We returned from Scotland last Sunday after two weeks of being abroad in this gorgeous country. It was a great trip with a lot of walking, hiking, and sightseeing, visiting Fort William, the Isle of Skye, Inverness, and Edinburgh. I hope to write more about it soon. I did accomplish a Medium.com article earlier this…
It’s Friday again! How the heck did that happen? Time just moves too fast! Last week, we brought home a trailer load of boxes that had been in storage since our move to the cabin in 2022. We meant to get the totes out before now, but – as you know, life happens. When I…
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…
They say the hardest part of self-publishing a book is the marketing. But, truthfully, any publishing contract negotiation these days will ask you how YOU plan to market your book. So, either way, if you publish, you are responsible for marketing your book, at least partially. Marketing is hard. I have an Etsy shop and…
One thing I miss about not having my boys home anymore is the conversations we would have after dinner. This is true of my middle son, especially. He is a big picture thinker and a conceptual learner. Our current educational systems, in the U.S., at least where we live in the mid-west, do not cater…
This week I’ve been diligently working on an environmental day presentation for the first-grade classrooms at a local elementary school. Each year, I am asked back to provide a lesson for their earth day celebrations. Three of the topics I’ve presented were Forest Stewardship: Treating our Forests as our Friend, Monarch Life Cycles and Habitat,…
Today, I am offering a repost of a very early post I made when my blog started in 2017. Long an advocate for the gifted student population, the well-being of this unique subset of children, adolescents, and adults, is often on my mind. Still, today, despite my sons having graduated from their K-12 education, I…
Today, I want to pass on an opportunity for teachers who work with students on their creative writing. Unfortunately, I will not be able to take advantage of this chance to submit student work, but maybe some of you can. Right now, I do not have a group of writers. I am wondering about the…
Few probably know that I have some classroom resources on the Teachers Pay Teachers website. My user name there is Garden Club Lessons. I taught an after-school garden club for 13 years at the elementary school my boys attended. For the most part, I researched topics and then developed my own lessons. It’s not anywhere…
One of my goals for this year is to ramp up my blog readership to at least fifty visitors a day. This month, February – a short month, that goal will be hard to reach. I was on target until a few days ago when I noted a failure to reach the previously attainable number….