After a few hours of shopping and errands, the beautiful temperatures and mild breeze beckoned us to stop off at a local park. My husband followed my 5-year-old daughter, who raced for the playground. I headed for a trail, along with my 3-month-old son and a jogging-style stroller. (Side note- I’m not actually planning to jog with this, because jogging is more of a torture for me, and I avoid it if at all possible. The “jogging” stroller is much easier to push and walk behind when you are above-average in height-- no more hunching-over-to-reach and kicking-the-contraption-with-every-step moves.)

As I was saying, I was off to the trails with my newest side-kick and a really great stroller for an afternoon of new insights…

1. Little League practice is pretty chaotic. I don’t know that any of the young boys actually made contact between a ball and bat or even caught a ball, but they had a great time chasing after the balls and cheering for each other. ...

Remember when microscopes were pulled out of the vault once or twice a year, reverently removed from their screw-mount wooden cases, and carefully set up using a level and probably a T-square? We viewed them with a sense of wonder and talked about them in hushed tones, despite the fact that we couldn't see ANYTHING half of the time, much less what the teacher was expecting.

When I began my teaching career, I was honored to carry on the tradition of the awe of the microscope, hoping I could handle this great responsibility; I'm also happy to say it's currently NOT happening in my classroom!

When I moved into this lab, I immediately set up two microscopes on a side counter. Only a couple of the microscopes had their protective paper removed from the lenses, and I wanted to justify the time I spent peeling it off and preparing them all. I placed items related to our studies in baskets and trays, and allowed students to head over after their assignments...