After many years of vacillating between websites — there was the first blog, called How Do You Live a Healthy Life?, and then a brief time with my name as the URL, and then on to Teach Run Eat, which had the longest stint — I’ve finally decided to go back to using my name.
I have a love/hate relationship with blogging. Sometimes I’m inspired to write, and I still enjoy writing about resources and ideas that motivate me. But I’ve lost the desire to sit in front of my computer and type out weekly posts. The internet is already saturated with health and wellness bloggers, and there are a good number of early childhood teacher blogs out there too.
Thus, I’ve decided to stop contributing to the blog noise, and instead make this site more of a resource hub. My biggest passion is teaching for joy and wonder – whether that be through science, nature and environmental education, play and inquiry, mindfulness, or teaching for social justice. So that’s where I will keep this website focused. In my few short years of teaching I’ve gathered a lot of resources on these topics, and wanted to have them all in one place. So here goes!
Some resources I’ve added so far:
Children’s Literature: Brief reviews of children’s books related to joy and wonder.
Invitations to Create: A description of this fun and easy way to bring more inquiry into the classroom, as well as ideas for getting started.
Online Resources: A list of links on inquiry, science and nature-based learning. I plan to add more on mindfulness, play, and social justice soon too!
Professional Resources: A menu of all the teacher books that I’ve read and been inspired by.
Wonder in the Classroom: A list of my 50 Ways to Wonder posts, each of which provide one simple idea for bringing wonder and joy into the classroom.
And there’s more to come! I’m slowly getting the hang of using Square Space, and have lots of ideas for what to add. Thanks for those of you that have been faithful readers all along. Here’s to teaching for joy and wonder. My favorite quote from Rachel Carson says it all:
