clair055

There’s a little restaurant not too far from my home that we frequent for the great steaks and great service.    I usually order an adult beverage before dinner….a little something served up in a martini glass called a Cosmic Grape.   The drink reminds me of a frozen Fanta Grape soda…..not as sweet as a Fanta, but similar.   The last time we were there I ordered my Cosmic Grape and then wondered aloud what might be in the drink so we could recreate it at home.   I assumed it contained one of the new flavored vodkas….seems like every flavor under the sun is offered up these days. I picked up my hand-dandy smart phone and went online to look up the recipe.   I entered the words “cosmic grape” in the search box. Guess what I found? Yes, I found recipes that seemed like they could be my beloved Cosmic Grape, but I found something much more interesting. My recipe quest was soon forgotten because I found a bit of history involving grade soda a...

Happy President's Day!!! When I was younger we didn’t have a day to celebrate all U.S. Presidents.  Instead we split the day in two and recognized Abraham Lincoln and George Washington since their birthdays were both in February…..so, I’m linking to two past articles.  The first involves Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.  This article originally appeared at History Is Elementary as well as American Presidents Blog in 2008.  You can view it here. This post appeared at History Is Elementary in 2007 and detailed a famous image we have of George Washington at Valley Forge.   I discuss how I used the image in the classroom and how controversy should not be avoided…but embraced to help students discover for themselves those areas that are white or black…but most of the time controversial areas are really just…. gray.

I met up with a teacher the other day that has the privilege of introducing the Civil War to her fourth graders each year.  The word “introducing” is a little misleading, however.  I live in Georgia where natives, no matter the ethnicity, are born with “The War” ingrained in our souls.   We can’t escape it, we can’t deny it – it’s always there.   Some of our earliest collective memories are filled with the statues around the town square, old family photographs; we hear the stories and see the preserved battlefields that dot our landscape. I haven’t met a fourth grade student yet who doesn’t know something about the Civil War, but the fourth school year is designated by the Georgia Social Studies curriculum to formally learn about the war in an academic setting.   My own personal experience indicates students are eager to begin the process.   A formal study helps them connect to family stories still lingering around the Sunday dinner tabl...