Heading to Denver in December!

Hi Guys! This month I'm heading to Denver, Colorado for the National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference! Wow, that was a mouthful! I will be traveling with 22 people from the Pingry School and we will be very busy!

Remember, there is a time difference from NJ to Denver, so my blogging will be a little off for you. But, I promise to check in and let you know what is going on! I'll post pictures of the events and the teachers having fun and learning lots of new things!

Be sure to answer the poll to see if you can guess my roommate! I'll post the answer on the blog soon... keep checking!Love, Ms. SW

Busy, busy weekend!

Hi Everyone! I am sorry that I have not had 5 seconds to blog yet! There has been so much going on! I am not having breakfast this morning so I can send you a little message before I go back to my workshop at the Botanical Gardens!

I had a great visit to the Westminster School in Atlanta on Friday. I visited 2 first grade classes and watched a reading lesson and a yummy, yummy math lesson on number sentences! The kids made dominoes out of graham crackers, icing and chocolate chips! They had a good time, even though they had very sticky fingers! Friday afternoon, I drove about 65 miles to Athens, Ga, home of the University of Georgia! There are LOTS and LOTS of GA. Bulldog flags, stickers and car decals everywhere! People have their whole cars decorated with Bulldog paraphernalia! College football is a big deal in this state!

My class on sustainability is at The State Botanical Gardens of GA. It's a beautiful place, much like Calloway Gardens, which I visited in September. My class is in the beautiful new education wing of the Visitor's Center and I am learning all kinds of hands on thing about plants and gardening. We had lunch in the Garden Cafe and everything in there is compostable. Even our plastic cups and straws were made of of corn and we put them in the compost that we made. There was no garbage can anywhere, because everything went into a recycling bin or composting bin. We took our plates, cups, napkins, straws and I took my pickle, and put it in the big mulch bed we made. I spent about 5 hours outside in the warm weather (77 degrees!) digging, raking, shoveling, spreading and planting. It was VERY hard work, but really, really fun! In the 4:00 session, I learned all about worms, slugs, beatles, and grubs and how they are important to the decomposition in composting. We played with all kinds of bugs for about 3 hours! I was dirty, sweaty and very tired by the time the class was over for the day! But, I am learning a lot and having a terrific time with lots of other gardeners, farmers, teachers and people in this community. Today we are going to a landfill, a farm to learn about animals and how they all play an important part in our learning about creating a sustainable environment. I will post more pictures when I get back! Time for me to head to class! More later today...