Twas the Week Before Thanksgiving Break

Craziness! I feel like the students were definitely ready for a short break! This week they seemed extra flighty and either overall cranky or over the top peppy! Luckily, it was a short week and we were able to accomplish our tasks! I was hoping to be doing labs in basically all my classes this week but due to getting behind some we prepped for labs more instead this week. Being a short week when the students come back also, it will be a fun week for labs as well. 

I was super excited to be taking my slightly difficult natural resource class down town to the bear check station this week. This trip overall went very well. While we were there, we were lucky enough to actually have someone bring a bear in. DCNR and a local game warden, was there to help explain the process and why to our students as the checked over the bear. The students listened well and seemed to enjoy the trip. There were a few that still complained that it was not fun. I asked if they would rather be taking notes in the classroom and they replied that, that was not fun either. I had to chuckle to myself in realizing that sometimes, some kids just cannot be pleased!  

Having a short week was a learning experience when it came to planning. Trying to plan what to do before a break was pretty difficult to me. Obviously, I wanted to do something related to the class but also Thanksgiving. I think it is important for the students to be able to break out from a normal day occasionally and not be robots. So, I thought this was a perfect chance in my animal science classes to show them a dirty jobs episode of turkey artificial insemination. Although this did not tie directly into our lesson on cells, it was still a relative video and although totally grossed out the kids really did enjoy learning about this and asked a lot of good questions! I was definitely glad to have these conversations with them. 

Short weeks are a little difficult and deciding what to try to fit in or wrap up was a struggle. I was nervous that to much new information right before a break would not stick but overall we did get to do our lessons and make them light and fun leading into the break.