(Lucky you — two updates today!)

Long before Mason was born, I knew that someday Susan and I would be very interactive parents. My parents were both very involved in my early education. My mom volunteered as a homeroom mother every single year. My dad brought our personal computer (a TRS-80 Model III) to my classroom and did a computer demonstration, introducing an entire classroom of kids (and a few teachers) to computers for the very first time. My dad came to school and spoke on career day; my mom became personal friends with many of my teachers. These are things I will never forget, and it has been a personal goal of mine to be as involved in my kids’ schooling as my parents were with mine.

Monday when Susan and I went to pick up Mason from The Launching Pad, his teacher told us that the kids had been learning about the ocean and wondered if I would be interested in coming to their class the next morning and talking about the ocean for five minutes. I was about to say no when I looked down and saw the sign-up sheet, which had the numbers 1-20 on it and not a single name written on it. I told Mason’s teacher that I would come up with something. This gave me less than 24 hours to come up with a good idea, but I was sure one would hit me.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. It’s 7:30am, I’m in the shower, and I have no idea what I’m going to talk about. My presentation is at 9am. As I’m getting out of the shower I hear the kids watching SpongeBob. Suddenly, the whole presentation falls into place. I’m going to show the kids pictures of SpongeBob characters, followed by pictures of what the real sea creatures look like. I get on the Internet and find pictures of five SpongeBob characters (SpongeBob, Patrick Star, Mr. Krabs, Plankton, and Ms. Puff) along with real pictures of a sea sponge, a starfish, a crab, plankton, and a pufferfish. As I’m printing out the pictures I come up with the idea of showing the kids each pair of pictures and asking them what the similarities and differences are between the two pictures.

To make things even better, Susan’s sister Becky has a large collection of seashells and other marine items including a starfish, some seahorses, and an awesome stuffed pufferfish. Gold!

I arrived at Mason’s class a few minutes early. A few of the teachers spied out collection of dead marine animals and came down to check out what we were doing. I guess the kids had been told they were having a visitor as they were really eager to see us. I winged the entire presentation, making up a story about how I had gone to the ocean looking for SpongeBob and I couldn’t find him but instead I found the real things that SpongeBob was based off of.

Things went excellent. As I held up the two pictures of SpongeBob and a sea sponge, I asked, “what’s the difference between these two things?” One girl yelled, “THAT ONE’S SPONGEBOB AND THAT ONE’S NOT.” Can’t argue with that. Another kid noted, “THAT ONE’S NOT WEARING SHOES.” True. I also got some great answers about plankton. I explained that real plankton is often so small that you need a microscope to see it. Then when I asked what was different between the two pictures, another kid yelled, “THAT PLANKTON’S ALWAYS TRYING TO STEAL THE KRABBY PATTY SECRET FORMULA.” Man, these kids know their SpongeBob!

About two thirds the way through my presentation Susan began pulling out the starfish, coral and seashells for the kids to pass around and at that point they were pretty much done listening to me. The kids seemed to have a great time, and I hope it’s something they remember for a long time.