Challenger

Wednesday, January 28, 2015, @ 10:20 pmhistory, Reading, Science, teachingChallenger, education, hard work, making the days count, NASA, reading, Science, writingClay

I’ve been teaching science for almost a hundred days now, ninety-two days to be exact.

At the beginning teaching science was a huge shift in thinking and I always felt unprepared. But, lately, I’ve been feeling a bit more on top of things. My advanced science students finished their science fair papers, projects, and presentations this past week and all of the presentations are completed AND graded. Now, I just have to pore over their final reports and grade them. The district science fair was last weekend and several of the student’s projects are very good and have the possibility of advancing to the state science fair in early May. I am excited for them, they did all of the work and they own the credit. I was just a shepherd, of a scientific sort.

I have two levels of science – advanced and regular – which means two curriculums and two separate plans. In regular science we’ve been focusing on matter and atoms; and we’ve finally gotten to the structure of the periodic table and how many electrons are in the outer electron shell. It’s really exciting stuff, trust me. In advanced science we are playing with aliens and looking for patterns. Click here for a web version of the activity. ALIENS.

Today was a special day. Continue reading Challenger →

Word Press Challenge – Shadowed

Sunday, January 18, 2015, @ 10:33 amChallenges, country, Family, history, Learning, Life in General, postaday, Writingeducation, freedom, je suis Charlie, liberty, making the days count, Martin Luther King Jr., MLK Jr, patriotism, teachingClay

It’s Sunday morning and I’ve had a good start to the day – I’ve read the paper, caught up on news, and finished watching CBS Sunday Morning’s weekly broadcast. I am full of ideas for the day, and the coming week – which usually stares me down at this time in the weekend. Tomorrow is martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday holiday and I have an extra day to prepare for the coming week. Friday was a planned teacher workday – school without kids and NO MEETINGS and I spent several hours yesterday working on school work.

animal tracks leading into the shadows of the woods and vegetation and safety

I took these photos last week at a Forest Preserve I pass on my way to and from school. A narrow shallow rock-bottomed river runs beside the road and the cold weather has iced over much of it, except for the space where it trickles over a natural dam and opens up before running downstream. I visited the preserve last weekend. The sun was shining and the world was full of shadows. I found tracks in the fresh snow which I could only see because of the shadows and I startled a Canadian goose. I took my shots, captured the shadows and retreated home to where it was warm.

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It’s been cold here – we have had two days of no school due to the frigid temperatures, and even more frightful wind chills, the week before last. Continue reading Word Press Challenge – Shadowed →

Weekly Photo Challenge – New

Saturday, January 3, 2015, @ 9:50 amadventure, Challenges, Family, Life in General, pets, postaday, Teaching and Learning, Weathereducation, Family, Grayling, great days, making the days count, pets, weather, writingClay

It’s a new year, with the some of the same responsibilities. Perhaps, I need a new outlook?

ivythesnowdog — new fallen snow and Ivy the Dog – the wonder dog

Normally, January 1^st is not the day I choose for resolutions, usually my resolutions fall in early June when school lets out for summer and I have more time to reflect, rest, reset, and restore. But, that is summer or rather ‘some ‘er’ which sounds like summer but means some are – as in some are and some aren’t. Some summers I am more successful with the ‘reflect and reset’ than others. This past summer was one of those in which the reset was not complete. Now, I find myself in the beginning of winter and new fallen snow is beginning to cover the landscape. It brings a new outlook to the world; it’s fresh, clean, pure, and powdery. Ivy tested it earlier and came inside, curled up on the hassock, and went back to sleep. It’s a new beginning, sort of.

new snow – looking north, sort of

new snow, looking south

Continue reading Weekly Photo Challenge – New →

Stille Nacht

Thursday, December 25, 2014, @ 11:00 pmadventure, Family, history, Reading, teaching, Teaching and LearningChristmas Truce 1914, Family, great days, making the days count, teaching, World War I, writingClay

It’s Christmas morning and we are all in Ohio. We are at grandma’s house and it’s quiet, very quiet. The kids are still sleeping, Ivy is curled on her pad, and B is visiting her mother – grandma – at the care center on the other side of town. She’s been at the care center since late September after a very nasty fall.

We arrived late Tuesday evening and visited with grandma. It was good to see her and laugh and tease – I hadn’t seen her since mid-July when I last visited Ohio. She’s my favorite mother-in-law and she still has her wicked sense of humor and a great smile. It was good to see both in action again. B’s been home a couple of times to check in on her mom and square up the house as best she could. It’s been a tough year for B and her mother – first B’s older sister passed away and then her dad passed away two months later. Truth be told, it’s been difficult for all of us.

We are staying in grandma’s house – but she’s away and it seems a bit odd. There is no one to sip coffee with in the morning and it’s even quieter than normal – even with two noisy kids and a dog. Yesterday, I visited with grandma in the morning and again in the evening. She was restless and had a difficult time settling down after dinner. I had taken a book to read to her – a children’s book – Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914. Based on the true story of the truce on Christmas Day in 1914 when the British and German soldiers took the day to stop fighting and share the meaning of Christmas with one another. This being the centenary anniversary of the beginning of the war several books have been published as well as a British supermarket chain, Sainsbury, produced a controversial video advertisement about the truce. Continue reading Stille Nacht →

Tweets and time

Sunday, December 14, 2014, @ 10:43 amcountry, growing up, history, Learning, Reading, Science, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Writingeducation, great days, hard work, making the days count, Malala, Nobel Prizes, patriotism, Peace Prize 2014, politics, reading, Teddy Roosevelt, writingClay

What do dynamite, Teddy Roosevelt, and Malala have in common?

I posed that question to my eighth graders last week. It was how I began my science instruction for the day and I tweeted it on my school Twitter account. It was Thursday, the day after Wednesday; because that is the way the week usually plays out. Friday came and went, then Saturday, and now it is Sunday morning.

dynamite - image courtesy of NobelPeacePrize.org — dynamite – image courtesy of NobelPeacePrize.org

Teddy Roosevelt - image courtesy of NobelPeacePrize.org — Teddy Roosevelt – image courtesy of NobelPeacePrize.org

Malala Yousafzai image courtesy of NobelPeacePrize.org

I’ve been feeling guilty lately. I haven’t written, blogged, or read much outside my realm of eighth grade science and history since Thanksgiving. I was looking at my blog and reflecting about its purpose and my commitment to the blog – writing, and in life in general. I looked back at the history of the blog back to my first year, 2010, and every afterward. In December, I fell off a cliff. It wasn’t just this year, it was last year and every year in December my posting dropped off and in each month there is a significant gap between Thanksgiving and the next post, today’s post is 17 days after Thanksgiving. I find comfort in the fact that every year I seem to be consumed by a vortex. It’s every year, not just this year.

Which is why I found the above riddle so intriguing. Continue reading Tweets and time →

Thanksgiving – being thankful

Thursday, November 27, 2014, @ 9:55 amCooking, Family, growing up, history, Learning, Reading, Science, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Writingbeing thankful, children, Family, great days, making the days count, Thanksgiving, weatherClay

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with family, friends, and memories – past, present, and future.

We are supposed to wake up in Ohio this morning, but we’re did not. Instead of travelling to visit B’s mom, we decided to stay home. It was a tough decision, but the right one. B and O are sick, or were sick, or in the process of getting better, or somewhere on the continuum and it’s just not worth spreading our germs to grandma or anyone else. So, we stayed home.

The turkey is in the oven, the sweet potatoes are cooked and cooling on the side burner waiting for B to turn them into sweet potato casserole. I need to clean the beans and the table, but, first, I need to say thanks. It smells like Thanksgiving in our home.

I am incredibly thankful. I have so much for which to be thankful. After getting the turkey in the oven, I sat down with a cup of coffee to read the newspaper. Ivy snuggled up beside me, resting her head on my thigh warming my legs. I read about Ferguson, Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington, the Nor’easter hammering the northeast, the Bears and today’s football games, and a guy named Steve who runs an incredible hobby shop. I read my horoscope and the weather where I learned that this Thanksgiving will be the coldest in Chicagoland in 58 years. Yikes. Then, I called my mom in Texas to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving, then my step-mom in Mississippi, and texted my brothers, too. Then, I sat down to write a short post.

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been blogging @MakingDaysCount for over four years and this will be my fifth post. I went back to read all four, they are below.

It’s amusing how time blurs lines and memories. I enjoyed re-reading each post. I smiled, laughed, shed a tear, and watched the rocket videos, boy that was fun. I remember writing each post and where I was. Interesting. Every year, I wrote a list of why I was thankful and I don’t believe I could have written a better list of why I am thankful, so I won’t. You are welcome to go back in time as I did and re-read, but please take time to be thankful in your world.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Make Your Thanksgiving Day Count, make the next day a million and six times better than the day before it and pay it forward. Light the world with your smile. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, saying thanks and praying for wonderful day with many more to come.

Thank you.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Angular

Wednesday, November 26, 2014, @ 9:14 amadventure, Challenges, postaday, teaching, Weathereducation, Family, great days, making the days count, weather, writingClay

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Angular.”

store fronts, brickwork, and intricate moldings - a new look on an old angle — store fronts, brickwork, and intricate moldings – a new look on an old angle

On the way home from school yesterday I stopped at a local independent bookstore in downtown Naperville. Downtown was bustling with activity and I waited patiently in line to purchase my books – Truce, Shooting at the Stars, and The white House is Burning: August 24, 1814 as well as to get B’s wristband for the author visit Monday, 41‘s author will be speaking and signing books and B had purchased two copies to be signed. Very cool.

Downtown Naperville is a busy place. It has local merchants as well as the big guys – Barnes and Noble, Williams Sonoma, and Starbucks all nestled in mostly older buildings with new construction and updated storefronts along city streets just wide enough for street parking and two lanes of traffic. The sidewalks are usually crowded with shoppers and yesterday was no different.

love the old roof lines - a wonderful look at an old angle — love the old roof lines – a wonderful look at an old angle

As I left, I looked around – up and down and stopped to notice the buildings and there intricate moldings and brickwork along their roof lines. Such lovely structures dating back to the early twentieth century. It was a lovely day and the blue sky and bright sun finished the scene.

It felt wonderful to be outside and breathe the cool late fall air, even though it felt more like the dead of winter. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in America and the holiday shopping season begins the following day. Tuesday afternoon the shoppers weren’t waiting, they were making their days count – early and often. I have much for which to be thankful, Thank you for following along, reading, commenting, liking, and helping me Make the Days Count.

Making the Days Count is my angle, what’s yours?

a lovely old sign to let folks know where to stop

Weekly Photo Challenge: Achievement

Sunday, November 23, 2014, @ 10:30 amChallenges, Family, Learning, postaday, teachingfootball, great days, hard work, high school football, teaching, writingClay

Achievement – something that has been done or achieved through effort; a result of hard work (Merriam and Webster)

Last weekend our high school football season ended. The Tigers were one of eight teams left in their class – one of sixty-four left. When the siren sounded last Saturday afternoon, there were sixteen teams still standing – two teams for each of Illinois’ eight classes from 1A to 8A. The Tigers have been there before and it was the team goal at the beginning of the year. It’s the goal every year. It’s the ultimate Achievement.

It was a GGGGRRRREEEAAATTTT season and fall to Providence 6-23 pic.twitter.com/8iW1Fm1A1u— Clay Watkins (@makingdayscount) November 15, 2014

High school football season. It was a long season and long journey. It began the day after school let out in June with summer practices and weekend summer 7 on 7 tournaments. There was a three-week break between summer workouts and the beginning of August practices. The break was long enough for W to break away to the cottage and a squeeze in a 50-mile canoe trip to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota.

The Tigers played twelve games. They lost the first two games, won the third and then, lost the next two games to reach mid-season 1-4. In early October, the playoffs looked unreachable. However, through hard work, determination, and a little good fortune – I am not calling it luck, they won their next four games and qualified for the playoffs and were seeded 13th of 16 teams in one side of the 7A bracket. Continue reading Weekly Photo Challenge: Achievement →

What do Tigers eat for breakfast?

Saturday, November 15, 2014, @ 10:47 amadventure, Family, sports, teachinghard work, high school football, making the days count, Tiger FootballClay

I don’t know what wild tigers eat or if they have breakfast, but I do know what our Tigers eat for breakfast.

They eat egg casseroles, scrambled eggs, ham, fruit, cheese and finish it with water, orange juice, and Gatorade. All of it provided by our parents.

Our Tigers are playing their third playoff game this afternoon on the road and in their house. We play the number one seed – Providence Catholic. We are the number thirteen seed and made the playoffs after a 1-4 start.

We won our first playoff game on the road and in the snow. Last week, we won our second playoff game at home. It’s been a magical season and the Tigers have really come together.

The game starts at one, we left at 11. The stadium is decorated with a few of our banners. It looks great.

It’s gonna be a great day – it’s gonna be the Tiger’s day. I know it and I can feel it. So, I’d better jump up, jump up, and seize the day. Making the Days Count, one playoff game at a time.

Go Tigers follow me at @MakingDaysCount

Remembrance

Tuesday, November 11, 2014, @ 12:10 pmadventure, country, Family, history, WritingAmerican Battle Monuments Commission, education, making the days count, Veterans Day, World War I, World War II, writingClay

It is Veterans Day.

Ninety-six years ago, the Great War, World War I, or the war to end all wars, ended. Before the war ended, millions of young men lay dead, wounded, or maimed for life. For France, England, and Germany the sacrifice was immense – a lost generation. We Yanks were late coming to the conflict and lost over a hundred thousand young men – slightly less than the population of Naperville, the city where I teach. War is awful.