Surprises Close To Home

It's easy to think that all the amazing stuff is far from where I live, especially when I live close to where I grew up. After all, if it was cool and amazing, wouldn't I have already seen it or at least heard about it?

I think it's about a mental fantasy, that what is accessible to me is not enough, or even if it seems like enough it must be much better somewhere else.

Today that myth was debunked.

I wanted to take a trip to IKEA before school started, 2hours away, but there is no way the little boy would sit contentedly in a carseat that long. So now it was up to me to find some cool place where he could stop and stretch his legs. (Read this: RUN!)

And now enters Lanterman's Mill. This place is amazing and beautiful and historical and run by Metro Parks. I love metro parks! It's a real working mill. The view is spectacular. (See photos!) You can even buy flour and meal ground there.

This is about 1 hour from my house. I wonder what other surprises are close to home? What surprises do you find close to your home?

Inspiration Monday

So here are some of the things that are inspiring me, today:

~Where Women Create--a magazine, a book, a webpage--all filled with beautiful and inspiring places where women create. It's soooo yummy--a feast for the eyes.

~Artful Blogging--another gorgeous magazine filled with beautiful and creative blogs and the bloggers who create them.

~Laptop skins designed by Kelly Rae Roberts

~Finding shoes at Goodwill that are comfortable and good for school

~Finding a table cloth and table runner for my Writing Center and a lamp, mirror, games and books for the classroom. It is going to be such an inspiring place for me and my students!

~All those amazing teachers who put great resources for science notebooking on the web. Thank you.

~New school supplies

~Flip camcorders--oh how I want these for my classroom!

~The beginning stages of the first issue of my upcoming newsletter--Tips, Tricks, Tools, and Tales--I bet you're going to like it, too.

Book Recommendation Friday

Last year the first book I read to my class was We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes by Patrick Jennings. You might not expect to be inspired by a book whose main character is a female gopher snake named Crusher, but I and my students really enjoyed the creative descriptions of the world from a snakes perspective.

I think this book is a great example of perspective and descriptive language. It also has strong themes about family and relationships.

Science Notebooking

I spend lots of my summer time seeking out new stuff for my classroom that excites me. I look through books and magazines and online, and I can often be heard saying, "That's fantastic!" However I am seasoned enough to know that I can only implement a small percentage of those ideas, and even fewer can be done well.

So when August rolls around I'm always curious about what will rise to the top for the new year. This year I am particularly excited about interactive science notebooking. This is a process were students keep everything they do in a notebook--notes, vocabulary, lab activities. But they add to it, so they are basically creating their own one of a kind science text.

Some of the benefits are:

~learning organizational skills
~using both sides of the brain
~highly differentiated
~applying creativity to the content
~writing in response to the content


It's just an amazing tool. I can't wait to keep you updated.

What is exciting to you about your job today?

Little Poem and Enoughness

I'm reading and digesting little bits of the book A Life of Having, Being, and Doing Enough by Wayne Muller. The concept of enoughness is one that I simultaneously struggle with and embrace. I'm really hoping to enter each day and the new school year as and with enough.

This little poem by John O'Donohue is in the book and spoke to me this morning:

Fluent

I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

More Inspiration

So I really love free gadgets online that do cool things. One that I discovered this summer is animoto. Anyone can open a free account, upload photos and short video clips and make fun FREE 30 second videos. It's amazing. Here is a little inspiration video I made of photos I took hiking this summer:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Check it out!

My Passion Devours the Terror

"I'm not scared. My passion devours the terror."

Isn't that an inspiring statement for Inspiration Monday? I cut it out of a magazine and put it on a collage I made. Part of the collage is in the photo above.

For more than half my life now I have been inspired by cutting up magazines and making collages. I'm always surprised by what appears. This most recent collage was meant to inspire me. I'm planning to put it in my workspace in my classroom soon. It's a completely imperfect art form. The words and pictures usually aren't cut out straight. I usually glue them on construction paper--most often black paper.

The power of the process is that one of two things ALWAYS happens. Either something from my heart spills out, or something my heart needs floats in. This time "My passion devours the terror." lept to me.

I'm feeling many internal shifts about how I view myself, my little family, my workplace. I know these are really good, but change always feels scary to me, and that little line just gives me courage.

I highly recommend making your own imperfect magazine collage. This is what you do:

1. Gather old magazines, glue, scissors, paper.
2. Browse through the magazines for anything that jumps out at you and cut it out.
3. Keep doing this until you feel like stopping--minutes or hours or days.
4. Start to arrange them on the paper you have and glue them down.
5. Look at your work without judgement only asking what this says or shows about or to you.

Hint: If you don't like your collage, put it away for a bit until you're feeling less judgemental.
Hint 2: This is also fun to do with other people for a crafternoon or party.