If you’ve followed my blog for any time, you’ll know that I’ve been an active monarch conservationist for the last 25 years. Over that time, I’ve taught hundreds of community members and thousands of school-aged children about the Monarch Butterfly, their life cycle, habitat, and migration. For me, trends in monarch conservation have come and…
I started this morning reviewing some blog articles I wrote in 2012, 2013, and 2014 for a website I made for my elementary after-school garden club students and parents. Reading my own words brought back many fond memories of the years I led this group I founded in 2004. It ended in 2017, but then…
What Are Your Plans For National Poetry Month? It will be difficult to exceed the release of an indie-published book I had last year. Last week, I read a post from Mary Lee Hahn about her plans for National Poetry Month. She was considering different forms of poetry to focus on during April. Over the years, I’ve realized it…
Did I have a writer? Did I have a mathematician? Did I have an athlete? Did I have an inventor? Did I have … At six, most kids don’t know what they want to be. Even if they exhibit high potential or even giftedness in a particular area. In Kindergarten, one of mine wanted to…
When I started cleaning out our closets for our pending move, I began a trip down memory lane. We spent twenty years in one school district! For 13 of those years, I had one of our sons in elementary school due to their spacing. Elementary school was without a doubt my favorite time of schooling…
As part of our writers’ circle, we produced a third-grade newspaper for four years, from 2014-to 2017. The papers were all published from late April to late May, towards the end of the school year. All third-grade classrooms got copies that were two-sided and contained four-page spreads. And the classroom teachers allowed them to read…
Ten years ago, during the summer of 2011, my eldest son participated in the National History Day contest with a friend. Let me be clear, they were in the national part of the contest. This meant that they had participated at the district level, the regional level, the state level, and were selected to go…
We did not see much wildlife in the national parks. Exceptions were elk grazing as we entered the Grand Canyon, causing a flurry of cars to pull off the road to watch these giants eat. While at the Grand Canyon we also saw Pinon Jaybirds and lots of ravens. A tarantula was spotted by the…
Today I am posting two blogs. The reason? Tomorrow, I host the Poetry Friday Round Up! What does tomorrow have to do with today? It has to do with the Poetry Friday participants that are down under and other places a day a head of the United States across the globe. I’ll post for Poetry…
During the month of April, National Poetry Month, I have tried new forms of poetry in an attempt to step out of my “box.” The box includes the forms of poetry I am comfortable with as well as my usual writing habits. While I’ve continued to write everyday, I have also been exploring places to…