I Could Never Do That Now

D.M Eagle, Years 1-5:  Reading, writing, math, spelling, grammar, phys ed, health, social studies, science...  How to keep it all interesting?  Yeah, I had readers and spellers and math books (really, how interesting can these actually be?) but I had no science, social studies, or health texts.  To teach a topic in one of these areas, I used brainstorming (not much of a storm, really, if I'm the only one) and web diagrams to arrive at subtopics.  I then researched the information (no Internet in the 1970's) and created the activities.  It was tedious and time consuming.  Ontario curriculum-based texts and usable Ministry of Education curricula were years away.  Because of my background, the activities where I was able to be the most creative were centred around science.

I returned to the University of Windsor and visited my zoology professor where I managed to get a dead, in a bag of formaldehyde, weasel that we dissected to see the musculature, internal organs, and circulatory and skeletal systems.

The students who chose to prick themselves, used antigens A and B to determine their own blood types.

Space science allowed us to study Newton's 1st and 3rd laws of motion, do lots of cool activities and use air rifle CO2 cartridges to create "rockets".

We made ice cream with a manual-crank ice cream freezer (I love yard sales) and learned how ice at zero degrees, plus salt, can take heat away from a can of cream and cause it to freeze at temperatures well below freezing.

When we studied electricity, I brought in a car ignition coil so the students could shock themselves with 30,000 volts of electricity.  During this electricity unit, a student brought in a cattle prod.  He explained to the class that it was used to get the cows to move where you wanted them to go.  He then asked if I would like to feel the shock.  It ran on D batteries.  How much punch could it have?  I agreed and told him he could press it against my thigh, through my pants.  I found out how much punch it could have - holy crap!  Of course THEN he explained that cows have very thick hides.  I think I limped for an hour.

John's family (yup, cattle prod kid) had a cattle farm and butcher shop on site, so we took a field trip to his farm as part of food studies in Health.  We saw the cattle and the barns and learned about their care, all narrated by John, and then the butcher showed us how he butchers a side of beef.  When we were done and we went outside, there, in all its glory, was this large farm tractor with a flatbed trailer piled with bales of hay. John remembered from class discussions that I had once driven a tractor and cut weeds as a summer job.  "Mr. Farrer," he asked expectantly, "Would you like to take our class for a hay ride?  I've got it all set up."  The look on John's face, the reaction of the other kids to his suggestion, the large farm machine offered for me to drive...... what else could I say?  My class piled onto the trailer, the hay bales were cut open and we were off.  I drove out of the farm and onto the county roads, hay flying and kids screeching...... best class trip ever!!!   I could never do that now.