Blinding me with Science

I have a feeling I'll be dreaming about volcanoes and earthquakes tonight. No, I didn't overdose on the Weather Channel. I was helping Carter study for a science test.

I've quickly observed that fifth grade is way different from fourth grade. The teacher may talk about everything but the student has the responsibility to read about it, too, to thoroughly understand the subject matter.

This has been a bit of a challenge for our fifth-grader -- reading all the facts and new vocabulary and then, comprehending it. We have found that it helps if after Carter does the first pass, we read through it again together, then I ask him questions. Last week I had a flashback to American history. Tonight it was science.

It was actually a grueling two hours. We had 30 pages of content to cover, with concepts as straightforward as landforms to the four layers of the earth, the causes of earthquakes and volcano eruptions, and the effects of erosion. That's a whole lotta info for one test, I think. I actually wish I could take the test to see what I retained!

I'll probably revert back to the nervousness of my test-taking days and lose enough sleep for both us. Unless I stop for a minute and realize thoughts of shifting plates and fault lines would actually put me to sleep if I had to sit in a classroom and hear about them... Yeah, that's it. G'night.