Measuring Up

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE: After a one-week absence due to snow and ice, we were back to the kids' classes up north today. Specifically art for Annabelle and then science for both of them.

The weather unit continues in science class. Today, each student got a thermometer, and they were able to experiment with them in warm water, ice water and room temperature water. I was happy that the lesson centered on measurements on the celcius scale. 0 = freezing - how easy is that to remember? That, and it's what the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world uses.

The kids each got to make their own thermometers, coloring different zones to delineate temperatures and the 'mercury' was represented by red construction paper.

Toward the end of science class, the Worst Shriek You Ever heard blared. Based on my decades of experience, I knew it to be a fire alarm. ;) CJ and Annabelle, bless their homeschooled little hearts, thought it was Armageddeon.

We all trudged out side as I explained to them it was a fire drill. Nothing to see here - just an exercise to make sure people know how to safely vacate a building.

It was a longish drill, tho, during which the littlest kids in their class really started shivering in their t-shirts in 40-something degree weather.

I was thinking the 'all clear' sound was way overdue about when I heard the sirens in the distance. Their wail grew closer - a fact that wasn't lost on the kids. I pointed out to CeeJ and Bee that we didn't see or smell any smoke and the school *probably* wasn't on fire. Of course, me being me, at that point I also felt compelled to share with them the fact that once when I was about their age, we had a fire drill and, I'll be damned, turned out the school WAS on fire thanks to cafeteria ladies out of control. ...

Fortunately, in today's case, the alarm was tripped by a preschooler who found the red box on the wall just too enticing.

Meanwhile, back to science class. I have to give MAJOR PROPS to the kids' science teacher. While we were outside wondering and freezing, she gathered the kids around and continued to teach. After all, the unit we were working on was weather, and we were out in it. She had the students scan the skies and note the various types of clouds. Fortunately, cirrus, stratus and cumulus clouds were all visible at that time.

When we finally got the all clear signal, we went in and continued the lesson on clouds, happy to be inside and warm.