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How do frogs breathe underwater? How much water does a tree drink in a day? Why do hedgehogs curl up in a ball? What would happen if we cut down all the trees? Children ask great questions! They are explorers. They smell the flowers, spot teeny tiny bugs, stop to watch bunnies, butterflies, and deer, […]
Our family takes a vacation twice a year. Sometimes we visit family. Sometimes our vacation is a long weekend just a couple hours away. Camping, long road trips, overseas travel, I love our time together and a break from our routine. Travel is one of our family’s top priorities. I didn’t always love our […]
5th grade was the year I started hating school. While there were a few moments of joy (my high school art classes, AP English, summer break) college and time outside of school to delve into my interests gave me my love of learning. School mostly took it away. I became a teacher because I know […]
We’ve just returned from Greece. Jetlag, the unwanted traveling companion, is messing with us, and while it is so good to be home, we are all missing pieces of our travels. Lavish hotel breakfast spreads with olives, cucumbers, and chocolate croissants (a combo that more than works). 20,000 + steps a day. Little corner shops. […]
Every semester I lead writing workshops for adults and children, and we often begin by setting intentions for our writing practice. No matter how much we love to write, we have to check in with ourselves to make sure we’re actually writing. Life can get busy, and it’s easy to forget or neglect the things we […]
My husband and I are reading How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields. Fields’ idea is that the things we need to live a good life are held in three buckets: Vitality, Connection, and Contribution. These containers hold how we care for ourselves, interact with the people we love, and what we […]
When my kids were younger, reading with them was pretty easy. They’d often toddle over, a book in hand, and happily, sit on my lap throughout the day. The older they get, the more I’m finding distractions, separate interests, and outside commitments pull at our time together. As my kids get older, reading together has […]
“For students of every ability and background, it is the simply miraculous act of reading a good book that turns them into readers. The job of adults who care about reading is to move heaven and earth to put that book into a child’s hands.” ― Nancy Atwell When we first started homeschooling and I was […]
“Curiosity, asking questions, not getting the right answer, deciding to find out for yourself, making a mistake and not giving up and learning patience. It was all there when I was 4 and a half.” ~ Jane Goodall In an interview on Startalk, Jane Goodall spoke about being a curious child. She said her mother […]
Do you remember learning how to spell? I have vague memories of spelling lists and spelling bees. We’d line up against the chalkboard and, one by one, find our way back to our seats. I was usually the first in the class to sit down. Like math, I believed you were either good at spelling […]
Getting teenagers to read, let alone read for pleasure, can be challenging. One of my favorite and sometimes MOST difficult tasks as an English teacher is helping my students find a book they want to read. While some kids love to read, many won’t pick up a book unless they have to. If your teen […]
When I started homeschooling my children, I knew math was an area I’d struggle to help my kids enjoy, let alone learn, if I didn’t create a new experience for myself. I wanted my kids to be excited about math, love math even, which meant I had to be excited about it too. But, I […]
Math is one of the subjects I struggled with in school. Never hands on or student centered, I was often confused or just starting to understand a concept when we were moving on to something new. When we started to homeschool, I knew I wanted my kids to have a different story with math. I […]
My kids and I sat down at the kitchen table to begin our morning together. Between bites of egg and sips of coffee, I try to read with them every morning. On this morning we were beginning a new book, Code 7, Cracking the Code for an Epic Life. I read the title. Code 7, Cracking the Code […]
Two of the best classroom tools I used began the moment my students walked into the classroom and in the moments before they left. Our beginning and ending routines not only allowed students to transition, but they also allowed them to engage in their interests, check in with me individually and gave me time to […]
