Who doesn't love popsicles and hamsters?

My Monday was starting off well, actually overall today was great, we were able to get in most of the lessons I had planned. One of the things I love about fourth grade is encouraging the students to make their own opinions and to begin small debates. Today for our social studies activity we broke off into groups of four. I first asked the students as a group to pick the student with the best handwriting, 3 out of 4 groups did not have a problem with this. Hooray, we are off to a great start! For the group with difficulty I asked the student that seemed the least argumentative at this point about wanting to write to be the recorder, knowing if I pick one of the three that did, it could be bad.

The students were now ready for the assignment.

I tell my class, "Okay class, what we are going to do is come up with 20 ways we use water. We do not want to go over 20 (so I write a big 20 on the board). Now I will give you a suggestion that you might not think of and that is that a toilet uses water. One suggestion that you will probably think of for using water is a pool. I will give you five minutes to come up with 20 ways we use water."

The groups get to work and in the end I have only one group that ends with 20 ways, two groups that come very close and one that has 11.

"We are currently facing a drought and we are being forced to conserve water, you will have three minutes to discuss with your group what five ways we use water that you are willing to cross off your list."

I was very impressed, I still remember hearing Ambrose tell his group to cross off swimming pools because it was going to start getting cold out.

"We still have not had any rain and the president has issued a state of emergency, we must conserve water before we run out. You will have three minutes to cross five more items off your list."

One group is unsuccessful and their household dies because they ran out of uses for water. They handled the news well and I'm sure next time they will work a bit faster. We had a small amount of time to discuss this while the other groups were still finishing up on their time. The timer goes off and I begin with the group that is unsuccessful on wether or not they have the necessary things to survive. They said no, and I move onto the next group.

"What are the ways you can still use water?"

They read off their list and they are left with all the necessary items, but then Celine speaks up.

"I still think we should have kept the popsicles and got rid of the toilet, all you need is a backyard and a shovel!"

Celine's statement by far has to be the funniest thing said in class today and it still makes me smile and laugh. Celine got the assignment and used some higher level thinking to keep some of her wants during the drought. On the other hand I must give credit to another student for saying probably the sweetest thing to me today and that is Gwen.

Over the weekend, my hamster died. One of the children brought up my hamster today and I told the class that she passed away. Gwen immediately tells me she will get me another one. I tell Gwen that I would like to wait awhile before getting another one. At lunch Gwen asks me how long is awhile? I tell her that I'm not sure I just want to give myself time to grieve the loss of Fiona. Gwen then says, "When my hamster Sarah died, I got a new hamster the next day and it made me happy. Maybe a new one will make you happy, too."