Monthly Archives: January 2015

Challenger

Wednesday, January 28, 2015, @ 10:20 pmhistory, Reading, Science, teaching, Today in HistoryChallenger, 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, Weekly Photo Challenges, 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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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, Weather, Weekly Photo Challengeseducation, 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.