Tuesday, February 15, 2005

"My own planets and stars are glowing"

Salutations mes amis!

Guess what? I've been to the planetarium. So for a moment, I will branch off from my usual theatrical focus to tell you about my most recent field trip.

I am on a core faculty team, meaning that the students I teach in English class have the same science, math, and history teacher. As a team, we decided to take the students to the planetarium today.
Just before the end of first period, the science teacher and I loaded 75 eighth graders onto two buses and headed downtown. The math teacher stayed behind with the kids who didn't get their permission slips back on time, and the history teacher was (convenient) absent today. We took his sub instead.
You know, I think I was more excited about this field trip than a lot of the students. I hadn't been to a planetarium since I was in eighth grade.
We watched a star show ("The Ultimate Universe"- a title I always hear read with a booming bass voice and lots of reverb), then gave the kids about an hour to wander the museum/gift shop. I bought some glow-in-the-dark stars that were on sale and my 4th period class helped hang them up in my classroom. I also bought a chomping dinosaur head, which I've named "Bernard" (accent on the first syllable). He entertains me, and I entertain the students.
You know, I find it's rather effective to keep them wondering just how close to the edge their teacher really is.
All in all, our students were well behaved and seemed to enjoy themselves. This was despite, as one student observed, all of the other school groups there were from elementary schools. :)


Meanwhile, on the Seussical front, I spent some time at Home Depot today trying to figure out what I could turn into Seuss-inspired weaponry. Then I found feather dusters and an idea began germinating. We'll see how it turns out....

Happy Tuesday!

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