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…
teaching style
Silent Sunday: Garden Club Posters, Over a Decade of Work That Is Hard to Throw Out
Today is Silent Sunday. All photos are copyrighted by Carol Labuzzetta with all rights reserved, 2004-2017. Represented today are SOME of the self-made posters for the elementary garden clubs I taught for 15 years. Information on posters came from various scientific publications and was documented in the lesson plans. Since we did not have any…
Environmental Lesson Planning: Happy Place for My Mind
When we were on vacation recently we met a couple. The woman, a lovely person in her mid-fifties, kept referring to the island of St. John as her happy place. She and her husband had been going to the island to vacation for the last thirty years. In April, her nephew is getting married there….
School Stuff Saved: The Elementary Years
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…
A Change of Mind and Heart: Education is not enough
When I was in graduate school for my natural resources degree (EE/EI), one of our first assignments was to read two papers written by seminal voices in the environmental field. One was by Richard Wilke and the other was by Jo Kwong. Before I started the assignment, I was pretty sure that I felt that…
Now, Creating: Audio Files
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about standardizing when I would post certain themes on my blog. For years, I’ve had Silent Sunday, Slice of Life Tuesday, and Poetry Friday as regular postings on those days. It’s been an organized and successful way for me to post and for my readers to know (at…
Poetry Friday: Spring Has Sprung
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,…
Slice of Life Tuesday: Less Than
As many start the school year, I have a few pieces of wisdom to share. These are based on my personal experience as a parent, educator, and substitute. They boil down to a few things. Remember how you speak to students matters. Show through your actions, and especially your words, that you value and respect…
Poetry Friday: Stepping Out of the Box
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…
Monday File Clean Out
I’ve been meaning to clean out my files. However, it’s one of those jobs that keep getting put off. I have 16 years of curriculum, lessons, and grad school materials sitting in my filing cabinets. I have four cabinets in my home office and two more in the basement. Two of the four in my…