Day 263: I'm Lovin' It!

Now, this isn't a McDonald's commercial, or another Justin Timberlake single. This is me talking about my kids and my job...

One of the most enjoyable classes that I teach is my Specials 2 Science class. I teach Grade 2's Science twice a week and it really is a lot of fun. Teaching English is cool and fun, but teaching Science is a total blast! The material is really easy to make exciting and engaging, and my students are so eager to learn and just *soak up* information. Their little minds really are like sponges - so thirsty for learning! And always so eager to participate and contribute.

We don't have a proper science lab but we do get to conduct some fun experiments in the classroom once in a while. Most of the time I get to just 'fill in the blanks' with my own supplementary material that ties in earlier concepts learned in the classroom. Today our unit was about fuel and producing heat. The chapter touched a bit on energy sources and where electricity comes from. It very briefly went over the idea of renewable versus non-renewable energy resources - something that I take very high interest in - and so I decided to use this as a foundation for my supplementary exercises.

With the kids I made a list on the board of everything that we can think of that uses electricity, and then everything that they can think of that needs fuel to operate. The list was quite long and I was impressed with how much the kids already knew. We even got into petroleum bi-products such as glass, rubber, plastics, synthetic fibers, and cosmetics. Then I brought up the list of popular fuel sources listed in the text - coal, oil, natural gas, and wood - and posed The Question... "What happens when we run out of these?"

We then went into a big lesson all about renewable resources and different ways that we can develop energy. Solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal energy resources were all brought up and discussed and it was awesome. This wasn't me following textbook material word for word but rather introducing and having an active dialogue with nine-year olds about energy and power resources. Now how amazing is this! I love my job!!! I love that I can do this sort of thing. Go off track a little from 'proper curriculam' and have these great discussions with my kids where I know that they're really thinking and imagining and being creative and challenging their previous notions and concepts of science and the world. I find these kids so completely inspiring and enlivening. Teaching rocks!

Once again, I totally love my job! :-)