Some October Happenings..

Ahh, what an amazingly beautiful sunrise on the North Shore! Why was I standing on the beach at 5:45 a.m. all the way up on the North Shore last Saturday morning?? My first senior class camping trip, that's why!

I am a senior class advisor at school and last weekend was our first camping trip. The trip is meant for bonding and fun around a campfire, which is what happened for the most part. The other part...well, you can imagine what it's like camping overnight with 20 teenagers. Lots of laughing, little sleep, and some whining from all. ;) It was such a neat experience as we, the four advisors, did not intervene much and allowed for this to be a learning experience. The students were completely responsible for organizing this trip. Great examples of teachable moments...when you're feeding 25 people (principal included), you should make sure you have enough food. 50 hot dogs are great...but not with 24 buns. Also, if you plan for scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, you should probably think to bring PANS and cooking spray in order to cook them!

The best part, I thought, were the activities. Not because I was in charge of the activities committee ;), but because the students planned some fun things! We played Hide and Seek and Capture the Flag in the dark with glowsticks...and we also did an improv-"Whose Line is it Anyway" game around the campfire! Our students have such creative minds...we were laughing all night! Another favorite moment for me was roasting marshmallows and making s'mores. One of the students had never made s'mores before and I really enjoyed teaching him to make them. I felt the bonding! Aside from the whining when it came to cleaning and packing up, we had such a great time and I think we achieved the bonding piece!

Back at school the following Monday, my Chemistry classes celebrated Mole Day! I'm sure you all celebrate this well-known holiday each year, as well. ;) Mole Day is a Chemistry-holiday, only celebrated by the nerdiest of the nerds, I'm sure, to bring awareness and fun to Chemistry...namely to Avogadro's number. Ring a bell? I had to refresh my memory, too. Avogadro's number, or the mole, is a HUGE number used to measure quantities of atoms. A mole is 6.02 X 10^23 OR 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! A mole of anything has this many things, if you will! So, I asked my students how much paper you would have if you had one mole of sheets of paper. They all guessed, some said a football field length and some guessed a skyscraper high. I then asked, "Would you believe me if I said you would have enough paper to stack from here to the moon and back?" Some jaws dropped...and then I said, "Would you believe me if I said you would have enough paper to stack from here to the moon and back 80 BILLION TIMES?"! To which their little minds started to spin. ;) That's how huge this number--a mole--is! I followed this up by showing them an aluminum foil sculpture of a mole (the animal kind) that I sculpted and held in the palm of my hand. I then told them that I had exactly one mole of aluminum atoms in the palm of my hand. The SAME number of sheets of paper from my previous example! And now YOU, too, have had a Chemistry lesson! :)

The point was to show them just how BIG Avogadro's number is and just how SMALL an atom is. For our activity, all of my students weighed out one mole of aluminum atoms (aluminum foil is pure aluminum)...one mole of aluminum atoms (foil) weighs 27 grams. Then they all sculpted their very own aluminum foil "moles" (the animal kind). Of course, no celebration would be complete without treats...mole cupcakes and leMOLEade! ;)

I decorated my classroom with balloons to get in the "celebration" mood! My students do have faces in real life instead of black circles. ;)

Students making their mole sculptures...I was surprised at how excited they were to make these!

And, for fun, here's a picture of what my classroom door looks like right now. I have some very artistic homeroom students (six boys!) who insisted our door needed to look like this. A far cry from the bright, pretty colors I use inside. ;)

Last, but certainly not least, Blaine and I recently ran in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. You may remember that I wrote about my aunt Diana, who was battling breast cancer, a couple of months back when I first mentioned this race. I'm sad to report that she passed away on September 15th, a couple of weeks after I wrote that post...all the more reason we were so honored to support such a worthy cause. One day, there will be a cure!

So, that's what we've been up to lately! Tonight marks our neighbor's second annual Murder Mystery dinner party...more pics on that to come soon!