It's Electric!

I haven't posted much lately, I have been reading too many articles about teachers getting fired from their job for their blogs. I finally read an article and the teachers were writing blogs about hating students. I figured I don't hate my students, I very much enjoy them, and want to share on some of the funny experiences we have in class. Today was a one of a kind day with the kids, there were so many funny things I could share. Gwen explained to me why girls don't like boys, they like cars and money, so that they can have some free time. Cronius wanted to know why fourth graders didn't have dances and when I explained that there were slow dances at the middle school dances, he was shocked because he thought everyone just danced alone. Cronius decided he is not ready for a dance. Joseph continues to ask me daily if we can have another paper war and reminds me everyday that it is one day longer from the first one we had last week, because the children loved this activity and I told them it would be a while before we did it again. (I was teaching how the soldiers fought in the Revolutionary War, so we all made paper balls with recycled paper and had a war.)

Today was also my first lab while teaching electricity. Last year, I made the mistake of teaching electrical safety first, which meant the children were then afraid to do the lab. It was my first ever lab, where I heard students say, "No, you go first." I still laugh, thinking how the children were afraid to light up the lightbulb because they were afraid of being electrocuted and I had to show them how I could touch the batteries and the wire and not be electrocuted. The first activity was to see what groups could figure out how to light the lightbulb. Then the children went through a bag of items to find out which items were conductors.

We did the fun activity of filling a container up with salt water, putting two long screws on each side of the container and lighting up our lightbulbs. This is one of my favorite activities because last year's class thought this was like magic. I explained to the children, that now we are going to learn why we get out of the pool during a thunderstorm. Some of the children didn't find this as cool as last years group, but I can't really complain because the children actually touched the wires and batteries without fear of being electrocuted. One of the groups was having difficulty, so I went over to help them. I noticed most of their salt was sitting on the bottom, so I was about to reach my hand in and stir up the water when Magdalene stops me and asks, "Wait, are you going to electrocute yourself?"

"No, this won't electrocute me."

"Would you electrocute yourself on purpose?"

Well, there you go, I'm the crazy teacher that is having wars in class and now my children think I would do anything, maybe even electrocute myself.

For the record, I would not electrocute myself on purpose.