The other afternoon after lunch I opened my personal email and this is what I found in my inbox:

Hello 6th Grade Parents,

Sorry for the mass e-mail, but I wanted you all to know what we talked about in class today in case questions come up tonight.

Overnight my classroom fish had babies, and we are talking about genetics in class. This led to many interesting questions (the kids are so bright), some of which involved reproduction. We did not go into details, but I did say that some of the questions should be fielded toward the parents. I tried to keep anything we talked about scientific in nature. The questions ranged in topic from how fish have babies (I said the same way humans do) to if a boy fish can have babies with more than one mommy (my answer was that it could happen) to if a brother and sister fish could have babies (I said they could, but you are more likely to see genetic diseases in the baby). If you have any concerns, please address them with me. I want to help answer their inquirys, but of course keep the questions and answers appropriate and focused. I know some of the kids asked me how much longer we will be on the topic of genetics, and my answer to that is after tomorrow, we will be talking about plants (hopefully a much safer topic!)I just thought it might be nice to have a heads up in case the questions make their way home.