Exploring & Learning Today in North Carolina

The fun things I've done this week with my 18 month grandson (a challenging age for hands on projects) (while his parents are taking exams as first year MBA students) has been making pinecone bird feeders, baking cookie cutter sugar cookies, making sheet forts and pillow castles, doing acrobatics like flying angels and flips together, and making play dough. He's great because he never puts stuff in his mouth. He never does projects like these so it's been great fun. He's loved it. One activity he was too young for was the visit to the library where he jumped on the couch, ran into walls of book shelves, and hated, hated waiting in line 15 minutes to check out the 10 truck books I got. He loves the books however. He'll learn. Today I explored Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina shops trying to buy netting to cover the crib because my large 18 month grandson (looks like a 3 year old) is climbing out of his crib. These nets seem to be common for many parents these days on the standard crib. Why don't I remember using anything to keep my children in their crib through the night? Did we not need them because there were no real "safety standards" on the cribs then? Can anyone enlighten me on this minor problem. Ultimately there were no nets in any of the stores. It's evidently an online item only. We took the crib turned it around so the higher side that had been against the wall is in front and we shoved it into a corner for the back and side wall. I used a child door safety gate between the wall and a part of the crib for the fourth wall. Interesting. So that's what I explored and learned today. Problem solved until the net comes. Also as I took my grandson for a walk Bartlett Tree workers warned me of a bee hive that had been sawed down during their work and was now on the ground. They couldn't touch it because it was their understanding that bees are protected from being destroyed right now. Any insight on that issue? Explore, teach, Explore, learn, teach.

Today is the first day of my post, but everyone must have the first fateful jump-off-and-do-it day. My 15 year old dog, Elizabeth is curled up by my side. I have a year to follow my quest. My mission is to write about a year in the life of a teacher explorer who looks at all kinds of places of teaching and learning, from the great outdoors to libraries to travel to other school settings. My travels will take me to my own public elementary school in Portsmouth. NH to a Boston Public Middle School (Bill Gates school), a Quaker School in Princeton, NJ, an MBA program at the Flagler school at U. of North Carolina, a garden learning center, a preschool nature's classroom school. You'll see it all this year right here ... coming soon. At Plymouth State College in New Hampshire I am taking a course to get up to speed with technology. Pictures are the key and pretty soon I'll get some good ones up to brighten this forlorn looking blog. I really want the web site that can be run and designed each day ... in its time. Monday I am going to Princeton Friends School in Princeton, NJ www.princetonfriendsschool.org (K-8) where I taught some time ago (c.1993) when the school was only 3 years old with 21 students. It now has a new building and is expanding with about 100 students. Friends schools are Quaker, like the one the Obama girls go to in DC. The first day I walked into the school it was obvious the school would do well with the kind of deep thinking and active curriculum they were doing. This place is special, truly remarkable because of what they do: imaginative fun curriculum that is centralized around a year lon theme , how they teach: intensely, intelligently, actively, and what they expect: homework, memorization, acting, thoughtful math problem of the week, and family involvement academically. Some of the highlights of the school are its central study theme that is carried through the year. One year they had rivers and streams, another was bridges and walls. Pictures are necessary and I will get them on Monday. The director of the school is Jane Fremon who began the school with an idea after graduating in the first coed class from Princeton University. I'll keep you posted. Deb