Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony...

UPDATE: I came home, and guess who came home to visit me...
the interweb! All, might be well now. Might.


Ya'll. Forget September Stories.
I could write a month of stories just to cover today.
It's 4pm, and if I didn't have LiFE groups tonight, I'd have a bottle of wine in my hand right now.

See, once again, I'm not one of those "follow the curriculum" kind of teachers. It's just not how I roll. Rather than simply memorizing stuff, I'd rather my kids learn what it means to be a scientist. Which is what led me to today. And my need to drink something stronger than Mt. Dew.

My kids are learning what scientists do. So, I got some samples from NASA of that new planet they've discovered. What? You haven't heard of it? Well, then I guess you just haven't been listening to the news. Charlie Gibson said it or something. Promise.

Anyways, they needed to name it something while they were discovering the properties and such. One of the scientists just finished reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck (yes-huh, he did) and so he named it "Oobleck" until we could get it all sorted out.

Like I said, I got some samples and NASA asked my kids to get involved and discuss the properties of the substance. It was mighty hi-larious watching this all unfold today. These are different groups of hands, mind you.



Despite both my and NASA's assurances it was a non-toxic substance, we were all a little hesitant to dive right into it.







We got a little braver, and got a little more of our hands into it.

I'm not sure why this picture is sideways. Since you know I've been having some problems with this, NASA has agreed to look into it for me.





Here, we've discovered that it won't bite us, so we're figuring out what will happen if we pick it up.

Notice we're starting to get a little "out of the bowl."

Enter one lad who wasn't afraid to sacrifice his whole hand to the green, gooey, goo.

Imagine the noise level as this is going on.

That's why I need wine.

And this:

Now you see what happens when all inhibitions are shed. With the inhibitions went all hope of a semi- clean classroom for the rest of the day.

There is cornstarch in so many places of both my classroom and my apartment I shudder to think how long it's really going to take me to recover.

This is what I get for watching Dead Poet's Society this weekend. Well, actually the first thirty minutes of it. Then I had to go destroy my kitchen by preparing a ton of oobleck to make sure this would work first.

This is one of those days where I wonder why I can't just be one of those teachers who teaches from the book and gives a worksheet.