Category: Blogposts

As with many Social Media thingies most get you to divulge more information about you to your public so you can make more connections and find that you are not alone or not as weird as you once thought. I participated in the 10 films in 10 days by just showing a still from the movie nothing else after being nominated by my older brother. Recently one has been bouncing around along the same vein- this one has to deal with books for a week and only showing the cover. I saw some colleagues nominated and decided instead of waiting I would just jump in and do it without being “nominated” but also without the pressure of having to nominate other people. “Instead of waiting to be asked by a real person I’ve accepted the challenge from an imaginary friend to post 7 books I love- no explanations, no reviews, just the cover I’d challenge someone, but I just thought it was a pretty awesome idea-“. I’ll add a sentence about each even though that wasn’t part of the initial piece, since this doesn’t have a character limit, why not. The covers are from the dictions I first read, so they might not be what you see if you hunt down the book. Remember “Never judge a book by its cover”

SO what’s my list?

• Just Only John by Jack Kent – A boy with an active imagination who wants more.

• The Wuggie Norple Story by Daniel Pinkwater & Tomie dePaolo – It’s got a cat in it and a whistle fixer- what else could you ask for?

• Big Bad Bruce by Bill Peet. My intro to Bill Peet back when I was “Mr. Bruce”

• The Brave Little Toaster by Thomas Disch. It was a book before a movie!

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline It was a book before a movie too and while I completely understand how difficult it would be to hold an audiences attention for hours of watching someone play Pac Man, “Never judge a book by its movie”

• Dream Park by Larry Niven & Steven Barnes. Holographic Roll Playing Game, with a murder mystery & in awesome amusement park? What’s not to love? Grab some cargo and find a copy.

• Another Fine Myth (Part of the Myth Adventures Series) by Robert Lynn Aspirin. My introduction to the genre “Comic Fantasy.” Full of puns and an amazing multiverse full of demons. As I always recommend when it comes to series- start at the beginning with Skeeve & Garkin.

–

You’ll notice that these are either picture books or Science Fiction/Fantasy, as a Graphic Novel/Comics guy I’d need another list or two to decide what are my favorite in that medium. I say two because of All Ages vs. ummm… not all ages, because some comics just aren’t for kids. I’ll have to look into that for a future post.

So I wanted to publish a blog post every week and it’s now February and I’ve posted… yes, I failed. All I can do is try again. So let’s start off with something easy, like the weather.

This week we were assaulted by the “Polar Vortex” which still sounds like a really bad cartoon villain. Temperatures dropped, schools were closed, or delayed opening until it got warmer- which it didn’t. At least this time around we didn’t have people running around making jokes about “global warming” although I’m sure there were some comments tweeted out from Washington, that I may have missed. So school was closed for one day and delayed two days in a row. Parents either complained about being inconvenienced or the safety of their kids. Another reason I’m not an administrator- you can’t win. My school district even has it outlined in writing how the decision is made, and they followed their rules and still people were upset.

As a teacher, I want to see my students. I only see them 27 hours a year, if you do the math. Delayed days and missed days just give me less time with the kids. Delay days can almost be worse, but for many kids are very important. Working in a Title One school, some of my students may only get a decent meal at school, so a missed day doesn’t just mean missed learning, but also no food. So what do I do when my class time is trimmed by a third? By the time the students get out the supplies they need it will be time to clean up. So I decided to take a break from robotics and engineering and spend some time drawing.

When I started teaching I decided that while it was important to teach my first graders how to form letters, and hold a pencil, they also just needed to work on controlling the pencil. To this end I took at least one day a week and instead of going over how to make a “b” or a “d” we’d draw. I did some basics on my own and then found a book called “Draw Squad” written by Mark Kistler who had a show on PBS. It was great. The lessons were short enough that we could do them daily. There were 180 of them (there are 180 days in a school year). I used that book until it fell apart. Sold it in the class end of year auction, and bought another copy. I start off each year with some of the basics before moving on to building & robots. Last week, I used my shortened time to dive back into drawing with my students. I discovered that Mark Kistler was still around, and has a YouTube channel. So instead of learning from me, the classes and I learned from the master. I have decided not to share any drawings the kids made because they have been on hiatus for a while, but I’m right now trying to determine how to integrate it more into what I do every day, or at least every month. In this world of inflexible testing- the kids need a chance to be creative in more than just bricks & bots.

Thanks to the Polar Vortex & Mark Kistler for making me see that kids need to draw every day.

Every year I have tried to come up with a creative challenge… some years are better than others.  I’ve made a pinewood derby car completely by hand- meaning using only a pocket knife & sandpaper.  Developed an educational card game that never made it past the initial testing phase. I’ve drawn a monkey day for an entire year… and in the process miscounted & also did the same monkey twice- different drawings, but the same character.  I even have said I’d produce a comic strip/book… some challenges have been successes, others… epic fails (don’t ask me about knitting).

With everything that went on in 2018* my only creative challenge was to stay sane through it all- another epic failure.

So 2019 is just around the corner & my goal for this year is to post something each week. Lame, I know it, but hopefully habit forming.  This could be pretty much anything.  It might be a drawing, maybe random thoughts on the state of public education, something cool that happened at school, STEM/STEAM lessons & units, classroom MacGuffins, reviews of stuff- LEGO sets, educational toys, cat toys, comics, movies, games…

I’m giving myself a lot of room, because I know sometime I’m going to need it. I have a bunch of stuff I’ve acquired recently, so I’ll probably start there- a few new bots, a vinyl cutter, giving me a reason to push myself into trying new things instead of looking at pretty boxes and wondering what I should do with the contents.

So the big question is what’s YOUR creative goal for 2019? Not just a silly resolution or making sure you write 2019 instead of 2018 starting tomorrow.

—

*What happened in 2018?

• We can start off with me actually becoming an adult- when there isn’t anyone alive anymore to call you that annoying childhood nickname- you realize you aren’t a child anymore.  The passing of my mom changed my perspective on the world & my place in it.  I’ll be dealing with those ramifications for a very long time.  I spent a lot of 2018 just keeping busy to avoid thinking about it. 
• The “finishing” of the school renovation (which still isn’t completely finished) has been draining both physically & emotionally.  It has tried my patience and I just hope that the 2019-20 school year starts with everything finally being in place.
• Most recently, managing two robotics tournaments in the space of a month… two different robotics programs. Pushed this fiercely independent introvert way out of his comfort zone & even closer to the breaking point. 

Those were a few of the big rocks… put on top of that the entire climate in the US and it’s amazing we all haven’t gone crazy- then again, crazy seems to be the new normal.

This year Sue & I did stuff… and got another cat, his name is Issigonis aka ”Issi.”

Merry merry & Happy happy.