THE PRINCESS BRIDE

We're a day ahead in my 7th grade science class, so I've nothing science-y to do with them until Monday, when I get the next batch of plans.  I brought four movies for them to choose from (others: The Chronicles of Narnia, Night at the Museum, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which may indicate to the astute which preferred).  In case you're particularly slow, they took my subtle hints and voted for The Princess Bride.  While they are clearly enjoying the movie (I am actually quite pleased with how, despite their age, they are laughing hysterically in all the right places), there are two spectacularly frequent comments from the peanut gallery, both of which I think are hilarious:

"That is so fake!"

(regarding the special effects)

"He is not that big!"

(regarding Andre the Giant)

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New Word from B3, Science 7 Student

SMARTICLE, adjective; def: implicit; I am confused by all these smarticle words; commonly accompanied by gesticulation similar to turning an invisible steering wheel left and right, left and right.

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SOMETIMES I WISH I WERE ON MEDS SO I TOO MIGHT "FORGET" TO TAKE THEM

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This week I'm subbing for a resource reading class.  Today, third period, one of my students came in and told me he forgot to take his meds this morning and had a big cup of coffee before the bus came.  Five minutes ago he jumped up, bounced a few times, and announced at the top of his lungs:

I'VE GOT ADHD WITH ALMONDS!

Then he sat down.  He is currently vibrating in his seat, and sucking his fingers.

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A Good Class is a Goofy Class

Last week began to remind of teaching for real, not because of any particular subject matter, but because of the absolute goofiness that cropped up in a couple of classes.  I guess it was a matter of comfort--teacher to students--as anything else.

We're talking about waves in 8th grade science right now.  Our working definition is, "A wave is the propagation of energy through a medium."  Amplitude and frequency are both measurements for how much energy is being propagated.  We talked about how this is why your ipod runs out of batteries faster at a higher volume.  We also talked about higher frequencies--for audio waves, this means higher pitch--indicating higher energy consumption (disregarding the energy required to drive the speakers) and someone said, "I knew it!  Justin Bieber does destroy ipods!"

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I don't remember the discussion that brought up the '80's, but one boy concurred with the general concensus: "Yeah, the '80's was a real bad year!"  When the class all turned dumbfoundedly to stare at him, he corrected himself: "I mean, it was a real century, I mean week, I mean," and he struggled a moment before finally recognizing it as "time."

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girl: "Every time I think of Mr. Center, I think of a centipede for some reason."

boy: "What, like Mr. Centerpede?"

Mr. Center: "At least once a day."

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