Our resident author, Geoff Beauchamp, writes blog posts exemplifying the talent of his co-workers and the importance of the school assembly programs they present. The humble Mr. Beauchamp never writes to exemplify his talent. This blog post will do what has never been done before, praise Geoff for his dedication, hard work and inspiring performance as Abraham Lincoln.

So Thanksgiving is over and that only means one thing here in Michigan and Ohio and the rest of the Midwest. Winter is coming and it’s right around the corner! 

Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and many of us will have severely expanded waistlines on Friday! I want to wish all of you a happy and joyous day, hopefully spent in celebration with family and loved ones.

How do you know which programs and how many presentations to do for your school? This is a question which comes up with any Elementary school or Middle School looking for ideas for school assemblies. Well, as famous detective Sherlock Holmes used to say: “Elementary, my dear Watson!, Elementary!”

So I was watching a commercial recently, and they had a Polar Bear walking slowly from somewhere out in the snow.
He came all the way into the suburbs of some city to give a hug to some guy who drives an electric car. It was cute. But I got to thinking... does an electric car really help the environment? Or does the manufacturing of the car create enough pollution
to offset the gains from not burning gas? Or does it make any difference at all? I am no expert so I really don't know the answers to these questions, but I know someone who can give me some really good information on the subject!

I sit tonight watching the beginning of Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. The New York Yankees are tied one game apiece with the Texas Rangers, and tonight’s game is in Yankee Stadium.
The place is packed and the excitement is so thick you can cut it with a knife (well, almost!). It is so easy for all of us to be excited and motivated by the competition of sports.

It is Fall and a lot of schools are looking for things to do with the kids to break up the daily grind of classroom work and augment the educational process through a field trip. And there is nothing wrong with field trips! We all love taking trips to cool destinations. Trips to a Planetarium or the Zoo or a historical site all contribute mightily to a students education and can spark the imagination in countless ways.

A new book caught my eye this week, or rather my ears, as I first heard about this new tome while listening to a radio interview with the author, Eric Foner. You would think that with the vast plethora of books available about Lincoln that we would scarcely need another ( there are more books about Lincoln than almost any other person who ever lived!). But in this case, the author has provided something very useful by examining the course of Lincoln’s thinking about slavery and about African Americans in general, and how that thinking changed over time. I highly recommend “Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World” by Eric Foner. Here is a great review - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/books/review/Reynolds-t.html