Hey-o Black Swallowtail caterpillar on the Golden Alexander I planted three summers ago

I asked my 7th grade students to make “Adopt-a-protist” posters to advertise protist pets for a tadpole named Cricket who is in the market for a new friend. They were SO GOOD. Hearing kiddos campaign so hard for Paul the paramecia and Matteo the amoeba is GOLD @sarahmackattack.bsky.social

*Psssst* you can turn off autoplay of videos on Bluesky. Then you don’t have to see a horrible thing over and over.

Doooo doot doot doot doooooo North Carolina doesn’t have a budget for the next two fiscal years, which means not having plans to increase funding for teachers and schools whole cost-of-living skyrockets and federal funding is cut Dooo deee dooodleedooo

It’s FAT BEAR WEEEK!!!!!!!!

“Today was super chill [at daycare]! ……..shoot almost forgot!” *hands me a bite report because my kid bit someone* “Chill for him. This wasn’t a bad one.”

Also. This was the guy who dated her older sister. This was the sweet, handsome neighborhood boy who was always over at their house. He LOVED my great aunt. My grandma absolutely loved Dick Bloch and mused that she wished he’d been her brother in law.

Sometimes I think about how one of the senior Kennedys (I think RFK Sr) would skip lecture at Harvard and try to cheat off of my grandma’s childhood best friend, asking for her lecture notes. Her friend was the valedictorian at Franklin High in Rochester, NY. She went to Radcliffe.

NooooOOooOOOOOoooooOOOOOooo I don’t want to buy a new vacuum

Ooooooooh look at this!!! Solar powered picnic table work area. Could we get some solar panels on our outdoor classroom and power up some wifi and projectors??

I am SO GLAD my baby is past the 0-15 month vaccine schedule. I’m so pissed on behalf of every other baby and family and my own.

A kid brought a crawfish pot to school today and tossed it into the retention pond for science class. Do not underestimate the power of an outdoor classroom!!!

This photo does not do justice to the scale of this absolute UNIT of a giant water bug. This is a full size long picnic spoon.

Today was our first pond day of the year. A 7th grader dropped a tadpole into the same bucket as a huge (>5 cm!!) mature giant water bug today in class. Want to guess how that turned out? It took less than 10 seconds

Sometimes you end up at Pizzeria Toro in Durham for lunch with your toddler and husband while your big kid is at a new friend’s house and for, just a minute, everything is just right. Would have liked big kid there too but new friendship is precious.

Oh good. Thanks for that phone alert in Central NC. For a guy who took off on foot after hurting a police officer in GEORGIA. I have now turned off all alerts

This little goldfinch fledgling spooked into our yard after a Cooper’s Hawk attacked its family in a tree nearby. I put it in a sheltered spot with ample cover and access to ground forage and a dish of water. Its siblings were in the tree calling. Low hopes for success but maybe a fox got a meal.

What a Honkin’ big bug!!!! A sphinx caterpillar of a sort on beautyberry. Those irregular black spots looking ominous. #BugSky #Entomology #Caterpillar #Moth

By the way we did our lockdown drill today. We don’t even remotely mention shooters or guns. It’s quick. It’s awful every time I’m sitting around in a room of 14 year olds forcing them to be quiet sitting along a wall. TodayI I regret that I wasn’t the one closest to the door.

This morning, at breakfast, someone said “When are heads going to start to roll?” Oof

When you devote your life to the message that empathy is evil and gun deaths are an acceptable price to pay for gun rights, you shape the world with your words. Maybe Charlie Kirk didn’t expect to be a victim of his own worldbuilding, but his death is consistent with the world he helped create.

Hometown pride

I *know* I unplugged the extension cord/surge protector that a kid shoved tweezers into today. Still gonna be paranoid that the building is going to burn down all might. grumble

Get thee a Bubble Guy neighbor who makes huge bubbles for the kids while blasting Bach cello suites

I’m reading the newest book in a series. I really enjoy the series. The book has rave reviews. I can barely tolerate its exposition style and I do not know what book these folks are reading. The exposition is all “What happened?” “i’m telling you what happened.” “Ah, now I remember X happening.”

#WaldenGrayScienceClass this is great!

Someone at a state sponsored training is instructing us how to use chatGPT to generate test questions. This is so dumb. There’s easily over 200 years of teaching experience in the room and we’re doing this.

My hairdresser’s salon sent an email today saying “New better more transparent pricing! The future of hair pricing!” It’s hourly. She’s charging $160/hour. No tips though!! This is how I started looking for a new hair salon after 10 years. Much bummed.

My husband’s job is 10x more compatible with family life than my teaching job and pays more and I hate it thanks. Making sub plans, even very efficiently at this stage int the game, just cut into the time to get my daughter to her band practice and eff that noise.

Pro - letting middle schoolers pick the experimental growing conditions for a kidney bean increases their engagement in science class Con - one group picked raw egg It smells like you might expect 🤢 #EduSky #ITeachScience

#WaldenGrayScienceClass teaching resources!

Present company excluded but I wish more people realized that good teachers are the product of *years* of training and education and professional development and mentorship and practice, not magicians who go into the classroom and just wing it on Charisma.

#WaldenGrayScienceClass 8th grade

Drew Ensign deserves all the evils being thrown at him for all of eternity

#waldengrayscienceclass physics

Have you been texting with your kid’s friend’s dad (who is also your colleague) since 7:45 this morning to coordinate a multifamily museum of life and science trip to max out your membership entries? No? Are you jealous?

Just FYI we have reached the point where educators do not even acknowledge a school shooting to teach other or their students. Meanwhile there’s a lockdown drill scheduled soon and we just do that.

It’s Monarch migration time in NC! I planted these joe pye weed last year for exactly this reason! It’s a teeny tiny patch with huge value. #NativePlants #Gardening #Monarch #Butterfly

I, yet again, encourage folks to join education. Not feeling bad for folks not being offered $100k jobs straight out undergrad doing mostly nothing for society.

Aaaaaah!!!! #WaldenGrayScienceClass

Getting completely off instagram and tiktok has really shown me how much the other middle age people in my life are at the whims of online trends. Right now it’s the protein and the (frankly very shitty) Dubai chocolate bar. It’s not good. Any Japanese kitkat is far superior.

It’s very complicated to parent a tween and a toddler and teach teens and also be reading the dismantling of the government in real time. So I’m off to eat fresh baked chocolate chip cookies I guess.

My daughter, 18 at months “yellow! Mama hold! Eat broccoli! Clean owl. Isabelle drink!” My son at 18 months “OOOoOOooooOHH! Whoa! Babadyyyyyyyy!!!!!” then he almost dies throwing himself backwards off the couch into the coffee table

Whaaaaaaaaat

I do not understand spending hours every weekend cleaning the same car over and over. Weeding bermuda grass out of the same garden? Yes.

Does anyone have access to The Canadian Entomologist? I'm looking for Mank EW (1939b) Scotochroa and a closely allied new genus Scotochroides, (Coleoptera, Melandryidae). The Canadian Entomologist 71: 181–183. I have a Scotochroa from an unexpected location I want to know more about.

It’s a trap!!!!!!

#WaldenGrayScuenceClass illusions

Today I cleaned up a sweet balance bike for my toddler and gave him a doll stroller. My neighbors played with him. I got to brush my tween’s hair and read Anne McCaffrey with her. I got to facetime with lots of family. I didn’t get in a car. My husband made a delicious dinner. A good day.