"Teacher, teacher, heat," said Andy, pressing a tiny plastic zip lock bag to his cheek.
"Yes, it's hot, you did it right," I replied.
It was science day today for the Annie Apple class, my class of five seven-year-olds, four boys and one girl. For today's project I demonstrated how to make an exothermic reaction from four substances--charcoal, iron powder, water, and salt. It was, to my relief, almost too easy. All I had to do was mix the chemicals together in a plastic bag and shake them for two to three minutes, to make the bag warm. The science projects are made by the Little Einstein Company based in Seoul. Ironically enough, no one at this company seems to possess enough intelligence to assemble even the simplest science kits for children. Many times the kits come with missing or defective parts, or the projects are simply inappropriate for the age and ability level of the kids, which has frustrated me to no end. Imagine teaching science--trying to explain scientific terms to seven-year-old children whose first language isn't even English, with no Korean assistant teacher! You know what it's like? It's utter chaos, but I'll have to save that for another post.

But today was a lot of fun. This was a project that the kids could do without a whole lot of assistance from me, which they love, and they got to see the result of their efforts, which was great for me. As a teacher my approval means a lot to them. When each of them finished shaking the substances that they had carefully spooned into their tiny plastic bags, their eyes lit up when they discovered that they had actually created heat.

"Teacher, teacher, me!" said Eric, motioning for me to touch his bag.
"Mine, mine, teacher!" said Tony, his hand outstretched.
"Yes, excellent job," I said with a smile on my face.

The clean up is definitely not the most fun part of science day. Anticipating the mess they would make, I gave each child a sheet of newspaper on which to put their materials. However, they still managed to spill bits of charcoal all over the table and the floor, and--oh joy--tiny grains of salt!

"Teacher, heat," repeated Andy, putting the bag in his mouth.
"But you don't want to eat the heat," I said. Ah, kids.