OK. I think I am ready for today. It’s a lab day, the first of three. It’s the first time we’ll be doing stations with this crew. It’s not just stations: it’s ice and hot water and materials. I don’t entirely trust these widgets yet, but the solution is to toss any kid who doesn’t listen to a warning and behave appropriately. There’s some cool learning that can happen in the next three days if you’re paying attention and following instructions. Hopefully they’ll do that. It was a lot of prep and now I have to meet with the principal about printing costs, but since we don’t have a textbook or any print materials, I think we’ll be OK. There’s just no way to do labs with middle-school kids without printing stuff. They need to record their ideas and observations somewhere. Their heads are not good for remembering that stuff. I understand that.
I got home late, but knew I needed to keep working on one thing for school…a resource deck for the thing they have to write on Friday. What I really wanted to do was go for a walk, but it was already late and I had work to do, so I crawled onto the bike and worked there for a bit…
I had headphones in and was listening to science videos about thermal energy and pressure. Exciting stuff. I did more of it here after dinner…
And eventually gave up on it and went in to iron. There’s only so much work I can do in one day before I’m mostly useless.
Not this stuff. I can do this for hours. It’s a different part of my brain.
I do have video for the Patreon crew at this point of how I pick colors, so I’ll edit those tonight…and hopefully get them posted. This quilt is not ironing fast…
It looks like a lot. It is. But it’s only the first 200 pieces or so…not even. I have a few 190s to iron yet. I’ve spent almost 6 hours just on ironing the first 200 pieces. There’s been a lot of thinking and searching for the right color, apparently. Only 700 to go! Sheesh. At this rate, I’ll never be done. Plus grades are due next week. I’m caught up at the moment, but there’s an assignment due Thursday that will need to be graded over the weekend.
OK, so I prepped a lot yesterday after school, but I still need to set up the stations and get my brain organized. And then survive it all.
Kathy Nida 