Good Times in Toluca Lake

Hands-on fun with The Puzzle of Life at Toluca Lake Elementary.A couple weeks ago, we brought The Puzzle of Life to two elementary school classrooms at Toluca Lake Elementary.

The Puzzle was a big hit with the 5th grade class of Dennis Hagen-Smith. After a brief intro, the kids worked together to solve the puzzle. You can see one group at work in the photo to the right. Once they got the hang of things, we gave them some blank pieces so that they could make their own pieces for the Puzzle.

Last week, we received a set of wondrously excited and encouraging thank-you’s from both the teacher and the class. Among other things, Dennis said that our visit was, “one of the finest educational presentations I’ve seen in my 25 years of teaching.” That’s a huge complement, coming as it does from a highly capable and inspiring teacher. We’ve posted some excerpts from the letters on the new Puzzle of Life testimonial page, here.

With funding being a constant challenge, it’s easy to get discouraged, but the times spent working with curious and excited kids (and adults) makes it all worthwhile.