Latest Posts
Wonder in the Sonoran Desert
This week I am thrilled to have the opportunity to attend the National Center for Families Learning Annual Summit once again. This year, it is in Tucson, Arizona in the middle of the high desert where saguaros and javalinas live….
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Wonder Hour for High School
Yesterday marked the first professional learning session geared toward middle and high school teachers that centered around Wonderopolis and Genius Hour. Together, my colleague Jennifer Cox and I shared the theory behind pushing students to think above the test, to…
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Wonder Journals for the Freshman Academy
Students will each have Wonder Journals provided to them that they can decorate and make their own. We can pool a big supply of old magazines and art supplies for this activity, and I will come up with parameters for…
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Camp Wonderopolis
As we begin Camp Wonderopolis for the summer, don’t forget to extend this learning to older students. Don’t be afraid — I know they’d probably rather die than go to camp in most cases — enlist them as “camp counselors”…
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Wonderopathy
By the time students reach 12th grade, many of them (particularly those of poverty) have switched on auto-pilot. Life has become complicated; adulthood is staring them in the face and it is scary. Student become disengaged in their academic experience,…
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Change is Good: Confessions of a New Instructional Coach
As I arrived at my office this morning (yes, you read that correctly — OFFICE), I could not help but think that change is good. It is messy, uncomfortable, and it causes a healthy amount of anxiety, but it is…
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Let the Book Reviews Begin!
I have posted my first official book review on Goodreads and Amazon. Check out my Book Reviews page for the updated widget. I am excited to use this to actually track all the books I read in 2016 for once….
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KBF #Winning
Wow! I am much poorer for it, but I absolutely loved the KY Book Festival yesterday in Frankfort! I took my 9-year-old step-son and 11-year-old brother, which was once of the many reasons I am so poor now. We were…
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Portfolio Mailed; Hours Complete!
Last weekend, I had the distinct pleasure to meet with the KY Council of Teachers of English to read the conference proposals for the Annual Conference. We spent three hours reading all grade-levels, various content areas, and a wide variety…
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Book Riot Gets It Right — AGAIN
http://bookriot.com/2015/11/04/kids-read-whatever-want-whenever-want/ I often read op-ed and blog posts that come across my Twitter feed when they have something do with advocacy or intellectual freedom. This one caught my eye immediately: Particularly striking was this point: “But, some might say, you’d…
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