SOLSC #6 - Planting Ahead

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!

Planting Ahead

Last fall, there was a sale on bulbs and on impulse, I bought big packs of crocuses, tulips and daffodils. We had put in some bulbs a few years ago and we have a some nice patches around the house that color up each spring. Living in Denver, it usually means that they are bright a vibrant for a few days before being covered in inches of spring snow and melting away until next year. Nonetheless, I was excited to plant a 150 new spring bulbs.  Then life happened. I'm not sure now why I was so busy but that bag of potential sat in the garage, noticed only when I wanted to feel guilty. This spring, the crocuses that have been around for years are brilliant and the tulips and daffodils are pushing their way through the earth, full of promise. And I can see the bare patches the bulbs in my garage should fill.

Yesterday and today, the spring weather was amazing and I was itching to do some yard work (that's relatively rare). So after some initial clean up of winter debris I pulled out the bag of bulbs and started planting. We made it a family project and all three of us dug holes, dropped in bulbs and covered them again with dirt. 150 bulbs goes a long way and we planted some areas I had never even thought of. We talked about how wonderful it will be when the sprout!

"I'm excited to see them soon," my daughter said while tamping dirt over a tulip's heart shaped bulb (She would like to remind the reader she is five-and-a-half, not five like I said in yesterday's blog).

"Well...," I said, "We're kind of planting ahead this spring. These flowers won't come up for a year because they need weeks of cold weather for them to sprout. But imagine how beautiful they will be!"

She could imagine, but asked why we were planting things that would take so long to grow. We talked about trees, flowers, bushes and all the things that were planted long before they 'bore fruit' and we are so happy that they did! She said, "Okay," made a final pat on the bulb and moved on. I guess she was satisfied with the answer, but I decided I definitely was. I can't wait for next spring!

SOLSC #5 - Dad Hack

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!

Dad Hack


If my daughter hadn't gone to the bathroom, maybe I wouldn't have been caught. There stood my daughter asking, "Dad, can you retie the twine?" while Susan and I both sat at the kitchen table finishing lunch.

With that smile, who would notice the hair in the cocoa? A mom!

"What?" exclaims my incredulous wife, looking at the twine around Clara's waist before bursting into hysterical laughter. It probably didn't help that I this morning I had posted a picture on Facebook of Clara smiling in Starbucks while dipping her hair in her cocoa (which of course I had not noticed thinking I was just posting a fun picture).

"Why don't you go and get a belt honey," Susan says before giving me a smile that begs for the explanation of why Clara is wearing twine for a belt today.

So here's the story of today's Dad Hack. A 'Dad Hack' is a shortcut or way of solving a problem that is both ingenious and yet ridiculous enough you hope no one else notices.

Flashback to a couple of hours ago:

"Dad! My pants are...maybe too big."

I sigh and look at my five year-old daughter as we walk through the Home Depot parking lot. She's holding her red corduroy pants up with one hand and her paint shirt and work orange Home Depot apron in the other. We are heading in to do the Home Depot Kids Workshop, which we have been doing for a couple of years the first Saturday of the month. Clara's apron has about fifteen pins in orderly rows, showing the previous projects she's participated in.

My brain races through the options:

1. Go home and get new pants - Not worth it
2. Deal with it, we will be sitting on buckets anyway and it will be 'fine." - I'm very tempted to go with this option right off the bat
3. Wonder what my wife would do and realize that it's unlikely my wife would be in this situation. She'd have already checked Clara's pants, realizing that she had not worn them before and probably suggested a belt...not to mention brought a snack.
4. I imagine the thin little belts Clara has hanging up in her room, pink, silver and covered in sparkles when I finally hit the 

DAD HACK!!!

We are in Home Depot! While of course I could buy some rope, they have twine by the Exit doors for people to strap large items to their car roofs in the hope that they will make it home without having to  brake hard or turn sharply.

"Come on," I tell Clara, reaching down to take her hand. We exit and find the twine box and after a quick measurement, I'm poking the thin fiber through her belt loops. A passable bow for a knot and we are set.

"Listen for the hammers so we know where to go this time." Sure enough, we hear the faint tap-tap-tap of dozens of hammers pounding nails into today's project and we head for that corner of the store. This month it's a little wagon and I am proudly amazed at how confidently Clara nails everything together. A trip to Starbucks for coffee and cocoa, and the library to drop off books and get new ones and it's been a very good morning. So, of course I forgot to take off the twine and tell Clara to get to get a belt when we got home.

Painting her wagon!

Notice the pants are staying up!

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