I have been very busy this week getting teaching materials ready for Chengdu. I spent ten hours Sunday writing labs. I modified 10 labs I had written previously and wrote two new labs that I thought would work well with seniors. All of the labs I had written in the past were targeted for 5th and 6th grade students. I changed wording, instructions, and the level of math to be more appropriate for the older students. I have also been gathering rock and mineral samples to take with me. I have all of the mineral samples I need at PCDS but I also want to teach rock classification and identification. I had a lot of fun gathering rocks today. I found excellent samples of granite, diorite, sandstone, obsidian, scoria, pumice, basalt, andesite, limestone, conglomerate, quartzite, marble, and gneiss. I scrounged from my yard, two of my neighbor's yards, the wash in front of Kyrene Middle School, and the crates full of rocks in my garage. I still have five varieties of rocks to gather. I hope to get together with the teacher who just returned from China to look at pictures and talk with her about students, the school, and living in Chengdu. This Thursday I will spend the day at PCDS preparing for my counter part from China to arrive and getting materials ready to take to China.