Tag: alf

  • Chuck comes to school!

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    Today I had the delight of bringing two wonderful friends to school, not-so-secretly hoping that they would fall in love and want to awaken their potential ALFs. Vincent and Chuck both live in Rhode Island now, working to build and run summer programs on a tall ship, but I met them first in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.…

  • Body Worlds!!!

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    Thanks to curiosity of students, generosity of parents, and agility of facilitators, I had the opportunity to support a really interesting field trip this week. @RyanShollenberger , @douglasawesome , @likeaboss , @kingthanos , @FailSpy, Elijah, and I went to the Body Worlds exhibit at Discovery Times Square. It was so exciting to get to go…

  • The week it got cold.

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    Recipe for (mostly) quiet productivity (of the most joyful kind): Ingredients 2 visiting students 1 guest observer @Ninablanco and @Tomis back from travels Geva, with many offerings 🙂 Foam puzzle-piece mats for forts A culture committee meeting A field trip to Body Worlds An arduino + Nintendo controller project Splatter paint project New woodshop projects…

  • Scribbles for Grammar

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    Douglas has been playing this game called Scribblenauts that I’m really enjoying. His character gets missions to do minor helpful things for people he encounters and larger heroic things for super-heroes who summon him. To play, Douglas types in nouns to conjure different items he wants. He can also click on objects and characters to…

  • Ink on my hands

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    I started a new project this week. Writing every day for November reminded me how much I love creative work (the invisible kind I do at school, but also the kinds with more concrete outcomes), so over the weekend I bought a sketchbook. It’s my first sketchbook since high school, and I’m nervous each time…

  • Why I’m cool with day-long Doctor Who marathons…

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    Yesterday, Adin came in and offered to host a 5-hour Doctor Who marathon. The projector glow mingled with the hum of recorded voices, and the resulting spell pulled passers-by through the door to the Red Room. Some kids powered through the whole marathon while others dropped in and out as they pleased. I was invited…

  • Tools and Practices: Set-the-Week in ALCNY

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    Every Monday we have a meeting called Set-The-Week (STW for short) where we schedule our classes, events, and trips for the week. During the meeting, we record these “offerings” on a whiteboard with columns for each weekday. After the meeting, the offerings get posted on a daily schedule board in the lobby, on individual kanbans…

  • Muse Field Trip (from earlier in October)

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    In one of my many past lives, I spent most of my time near, on, or thinking about how to be better at being on horses. My teacher and mentor once suggested taking gymnastics classes to improve my balance. What she actually said was, “It will teach you to fall safely, and that’s important since…

  • Week of discoveries and re-discoveries

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    Monday didn’t really feel like a Monday, since we rolled into it after having ALF-ed through the weekend upstate. I love getting to play with wonderful adults and hang in beautiful Chatham, but there’s always a point where I become impatient to come back to the kids. We filled the weekly schedule board! We cheered…