geeking out

On Friday afternoon I was thrilled to find that I had received the first of many goodies I'd ordered for my classroom. My department head laughed at me while I did a happy dance because I was so excited to have new "toys" for science class. One of the things I acquired is a working model of the sun-moon-earth system called "The Orbiter." It will make rotation, revolution, and moon phases SOOO much easier to explain this year!

The Orbiter

I'm also pretty excited about my new rock and mineral collection. My classroom came stocked with two buckets of questionable rocks and minerals, many of which were unidentified and therefore relatively useless in teaching about the properties of various rocks or how to identify them. Now I have three labeled sets of rocks--igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic--as well as a set of labeled minerals! For the purpose of identifying minerals, I also have brand new glass plates (for testing hardness) and streak plates (for determining the color of the powder, aka The Streak). Yay for science!!

four boxen of rocks