I Done Yolked My Meringue

We restarted clubs, today. Me, the guy that burns water, is helping Mrs. Beard and Mrs. Helminiak, with the cooking club. I did have a ball, today, however. Mrs. Beard taught and I copied making Baked Alaska. It is ice cream sandwiched in a cake and layered with whipped meringue. My first task? Separate the eggs - whites and yolk. Apparently, even the slightest bit of fat from egg yolk, interferes with the protein egg whites in creating meringue. It was only a sliver of yolk, yet, once we added cream of tartar, sugar and set the hand-mixer on super, deluxe, maximum thrust high, were we able to whip those egg whites into a frothy meringue.

From there, it was a matter of encasing the ice cream/cake sandwich in merigue to form a super-tight seal. We baked it in a preheated 500-degree Fahrenheit oven until the meringue turned golden brown. Then, it was matter of slice and serve the 36 kids in our club. Folks, home ec is a small kitchen and how Mrs. Beard managed to squeeze those kiddoes in there is testiment to her remarkable teaching skills.

Oh, Mrs. Beard did admit that she was my teacher, when I was a Loyalsock student back in the 70s. And, I might add, she has the patience of a saint.

Look out, Food Network, here comes your next combination of Paula Deen, Alton Brown, and Rachel Ray!!!!!

Have a great weekend, folks.

Seaweed and Rice Crackers

Gave most of the cherubs a treat - a rice cracker infused with sea salt and sea weed. Although the boys enjoyed the snack, the girls were a bit less receptive. A couple of girls wanted to go the water fountain to wash-down the foul biscuit. Oh well, no accounting for taste.

Three Kinds of Plankton
we use to gauge the health of the Chesapeake Bay: phytoplankton, zooplankton, and macrozooplankton. Ask your kiddo about them.

Have a great night, folks.

Features of the Ocean Floor

Gave an intesting test on the features of the ocean floor. How did your kid do? I handed back the tests to sections 63 and 61. The others will get their test back, tomorrow.

I will be updating my edline gradebook before Thursday. Still grading those pesky Mixing Bowl paragraphs.

Have a great night, folks.

Boy, Did Nature Get Me On April Fool's Day

Started my day, cranky and lazy. I got sick at the gym, yesterday, and spent the night with a high fever and dashing to the potty. Thought I was better, today, until I found myself ill first period. I left school at the start of third period.

The cherubs are reading about the continental margin, turbidity currents, and submarine canyons. While I was there I clarified there is no food chain, but, a food web. Afterall, the continental shelf is a plethera of life, more abundant than anyplace on land.

Glad You Feel Better
A really good guy went under the knife, yesterday, but, reportedly was feeling better by the evening. That's great. Perhaps, we will both be mended enough by tomorrow to function normally.

Have a great night, folks.

Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Since 2000, I have been teaching about the Chesapeake Bay as part of my ocean unit and as an ecology lesson. This year, my voice is being heard about our responsibility to save the bay. Before it was a buzz phrase, I said, we needed to make changes in order to save that ecosystem. Today, those of us living along the Susquehanna River, are now faced with the multi-million dollar penalty for our inaction the last 20-30 years. My kids understand just a bit more, about saving our environment, at least, being good stewards of our watershed.

Tomorrow, I mark the end of our project, The Great Mixing Bowl, for yet, another year. I really enjoy this unit and miss teaching ecology and the environment.

I Guess It Is Official
Our own superintendent, Richard Mextorf, is leaving 'sock. I know its official because its mentioned in Mr. Fausnaught's blog, today. I have enjoyed working with "Mex." He was a super principal and is a nice guy that takes the time to stop into your classroom, shake your hand and just chat. Yeah, I will miss, him, but, he is moving onto a school district that boasts over 7,000 kids, compared to our teenie 1,500. Good Luck, Boss.

Have a great night, folks.

Redoing Hydrometer Experiment

A couple of classes are redoing their experiment. This time, read the rubrics.

Good Luck!
The manly man will hide his pain whenever friends and women are around. Remember, ain't nothing like a good pillow to muffle those cries, after they leave. Good luck with surgery, buddy.

My Smart Board Is So Cool
Thanks to Mr. Fausnaught, I have an interactive whiteboard in my classroom. It goes through the computer, onto a projector and is flashed on a screen. Imagine a computer image background with an overhead projector foreground -- TOTALLY COOL!!!! Thanks, boss.

Have a great night, folks.

Down Came The Hammer

Okay, I had the cherubs begin activity 2 of the Great Mixing Bowl, last Friday. It is a two-class period lesson. And, Activity 3 is a 15 minute activity. However, enough is enough. I started today's class with a stern warning that both activities are due at the end of the period. No, I will not accept any packets, except from those children that were absent from class yesterday and/or, today.

Since today is the last day of the marking period, the Great Mixing Bowl project will go onto the 4th marking period.

Thanks, Parents
Thanks go out to the parents that took time from their busy schedule to meet with the sixth grade team, regarding your child. To be honest, I don't want them back for another year. Once they've heard my cornball jokes, they do not react a second time. Better to move 'em on to 7th grade. Okay, folks, let's get those kids hustling this last marking period and get those grades - UP!

It's Not Like The Recruiter Described!!
LOL My boy just called, basic training is not at all as the recruiter described. He gets very little sleep, everyone is sick with the flu, and he spent the last two nights on guard duty. HA ha ha. If the recruiter had been truthful, would you have joined the military? At least, the boy said, the food is good. Five more weeks and then graduation and 65 days of tech school. Funny. the boy called his girlfriend, first, then, dad. Hmmmm. I wonder why?

Daughter also called. Seems she wants to stay in Texas all summer and maybe even until Christmas. Ain't parenting grand? The empty nest did not feel so empty with my two precious phone calls.

Have a great night, folks.

Back to the books, today

Yeah, we went about reconstructing our plastic straw hydrometer and testing it in fresh and salt water. Also, we modified our simple device by creating a scale for the straw which will make it a valuable tool in measuring the density of fluids.

Got my smartboard
Talk about a totally cool toy. A white board that you can draw on from the computer and even touch the screen to give the computer commands. Well, the board was installed, today. Mr. Gee and Mr. Black still need to install the software.

Got a letter from the boy and my daughter is now 20.
All alone on the Galveston campus during Spring break, my baby observed her 20th birthday on Sunday. I got a letter from my boy, today. He is in week #2 of Air Force basic training. He is doing a mile and a half in 13 minutes -- hee hee, I do three miles and on the treadmill in an hour -- not bad for an old man in his fourth week at the gym, eh?

Have a great night, folks.

Some Shocking News, Today

I repaired a van de Graaff generator, over the weekend. This electro-static generator delivers a low-voltage lightning bolt. There was absolutely no educational value to today's class, other than electrical safety. Hey! I just wanted to have some fun after last week's PSSA tests.

Okay, we did learn a little about positive and negative polarity, but, most importantly, we saw some phenomenal sparks.

Back to the Chesapeake Bay project, tomorrow.

Have a great night, folks.

PSSA - Day 2

God love these kids - I'm spent.

Have a great night, folks.

Hi. My Name is Murphy.

Laws were meant to be broken. Well, not the one set forth by Murphy - if something can go wrong, it will. Yep, our first day of PSSA testing occurred that way. But, I work with some fantastic people. We rolled with the punches and all went as smoothly as possible as we dealt with every new fiasco without our charges even being aware of any problems.

Big kudos go out to Mrs. Preisch and Miss Porter for assembling all the materials for a school over 500 kids. Big task and they should be thanked publicly for performing that job.

Guess what?
We get to do it all again, tomorrow.

Have a great night, folks. I need a few aspirins.

We Reviewed The Salinity Test

Did your cherub bring home his/her corrected science test? Well, they are to use it as a study guide and return it to me, tomorrow. I wanna see they fixed all their errors in preparation for a scaled-down retest on pages 44-48.

I am not doing them any favors by permitting them to retest. In fact, it is a disservice to them by minimizing the importance of self-preparation for a graded assessment. "If I screw-up, oh well, I can take it, again." That perception scares me when I see teenie-boppers taking their driver's test, over and over and over. At what point do we hold ourselves and our charges accountable for their actions. We learn best by lessons learned through failure.

Oh, well. I know I will never adopt a revolving door policy when it comes to tests, an occasional retest will not adversely affect my munchkins psyche or overall performance -- or will, it?

Have a great night, folks.

Late to post

Sorry. I have been grading some dismal science tests, this afternoon. How could I spend 3 days covering four pages of textbook material and still have so many kids fail? What did I do wrong? I used a powerpoint presentation as a teaching tool and posted the presentation on my webpage.

Okay, I'm going to review the test with them, tomorrow, and on Friday, I will retest. I will take the average of both test grades.

Am I Getting Sick?
I feel funny, tonight Very sick to the stomach. Okay, who breathed on me?

Have a great night, folks.

Test Tomorrow

Well, notes on pages 44 to 48 are on my website as a powerpoint. We went over the textbook and the powerpoint, in class. They better be ready for my short answer test, tomorrow.

Have a great night, folks.

P.44-48 (20-question) test on Wednesday

review my powerpoint on my webpage.

OoTM Was A Blast
I was given the honor of serving as a style judge in the division 1 category of problem #5 (superstition), during Saturday's regional competition of OM. A busy day, but, loads of fun. Division 1 is elementary school. Some of those cherubs were dolls and so darned smart. Whew!

Mucho congrats to our two middle school and one high school teams that now advance to state competition at WAHS in April.

Have a great night, folks.

Why Gargle With Saltwater?

My kiddoes know why. Yep, we talked about the properties of ocean water, today. We also compared the fallacy that sea salt is better for you than table salt. HA HA!! It's the same thing.

Have a great weekend, folks. Don't forget about tonight's dance, and, OM regional competition at Berwick, tomorrow.

I Plum Forgot, Yesterday

Sorry. Hey! My kiddoes learned today that an iodine regiment dissuades a thyroid malady, called, goiter. Yep, not only did they learn about a goiter, but, discovered that seafood is rich in natural iodine. And, for all you people that don't care for seafood - Mrs. Dincher - we added iodine to certain containers of table salt. Now, it is added to a myriad of other foods and we have discovered it is also contained in soy, as well. Live healthy. Gee, now I'm in the mood for oysters on the half-shell. Yummy.

My Social Studies class
started individual group projects from the civil rights movement, to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., to Brown vs. the Board of Education. We are using Google.docs, that way, each group member can share in producing this project, and I can view their progress from my computer.

Dance Tomorrow, and OM Regional in Berwick on Saturday

Have a great night, folks.

We Feel The Pressure

The next stage in hydrology is the ocean. Today, we started Chapter 2 and learned a bit about converting from metric to standard measurements and a bit about underwater pressure. Ask your kiddo about pressing a square-inch thumb onto the other forearm. Ah, pressure. The weight of the atmosphere on our fragile little bodies. Combine that weight with the weight of water and we get some heavy-duty pressure. That is why Godzilla could only be six-inches tall, if he were to attack Tokyo.

Band Concert, tonight

Have a great night, folks.

Sand to Rock

Well, we layered sand inside our two-liter soda bottle. We chose a couple of different colors. With water added,we permitted the sand to settle - i.e.; sediment. Then, we opened the cap to the bottle and let the sand and water run out. Some interesting patterns, emerged. Ask your kiddo to share with you the drawing he/she made of the display. We recapped the bottles and I added sodium silicate, a matrix, to bond the sand particles together resulting in a newly-formed rock - by tomorrow - I hope.

My Boy Is Gone
He left for Air Force basic training, this morning. Did I cry? You'll never know. Mr. Conoway's son is finishing his 8-week basic training, this week, and Mr. Gee's son leaves soon. It's tough being a parent - ain't it?

Have a great night, folks. Give your child a little extra hug tonight - they'll be gone before you know it. Now, where did I put those blueprints for the boy's bedroom conversion to my new computer room?

Do You Have A Sinus Headache?

Whew! Had a doozie this a.m. With the storm coming in the head pounded. All three grade levels were off-the-wall by lunchtime. I saw two 8th graders about to duke it out, but, stopped when they saw me in the hallway. A herd of 7th graders stampeded past my room coming back from lunch, and the sixth graders were climbing the walls and crawling on the floors. It was nuts.

One group opted out of our experiments
One section of students opted to destroy my equipment, throw sand on the floor or play water tag at the sink. The continued to chatter and refused to listen, much less, follow directions. I ended their hydrology project and tossed their labs into the garbage. The frequency and severity of the misbehavior of several Cretans in the classroom forced my move. I am saddened by the fact that a dozen or so children that do not misbehave are suffering. However, it is a matter of safety and when it goes beyond my control, I must take action to restore order.

Thanks for the help, Ms. Silvagni
My parent volunteer, who comes in on Fridays to help with PSSA preparation has been a Godsend. She is not only adept at mathematics, but, the kids pretty much know her and respect her. Plus, we went to high school, together. So, when the cherubs are out to lunch, we get caught-up on post-high school news. I work with a couple of former high school classmates. It keeps us from getting old, ya know.

Have a great weekend, folks.