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Nothing makes you more blue than a clogged up useless glue (bottle). We've all felt the frustration and disgust when glue bottles don't work right. But have we considered how this makes THEM feel? This original musical Fugleflick by Dryden 5th graders may change the way glue bottles are used everywhere!

5th Graders give advice on using glue

When I was a kid, one of my prize possessions was a big, red Swiss Army knife. It had everything from a plastic toothpick and a spoon to a bottle opener and screwdriver. I used it for all kinds of projects, and I always had it with me just in case someone needed to pry something open or tighten something down. Today I carry a more modern multipurpose tool-the smartphone.

In a couple of weeks, both Tess and Tucker will be starting their first day at brand new schools. They'll know no one, have all new teachers, new surroundings, and, hopefully, new opportunities. I'm not sure they're totally at peace with these changes, but as I keep telling them, it's the kind of stuff that builds character. (I keep regaling them with school switching stories of my own, the most challenging being when my mom moved us out to New Jersey from Chicago when I was beginning 6th grade and three days before school started I was wading barefoot in a creek, stepped on a broken bottle, and ended up with 10 stitches in the bottom of my foot and a pair of crutches for the first week of classes. Talk about character building.) Wendy and I have been trying to prepare them for this shift as best we can, and while I know it's a bit scary for them, I'm really hopeful the change will be good for them on a lot of different levels.

"The Education Secretary has today urged all schools to eliminate their use of single use plastics by 2022. Damian Hinds has called on senior leaders in schools to stop using items such as plastic bags, straws, bottles and food packaging in favour of sustainable alternatives, and invited them to start a conversation with pupils about the effects discarded plastics have on the environment and wildlife."

"Many of us will have fond memories of children's TV engaging us to turn our used bottles into rockets, our wooden spoons into cartoon character puppets, and attaching googly eyes to anything which keeps still for more than 3 seconds! Schools are great at turning recycling into creativity, and design is at the heart of this. Later, the skills pupils learn turning pasta into planes and tins into trains fuel are the beginning of making the engineers and artisans of the future."

Excellent article on 5 breeds for kids - the Obamas have 2!