School | Fish Prints

Recently in art, my kids were studying the art of gyotaku, or fish painting, which originated in Japan. Originally a way for fishermen to record the measurements of their catches, it is now a treasured art form. In simple terms, paint is applied directly to fish scales and then placed on rice paper to record fine details. My students replicated this in art class by creating underwater scenes and then copying their fish into it. I was invited along to document the process!

Paraty | Brazil

Before moving to Brazil, I found a blog called tourist2townie, on which Gareth Leonard documents his travels around South America, primarily within Brazil. Once I saw his brief glimpse of Paraty, I knew I had to go there! With a long weekend for Easter, Felipe and I loaded up the little red Fox and headed up the coast.

I would highly recommend finding a local Airbnb and staying just outside of the historical area and meandering your way around the cobblestone streets. I was most excited about stumbling upon Shambhala Asian Day Spa and had what was the most authentic Indonesian massage outside of Indonesia I've tried yet! We only had two days in which we decided to just explore the city but next time, we're on for a boat trip!

How To Get the Attention of a Room Full of Children

Moving into our science unit that examines the qualities of living and non-living creatures, I searched the internet for ways to make this more exciting for my kids. I found a great lesson on living vs. non-living over at First Grade Wow and was so excited to try it out with my class!

Here in Brazil, you sometimes have to go about procuring materials in creative ways to make all of these fancy Pinterest lessons a reality so when I decided that we were going to examine characteristics of gummy worms vs. earth worms I was relieved that our gardeners volunteered to find us some creepy crawlies. The kids had a blast searching for the worms and examining their sugary cousins. To top off our discovery day, we enjoyed one of my favorite childhood snacks, dirt and worms.