Oobleck, 2/11/10

Yesterday L went to her 1st "Seminar" day as part of the county gifted program. She was able to choose 2 topic sessions from a list, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. Her first choice for the morning was rescheduled once she was there, and she wound up attending a session called "Food Science". As part of this session, they made oobleck (goo from corn starch, water and food coloring). She was very excited about attending the session and I was working hard to keep her pumped up about it, since she has a tendency to be somewhat reserved about new situations. In the morning, once we were at school in my classroom, she suddenly became worried and emotional about the day, nervous about the bus ride and not knowing what to do in this new kind of situation. Luckily, there is another child in our school that is part of the gifted program and he is older than her, so he took her under his wing and guided her through the day. What a blessing! Anyhow, after L was back in the afternoon, she was telling me all about her day in the car on the way to Hutch to buy supplies to make Valentines Day treats for her classroom. She said that on a scale of 1-10, her day was an 11! She was especially excited about making oobleck, and I could tell that she was really smitten with the word "oobleck", that she was enjoying hearing herself say it. It was so fun for me to listen to her, to be able to tell that she was enjoying learning about new things and feeling the power of that cool new word.