Fraying A Bit
Aug. 1st, 2008 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenIt's now been over 90° F (32 ° C) for the last 19 days here, it's a record. And it was over 100 today, and, luckily, the parents must have had enough, after three days of the Vacation Bible School, as attendance for today dropped sharply enough that we only had a dozen kids in two of the three classes that had been fifteen to sixteen.
Yesterday had been really hard as everything was full up and then some, we actually ran short one set of equipment.
I was pretty out of it Tuesday, even, as I didn't finish the idea that we were trying to do two things. The first was keeping things hands-on. The second was that we were trying to do everything with reusable equipment on the most part. The whole series was supposed to be about good stewardship, but the experiments were highly laden with disposable everything. So, for us, I redesigned the experiments so that there were no disposable bowls, cups, spoons, as all the stuff was food grade stuff, even if they were in unpalatable combinations.
I used washable coffee mugs and real silverware instead of all the bowls and plastic cups and plastic spoons and threw them all through the dishwasher. I used clear washable plastic juice cups for the grape experiments.
Wednesday was planting experiments day, and between all the groups 180 seeds got planted, one at a time by the kids themselves. I wanted them to get the things into the dirt. We did have an adult doing the watering. *laughs* But... the dirt-seed connection was very physical for them. It's a multi-week phototropism experiment (seeing the plants grow towards the light), so we just started everything in class and handed out explanations.
Today was magnetism and static electricity. I made eight mazes on cardboard, found magnetic clips that could just barely drag a light paperclip around through the cardboard and away they went on a demonstration of how magnetism works through cardboard. *laughter* Then we had lots of balloons, puffed rice cereal, and tufts of carded, cheap, bulk bought medium wool that I took there and they used the wool to generate static on the balloons to shoot cereal all over the room.
I spent most of the day running around getting it all to work and then getting all the supplies. John and Tonya did the work of actually presenting it to the kids, but both days we had plenty of everything for everyone to participate, so it was a win.
Best of all, I have a wonderful excuse, tomorrow, to NOT do the experiments, as I get to pick up Carl from the airport.
The whole class and kids and dealing with parents and kids has kept me up until at least midnight, if not 2 or 3 in the morning trying to process and cope afterward. I'm still pretty severely introverted even after a year's retirement, still trying to recover wanting to work with people rather than just go crazy doing it.
It has left me pretty sleep deprived, but today went pretty well with fewer kids, and I got to help some people with bit twiddling yesterday on Y!Gallery (see what I twiddled for myself) and that was sweet when I got some layouts to actually work for them. Oddly enough that's a really great thing for me to bury myself in when I need to get away from dealing with people. Just give me some pretty bits and I'll be happy.
*sighs* I should sleep, but had to dump my brain in order to be able to. So there. Dumped.
Yesterday had been really hard as everything was full up and then some, we actually ran short one set of equipment.
I was pretty out of it Tuesday, even, as I didn't finish the idea that we were trying to do two things. The first was keeping things hands-on. The second was that we were trying to do everything with reusable equipment on the most part. The whole series was supposed to be about good stewardship, but the experiments were highly laden with disposable everything. So, for us, I redesigned the experiments so that there were no disposable bowls, cups, spoons, as all the stuff was food grade stuff, even if they were in unpalatable combinations.
I used washable coffee mugs and real silverware instead of all the bowls and plastic cups and plastic spoons and threw them all through the dishwasher. I used clear washable plastic juice cups for the grape experiments.
Wednesday was planting experiments day, and between all the groups 180 seeds got planted, one at a time by the kids themselves. I wanted them to get the things into the dirt. We did have an adult doing the watering. *laughs* But... the dirt-seed connection was very physical for them. It's a multi-week phototropism experiment (seeing the plants grow towards the light), so we just started everything in class and handed out explanations.
Today was magnetism and static electricity. I made eight mazes on cardboard, found magnetic clips that could just barely drag a light paperclip around through the cardboard and away they went on a demonstration of how magnetism works through cardboard. *laughter* Then we had lots of balloons, puffed rice cereal, and tufts of carded, cheap, bulk bought medium wool that I took there and they used the wool to generate static on the balloons to shoot cereal all over the room.
I spent most of the day running around getting it all to work and then getting all the supplies. John and Tonya did the work of actually presenting it to the kids, but both days we had plenty of everything for everyone to participate, so it was a win.
Best of all, I have a wonderful excuse, tomorrow, to NOT do the experiments, as I get to pick up Carl from the airport.
The whole class and kids and dealing with parents and kids has kept me up until at least midnight, if not 2 or 3 in the morning trying to process and cope afterward. I'm still pretty severely introverted even after a year's retirement, still trying to recover wanting to work with people rather than just go crazy doing it.
It has left me pretty sleep deprived, but today went pretty well with fewer kids, and I got to help some people with bit twiddling yesterday on Y!Gallery (see what I twiddled for myself) and that was sweet when I got some layouts to actually work for them. Oddly enough that's a really great thing for me to bury myself in when I need to get away from dealing with people. Just give me some pretty bits and I'll be happy.
*sighs* I should sleep, but had to dump my brain in order to be able to. So there. Dumped.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:32 pm (UTC)When he's in school again, that'll be the real downtime, I think. Whew.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 12:25 pm (UTC)Easy (or not) sudoku puzzles might be what I do-- just a pile of numbers to play with and they all come out right.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:51 pm (UTC)*sighs* They were fun.
And, yeah... sukoku would do it for me, too. It's so nice to have them work out. *grins*
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:50 pm (UTC)Lovely bits they were too. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:52 pm (UTC)Thank you, so much, for letting me twiddle. *smiles* I'm glad that you liked how they turned out. It's cool to be able to use the stronger bits of me and still please someone else.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 05:05 am (UTC)