My journey back to school (BTS) started earlier than planned because the baby was born early…everyone is now home and recovering nicely.
Therefore, this week is my fourth official week of teaching 6th grade science…and what a four weeks it has been!
Quite shortly after I arrived in the classroom our task was to dissect frogs.
Things have changed since dissection days of old. Formaldehyde is no longer used to package frogs. This is great news for those of us who don’t like cancer! However, the alternative packaging solution is a vile concoction that smells like rotten pickles. Not great for those of us who love pickles! At any rate, the dissections took place over the course of two days in class. Day one was great. Day two, however, after the frogs sat open in ziplock bags overnight?
Gross.
And I’m a science teacher, it’s very hard to gross me out.
But, gross.
Ask me how many kids were sick.
Go ahead. Ask.
Five! Over the course of two class periods on the second dag five students went to the bathroom, came back pale and clammy, and then went home for the day.
Two had dry heaves but ralled and stuck it out for the remainder of the day.
The vast majority of students handled it very well and a handful of them absolutely loved it! It was, for the most part, a joy to watch them learning!
It was even more joyful to bleach every surface of that classroom afterwords!
Four weeks in offers a nice adjustment to new patterns and routines for the kids. We are all getting along nicely!
Reggie, who goes every day to 6th grade with me, has rediscovered his love for snapping the clip off of flair pens…and shredding pencils into a million little pieces!
And the adventure continues!
The Gyde Zoo 
The science teacher at my middle school was in the classroom next to mine. She did one project the kids loved with owl pellets. They recreated the skeletons, glued them down, and displayed them in plastic tennis ball containers. They were beautiful…no smell. So happy for Reggie who gets to go back to school with you. XOXO
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I love that idea! Especially the part about no smell! XOXO
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I remember dissecting frogs when I took pysiology in college. They were live and we pithed them and then wired the gastrokninvious muscle(sp) and shocked it. We had frogs running all over the lab. In retrospect what a cruel thing to kill a live animal. Bill
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That reminds me of the scene in E.T. when Elliott’s science class was dissecting frogs and he decided to set them free.
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My first impression of that frog was that it had a couple of carrots across its abdomen and was going to be eaten. Guess not! Would you please telll me again what kind of bird Reggie is?
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