SPARK Week one in Review 7/15

Well, week one is done.

Some highlights:
-a class called "forces of Nature," with 16 kids, we learned about weather, downloading weather maps and "wild weather"--hail, tornadoes, hurricanes, and lightning.

--as part of our class we spent a day in South County Rhode Island "coring" a piece of earth, done with a motor.....comes out as a long "tube" of dirt and sand in layers. The sand layer represent when the salt marsh we were measuring was over-run by the ocean with sand (indicates a major hurricane....they could measure as long as 5,000+ years back!).

-One kid in our class was self-reportedly more intelligent than all his peers at home. He asks questions constantly in class, often interrupting the ever-patient professor. He left the week with his evaluation saying he came to find smart kids and was disappointed these kids even didn't care as much about learning as he did. I say I could sympathize, but he had an obnoxious side as well.....the other part of his evaluation (he knew I was reading them) said "Kate was awful. Fire her."

--Evening activities were alright: bowling, laser tag and skating, a movie on campus, a talent show (RA fun dance!), and a bonafide middle-school dance! (the RAs were the only one's dancing except for a few bursts from scandelous girls or boys head banging). There were some mummy-slow dances as well.....good fun!

--Overall, the middle schoolers were fine. They were catty, the girls were mean to each other, they were odd around the boys, everyone's sense of humor was a little lame or just weird.....but with some patience and a good attitude, it was more than tolerable.