Only one more week and then we're all back at OISE. I felt pretty tired this week. I stayed up one night until 4 a.m. putting different solids in freezer bags (enough for 12 small groups) for a science experiment on sound conductors and insulators. I put various items such as sand, cotton balls, pennies, wooden popsicle sticks, etc. etc. (I kind of went overboard) - I also brought in some liquids (coke, oil, milk and we used water from the water fountain). The kids put the freezer bag against their ear, then they put a ticking clock on the other side of the freezer bag - they had to observe how it affected the sound of the ticking clock - did it muffle it? did it make it sound louder. I learned from one of our previous science classes that I had to carefully monitor and accompany any liquid they were using - or else it would end up on their desks, or their work or the floor (or on them). So I asked the AT to help me, and we each accompanied a freezer bag full of one of the liquids to each student to try out (and in the meantime, I had put many other things on their desk to try out - including a bag of air). So that worked out really well. No major accidents, other than the fact that the freezer bags I got were really cheap, from a dollar store, so all of them did break - but I always managed to get to the staff room sink before they ended up on the floor (except for some of the coke which did make a little mess on the class room floor). The kids were so intrigued by all the freezer bags full of stuff, that they couldn't wait to get to science to do the experiment. (We did it after recess, but I made them come and do a community circle first because we've been doing them once a week - and I wanted to take the opportunity while I had their full attention to remind them of appropriate behaviour when doing science experiments). It was certainly very experiential and the kids couldn't wait to get to it. The results were kind of all over the place - but they mainly found out what I was hoping they would find out - that the best conductors of sound are solids, then comes the liquids, and gases last (the bag of air is what we used to test that out). We did a survey of what everyone found, and that was how we determined (based statistically on how many people found solids to be the best conductors, versus liquids and gases). We also talked about how our sample was pretty small and that a scientist would want to test it out on many more people than we did, to get a more accurate result.
I feel bittersweet about next week being the last week. The children are very sweet and I will miss them - but I will also feel relieved - I'm so tired. I am feeling stressed about the fact that I have all these OISE assignments hanging over my head that I haven't submitted yet!
For the last week of school, in French, we are going to do a performance of an autumn poem, a song (a round) and a story that we have been working on since I got there. It is kind of ambitious - we are going to perform it for a primary class. So far we've been working in a circle, and it is easier to maintain control of my 36 French students because I can pretty much see all of them in the circle. But on Friday, I started to stage the story, and it was much harder to maintain the "attentive listening" of the children. It was also hard for me to differentiate between the different characters. So today, I went to chinatown and bough 10 yellow tee shirts (for my "sun" characters); 10 blue tee shirts (for my "wind" characters); 10 purple tee shirts (for my narraters); and 10 green tee shirts (for my "people" characters). The story is Aesop's fable "The Wind and the Sun" (but in French). I also bought 10 big scarves for the "people" characters to wear when they are "cold" and to take off when they are "hot". (The story is basically a competition between the wind and the sun about who can get the people to take off their coats.)
I'm hoping that will help me visually see my different groups (and it will help the audience too). We'll see how it goes. I asked my students to try to learn their lines (I have no idea if they will. They aren't very used to having to do homework in grade 4 - and I wouldn't be surprised if many of the kids left their scripts at school).
I'll keep you posted on if it works or not. It'll be fun trying, anyway :) I'm looking forward to going to the math workshop on Monday afternoon and seeing some of you OISE folks. (It was also very nice to hang out with some of you at Daiva's lovely concert on Friday).
Hope you all have a lovely last week!
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