There are several things that I love to do and will spend time enjoying. I love teaching, traveling, and being with my family. When I can combine one or more of them, it is even more enjoyable. I am teaching two classes of college students this semester, but I truly enjoy teaching Jack and Owen. They are both driven to learn. They have learned art history, geology, and space exploration. Jack started the classes when he was three years old. He wanted to know what I was doing on my laptop. I told him that I was teaching art history. What he was looking at was a painting. That hooked him. Two year later, he knows dozens of paintings and the painters who painted them. Owen is now beginning the process of identifying paintings.

When Jack was at my place on a lake a year ago, we were throwing rocks into the lake. Then he asked, "What's this Papa?" He discovered some small-fossilized seashells embedded in a rock. Thus began the geology class.

Trilobites fascinate Jack. Owen's favorite fossil is dinosaur coprolite, which is dinosaur poop as he calls it. However, one of the problems with dealing with fossils is what the actual fossil would look like today. Therefore, they now have a chart of many of their larger fossils categorized, numbered, location of the place found, the fossil's age, and a picture of what the fossil looks like today. This is their first fossil worksheet.

Fossils—then and now

1. Ammonite from Madagascar around 395 myo., which is like the chambered nautilus.

2. Orthoceras from Sahara Desert around 350 myo, which is also related to the chambered nautilus.

3. Fossils of seashells found by Jack in 2014 from the lake many millions of years old.

4. Dinosaur Coprolite from Utah around 140 myo.

5. Sea urchin (sand dollar) from Madagascar around 160 myo.

6. Fish from Wyoming around 50 myo.

7. Shark tooth from Morocco around 60 myo.

8. Trilobite from Morocco around 395 myo.

9. Walrus tooth from Alaska about 3-8,000 years old

10. Horn coral from Utah about 325 myo.

Owen will discuss any of the fossils but loves holding his dinosaur poop.

Jack learned about the chambered nautilus from the fossil and photo of a present-day chambered nautilus. He then colored his own chambered nautilus drawing as well as hearing a part of Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem, The Chambered Nautilus.

On a recent trip to Indy, their mother took the boys to the Children's Museum in Indy.

Children's Museum

Children's Museum

Jack and Owen went to the museum's special featuring the Ninja Turtles, then off to the dinosaurs where they spent time unearthing a dinosaur.

10/23/15