Class presentations

When Thien and Maureen were here visiting, I convinced them to put on a mini-presentation for Kael's class as part of April's Community Helper month.

Maureen just finished medical school so she did bit on accident safety. She brought along some tools for the kids to play with: a rubber reflex hammer, a stethoscope, the ear and eye light thing, and some other medical related stuff that I'm not going to try and remember what they are called.

She explained to the kids what a reflex was using the hammer. The example she used was when you touch something hot, you automatically pulled away. That's a reflex. Then she pulled that into accident safety by asking what other things should you do to do to keep safe?

I think that was how it went -- I was a little distracted with helping Thien prepare for his presentation.

Anyway, the kids said things like don't touch a hot pot. Don't touch fire. All good stuff. Then it started to veer a little off course: don't touch volcanoes. And my favorite: don't touch hot lava. And from there kids started yelling about how touching volcanoes would be really bad and hot lava would be the worst.

It was hilarious.

Maureen then moved onto the next tool: the ear and eye light thing. She explained how doctors used this tool to see into your head to make sure everything was working OK. And what should you do to protect your head?

The unanimous answer: Don't stick it in hot lava.

I about peed in my pants -- it was so funny. The answer Maureen was looking for was: Wear a helmet. But not sticking your head in hot lava definitely ranks up there on the safety scale.

Thien did a presentation as a biologist. He brought in a couple of bugs: the Borneo Thorny Stick Insect. The kids were allowed to hold them and he talked about what they were, where they came from, what they ate. Most of the kids were pretty daring and actually let the bugs walk on them. We left 2 bugs in the classroom as the class pets; the kids named them Thorny and Rosey.


Maureen talking about not sticking your head in hot lava.


Ethan making sure his friends haven't stuck their heads in hot lava.


Thien talking to the class about what a biologist is and does.


Miss Romo sitting next to the new class pets.


Kael helping his uncle with the bugs.

Kael was pretty quiet during the presentation. I think he was embarrassed his family was there.