last day of co-op for this year

Last day, now on to summer break! It's been a long and busy year. As I reflect on my year teaching middle school science I think it went well. I often wished we had more time and we didn't always get to all the experiments each week but we got to a good many of them. I know some parents don't like teaching science and doing messy labs. It doesn't bother me, I'm glad the kids got to do a lot of experiments this year and have a lot of fun. I'll miss the class and the kids, I won't miss the collecting of lab materials, enough for a dozen kids, each week. It was more expensive than I expected and some weeks more difficult to find just what I needed. I think the students have come a long way. In the first few classes many did not know how to write a lab report, or how to work well in groups. In some of our early classes many were unwilling to stand in front of the class or answer questions. By the end of the year everyone was participating well, all the kids were able to read a report aloud to their classmates and take questions from them. Early one there was one "problem child" I didn't think he's be able to stay in class but working together with his mother he turned his behavior around and was eventually a very well behaved student in class. Next year I've chosen to teach a class that won't require me to purchase so many materials on a weekly basis, I think it'll be a lot easier.

Last day in science class we had special visitors, one student and his family brought in a bunch of native reptiles and amphibians to show the class. yes our class was chemistry and physics but some zoology is never a bad thing :-).

Next up was geography class, which I co-taught. We had a geography fair for the final class. The 10 students ach did a project on a different country and also brought in a representative food for everyone to sample. Trevor did his project on Russia, Colin chose India.