What kind of feedback do you offer your students on their writing? Are you red pen crazy? Do you mark up the paragraph, page, or essay with slashes, carots, and circles every where there is an error? Do you do this with another color pen – trying to conceal your zeal for marking the page?…
The school down the road has a garden that I know well. There, in the butterfly garden, are plants picked by former students and some selected by me, some were donated by parents or staff, and many were purchased. In the center is a large, overgrown, lilac bush. It serves as a shelter for butterflies…
Wow! It has been a whirlwind week. I am mid-course learning about environmental history. It has been a challenging course just due to some computer issues and heavy reading. But, I have been learning lots of new facts…..and realized that the course is already half over! My final project will be on the history of…
Earlier this week I saw a post from the US Fish and WildLife Service about collecting milkweed seeds. Since I have done this before, both as an individual, and a student group facilitator, I believe it is an important thing to do and this is the time of year to do it! The video is…
Over the summer I heard a few times from one of my former students from the Third Grade Writer’s Circle group I have led as a volunteer for the last six years. She was a particularly precocious writer and has continued to send me bits and pieces of her writing since she was in my…
I spent this morning at a neighboring school district, about twenty minutes away by car. Sixty first graders, in three separate classes, sat quietly and listened to my presentation on the Monarch Life Cycle, the importance of milkweed, Monarch Migration and the development of the Monarch Highway. With the exception of the information on the…
It is that time of year again. Master Gardener Volunteer (MVG) hours are due. Since 2004, I have spent the last couple weeks in September recording my continuing education and volunteer hours to maintain my Master Gardener Volunteer Certification. Collecting enough volunteer hours has never been a problem with my history of running a community…
September is here. It is a time of transition, once again. Already, some schools are back in session, or soon will be after the Labor Day holiday. With two sons still in high school, I have wishes for both of them, as well as for myself, for this upcoming year. What I wish for my…
Six months ago, when I started blogging, I started a list of potential topics on which to write. This list is kept right on my WordPress account as drafts. Some potential posts, such as this one, have just a title, some are blog posts that I started but have yet to complete, and some were…
The blog writing experience has been very positive for me. I started this past March with the writing challenge posed by TwoWritingTeachers blog challenge called Slice of Life. It was a good fit for me since it is filled with teachers and most of the blog pieces are about teaching, students, and education. The educational…