If we were having coffee…we could talk about how November has crept in when we weren’t looking. Our area is in the throws of an Indian Summer so it doesn’t feel like November but the calendar says it is. One good thing is that tonight we turn the clocks back. Not being a morning person, I dislike getting up before the sun.
If we were having coffee...I would ask if you and your family celebrated Halloween yesterday? I would tell you a little about our day. Since our neighborhood is always very lively with trick-or-treaters, Hubby and I have gotten into the habit of sitting on the porch handing out candy rather than getting up every few minutes to answer the door. The evening was very mild unlike some years when we have been bundled up against the cold. Not that cold weather ever slows down the candy seekers! The excitement and adrenaline keeps them warm!
I really don’t miss the days of chasing after Mr D and Miss Dee as they rushed from house to house. Given the choice, I usually volunteered to stay home and hand out candy while Hubby did the walking (he’s in much better shape). It’s also nice that they are now in charge of figuring out a costume for themselves if they decide to dress up. For the past week I’ve been asking Mr D what he was going to be for Halloween. His answer…
“An overworked college student.”
Then, last night, at 7pm I found myself digging around in the attic looking for a pair of goggles because he and his friend decided to go to a party at the college, and they wanted to be Doc Brown and Marty McFly from “Back to the Future”. He must get his last minute Halloween costume genes from my mother!
If we were having coffee…I would tell you that I’ve been feeling a bit scientifically challenged. Part of my job as an instructional aide is offering in-class support for students during their science lessons. For the past four years I’ve helped out in the third grade. I can tell you anything you want to know about dinosaurs or the life cycle of the meal worm or even about what penguins eat. That stuff I’ve got down, however….this year I’ve been bumped up to fifth grade science and I can tell you for sure I am not “Smarter Than a Fifth Grader”!
Last week the classroom teacher was out sick and the substitute and I found ourselves blindly leading the students through a work sheet on types of matter and chemical reactions! Luckily they knew what they were doing for the most part. I understand “matter” you know “solid, liquid, gas”. I get how the molecules are closer together in a solid and further apart in a gas but when we started getting into how substances combine to create chemical reactions and how chemical and physical reactions differ in the way the molecules combine or don’t combine…my brain started to hurt.
I was an art major for crying out loud!! I didn’t really like this stuff the first time I learned it. Thank goodness for YouTube. Tomorrow I will be searching out videos and giving myself a crash course in fifth grade science! Wish me luck.
If we were having coffee… I would thank you for stopping by and wish you a pleasant, relaxing Sunday. We will be doing some yard work around here. If you’re not busy, you are welcome to grab a rake!
This post is part of the Weekend Coffee Share courtesy of Diana at Part Time Monster. Stop by and check out the other fun blogs!
The View from the Porch 
“I was an art major for crying out loud!!” Best line ever! I loved science in school until I got to high school chemistry, which is pretty much what you were trying to help your students with (the beginning concepts at least). Then I tortured myself with pre-med my first year of college until I gave it up when I got a C in Chemistry and switched to–you guessed it–an art major! That only lasted a year though. Once my grades rose back up, I switched to English. Loved it! So yep, I’m commiserating with you on the fifth grade science thing. Glad my own kiddos never asked for chemistry help!
I squeaked through HS chemistry. Can’t imagine even setting foot in a pre-med class!! Glad you found your true calling even if it was in a round about way! Thanks for stopping by and for your kind words.
I’m with you about science. I can screw up any experiment, even if I follow very clear directions to the letter. Then there’s math! When I was teaching sixth grade, I would have a crash lesson with my ed assistant who was great with math and a recent college grad. I was horrible with it so without his crash sessions, I wouldn’t be able to do the lesson for the day!
I was so glad my son’s best friend was a wiz at math and science. She helped get him through and now he helps his sister. Maybe I should get him to help me! 😊
Nancy, I love science unless you get into the high school physics and chemistry but my husband comes to life with that stuff. I’m an arts major like yourself and he’s technical. I borrow his brain quite a lot!
You might like to visit Nerd in the Brain who is also part of the coffee share for ideas. http://nerdinthebrain.com/2015/10/31/if-we-were-having-coffee-october-31-2015/
I live in Australia and I wrote about our Australian Halloween here: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/an-australian-halloween/
The part I loved most was meeting the neighbours and running into friends as we walked around.
I love your son’s comment. My dentist mentioned that he could just go as himself.
Well, thanks very much for the coffee but I could really use another. Our son left early this morning an a school excursion to Canberra and my husband found him on my computer watching Minecraft videoes in the middle of the night. My husband is absolutely wrecked! You could say a walking zombie xx Rowena
Thank you for stopping by! Nerd in the Brain is a good place for me to brush up on my science, good suggestion! Glad you enjoyed your Halloween. I wasn’t sure you celebrated it in Australia. What was the popular costumes there? We had quite a few Minions and Star Wars characters.
You were right. It’s not a big deal here. Those kids who dress up usually stick to straight ghosts, witches etc and it doesn’t cross-over into other characters. Only about 5 houses in our street were doing it. Pretty low key.
Stick with third grade, trust me on that one! I was a substitute teacher for a while, and I never took a class higher than third grade for that exact reason! But hey, we’ve got this writing thing down, don’t we?
Oh, I know what you mean! The way you feel about science is the way I feel about math…it does make my brain hurt, and also makes me seriously doubt my intelligence. Good for you for hanging in there with the classroom kids!
Probably the only thing I am worse at than science is math!! Especially since they teach it in a totally different way now. I am fine with third grade math but let’s hope they don’t put me in fifth grade math next year!
I always loved science as a kid, and then I reached a point in high school where I couldn’t keep going in science, because the math was too hard. 😦 I am pretty bitter about it, too. I loved biology, especially genetics. But I majored in English Ed, which meant a pile of reading daily, and that’s happy.
We don’t get trick-or-treaters. There are only three families on our dead end street, and I think everyone goes elsewhere. Our last house was on a military base, so we had about 400 kids a night, and pillowcases were filled. I prefer this, I think. lol Our kids went with his parents and friends of theirs, so they still enjoyed it immensely. The Mister and I don’t care for Halloween, but I do enjoy seeing the costumes and carving the pumpkins.
I really struggle with mornings before dark, and especially walking the lil one to her bus stop and walking back alone. Thank goodness for my dog!
I don’t like the time change, but in a few days, I’ll be glad it’s light at 7am!
The only science I liked in high school was biology. I thought it was interesting to learn about how the body worked. As for math, the only subject I did well in was geometry because it was based on pictures! My HS career was not too stellar!😊
I can understand about being out of one’s comfort zone teaching! I have to be 100% prepared! Sounds like your Halloween was fun. Ours was warm too! Spent the evening outside with friends! Have a great day, Nancy!
Thanks, Terri! You too.
You made my brain hurt just thinking about science!
Now see, that’s just how I’m feeling! You totally get it!
I do! The only thing I know about science is that I don’t know anything about science..nor do I care to at this age!! 😉
Oh my….we are so much alike with our he’s-in-better-shape husbands and our brains that hurt when exposed to too much science goop. I loved the visual of kicking back on the porch passing out treats in an Indian Summer…..a good one to hang on to as we slip into winter….
It was a nice evening and of course if a few of those treats accidentally made it into my mouth…well that’s how it goes. Right?
(p.s. I’m thinking you and I should hang out! What fun! 😊)
I’ll be right over!
Hope the science goes well. What would we have done before the internet.
I know! The Internet makes learning new things convenient but I kind of miss encyclopedias. They had great illustrations and smelled old and knowledgeable! I probably couldn’t find a set now if I tried!
Thank you for stopping by!
I’ve still got a set but they are good now only for ancient history that hasn’t changed and there probably isn’t much of that remaining the same.
Still, pretty cool. I would probably sit for hours just leafing through them.