There’s a new book available it’s packed with practical ideas for teachers from teachers: Meaningful Making: Projects and Inspirations for FabLabs and Makerspaces. And even better it’s available as a free download. You can’t beat that for a bargain. The book is an initiative from the FabLearn Fellows who are part of a larger project sponsored by the National Science Foundation entitled “Infusing Learning Sciences Research…
There’s a wonderful walk along the Housatonic in Kent, Connecticut. We were there early enough to have it to ourselves for over an hour on Saturday. And then today more amazing color and beauty at Innisfree Garden, near Millbrook.
Have you ever seen a ton of starlings or red-wing blackbirds swooping about in unison as if they were in some kind of mechanically choreographed mass ballet? Of course the correct and archaic collective nouns to use there would be murmuration for the starlings and cloud, flock, grind, or merl for the blackbirds. But whatever – you know what I mean –…
There are lots of reasons to be concerned about the digital revolution and its impact on our lives, the lives of our students and schools. And there’s no shortage of voices raising the alarm. Here’s a small flavorsome slice of a particularly entertaining rant that was in the New Statesman a few years back: Take that digital manacle, the BlackBerry. My first…
BBC’s Radio 4 first tweet for 2014 was a thrush with a bright blue sky background and a quotation from The Darkling Thrush – a poem that Thomas Hardy dated December 31st, 1900. It’s all rather grim and gloomy. The poem records the desolation of winter, the dregs of the day and the end of the century. This is no…
Cross posted from Josie’s Blog It was the spider started it. A noiseless, patient, useful spider had spun a tremendous web right there in the playground, across the chains of the swing. It was Sue Parise’s class that noticed it and made the sign that said: “This swing is closed because of BIG spider!” Lynn Fordin took the photo and…
Children: How will they ever know who they are? The question is the last line of “The Things we Steal from Children” by Dr. John Edwards. You can read the whole below. I found it via Leading and Learning – a blog and website from New Zealand that I have long found valuable. In a different time and context William …
The sixth grade began planning this in science class in the fall when the monarchs stop by PDS on their migration south. They located at area on campus that was already wild, got permission and then planned how to add plant diversity to attract and support butterflies on their journey. Here they are planting milkweed and asters and other late…
A bird the color of a stop sign. High on a tree at the Buttercup Farm Sanctuary. A scarlet tanager. My first sighting. A black-winged red bird. Tree swallows swooping, the insistent chipping of an elusive flycatcher and the headwaters of Wappingers Creek swirling down to the river. What a great place for a Sunday breakfast.
This time along the Appalachian Trail by the side of the Housatonic River, north out of Kent. The snow was mostly gone, although – as is the way with micro-climates – there were patches glazed with ice and slick with melting snow. But mostly it was soggy and brown with leaves. The going was easy in spite of a sockful…
“What do I need to learn this algebra and geometry and math stuff for?” Connecting learning to the real world – that’s the tag line of The Futures Channel – a great educational resource. On this page they provide a wonderful set of answers to that age old classroom math question: “What do I need to learn this algebra and geometry…
Last week I found this huge moth attached to my back screen door. It was several inches across and a beautiful fluorescent green. It’s a luna moth (luna actius) and quite common in deciduous wooded areas of north America. I had never seen one before. And by morning it was gone. Last Monday – in the orientation for new faculty…
I’ve written on this topic before but this is a wonderful blog post from New Zealand by Bruce Hammonds’ Leading and Learning – one of my favorite education sites. Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder Fortunately, here in the mid-Hudson valley and at PDS, we have abundant opportunities to experience the natural world under the skies and in the classroom.
The effort effect on display at Buttercup Farm Nature Reserve, near Poughkeepsie. See below for a photo of the dam. Intelligence is not fixed. It is it is learnable and teachable. It can be changed. The way we approach learning and thinking makes all the difference. It is our ‘mindset” that keeps us back. If we believe, and if we…