Public Menorah lightings

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all! On Sunday night (the first night of Hanukkah) I went to the public lighting of the world’s largest menorah. It was a 32 foot, 4000 pound steel candelabra with gas lamps in a windproof casing. It was designed by Israeli artist Yaakov Agam, inspired by the original menorah [...]

Thanksgiving in Virginia

The other great colonial communities (other than the one in Plymouth, that is), was in Virginia. Jamestown and Yorktown were two of the first settlements in the New Country, established as early as 1607. For an authentic Thanksgiving experience, head out to these famous landmarks in Virginia. (Quiz your kids—they should definitely be able to [...]

Happy Thanksgiving Month!

In my classroom, November is Turkey Month. Why celebrate a fun and meaningful holiday for only one day when you can celebrate all month long? Besides spending a lot of time focusing on what we are thankful for, collecting charity for those less fortunate than we are, and learning about (and cooking) traditional American and [...]

Malls in the Atlanta area

I usually get all my back to school shopping done with well before school actually starts. And I THOUGHT I had done so this year as well, but apparently, as the kids tell me, especially my oldest, I did it all wrong. School supplies are a bit off, shoes are “so last year” and clothes [...]

Asthma Capitals of the U.S.

My 4 year old son has mild asthma and I was looking something up on WebMD when I came across this article about the worst asthma cities in the country. The article takes into account various different factors, including asthma prevalence, poverty levels, asthma death rates, air quality, and pollen scores. This report was [...]

Boston for the Boys: Good father-son museums

Just to continue the Boston conversation that Sharon has started…
I think of these things as “guy things” but that could just be because I’ve been to Boston a number of times to visit my father who always insists on taking me to one of these museums (among many others):

MIT Museum
Larz Anderson Auto Museum
Peabody Museum of [...]

Summer exhibits at New York City museums

The best part about being a teacher is the vacation time. And since my wife and I both teach, summer vacation is the time to really relax, spend quality time together, travel, and do all the things in New York City that we’re always meaning to do during the year but don’t get around to…mainly, [...]

Frequent flyers beware of email scam

My husband just forwarded me this link from a frequent flyer travel blog he follows. He suggested I post it to spread the word: There’s an AAdvantage spam email that’s going around tricking people into submitting their frequent flyer numbers and pins.
The email’s subject line was “AAdvantage Survey Program” and reads as follows:
Greetings from AA.com
Welcome [...]

Juneteenth – Happy Freedom Day!

I’ve been teaching this whole year based on the theme “Time and Place”, so I seem to live from holiday to holiday. Recently it’s been Earth Day to Cinco De Mayo to Memorial Day, and now Juneteenth. Even though we celebrated Black History Month in February and talking about the history of African Americans then, [...]

Summer is here and so is Reggae

Ziggy Marley was just in LA visiting different public schools while supporting National Music in our Schools Month. Little Kids Rock organizes this program that brings acclaimed musical artists into the lives of children who’s only other exposure to music is the crap they hear on the radio. Ziggy Marley stuck around the LA area [...]