Taking the Common Core standards outside.
Visit Sacramento for the public art. Visit for the State Capitol and the history. Stick around for the Farm to Fork restaurants and the public art. Sacramento venues are beginning to slowly open to the public under strict COVID-19 regulations, but public art is always available from the safety of a car or on a socially-distanced […]
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Just outside Missoula, Montana the legendary smokejumpers train to parachute into fires burning in some of the nation’s most remote areas, from Alaska to New Mexico. Visitors are welcome to tour the facility from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The U.S. Forest Service operates the Missoula Smokejumper Base, home to a unit of about 80 […]
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When this whole Coronavirus thing was just getting started our schools closed early. I had to run to the pharmacy where I encountered a bit of foreshadowing on how this quarantine business was going to play out. A family stood in the checkout line, kids clutching drug store toys. Everyone had dyed his or her […]
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This past weekend, my daughter and I emerged from quarantine to take our daily hike, this time to the neighborhood market two miles away to buy ingredients we couldn’t find at our regular grocery store: rice and white flour. On the walk home, my daughter recalled a victory garden/wartime rationing display we saw last summer. […]
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This past Monday I heard about another teacher whose band played in downtown Sacramento over the weekend. Then our school psychologist mentioned he was heading out to sign books (his own) at a pop-up bookstore one of our school counselors had created with his wife. Me? I was sleepily plodding through my Monday after staying […]
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As temperatures warm up, your thoughts might turn to gardening. One of the Sacramento region’s most interesting places to pick up gardening tips is the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery, which also dabbles in local history. The cemetery was established in 1849 and provides a resting place for many of California’s early pioneers and historical figures. […]
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The news has offered my intervention English classes some high interest writing topics these past few days. On a somber note, we wrote an informational text about Kobe Bryant’s death. Even the most disengaged student came up with details for the background sentences that follow their thesis statements. On the lighter side, we tackled argumentative, […]
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A couple of days before Christmas we took my mom to see the “Muppet Christmas Carol” playing at the Crest Theater in Sacramento. On the way back to the car we happened on a bookstore that became a family favorite within minutes. Capital Books, 1110 K St., is the kind of place a reader could […]
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