Where's Waldo?

I had a pretty sweet opportunity this past week to go on a field trip with some of the kids to hear Dr. Ben Carson speak at the literacy council luncheon. Given, we didn't get to eat, we just sat in the balcony and watched everyone else finish their lunch, but it was totally worth it. He was an excellent speaker with some great stories. Some of the kids stayed behind and were able to talk to him and get his autograph, which was cool.

The event was held on the 17th floor of a fancy schmancy hotel downtown. That was all well and good, but when we got there at 11:50, thinking we were about 20 minutes early, we were taken to a nice room with some chairs and a few tables, which was to serve as the "holding tank." For an hour.

Thirty high schoolers. An hour of unexpected downtime. Awesome.

The kids were actually pretty good at keeping themselves entertained. One of them had a deck of cards, which made things a little easier. I ended up at the window with some 8th and 9th grade girls playing an awesome impromptu game of "Where's Waldo," which is a game I highly recommend if you are ever stuck in a room on the 17th floor of a downtown building.
"Do you see the lady with the orange purse?"
"A lady with a stroller!"
"A construction worker!"
"A guy talking on a cell phone!"

Definitely entertaining. It actually started with the girls telling me to look because the people were so small you could "pick them up" with your fingers. Instead of picking them up, I put up my finger and thumb about a centimeter apart and focused on a person on the sidewalk..."Or, you could smash them," I said, pressing my fingers together. They were rather horrified...I thought it was what everyone did when they saw people from that far away...

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We were working on distinguishing between chemical and physical changes in 8th grade science this week.
Me: "So baking a cake...what kind of change is that?"
Flava Flav: "Emotional!"

For some reason he had a hard time getting a grip on the fact that he only had two choices...