Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

All three of my astronomy classes were different today. In my first (920am) class, I spent probably two thirds of the hour waiting in the hallway for the students’ evaluation to finish. But I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t look at my watch the whole time I was just outside the room.
First of all I collected their reaction papers fort he movie we watched last week.

I told them about the field trip to Enchanted Kingdom, which may be used for their fifty-point project. I told them it was a risk they would have to decide if they wanted to take because it is typhoon season. I don't know about the promo my co-teacher told me about, though, that if they get rained out they get a free return ticket.

Unlike the past few years though, the student price is now P315 instead of P250. But now, at least companions of the students who don’t have a school ID can still go in at a discounted price of P335. This is still a big bargain compared to their P500 regular weekend price, which is what I told the students who asked if they could go on any other day.

What the EK representative also told me is that there is another P5 discount if the tickets are bought 7 days before the date of visit (which is August 2).
The alternative I gave them (same amount of points) is to research on a topic that I give them, then create visual aids that will be used in class.

I gave them until July 28 to give their payment and their waiver forms. After that, I said that I’d assume those who did not pay have decided on the research, and will give them their assignments the next meeting. This means we will not be taking advantage of the P5 discount; it makes it too complicated counting four ticket prices instead of two (which is already difficult enough up from the single ticket price we had before).

I told them that the activity sheet for the field trip would be given the Friday before the scheduled date. The activity sheet requires them to give their observations after going on the rides, but does not require them to go on all the rides. If they have finished their activity sheet in two hours they may leave if they want to. There is no required time to be at the park.

I also told them that if they want to organize group transport, it’s up to the class to coordinate.

Next I told the class to form groups of four to five members each, and to submit the names of their members to me. Then I told them what they were supposed to do for their first group work. I showed them the mock telescope I had, although I didn’t call it that. I told them that each group had to have a laser pointer. This pointer had to fit in the tube of their mock telescope. The tube also had to have three degrees of movement: horizontal, vertical, and the base had to tilt at an angle.

I set the tentative deadline to be Friday, but I said if we didn’t reach that part of the discussion by Wednesday, the deadline would be extended.
It was around that time that my celphone (attached to a casing on my belt) activated the vibration alarm I had set for ten minutes before the time. I didn’t think I took too much time explaining about the field trip option, so it must have been the evaluation earlier that ate up most of my class time.

So I didn’t get to discuss the new lesson, which would lead in to their first group work. I’ll do that on Wednesday, same as I’ll resume this tale tomorrow.