Back To School Issue 2018
Inside Cool Classrooms; Packing Lunch, Bento-Style; Camper Playhouse; Youth Football: Tackle Vs. Flag
Habitat: Camper-Style Playhouse
Catherine Drake and Rich Levine were itching for a project last mud season. The Stowe couple spend a lot of time with their two granddaughters…
Fun for All
In 2010, Julia Wayne was working as an early childhood special educator for the Burlington School District when she realized there was no local playground…
Ultimate Competition
Last fall, Vermont made history — and got a shout-out on “Saturday Night Live” — when it became the first state to sanction ultimate frisbee…
Onigiri: Japanese Rice Balls
I’ve been packing school lunches for 10 years, since my daughter started kindergarten. Early on, I found an online community of bloggers who wrote about…
Dream On: Make-a-Wish Kid’s Book Tells Her Tale of Healing
Name: Jamie Heath Age: 17 Town: Barre Three years ago, Jamie Heath swam with sea turtles in Hawaii, a dream come true thanks to Make-A-Wish…
Parent Portrait: James, Eli & Oliver
Every morning for years you’ve drawn your cartoon character, Johnny Boo, in your kids’ elementary school classrooms when you drop them off at school. When…
Ready, Set, Kindergarten: Why I Dropped my Fight for Early Enrollment
My first child, Luna, who turns 6 this October, was still a baby when friends and family started asking the question: What are you going…
Inspiring Minds
In middle school, I had an art teacher named Pecky Kaupelis. Her classroom was as unconventional as her name. To enter it, kids had to…
The Art of… Foraging for Art Supplies
After years of feeling pulled between two passions: making art and studying, teaching and practicing Stone Age technology, Nick Neddo asked himself two questions. “If…
How Do I Help My Kid Deal With Back-to-School Anxiety?
During the summer between sixth and seventh grade, a rumor spread that another kid was going to beat me up on the first day of…
Spectacular Spaces: Learning Environments That Please the Eye and Stimulate the Mind
For nine months of the year, kids spend about seven hours a day at school — a considerable chunk of time. It makes sense that…
Being a Good Citizen: In Their Own Words, Challenge Participants Explain What the Term Means to Them
What does it mean to be a good citizen? That’s one of the questions in the Good Citizen Challenge, a civics project in which Vermont…
Exploring Old-Growth Forests
When my son, Jesse, was born 10 years ago, the one thing I knew for sure was that I would bring him to the library…
Standing Up, Speaking Out
In 2010, while Ann Braden was camped out on the couch with her preemie son, she read Louise Erdrich’s memoir of early motherhood, The Blue…
Heads in the Game: Will a Switch From Tackle to Flag Save Youth Football in Vermont?
On a humid August evening, around two dozen boys and two girls ages 6 to 14 assembled on a field at Bayside Park in Colchester…
