11:26 a.m. - 2005-07-29
gotta love the little ones
In the classroom...
In honor of the BassMasters' competition being held in Pittsburgh this weekend, I did a unit on Bass, fishing and Pittsburgh's 3 Rivers for the children. This was Kevin's idea...I was stressing big time because anything interesting going on in the world, I had already covered. Five year olds don't care about the Supreme Court nominee...nor do the 14 year olds for that matter.
As part of the lesson, I was explainigng a little bit about the anatomy of a bass fish. It seems that a bass has this column of nerves that goes from it's head to it's spine. It acts as a sixth sense, in finding/catching food. I was trying to explain this to a group of 6 year olds, starting with the idea of the sense of touch/feel. I asked the group "If it was really dark in the water and the fishy couldn't see, how else might he find other little fishies to eat for food?"
A hand shoots into the air.
"Yes?" I say hopefully, amazed that someone was already where I was hoping to guide them, acknowledging this might be a complex topic...
A very cute blue-eyed, curly-haired cutie says "Well, he could use a flashlight."
Yes, yes, I suppose he could....
An amusing set of Q and A:
WHo knows the name of the river that starts at point state park? I'll give you a hint...it's the name of a state that neighbors Pennsylvania and it starts with "O".
California!
New York!
Ummm, you guys, it starts with "O"...
Australia!
England!
Who knows the name of this river (pointing to a map)? It starts with M (answer is Monongahela):
The Nile!
MMMMM you guys....Mmmmmm. Not N.
Mile!
Moses!
The 'M' River
IN talking about the shuttle launch, we discussed how before htey put humans up in space, they put other animals like mice and dogs and monkeys. One boy asked if they put rabbits in space. I said I didn't think they put any rabbits in space ships and moved on to another topic. 25 minutes later, while talking about bass fishing, Nakeeb, this Indian boy who speaks pretty good english but with a thick accent and interesting sentence structure raises his hand and says in a thoughtufl and concerned tone "Miss Jessi, why do they not let the rabbits go up into the space please?"
