In the United States, November is associated with Thanksgiving, a time to reflect on the bounties of our lives. That seemed an appropriate topic for this month’s family fun—with some harvest ideas thrown in for good measure. Did you know there is a company called Thanks.com? Really. It is dedicated to helping businesses make gestures … Continue reading
What images of our human earth would you hope might last longer than humanity itself? That is the question artist Trevor Paglen asked himself in compiling a collection of 100 “Last Pictures” of earth, recorded on an ultra-archival disc and encased in a gold-plated shell. Paglen spent five years interviewing scientists, artists, anthropologists, and philosophers … Continue reading
Class blogs can be a fabulous way to motivate students to write and to provide families with insight into your class. Sites like Edublogs and Kidblog make it easy to get started. But if students are to blog safely, it is important to have clear and effective blogging guidelines. Luckily, such things are not hard … Continue reading
It is almost Halloween, which means in the U.S., it is time for SPOOKY STORIES. Spooky stories are fun, and a fine opportunity to practice skills of description, elaboration, and plot development in a novel way. It is also, particularly for older students, a chance to help them distinguish between artfully created suspense and gory … Continue reading
Don’t you hate it when you find out about something wonderful and it just ended? That’s what happened to me with Caine’s Arcade Part 2. You saw the original Caine’s Arcade video, right? Caine was a 9-year-old boy who built a cardboard arcade that became an Internet sensation. If you haven’t seen it, stop now … Continue reading
This post is about short stories. Really short. Only some of them in language arts. Ernest Hemingway once wrote a short story using only 6 words. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” It is said that the story was the result of a bet with friends—who paid up. Hemingway thought it was one of his … Continue reading
Fall in Michigan can be beautiful. I will admit Ann Arbor can’t hold a candle to the Susquehanna Valley, where I used to see colors blaze on the mountains along the river, but still, the colors are lovely. And so for October, our family fun activities are all about leaves. 1. We eat a lot … Continue reading
One of the best things I’ve read about creativity recently did not come from a book on creativity—it came from a book on learning targets. In their book, Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today’s Lesson, authors Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart describe the use of learning targets (goals) to focus … Continue reading
What happens when you mix Carl Sagan, profound ideas from science, illustration, and video/music remix techniques? Magical things. Recently I came across a video, created as a thesis project at Sheridan College. In it, student Adam Winnik used animation to bring part of Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot to video life. It made me wonder how … Continue reading
For the last few weeks I’ve been writing about teaching for creativity and the Common Core State Standards. The Common Core State Standards Initiative outlines core math and language arts content to be addressed at each grade level. In my first Common Core post, I clarified that the Common Core State Standards are not intended … Continue reading
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