards anything that involved brain energy exertion.

I'm also teaching an Advisory class, where I'm the teacher advisor. It's like a homeroom. As long as we can justify it as "community building" or "academically relevant" we can do interesting things like take a trip tot he beach, go to the nearby cafe, go to the park . . . It's fun so far.

I am also enjoying being back at work, using my own mind. And all the hours and hours of work that I put in last year, creating pretty much everything from scratch, is starting to pay off. I don't have to start all over again! Yay! But, of course, there's still much to do. Back to work . . .