11/05/08

Today was fun because instead of taking my 40 minute break, I made my way down to the 3rd grade classroom to teach them about seeds. I have always liked plants since I was a kid and when I moved down here I brought all sorts of seeds. I brought some vegetable, fruit, herb, flower, and tree seeds. I also brought down some fertilizer, root growth hormone powder, water absorbent granules, and seed starting pellets. I wanted to experiment with all sorts of plants here to see what works. I bought about 100 Jiffy refill peat pellets. For those of you who haven’t done much gardening, these pellets are round, a little over an inch in diameter and are only about one-quarter inch thick so they are very compact.

Well, I took about 25 of these pellets to the 3rd grade along with some small wax cups and radish seeds. Each student got a cup, a pellet, and a seed. We put the pellets at the bottom of their cups after they had put their names on their cups and added water. After about five minutes, the pellets expand upward and become a soft cylinder of fine peat moss/soil for starting seeds. The students loved watching their pellets grow as they drank up the water. I heard little shouts from all over the room saying, “mine needs more water….mine needs more water.” After everyone’s pellets were ready, I passed out the seeds, and of course with third graders, I had to go around the room again as many students destroyed or lost their seeds by the time I got around the room. One student told me that he didn’t have his seed, but the little girl sitting next to him said, “Yes, he still has it. He hid it in his desk!” as she pointed inside to where he put it. They are such funny kids.

After everyone had a seed and we got them all planted, I explained what the seed would turn into and how long it would take to poke its head out of the soil and that once it did, we would have to move the plants from the table on one side of the room to the other side where the windows are since it would need sunlight. They were very excited and one boy wanted to know if it would grow as big as his head. Unfortunately, I had to tell them that they are quite small and that it wasn’t very likely to grow that big 

I had another funny story this week in my 6th grade class. I told them that they could ask me a question and one girl wanted to know my full name. I said that my first name is Douglas even though I go by Mr. Doug. I then told them that my middle name is Roger and my last name is Jodts. One of my students, Ally, kept saying, “the glass of water” after I had said, “Douglas Roger”. I had never heard anyone say that my first and middle name rhymed with “the glass of water” but this boy sure thought it did and thought that it was hilarious. After the speed drill today I noticed that he had drawn a big face on the back of his paper and wrote underneath the drawing, “Mr. The Glass of Water”. The drawings that they come up with are something else!