On Wednesday a parent of one of my students came over from the junior high and taught my class for an hour. He teaches science and was one of Ty's favorites. I'm not very competent at teaching science, and this year I'm suppose to teach physics. I've never taken physics. The chapter in the sixth grade, actually the fourth grade book confuses me. I can barely teach concepts of gravity, inertia, and Newton's laws. Then there is always a student that is so curious and asks a question that I can't begin to answer. So, the amazing Mr. Bowman came and led 32 sixth graders in wild and fun physics games and demonstrations. He first handed out safety goggles and had them all prepared, because "this is physics and things will be flying around the room". In short order, he had spilled water on everything, broke eggs, and bounced balls (including a baseball) all around my room. He took them outside and set up a crate with a long board like a teeter-totter to launch anything they could think of - books, pencil bags, yo-yos, left-over lunches, and even a couple kids. Then we came back in and had kids lay on a bed of nails. One boy was on the nails with the board on top of him and a girl in the class standing on the board.
It was a crazy-fun day of demos. Actually several of the experiments didn't work, and I don't think I was any clearer on Newton's laws when he left, but science was exciting on Wednesday. Today I had to teach another group a physics lesson, and being motivated, I tried some of Wednesday's experiments, and I ended up with a wild group, being goofy, and basically the whole lesson ran amuck. It made me mad. It makes me mad that Newton's laws are even on the state standards for 6th graders.
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