Out of the 3 sessions we have each day in Model School, my kids definitely like our vocabulary exercises the most. This morning I was reviewing yesterday’s volcano/earth vocab. “What is the mantle? What is the crust?” They were pretty right on with the answers, and I was starting to feel good about how confident they were. I drew my best chalkboard version of a volcano with arrows pointing to different parts. “What is the difference between magma and lava?” One of the boys toward the back, Derick, started pointing to (I thought) the picture. Waiting for them to say it out loud, I tried coaxing it out of them. “C’mon guys, I know you know this!” More kids start pointing and Derick’s eyes got HUGE. This is where I should have known something was off. Yes, volcanoes are pretty cool, but no one gets THAT excited about a stick figure rendition of the earth's crust and a volcano erupting. “Look!” One of the girls, Evaline, finally gets me to turn around. A GIANT spider scurries down the chalkboard DIRECTLY behind me. I let out a really dramatic gasp and quickly sprint to the side of the room. My fantastic co-teacher Jackleen attacks it with a dust pan as I start laughing hysterically out of nervousness. This spider’s body and legs were literally the size of my hand with fingers outstretched. If you have ever seen any movie involving a large spider, I’m sure the scene was played out very similarly for my students. (Jungle 2 Jungle is the first one that comes to mind) Poor unsuspecting victim stands there oblivious as the onlookers decide how best to alert them of the impending creature. Really, my students do like vocabulary.