Back To 5th Grade

On Friday last week, I decided to stop by my old elementary school - Franklin. My classes ended at about 12:15 on Friday and I had to stop by my landlord's house to drop off a rent check. My landlords live about three blocks away from Franklin.

I had heard a rumor from Yuriko that my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Moore, was retiring. Turns out that the rumor isn't true. Yuriko and I have been friends since high school but we were both at BIS (Burlingame Intermediate School) at the same time and both took Mrs. Moore's class a couple years apart. (Yuriko's daughter is now taking 5th grade from Mrs. Moore.)

I got to Mrs. Moore's classroom right around 1pm which was just after lunch. I've visited her at Franklin a few times over the years, but this is the first time that I saw her while she was teaching (that is, since I was a kid). Let me tell you, a fifth grade classroom of 32 kids is CHAOTIC! They're constantly fidgeting and getting stuff out of their desks and giggling. I could NOT be a fifth grade teacher.

Mrs. Moore introduced me to the class and then gave me a vocabulary test. It was great, the kids were all surprised that I had to take the test. They told me that I had to write in cursive. And then they asked me if the test was hard. I said that it was challenging, but that I thought I did ok. Once I was done, Mrs. Moore told the class that I was available if anyone needed help with their color wheels. (The color wheel was a project where the kids have to creatively show the progression of colors through the visible spectrum - red to red-orange to orange to yellow-orange and so on. The kids would pick some creative way to show the progression. For example, one kid had cut out an airplane on white paper. The airplane windows were a progression of the colors along the color wheel.)

One of the kids asked me for help and he seemed to be horribly behind. He had somehow failed to paint all 12 colors necessary for the project so we had to borrow colors from other kids. His project was a Cheerios box that would be pouring out cheerios of different colors. OK, not the most creative ever, but hell, who am I to criticize? I felt bad because the kid was either color blind or absolutely clueless. I asked him to put the colors in order and he was just guessing - blues next to reds next to greens and yellows. I did my best to help him out.

Around 1:50, the class left for recess and Mrs. Moore and I chatted a bit. I told her about my unemployed status and that I was taking classes at CSM. Upon hearing that I am free most days, she asked me if I wanted to come help out again this week. Apparently they were doing lessons on static electricity and circuits (yes, I know, two of my strong suits) and she needed a couple extra bodies to help out. I said that I'd be happy to.

I showed up yesterday for the static electricity lesson and a parent was there. We distributed balloons and tissue paper and pieces of wool and plastic spoons. I tied a bunch of balloon knots and ultimately had a pretty good time watching the kids rub balloons in their hair to see how many they could get to stay. One kid had three balloons suspended by her hair.

Today, they were working with circuits - series circuits and parallel circuits. There were four parents and me all there to help out. I had no idea what the heck I was doing. One of the parents I tried following the handouts (dittos?) to make a parallel circuit and it just didn't work. Eventually we figured it out. Let's just say it was a little damaging to the ego to see how easily the kids were able to do this.

Anyway, I had a group of six kids I was working with. They were paired up and I was there to help them do the project. They were pretty good kids - fun and were trying hard. I had Yuriko's daughter Kailey in my group, too. She was kind of quiet, but I think that was because she wasn't sure what they were supposed to be doing. Ultimately, everyone made both series circuits and parallel circuits. And then after that, we had them make electromagnets. All in all, I had a pretty good time. And I learned something, too!