Disaster In The Making

It isn't often that you know when disaster will be striking. I mean, who would want to know right?! Well, I know. It's happening tomorrow. Intrigued?

It all started on Monday. See, we're learning about natural resources this week in Science. I'm teaching these kiddos to appreciate and conserve things like soil, water, plants, air....those kind of things. I also happen to be one of those teachers that think Science is best hands on. I think this might be the start of the disaster.

Well, in the teacher's edition, there was this seemly simple six step "recipe" for making paper. It involves newspaper strips, big tub of water, and window screening. Well, I got the newspaper torn into strips Tuesday afternoon (fully expecting that the book was right and the mushing process would only take "a few hours") so we'd be ready to go this morning. Not long after I put the water into the tub I noticed a big water puddle on the table. What the heck? My big tub leaks? See, I'd like to think that an experienced teacher would say, "This is the sign of something not going right. Let's just scrap this idea."

My solution was to stick some rags under the tub and let it set overnight. I really thought it was just dripping from where I'd had it in the sink. Oh who am I kidding?! If I'd really thought that I wouldn't have put rags under it. Dang it I really wanted to make paper! Well, this morning I came in and all those rags were soaked, but more importantly...my paper was NOT mush. Those strips of newspaper were supposed to be disintegrated into paper "mush" pulp. I had wet newspaper strips. Did I mention that I do Science first thing in the morning?

So, I quickly came up with the idea of having a teachable moment and letting the kids know that sometimes things do not go as planned when doing experiments. And, I told them that they could help me speed up the process. I let them all get their hands deep into that wet newspaper and mulch it up. They loved it! The best part is that all that squishing pretty much turned it into gray mush. It appeared that my experiment was back on track.

This afternoon I went ahead and cut the window screening into pieces. The theory is to dip this screening into the mush and then press the water out leaving a thin layer of mush to dry and turn into paper. Learning from yesterday's little opps, I decided to try out this dipping thing. Well, good thing I did. First, this mush stuff is pretty darn soupy. And it's not exactly thin either...more lumpy. There is no way the kids are going to be able to press out all the water. Trying to salvage this, I folded the screen up and wrung it out. This worked...sorta. I'm kidding myself. This is going to be an absolute mess.

Right now, I'm thinking that instead of them each getting to make a sheet of paper we'll do some sort of table group thing. That way we only have to go through this process five times instead of 15 times. Did I mention that I only have 30 minutes to finish this up tomorrow morning? Oh, and when I thought it would be an awesome learning experience I invited the principal to come and see? And one other thing...my evaluation is due any day now.

Yep, disaster. Tomorrow morning. 8:00am. Wish me luck!