SOLSC #4 - Memories on the Ceiling

To read my student's posts on the
Classroom SOL challenge click here

Introduction: Hello and welcome to my blog! This is the third year I have participated in the SOLSC and also the third year for my students as well! I teach students, ages 11-14, in a multi-age classroom at The Logan School for Creative Learning in Denver, CO. This year, I am hosting students from all three middle school classes and they are participating on a volunteer basis (with a few prizes thrown in for inspiration). I'm looking forward to being part of this amazing community again!

Memories on the Ceiling

My ceiling is a mess, it's dusty and cluttered. Not unlike my desk or my brain a lot of the time. The upper levels of my classroom hold the memories of my teaching career. The drop-ceiling is open for most of my room, leaving a grid of rafters to gather dust, projects and memories. Here is a list of some of the things I can see from my desk, that are all above head level.

Seven ceiling tiles have been decorated by previous 8th grade classes and my eight continuing students will add the eighth in June. It started with just faded Sharpie marker with names and quotes and has since evolved to planning, paint and bold color splashed across the ceiling. The names and images of each past class are ripe with memories and smiles. The first class even wrote "Gullible" on theirs so that word would actually be on my ceiling.

A Bad Bromance?

One tile holds pictures of the 'Bromance' between me and a colleague who co-taught with me for two years. They shots were taken of us being silly on the 6-7 extended class trips we have led together over the past seven years. While one picture is us kissing a cannonball jellyfish, most are of us sharing a drink or jointly eating something: a milkshake in Ghirardelli Square, coconut milk from a coconut on Oahu, and couple of sauerkraut burritos (a class tradition).

Over 200 stuffed moles peer down, all created by students over the past eighteen years to celebrate Avogadro's Number 6.022 x 10^23) and Mole Day (10-23). Pepto BisMol, GuacaMole, Cafe Molcha, the entire band of Moletallica, and many others keep an eye on my class, along with a small American flag, a troll doll, and Rex the Slug Fish (a student's project from years ago).

Speaking of past student projects, the rafters of my room hold a four-foot scale model of a Zeppelin, a life-size model of an elephant tusk, a huge poster of Albert Einstein (sticking out his tongue) and a couple of projects from this year that needed a place to safely live for awhile.

USS Led Zeppelin

Dead Fred!

Dead Fred, the cow skeleton hangs near a window over a couple of student desks. To be accurate, only Dead Fred's backbone and skull are hanging up. It was in my room when I moved in and I saw no reason to move it.


Other memory debris include a blow-up Pirate's sword, a blue lei, and artwork from previous class trips (A lobster, kayaks with pictures of our heads, Alcatraz, donkey, The USS Arizona, and Half Dome). Each image blows off the dust from that trip, allowing me to once again experience it and revive my memories of past students.

SOLSC #3 - The Popcorn Mouse

To read my student's posts on the
Classroom SOL challenge click here

Introduction: Hello and welcome to my blog! This is the third year I have participated in the SOLSC and also the third year for my students as well! I teach students, ages 11-14, in a multi-age classroom at The Logan School for Creative Learning in Denver, CO. This year, I am hosting students from all three middle school classes and they are participating on a volunteer basis (with a few prizes thrown in for inspiration). I'm looking forward to being part of this amazing community again!

'Popcorn' Mouse

A couple of months ago, the cats started getting a little extra interested in something under the furniture and there were several glimpses of a grey streak zipping across a floor. One morning, the furred wraith skittered across my slipper in the bathroom and slipped under the door towards the kitchen.

"We have a mouse!" I declared to my wife.

Now the big question was, how to catch it and talk to our five year old daughter about it? Then, I remembered a mouse trap a friend of mine built in his camper while on a hunting trip. A 5-gallon bucket, ramp, wire, plastic bottle and a smear of peanut butter had caught several of the mice who had been eating our food and keeping us awake at night. The mice run up the ramps, go to eat the peanut butter, causing the bottle to spin and they fall into the bottom of the bucket. I readied the supplies and but the trap near our kitchen table, all the while explaining to my daughter how it worked. I did not tell her that usually you put a couple of inches of water in the bottom to drown the mice, since I planned this to be a live trap.

Amazingly, within 24 hours, the mouse was caught and driven to a nearby wetland to be released. Dad 1, Cats 0. I set the trap up in the garage and caught and released two more transient mice over the next month.

Success!

Then came the Popcorn Mouse. We had heard a mouse in the garage on occasion, especially where we had set up the indoor chicken coop for our four hens when the weather was below zero for a few days. Warmth, straw and spilled feed was to much of a temptation and unsurprisingly, a mouse had made it home. I set the trap up again and waited. Soon, I noticed the peanut butter was upside down on the bottle which meant the bottle had spun, most likely from a mouse falling in. But there was never a mouse in the bucket. Over the course of a week, the trap had been sprung several times but with no success.

"It must be jumping out," my wife observed after I came in, a little frustrated at the failure of my trap. "Maybe it's a popcorn mouse," my daughter suggested.

And the mouse seems to get cheekier during the next week by continuing to set off the trap or make scurrying noises through the straw when I entered the garage. I was starting to  contemplate putting some water into the bucket to show it who was boss, once and for all.

Then the garage door broke. Actually, the torsion spring broke meaning the garage door opener could no longer lift the door. As I studied the broken door and worked to figure out how to get the cars out the next morning, my wife came in to see if she could help. Suddenly, she exclaimed, "I heard something! I think the mouse is in the trap!"

The cheeky bugger had climbed the ramp and trapped itself while I was in there grumbling at the broken door! We hurried over and the mouse, much bigger than the previous ones, was jumping frantically, almost to the top of the bucket. It was the Popcorn Mouse! I swiftly snatched a lid and covered the top, securing the still jumping mouse, its claws scratching and thumping against the plastic bucket.

After opening the door, I drove it to the wetlands and released it to it fate, hopefully far removed from our home. I'm sure it's prolific jumping will help it in its adventures and I will have one less moral dilemma.

SOLSC #2 - Colorado Caucus

To read my student's posts on the
Classroom SOL challenge click here

Introduction: Hello and welcome to my blog! This is the third year I have participated in the SOLSC and also the third year for my students as well! I teach students, ages 11-14, in a multi-age classroom at The Logan School for Creative Learning in Denver, CO. This year, I am hosting students from all three middle school classes and they are participating on a volunteer basis (with a few prizes thrown in for inspiration). I'm looking forward to being part of this amazing community again!

Colorado Caucus

As the last remnants of light sink away behind the mountains, I started my walk towards the local high school and caucus location. Not wanting to mess with traffic or parking, I had decided to walk the 3/4 of a mile and get a little extra exercise while participating in the democratic process.

As I drew closer or the school, lines of headlights and tail lights snaked around the streets. I don't know what I expected, but this turnout looked potentially impressive. After walking around to the entrance, the size of the line astonished me. Packed 4-6 people wide, the line stretched almost 1000 feet along the sidewalk and I was glad to have shown up "early." The sneaky part of me looked at faces as I went along, hoping to cut in with someone I knew. But the best offer I got was a lady selling Girl Scout Cookies and talking about it being a long night and how we'd all need provisions.

So I stumped to the end of line and talked with those around me during the 25 minutes it took to reach the doors I'd passed a few minutes earlier. We remarked on the weather, asked how the caucus process worked, shared which neighborhood we were from and talked about previous elections. It wasn't quite festive but I was joyous to see so many people excited to be out to have their voice heard. The energy was palpable as we shuffled forward, already participating before we even got inside.

SOLSC #1 - Classroom Visitors!

To read my student's posts on the
Classroom SOL challenge click here

Introduction: Hello and welcome to my blog! This is the third year I have participated in the SOLSC and also the third year for my students as well! I teach students, ages 11-14, in a multi-age classroom at The Logan School for Creative Learning in Denver, CO. This year, I am hosting students from all three middle school classes and they are participating on a volunteer basis (with a few prizes thrown in for inspiration). I'm looking forward to being part of this amazing community again!





Classroom Visitors!
They swept into my classroom, all laughter and smiles, with a confidence that somehow radiates from high school seniors. Voices, actions, laughter, faces; so completely familiar and yet different too.

Has it really been four years since they were in my class? 

Old trips books and happy memories!

It wasn't a perfect time since I was about to read aloud to my class and then give a lesson about how to link up to the class blog for the Slice of Life Challenge. I asked them to share their college plans (at least the plans they knew) to my class, and sent them on their way to see some other staff members, with a promise they would be back.

Later they sit on the carpet in my room, pouring over old trip books, looking at pictures from four, five, even six years ago. Adolescent cheeks and braces smile out from their pasts as memories are triggered and excitedly exclaimed over. They ask questions about our recent trips, my daughter, old colleagues. I learn about great teachers, their current dreams, their families.

It's over too soon. They are a little antsy and have run out of things to share in front of each other and my class. I need my current students to wrap up their days and clean the room. We take a group picture and say our goodbyes.

It was too long. It was too short. I feel blessed.

Rhyme Scheme Poem

Frozen Puddle                                             

By Max Maclay

Crystal planes across the ground

Where dirty puddles once were found.

How it happened, I don’t know,

But I investigate, with my toe.

A tiny sound, hairline crack,

Leads to an all-out attack.

Now I’m cold, full of regret

Because my foot is sopping wet.

Silly and Libelous Limerick

There was a curly-haired lass from Maine

Whose language was very profane

The kids rang a bell

Every time she said, “Hell,”

Or other words in that domain

Cat Lap - Slice of Life 12-9-15

As my middle school students start to write some Slices of Life, I had better get my blog going as well.








During the winter months, my cat seeks out lap-warmth whenever I sit down the couch. Oh, she is relatively affectionate during other times but once the furnace has to kick on and a blanket is on my lap, it is usually a matter of seconds before fur-padded feet make a beeline for me.

With a meow, a circle, and a show of an upraised tail (usually from the backside, thanks cat) she snuggles into my lap. Petting is acknowledged with an upraised chin and purrs, so long as I don't rub her belly. Every fifteen minutes or so, she will roll over or turn around to put a cold part up against my legs or request some extra attention. It's cozy, comfortable and I feel only a little less guilty of getting up and disturbing her peace then I did when my daughter would fall asleep on my lap as a baby and I would avoid getting up for all but dire emergencies. It's not uncommon for my wife or I to excuse ourselves from the work of the moment or to ask a favor because, "I have cat lap." That explains it all for the other.

Below: a picture of daughter-cat-lap as we all cuddled and watched Doc McStuffins last weekend.

SOL September 1, 2015 - Back in the Thick of it!

It's the start of another school year and today will be the fifth day of actual school with my amazing students. This year is somewhat of an Even-Steven year for me. Counting my graduate degree, gained while teaching, I have eighteen years of education. I am starting my eighteenth year as a classroom teacher. I taught public high school science for nine years and am starting my ninth year as a core classroom teacher for 6-8th graders at a K-8 private school. I'm very curious to see what this year brings and what the next steps are for me as a teacher and learner.

It has been a very fun start to school and I'm feeling an excitement for teaching I have not felt in a few years. Everything goes through some ebbs and flows and it feels like things are starting to "flow" a little more easily right now in the classroom.

My class consists of twenty-three students 6th to 8th grade. I have thirteen students who have been in my class for one or two years already and ten students new to my class, although they are mixed across all three grades. I am their teacher for language arts, science, social studies, art, and most importantly, their individual units. They will have pull out math and electives a few hours each week that will cross over some of these topics, but most of their week is spent with me and my teaching associate (or co-teacher if you will). We do lots of hands on projects, go on trips to experience the world, and hopefully delve deeply into our passions, all while hopefully creating a safe community to be middle school students.

Here is a list of a few things we have done so far the first four days:

• A little writing activity outside on the front lawn on the first day
• A trip to the Botanic Gardens for some group time and field journaling
• Set up blogs to create an online reading and writing community
• Built aliens/superheroes with the other two middle school classes that both move and have special powers to help us this year
• Had some time with our buddies, a class of 7-8 year olds in the classroom below us
• Created a jumbo craft stick 'cobra' that stretched well over 100' around the class (see the video below)
• Learned a couple of magic tricks to go along with the class unit of "Behind the Curtain." We will consider what something looks like on the outside, or things that could be magic, and then pull back the curtain to reveal what's really going on. Organisms on a cellular level, politics and spin, and asking/answering questions about things we don't actually understand.

Coming up we will start short stories, research individual units, and meet with the teachers who take the students on field trips related to their individual units.

It is wonderful to be this excited as I look ahead at the entire year! I hope all you teachers out there are having a great start to your respective school years as well!

Here is the craft stick video. A student went home and told his parents, "We learned about potential energy, kinetic energy and teamwork! It was awesome!"