Yesterday I was with a friend who has his own renovation company.  In addition to doing amazing house renovations, he has shared his talent with the kids at our church. He has patiently taught them to use tools that some consider only the realm of adults, like hammers, saws and power drills.  He has worked [...]

You never know what you will discover from a vacation at the lake. We were outside at our traditional evening campfire when we saw what looked like a UFO going up over the lake.  It turned out to be some kind of small hot air balloon made by people down the beach.  We watched it [...]

The hot summer weather has made me think about activities that might be fun for kids relating to temperature and heat.  How about making a thermometer or figuring out whether you can really fry an egg on the sidewalk?  Haven’t you always wanted to try that?  And don’t you love the web for actually helping [...]

This Mandarin Chinese version of We’re All in this Together from High School Musical should inspire all language teachers.

How about this dance of the parallel lines or this teacher singing the Soh Cah Toa trigonometry song.  I love the students’ obvious enjoyment and the teachers’ willingness to be a little crazy.

One of my all-time favorite projects is the earthquake cake from the Special Effects Cookbook.  Basically you bake a large cake and cut it in half.  You attach a balloon to the end of plastic tubing.  The nozzle of an aerosol whipped cream can must fit into the other end of the tubing.  You put [...]

A scavenger hunt is a good cooperative activity.  Plus you can adapt scavenger hunts to different subjects.  These picture scavenger hunts reinforce letter recognition and basic vocabulary.  There are nature hunts for science class and holiday hunts for special activities.  Once you take a look at these scavenger hunts, you will see how you can [...]

Do you need some ideas for your next birthday cake?  Take a look at these unique cake designs.

When I saw the book  101 Relaxation Games for Children by Allison Bartl, I thought it might be a book about meditation or yoga for children.  Instead it is a book full of short activities that can be used for many reasons – to calm a class, to wake up a class, to teach friendship [...]

When I started teaching Spanish, my budget for props was essentially nonexistent so I learned to be very creative with what I found around the house.  I had the extra challenge of having no classroom.  Looking around in the basement one day, I found a wonderful thing – a bag of pom poms of various [...]