Periodic Trouble

Right now we are focused on chemistry. It has been a lot of fun, but I really want to do an experiment or something that just gets their attention. I have one in mind, but I can't find a way to do it. Also, we are hitting bumps in the road because these students just can't understand things they should have learned last year.... grrrrrrrr!!!!

There really is no way to know if they learned last year or not because they all had different teachers who you hope all teach the TEKS, but you never know. For the last 3 days we have been looking at the Periodic Table of Elements. It really is just one big mess.... not the table... the class. No one knows anything about it. Oh, they can find things, and they can color them, but don't ask them to do any math. "I just came from math class," is the whiny little answer you get in return. "I wish they would have stayed there," is my head's response to that. But they didn't and now you are forcing them to do awful math problems like 23 minus 11.

All my classes have an obsession with the number 6. For some reason they think it is the magic number. I can give them any problem and the first answer I always get is 6. The other day we talked about atoms being neutral and that neutral meant they had no charge so for each proton, they would have an electron. Right?..... nothing... over their heads. So I drew it on the board for them. Aha! The light bulb comes on. They I ask... so if there are 11 protons... how many electrons does this atom have? Guess what the first answer was.... yep, it was 6!!! I said, "How did you get 6?" The response was, "Well, I guessed."

Are you serious?!

To me, I might have well said... "If you want to get an A, all you have to do is tell me your favorite color" and then had some kid who yells out "FISH!"

"Are you serious?!" My kids know this is one of my favorite things to say... and now I say it even if I know they are right because it just makes them think a little harder. But seriously, we have been focusing on the smallest things about this lesson for 3 whole days because my class can't get their brains in gear so we have to keep repeating the same things over and over again.

Meanwhile, I am so glad to be having a girl's night tonight because it doesn't matter if anyone knows anything about periodic table, we just want to hang out and laugh and have a good time.... period!- coach b