Why I Love Sixth Graders

Let this be fair warning to you..... I predict a banner year for "Why I Love Sixth Graders" blog posts!!!!!

Today we began our unit on ecology. I always get very excited about this unit because I get to include my Planet Earth DVD collection in the curriculum!!!! So I began our first chapter by discussing biotic and abiotic factors. It is always a little discouraging when two out of four classes have several students that are shocked to discover that plants are INDEED ACTUAL LIVING THINGS.

Hello-does your father not cut the grass because it grows? Did you not just see me water the plants in my room because they need nutrients?? Okay, so I have my work cut out for me.

The funny thing that happened today though involved my stupidity!!

I wanted to incorporate my lovely new SmartBoard into my lesson, so I drew the outline of a pond on the board and asked each student to think of something that they would find in the pond ecosystem. Then they had to come to the board and write the name of the item they thought of in green if it was biotic and in red if it was abiotic.

So as they are writing I am trying to guide some of their choices because I want to be sure there are some nonliving things such as water, dirt, sunlight, etc. Anyway, finally each student had written their choices and I was complementing them on how well they had done, when someone raised their hand and questioned one of the choices on the board.

As I had watched each student write their selections on the board, I totally missed one boy who had written...MERMAID!!!