How Many Pounds Does A Gallon of Water Weigh?

A review of what we learned about water, so far, basically deals with the weight of water. We played catch-up, today. A single class period lesson expanded to three class periods. Ho boy.

Did Ya See the Newspaper, Today?

MRSA on the rise in Lycoming County. Gee, my sixth graders learned about MRSA, this week. They know how the media can "sensationalize" everything -- even a staph infection that plagued mankind for the last two million years. My kids studied and experimented with "superbug," and they know that good hygiene, not panic, is the best prevention.

Finding the Percentages
We went back to the basics of mathematics, today. Reviewed and revamped our findings on the percentage of water our families used, last weekend, in our water use survey.

Welcome Mrs. Nemeth
Nice lady. Mrs. Nemeth joined us today as our new, temporary, sixth grade reading teacher. I showed her how to use the computer in her classroom, the audio amplifier and the multimedia projector. She will be online, soon, with the grade program and homework blog. One step at a time, if you please. Many of the cherubs recognized her as their CCD teacher -- that's Catholic Sunday School.

I Got Candy
Thanks Allie and Jolene. These girls, each, gave me a baggie of candy from Halloween -- I told you I have nice kids, this year. I bet my family and friends are reading this right now and exclaiming, with hands on either side of face, "BUT, HE'S DIABETIC AND SHOULD NOT EAT SWEETS." Don't worry, even one morsel of candy sends me scrambling to the potty. I will donate the candy to some worthy munchkins -- maybe, Mrs. Antonacci's kids -- they are just as sweet as the candy.

Have a great night!

Halloween Is Not A Holiday

I gave homework. Sure, I know, my students are too old to trick-or-treat, anyway. Today, students took their home water usage survey charts and converted the survey into gallons used. We used a formula of a quart for washing hands, one gallon for brushing teeth, 30 gallons per clothes washer load, etc. . . In the end, everyone used hundreds of gallons of water over the weekend. At 8 pounds a gallon, that's a lot of weight. Anyway, after that, they converted the usage to percentage and finally, made a bar graph of the whole kit-and-kaboodle. Yes, I let them use calculators.

Goodbye, Miss Springman
In a surprise move by the district, today was Miss Springman's last day. This neophyte teacher did a great job while she was with us. Miss Springman was a temporary sub, who, just happened to stay for several weeks. I have to say, for someone basically straight out of college, she did a fantastic job for us. I hope some big shot in some district reads my blog and calls her in for an interview. You will be delighted with her. This girl was asked to interview several times, which means they were very interested in her abilities. We knew about this, yesterday, but we all kept quiet. Trish held her head high and proud as she left the building, this afternoon. I wish her only the best of luck, but, she is talented and I bet she'll land a permanent teaching position by next fall.

Yoda Becomes Darth Vader Becomes Mr. Fausnaught
Mr. F. started the day as Yoda, from Star Wars. By the time he stopped into our grade-level meeting, he donned a Darth Vader mask. By lunch, it was good old Tim. What a card. We are so lucky to have him as our principal -- never a dull moment.
You should have seen the 7th grade team. The teachers dressed in costume and pranced around the lobby as students entered the building, this morning. Me, in black pants, shoes and shirt -- well, I was dressed as a frustrated parent.

Marking Period Ended, Today
I wonder how much candy I will get from students wanting a better science grade.

Have a good night, everyone.

My Mnemonic Works

I used a mnemonic -- A, Z, P, S, to help students solve the source of the superbug virus. Those letters stand for Antonacci, Zdun, Pulizzi, and Springman. Get it? The four 6th grade teachers. So, once the kids exhausted all hypotheses using available information, they had to rely on good ole hypothesis to make an educated guess. I gave them the clue -- first period, the source cup was A, for second period, the source cup was Z. Then, my third science class had P and finally, the last class got to guess -- S, for Springman.

Cough, cough -- sniffle, sniffle

I may have infected your kid with the dreaded "Paraskevidekatriaphobia (pronounced: Pair-uh-skee-vee-dek-uh-tree-uh-foh-bee-uh) Virus. That's Greek for Fear of Friday the 13th. Sorry about infecting them. We conducted an experiment as to how bacteria travel from one person to the next. The virus is on my website. Today, I used "superbug," since that is the catch phrase for MRSA -- an antibiotic resistant staph infection. If anything, they learned the importance of washing hands and not trading flip flops.
Hee hee. I used hydrogen peroxide as my virus cup and then used plain ole bleach as the activator. It made the peroxide fizz and "showed" students how virus can spread throughout a population.
Tomorrow, we find out who had the initial infected cup. Funny, all the kids wanted to be infected and be the source of the infection. I showed them my swollen leg, the result of a MRSA attack several years ago. That did not sway them.

Social Studies
My social studies class gave their presentations, yesterday, on one of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. They had all marking period to work on this project. Four entire class periods and time that equates to four more complete class periods to assembly a five minute skit. The group that did the first amendment was "awesome." Thanks Shelby, Andru, Shannon, Dajah and Robbie -- I was impressed. Two other groups became flustered and "messed-up" their skits. Too bad. The premise of the seventh and nineth amendments were clever, despite the poor delivery. Hey! Not everyone is cut out to be a Shakesperean actor. One group was so upset, they wanted a "do-over," tomorrow. Sorry, girls, what can you accomplish in 24 hours that you could not do in eight weeks. Still, I enjoyed all three skits. A fourth group wanted to do a powerpoint presentation, but to burn the powerpoint onto a flashcard did not work and they will fix and present tomorrow. I have no clue what the fifth group will do, we ran out of time.

Marking Period Over
Wednesday is the end of the marking period. My social studies class moves on to another teacher -- I get a fresh crop. OOOOOhhhhhhhh.