The Garden School Tattler

I don't know if any of the children told you, but we had an evacuation yesterday. Miss Molly smelled gas and called the gas company and they told us to evacuate the building. We quickly bundled the children into their coats and took them across the street. The fire truck came whirling down the road to the children's delight and they checked the place out. It seems that someone put a little too much gas smell in the lines a station up from us and caused that awful gas smell outside OUR building and the buildings around us. We were very grateful it was a nothing deal. I'm glad Molly was on her toes.

We practiced the play a little yesterday to get a feel for who will play who. It was really cute.

We tried soybeans yesterday. Some of the kids really liked them. They are a cross between peas and lima beans.

We are sending a letter home today about our summer program. Please give us feedback. It's important to us to know what you like and don't like. And if you've spent a summer with us, please let us know which field trips your children liked best. This always helps.

We were able to play outdoors yesterday, and we will do it again today. It's a blessing for the kids to go outdoors and shake off some of the cabin fever. Our usual schedule is to let them go out before and after lunch, so they have been missing a lot of outdoor time this winter.

Thanks for all the kudos about the playroom. It's working out very well. Getting circle time out of the playroom allows us to have more play room and a quieter place for music and circle time. Trying to get the children's attention when there are so many distractions is tough. Now Miss Amy can play the piano and sing with the children which is so nice for us.

Happy Leap Year!

Independence by Judy Lyden

Independence is a key word for very young children, and adults can determine just how well a child is developing or maturing by a child's desire for independence. The whole project from crawling to the final launch into adulthood is the desire and the actuality of doing all by themselves.

The biggest snag in a child's desire for independence is the parent, and that begins early with the play pen, walkers and toys that limit a child's movement. Now agreed, there are times when a crawling infant needs to be confined, but many children are confined most of their waking hours in contrivances like swings, walkers, and infant seats that only mimic movement. Crawling, after all, is a dirty business, and keeping baby clean is the primary job of parents, right?

Crawling is crucial for discovery and for the side to side motion that will later promote reading. Parents who retard a child's active crawling are not promoting the idea of independence from the very beginning. Children are washable and so are clothes, but the loss of discovery does not equal out in the end - the loss is a loss forever.

Walking is another early childhood independence factor. Children who are carried constantly or who sit in strollers year after year are not being given the opportunity to go and see, and those missed years of discovery will take a toll on the child's personality. Infantalizing children creates monsters. "I want; go get; give me; do for me," are the cries of children who have never done it by themselves. Then suddenly, they won't want to.

Take a "do it for me" child anywhere, and the response is a constant stream of tears, constant badgering, constant work for the parent. Children will howl, scream, cry or just sulk because mom or dad is not doing it for them, not carrying them, not involved with every second of their lives, every movement, every visit to the toilet, every apple that needs to be sliced, diced, pealed with the sugar spots removed, and then begged to eat the prepared apple even holding it for the three year old to take a bite.

And then there is school. The infant child starts preschool and the world looks really really big. Mom is not there to give me a toy, to tell me I need to go to the bathroom, to fight my battles, to play for me, to make friends for me, to carry me from one thing to another. No matter how much a parent encourages at this point, the child is sure to be lost because the discovery of crawling and walking and doing what he or she can do from infancy has been done for him or her, and now, the platform that should have been created that amounts to steps down to the public pool are not there, and the child has to jump from a very very high place, and it's just a nightmare.

What are some of the signals that a child is being held back by a loving adult?

Tattling. Children who tattle are looking for an adult to solve their problems. Tattling amounts to reporting the behavior of another child to make an adult to take over and subdue the offending situation because little Mr. or Miss Dependent can't solve his or her problems. Incessant tattlers, tattlers who disrupt their parents more than a couple of times a day are showing signs of deep dependence.

Chronic tears. Children who cry all day are children who are emotionally lost. Bursting into tears for the slightest thing that's gone wrong is a terrible way to spend a day. Tears are a call to rescue, and at the preschool age, they should be saved for real hurt. When a child bursts into tears because they are told to do something or not to do something, is a sign that they can't direct themselves.

Crying without tears or tantrums. Children who are angry are children who cry without tears. Anger is going to be a big part of a child's life who is not becoming independent. He or she is angry and frustrated because he or she is not growing up and a child knows it. A child wants desperately to do it all by himself, but on one hand, he doesn't have to because mommy or daddy will do it for him. On the other hand, he doesn't think he can, so he cries.

The Spoiled Child. The spoiled child has come to believe she doesn't have to. She doesn't have to so she won't. Not me, not now, not ever because my mother or father will. The rules, after all, don't apply to me. They are for all the children around me, but I don't have to. Then, when Miss Dependence is dumped into the public arena, she crumbles because her safety zone is gone.

Most children want to be independent from their parents because that's what they are supposed to do. By the end of the first year, most children understand that they are different and separate human entities from their parents and that is a good thing. So children who are allowed, begin to explore the world on their terms. When parents interfere with this, alter it, and repress the desire to explore, a child will see the displeasure in the parent and come to believe that independence is a bad thing.

The tragedy is that well intended parents are failing at early childhood out of the best possible motives. They are controlling the outcome of their children's lives to make those lives picture perfect, but lives aren't picture perfect. We learn from our OWN failings, from falling down, from getting in trouble - not someone else's.

Let kids fall down; let them stretch; let them get dirty; let them fail once in a while; let them get in trouble without racing to their defense; let them figure out their own problems and solve them themselves because that's what they are supposed to do, and that's what they really want to do. It's called growing up.

More About Art

While reading a respectable article from a respectable publication I came across this list of dos and don'ts. I read the list nodding my head, because I had read this again and again and heard this list of guidelines for years as the "proper and only way to foster art, blah, blah, blah.ad nauseam ad infinitum.

As an educator and someone who has worked in the trenches - not just the field - but with the actual lives of children for over a quarter of a century, my smile turned up once again at the list. First you read it - then we'll talk.

The following guidelines for teachers will foster creativity in the young child.

1. Avoid patterns, ditto outlines, and coloring books. Allow children opportunities to experiment with art materials and media. Unstructured and "raw materials" allows the chance for creative expression.

2. Art allows children to develop positive views of themselves. Praise the child for working with the art supplies. Emphasize, "You can." Discourage the use of models and patterns.

3. Praise the child's work. Communicate that you value uniqueness, diversity, and difference.

4. Comment on design, shape, and color. Avoid making the child tell you "what" the picture is about. This is especially true for younger children as they may not know.

5. Show how to use the art materials provided. Avoid doing the work for them or editing their work.

6. Relate to parents that in art, the process is more important than the product.

7. Provide opportunities for children to view works of art. Take a field trip to the library or local museum. Display great art in the classroom.

My argument with any of this list is that it narrows the experience of art just like the warnings about what not to do. By discarding pre-pictured supplies like coloring books, which children love, you are actually limiting some children's desire to create. There are some children who learn to color well by using pre-pictured supplies. Then, with coloring well in hand, they can branch out to do other things and be very very pleased with the product. At the same time, unstructured raw materials can be very frustrating to children who are not lead through their use. Many children will not make the connections between a raw material and making anything at all, and art will become the hated thing to do. A comfort zone in art is important to develop because then the craft of art is allowed to elevate into "art."

Allowing a child to talk about his work is always a good thing. Asking a child about his work says, "I care about you." If a child doesn't know, you might tell him what you see. This always brings a smile and hug. When a teacher takes the time to really look at a child's work, there is a bond that stays and stays. Teaching and doing take a lot of trust, and trust is made through communication.

One of the most cherished things we do at the GS is "directed drawing." We show a child how to draw things in his or her world. The children love this. They make all kinds of things that they would have had to wait years to learn to draw, and the children love the outcome - namely the product. Children love to do, but they are human and the product is very important to them. They want to know they have achieved and that they have accomplished something they set out to do. The process is not always a delight. One of those not so delightful mediums is paper mache.

Art can't be limited by the intentions of PC themes and "age appropriate" agendas. It's a natural wonder and something that happens when it is least expected. It's a discovery that exercises the mind and the body. Instead of do this and don't do that for art how about "Just do it."

Salt - The New Villain

From Food Navigator

Comment: I thought this was really interesting. I wonder what all this stuff would taste like W/O salt? Can you imagine buying some of those ready to eat frozen dinners sans salt? Double yuck! How about saltless chips and saltless soup - that's all soup is - watered down salt. Read on McDuff!

The great salt debate - not just black and white

By Chris Jones
2/22/2008-

The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to remove salt from the list of foods it categorizes as "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), but taking salt out of food is not as easy as it might seem, ingredients firm DSM told FoodNavigator-USA.com.

The FDA has launched a public consultation on whether to remove salt's GRAS status following repeated petitions from interest groups highlighting the alleged danger of salt consumption.

The results of that consultation - and the FDA's final decision - will not be known until later this year, but this has not stopped the issue from hitting the headlines.

A recent article in USA Today highlighted the massive increase in salt intake among Americans as a result, mainly, of excessive consumption of process foods, in which salt is widely used as a flavor enhancer, a texturizer and a preservative.

"If salt were taken off the GRAS list, manufacturers could be subject to limitations on the quantity used in the production of food," the paper noted, adding that the FDA held a hearing on the issue last November.

In a response to the USA Today article, DSM Food Specialities, a Dutch company, issued a statement underlining the complexity of the salt issue - and some of the solutions it could bring.

"Ingredient suppliers must develop new technologies that help food manufacturers find innovative solutions to the challenge of reducing the sodium content of processed foods," said Peter Kempe, president of DSM Food Specialties USA, the American subsidiary of the Dutch group, in a statement issued last week.

"We know the food industry takes this issue very seriously and we partner regularly with major food manufacturers to help them achieve their internal sodium reduction targets."

But Hanneke Veldhuis, business manager at DSM Food Specialities in the Netherlands, told this website that finding alternatives to salt was far more complicated than it might at first seem.

"Salt has many functions in food, not just adding to the taste, and it is hard to find one single product that reproduces all the functionalities in the same way," she said.

"We have a yeast extract product that is popular as a salt replacer in many products, but the taste is not always 100 per cent the same."

She stressed that salt could not be taken out of every product in the same way without having major effects on taste and texture.

"You cannot, for example, cut salt levels in bread than by more than around 50 per cent without having an impact on the baking process."

Veldhuis stressed that while a company such as DSM, which has a long history of experience in fermentation, yeasts and extracts, was able to create alternatives to salt, it did not feel it had a role to play in the salt debate.

"That will be up to the US regulators to decide," she stressed.

"What is certainly true is that replacing salt in many foodstuffs will be a hell of a challenge for food companies, and it will cost them a lot."

Ultimately, this cost issue may well sway the FDA, especially in the light of the raft of contradictory science on the pros and cons of salt in foods, and since many food companies are already taking voluntary action to cut salt levels.

"We are working with many companies the world over on salt replacement ingredients," said Veldhuis.

"There is a feeling that gradually reducing salt levels in many products, ahead of any statutory requirement to do so, no matter how far away that might be, is the best way to win consumer acceptance."

DSM has two main yeast extract products that it markets as salt replacers: the new Maxarite brand, which is used mainly in cheeses, breads and tortillas, and the more established Maxarome, which is widely used in soups, sauces and meat products.

But neither of these can do everything that salt does. "When it comes to preserving food, especially meats, yeast extracts can only be part of the solution to replacing salt," said Lindhuis, who stressed that there were other ingredients that offered salt replacement.

"We are certainly seeing huge interest in our products from the food industry, in the US, Europe and especially Asia, where the high levels of salt in the diet mean that people are at higher risk," she said.

"This is a market that will continue to grow, whatever the legislators decide."

The FDA is not expected to remove salt's GRAS status at the present time, but with pressure from health advocates and consumer groups to at least tackle the salt-related health issues, the likelihood of some form of restriction on salt use, in the long term, must remain high.

Copyright - Unless otherwise stated all contents of this web site are © 2000/2008 – Decision News Media SAS – All Rights Reserved. For permission to reproduce any contents of this web site, please email our Syndication department: contact our Syndication department. Full details for the use of materials on this site can be found in the Terms & Conditions.

contact the editor

Print

The Garden School Tattler

Change, change, and more change! It's been a great changing week. Personally, I love change. I love that growth that change can bring. I also love the challenges that changes can test us with. It's a good time for change; it's lent.

The children, who have not been able to be out because of ice and freezing temps, have had a lot of fun with all our changes. Some of them have helped with the changes and that helps them grow up thinking that they are a part of the changes.

There are always new rules with change and if teachers keep rules simple, and the children see the result of the new rules making play even more fun, then we've all learned something.

The hardest part of the changes has been with teachers who find change difficult. Some people respond to change well and some don't. But change is the growth spurt to life. Without constant good change, life just seems to dwindle away. When life begins to depend on the status quo, there is no place to go up. At the same time, constant change means a lot of hard work. But as I see it, hard work is the key to living well. The harder you work, the more life will bring to you.

It's been a very hard working, hard changing time in my own personal life these days. I find the loss of my mother a bit hard to realize with all the implications of losing a life. The adjustment, the thinking, the feel of that loss has been really hard, and of course one thinks about one's own mortality. Saying goodbye for the last time was hard. Being in a room and watching someone take a final breath was hard, especially when that someone is your mother. I've tried to squeeze Miss Molly's Robbie as often as I can because I think squeezing a small child is a great remedy to sadness. It helps with the separation.


Miss Amy has noticed some real changes in her life as well. She is happily teaching music and singing some happy songs as she has moved all the music equipment into her room and into a nice arrangement for playing, singing and learning. It sure has been a great week for UP!

Miss Kelly is not freezing in the cold room anymore. She loves the sunshine that pours into her room and is enjoying the warmth and privacy a K-1 room should have. She even kept some of the plants!!!

Mr. Tom has moved into the kitchen a little. I bought him a juicer and have put him in charge of ice cream. He's going to take over afternoon snack creations. He is contemplating the garden and is going to build a compost bin. We are going to move the strawberry bed and put in a few new things. It's all very exciting and very child involving, because his first comment was, "I can get the kids out in the garden to work; they will love that."

Parents will see more changes out in the playroom with new play areas and new configurations. What I'm looking for is the ability to make changes in play spaces asap as we add new things and rest some older things. That's the goal. So that in the morning, the toys can be rotated for new and creative play. We have lots of toys stored that never seem to come out. By leaving play spaces open and toys in roll-able crates, we can change, change, change and the children can play, play, play!

And school work? Any little breather or recess actually helps schoolwork solidify. Children don't forget what they have really learned. With new experiences like moving and change, they seem to see what they have learned in new lights with new angles and new ideas.

Next week we begin play practice. Another time for up. This is the fun play, and with the new playroom, we have a lot of new ideas about producing it.

There's a storm nearing us. We may be calling again today.

The Garden School Tattler

As you can see, we've been moving furniture and toys and creating what we hope is a more friendly play environment. It's been a whole school effort. After class in the morning, we've gone about moving things around and cleaning, and the kids seemed to be really enjoying the whole process finding things they - we - didn't know we had and kind of rediscovering old-new stuff.

With more students, the idea of making some favorite places bigger and some not so favorite places smaller really makes sense. One idea we had was to switch classrooms so that our group activities can be in a quieter atmosphere. We are moving circle time which includes music to Miss Kelly's room. This should allow us to have more play space in the main room. We have duplicated some building and open play space for a long time, and we would like to have one of each permanently, so this might just be the ticket.

We've already got a new and separate puzzle and game area that used to be science. Now science is more visible and able to be taken to a classroom to really use along with the geography and history books.

We have moved the library and plan to buy some children's easy chairs. There are two at Target which are really cute...

Today we have Officer Jim coming with his dog to tell stories to the kids. It should be fun. The news media is tagging along - We'll put a note on the parent board so you can watch it later on TV.

Yesterday Kyto's family came to say farewell. They are moving back to Japan. There was a gift exchange and some address exchanges and some hugs and tears. We have always loved our Japanese students. I still keep in touch with Isumi's family.

Lots to do -- so little time...

Art

Comment: Here's a really good comprehensive article about early childhood art.

Art in Early Childhood: Curriculum Connections

Jill Englebright Fox, Ph.D.

Stacey Berry, M.Ed.

Art has traditionally been an important part of early childhood programs. Friedrich Froebel, the father of kindergarten, believed that young children should be involved in both making their own art and enjoying the art of others. To Froebel, art activities were important, not because they allowed teachers to recognize children with unusual abilities, but because they encouraged each child's "full and all-sided development" (Froebel, 1826). More than a century later, early childhood teachers are still concerned with the "all-sided" development of each child. Our curriculum includes activities that will help children develop their cognitive, social, and motor abilities. As Froebel recognized, making art and enjoying the art of other people and cultures are very important to the development of the whole child. The purpose of this article is to discuss the importance of art in young children's learning and development and to describe elements of an art program within a developmentally appropriate early childhood curriculum.

Art and Socio-Emotional Development
Young children feel a sense of emotional satisfaction when they are involved in making art, whether they are modeling with clay, drawing with crayons, or making a collage from recycled scraps. This satisfaction comes from the control children have over the materials they use and the autonomy they have in the decisions they make (Schirrmacher, 1998; Seefeldt, 1993). Deciding what they will make and what materials they will use may be the first opportunity children have to make independent choices and decisions.

Making art also builds children's self-esteem by giving them opportunities to express what they are thinking and feeling (Klein, 1991; Sautter, 1994). Sautter (1994) stated that when children participate in art activities with classmates, the feedback they give to each other builds self-esteem by helping them learn to accept criticism and praise from others. Small group art activities also help children practice important social skills like taking turns, sharing, and negotiating for materials.

Art and Cognitive Development
For very young children, making art is a sensory exploration activity. They enjoy the feeling of a crayon moving across paper and seeing a blob of colored paint grow larger. Kamii and DeVries (1993) suggested that exploring materials is very important because it is through exploration that children build a knowledge of the objects in the world around them.

Activities centering around making art also require children to make decisions and conduct self-evaluations. Klein (1991) described four decisions that child artists make. First, they decide what they will portray in their art—a person, a tree, a dragon. Second, they choose the media they will use, the arrangement of objects in their work, and the perspective viewers will take. Children decide next how quickly or how slowly they will finish their project, and finally, how they will evaluate their creation. Most often, children evaluate their artwork by thinking about what they like and what other people tell them is pleasing (Feeney & Moravcik, 1987).

As children grow and develop, their art-making activities move beyond exploring with their senses and begin to involve the use of symbols. Children begin to represent real objects, events, and feelings in their artwork. Drawing, in particular, becomes an activity that allows them to symbolize what they know and feel. It is a needed outlet for children whose vocabulary, written or verbal, may be limited (de la Roche, 1996). This early use of symbols in artwork is very important because it provides a foundation for children's later use of words to symbolize objects and actions in formal writing.

Art and Motor Development
While making art, young children develop control of large and small muscle groups (Koster, 1997). The large arm movements required for painting or drawing at an easel or on large paper on the floor build coordination and strength. The smaller movements of fingers, hands, and wrists required to cut with scissors, model clay, or draw or paint on smaller surfaces develop fine motor dexterity and control. With repeated opportunities for practice, young children gain confidence in their use of tools for making art and later for writing.

Making art also helps children develop eye-hand coordination (Koster, 1997). As children decide how to make parts fit together into a whole, where to place objects, and what details to include, they learn to coordinate what they see with the movements of their hands and fingers. This eye-hand coordination is essential for many activities, including forming letters and spacing words in formal writing.

Art Experiences in Classrooms for Young Children
Although art activities help children develop in many areas, teachers must recognize that art also has value in and of itself. Fostering the development of children's aesthetic sense and engaging children in creative experiences should be the objectives of an early childhood art program.

Activities that involve children in both making and enjoying art are essential if programs are to meet the needs of the whole child. The challenge for early childhood teachers is to provide these activities in an art program that is developmentally appropriate and that can be integrated throughout the curriculum. Such a program should include:

• using reproductions to expose children to masterpiece art
• taking field trips to local museums to provide opportunities for art appreciation
• providing access to a classroom art center in which children choose their own topics and media
• displaying children's artwork in a classroom gallery
• involving families in the art program.

To integrate an art program into a developmentally appropriate curriculum, adults must recognize that children express their ideas through art, just as they do in writing. Creative teachers find ways to support children's learning across the curriculum through activities in which children make art and enjoy the art of others. The following elements form the basis of an art program to be integrated into a developmentally appropriate curriculum for young children.

Using Masterpiece Reproductions
Posters and smaller reproductions of masterpiece art can be purchased at most art museums or through teacher supply catalogs. Less expensive reproductions can be obtained from calendars, stationery, magazines, and newspapers. Teachers can use these reproductions in many ways to support children's learning throughout the classroom and curriculum.

Reproductions may be used on signs to designate learning centers or label parts of the classroom. For example, Jacob Lawrence's Builders #1might be displayed in the woodworking center, or Jean Simeon Chardin's Soap Bubbles could be hung over the water table. Reproductions could be used to indicate gender on the restroom door or where children line up to go outside. Reproductions could also be used on bulletin boards to accompany displays related to thematic units. The work of Piet Mondrian might be used to illustrate a focus on primary colors or shapes, that of Claude Monet might accompany a unit on spring, while the works of Maurice Utrillo might go with a study of communities. Masterpiece art would not, in either learning centers or group discussions, replace the use of real objects or photographs as visual aids, but would provide children with another way of seeing and thinking about the concepts they are learning. Reproductions help children to make the connection "between reality and art—someone's interpretation of reality" (Dighe, Calomiris, & Van Zutphen, 1998, p. 5).

Museum Field Trips
Taking young children to an art museum can be a challenging experience for any adult. Museums are designed for grown-ups who engage in thoughtful reflection, not for active children who want to point and exclaim. With a little preparation, however, a museum field trip can be an enjoyable experience for all.

Many museums schedule special times for children's tours and family visits. During these times, the museum staff and other patrons expect children to visit, and special tours and support personnel will be available. If the children will not be participating in a tour planned specifically for them, it is important that the teacher select a few key items on which to focus during the visit. Artwork done by artists featured in the classroom or portraying objects related to thematic units will be of interest to the children. They will have a context for thinking about and discussing what they see. Because the attention span of young children is short, museum field trips should not be lengthy. Thirty minutes is probably long enough for children to view the pieces pre-selected by the teacher without getting tired or frustrated in the museum setting. Other exhibits can be saved for future field trips.

Classroom Art Center
The art center should provide opportunities for child-centered activities. Although teachers might suggest themes, too much direction or assistance interferes with the creative process. Adult models for children to follow are also frustrating because most children do not have the fine motor and visual perceptual skills to replicate adult efforts. Instead, teachers can encourage children to design and complete their own projects by recognizing that the same themes may be repeated many times as children explore ideas and practice skills.

Open-ended materials such as paint, crayons, markers, scissors, glue, clay, and assorted paper support child-centered activities. Although having too many choices can be overwhelming for young children, making a selection from two or three options at a time is an excellent way for children to practice decision-making. Lowenfeld and Brittain (1975) also "cautioned" teachers not to change materials or introduce new materials into the center too often. Children need time to practice and develop skills with materials if they are to use them to express their ideas and feelings.

Finally, it should be noted that the creative process takes time. Although some children will complete their artwork within a short time, others will need large blocks of time to design and make their projects. The design of the art center and the class schedule should encourage children to return to a project and work until they decide it is completed (Edwards & Nabors, 1993).

Displaying Children's Art in a Classroom Gallery
A classroom gallery exhibiting children's art highlights the work for the children themselves and for classroom visitors. A large bulletin board or wall space provides a backdrop for the gallery. Children should take the responsibility for mounting their work and selecting its placement in the gallery. Labels, including a title for the work, name of the artist, medium, and year of creation, can be dictated and will provide a meaningful experience with print. Children can also serve as curators and lecturers, giving tours of the gallery to classroom visitors.

Involving Families in the Art Program
Keeping families involved in the life of the classroom is an important responsibility for early childhood teachers. Sharing with families the role of art in the curriculum and the activities in which their children are participating will encourage their support of the program and of their children's learning. Family involvement can be encouraged in several ways. Inviting families to participate in museum field trips and classroom art activities provides the opportunity for shared experiences and discussion between children and their parents.

Teachers may also suggest at-home art projects for children and parents to participate in together. These projects should always be optional and teachers should provide any special materials that might be needed in a packet which includes explanations and directions for the project. Brand (1996) suggested linking art projects with book themes as a way of encouraging parents with differing skill levels to feel comfortable in working with their children at home. For example, after reading Lucy's Picture(1995) by Nicola Moon, children and parents might work together to create a collage depicting activities they would like to participate in together from materials found at home and/or supplied by the teacher.

"Artists' knapsacks" for children's use at home are another way to involve families in classroom art activities. Four to five knapsacks, each featuring one medium such as paint and paper or modeling clay, can be available for children to check out and share with their families. Although the general purpose of the knapsacks should be shared with parents, specific directions for each knapsack need not be provided. The goal of the knapsacks is to encourage the same creative use of materials at home as in the classroom.

Conclusion
Through the art activities described in this article, young children will develop abilities and skills that have application in many other areas of the curriculum. Most importantly, however, children will also develop an appreciation for the art of other people and cultures, and the confidence to express their own thoughts and feelings through art. Far from creating individual prodigies, this integration of making and enjoying art in the early childhood classroom will result in the "all-sided development" of the children participating.

Jill Englebright Fox, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of early childhood education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

Stacey Berry, M.Ed., is a kindergarten teacher at Mary Munford Model School in Richmond, Virginia.

The Garden School Tattler

This week is President's Week at school. The public Schools are out tomorrow and we welcome any of our student's siblings to visit.

We will be looking at Abraham Lincoln and George Washington this week. We hope the children find this interesting.

We are also encouraging children to run for School President and make a speech to the school at Circle Time. It should be short and have some energy and pep. We will then have a ticket vote. On Wednesday, every child will get a ticket and be able to place his or her ticket on the table with the runner's photograph.

Next week we will begin practicing for our St. Patrick's Day play. This does not disturb class time. Children will be given lines to learn. It is easier to do the play if parents help with lines. After viewing the last play on video, things will be different this time. Prepare yourselves for Shakespeare!

Please continue to send your child in winter gear. We will be going out as much as we can this week.

If you are reading this, please send your child's favorite snack suggestion to the comments. This helps us with choosing good things for our children to snack on.

Blogger

I really like Blogger. I like the whole process of writing and publishing articles and posting notes and stories about the children. I don't have as much time as I would like to do this, and lately with the death process, I've been away from it a lot because other things needed my attention.

Blogger makes the whole process easy. It's very simple to use. I am thinking of starting a family blog that would be closed to non-family members. That's doable. There would be a password. I think a family blog would be a terrific idea for my family because it would be a much easier way to keep in touch than letter writing or email. One shot hits the whole group. I have fifty first cousins who are married with kids, and keeping in touch with 25% of them would be a nightmare. I wish I had done this before my mother died. It would have been fun for her to be able to look at pictures of her relatives rather than trying to remember.

To start a blog you go to Blogger.com and the Dashboard just pops up and you start by naming your blog and going through the directions. It's easy, changeable and you can delete it or part of it any time you want.

If you carry the thought through, hundreds of people could belong to your blog. Safety? You never use a last name or an address and never name a child. I don't have those safety fears other people do because I think it's a lot of hype, but for those who are frightened, it could still work. And with a password, only family members who are invited could view the blog.

Why do this? Because it increases family fun and closeness in a world where we lose contact so easily.

Lately, I've been using Classmates a lot to track down members of my old class some 37 years ago, and I've had a ball doing it. I've revived several friendships already, and it's just fun learning about other people's lives - I mean what happened to them over the years? I suppose I care about people and want to share, so this kind of thing is important to me.

I find the blog site for school very useful for getting messages across to parents and grandparents who can view pictures of grandkids at play. It's great for the people who take the time to look at it. My school blog has gone through many changes over the years and right now, aside from not enough posted, I think there is the right mix.

So today I'll start the process. If anyone wants to know about this, ask me at school or send a question here.

Judy

A bit of Trauma for Today

Dog Pack Attacks Gator In Florida

At times nature can be cruel,

but there is also a raw beauty,

and even a certain justice manifested within that cruelty.

The alligator, one of the oldest and ultimate predators,

normally considered the "apex predator",

can still fall victim to implemented

'team work' strategy,

made possible due to the tight knit social structure and

"survival of the pack mentality" bred into the canines.

See the remarkable photograph below

courtesy of Nature Magazine.

Note that the Alpha dog has a muzzle hold on the gator

preventing it from breathing,

while another dog has a hold on the tail to keep it from thrashing.

The third dog attacks the soft underbelly of the gator.

School's Out.

Dear Parents,

I know, I know - another snow day :(

Miss Kelly has been ill for several days with the flu = vomiting non stop with a fever of 104.

Miss Amy ditto. She had a fever this morning of 104.

So this rest will be good for them.

We will celebrate Valentine's Day with the kids on Friday - God willing and the creek don't rise!

We will have our regular dismissal at 5:00 - 5:30 tomorrow.

We are all sorry for the missed days and planned to do so much this week. We got Valentines made on Monday before the call, and that's about it.

Edith crawled over to school today to feed the animals. I'm snowed in - just got the roads scraped. My family slid down my hill this morning to feed a hungry group of animals neglected in the snow.

Blessings,

Judy

Is Five Too Soon to Start School?

Is five too soon to start school?

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education reporter

Do children start school at too young an age in England? Is childhood freedom being curtailed too soon?

Compared to most other western European countries, English pupils are extremely early starters in the classroom.

While compulsory education begins in England at the age of five (with many children actually starting at four), in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland, school doesn't begin until the age of seven.

English children are ploughing through a fixed curriculum while their continental counterparts are still ploughing up the kindergarten sandpit or playing at home.

But which system delivers the best results?

The young ones

This far-reaching question has been raised by the Cambridge-based Primary Review which is scrutinising how primary education is organised. And its conclusion challenges the idea that an early start has long-term advantages.

"The assumption that an early starting age is beneficial for children's later attainment is not well supported in the research and therefore remains open to question," says the report.

COMPULSORY SCHOOL AGE Five years old : England, Scotland, Wales, Malta, the Netherlands Six years old : Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain Seven years old : Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Poland Source: NFER/ Eurydice

So why do English schoolchildren start at five, when almost everyone else in Europe starts later?

Apart from the Netherlands and Malta, the only other education systems beginning at five are Scotland and Wales (with Northern Ireland even earlier at four).

The origin of such an early start, introduced in 1870, had little to do with education, says the Primary Review report.

Entering full-time education at such a tender age meant reducing the malign influence of Victorian feckless parents - it was about child protection and social conditioning rather than learning.

And it was an attempt to appease suspicious employers, who were worried that starting any later would remove their supply of juvenile workers. An early start meant an early school leaving age.

Long hours culture

The result remains with us - and as a consequence one of the most distinctive characteristics of English schoolchildren is how little time they spend with their family.

Children are full time in school up to three years earlier than in Scandinavia - and the summer holidays in England and Wales are shorter than anywhere else in the European Union.

And the pressure on schools is now to become "extended schools" which would create an even longer day, with optional activities before and after school hours.

But this is far from straightforward territory. If children were not in school, what would be the impact on working parents? Long hours in childcare are already a reality for many pre-school children.

Last year's teachers' conferences heard concerns that children were spending so little time with their own families that they were showing signs of aggression and de-socialisation, taking their behaviour from their peer group rather than absent adult role models.

Less is more?

But what does it mean for education standards?

One of the most intriguing statistics from international comparisons is the lack of relationship between hours in the classroom and educational achievement.

Finland, a global superstar in education terms, is consistently among the top performers. But it is also at the very bottom of the league in terms of the hours spent in the classroom.

Finnish pupils start formal education at seven and then enjoy 11-week summer holidays - and they end up with the highest educational standards in Europe.

Poland, a rapid-climber in international education league tables and overtaking England at reading skills, is also another country where pupils do not start until the age of seven.

There is another egalitarian argument for starting school early. Pupils from poorer homes, with parents who are less able to help their learning, might be held behind if they didn't start lessons until six or seven.

Level playing field

But a rather sobering set of statistics published by the government earlier this year showed that the length of time spent in school does little to level the playing field.

When pupils start school at five, the children of more affluent families are already ahead. But this "attainment gap", instead of closing gets wider at each stage up to the age of 16. As every year passes in school, the results of the richest and poorest grow further apart.

There have been some other cross-winds of concern about children starting school before they are ready. The government has highlighted summer-born children, whose parents could now be given the right to delay entry by a year.

It followed research showing that the disadvantage of being the youngest in a year group persisted right through primary and secondary school. While 60.7% of September-born girls achieved five good GCSEs, only 55.2% of August-born girls achieved the same.

The Primary Review, taking an overview of the evidence, suggests that there is no clear link between quantity and quality in education.

Or put another way, the early bird doesn't necessarily become the bookworm.

Here is a selection of your many comments.

Starting school in a child's fifth year is far too young. Children who are unable to even sit and listen to a story at age four are going to have a lot of problems with any structured learning activities. The UK should take a good look at other European systems, such as Finland's, learn from them and devise some changes. Unfortunately, sending children to school as early as we do is merely providing a creche for overworked parents at best, and giving the children a poor start in education at worst. We seem to treat school as a childminding service, not an education.
Sue, Wrexham

It's a cultural thing, this country being very anti-children, and we need to review our entire approach to how we accommodate children in everyday life. Yes, we start school too soon, and should be enjoying our children's early years as much as possible, and reaping the benefits in the years that follow. We should work to live, not live to work.
Rupert, London

My daughter was 4 on 29th August last year and consequently started school when she was 4 years and 1 week! She is also quite small for her age so, apart from the problem of finding school clothes age 2-3 yrs, she is finding it extremely tiring as she is physically unable to cope with the length and formality of a school day. She was able to attend for 2 hrs less per day in the Autumn term, but is now full-time. It wrenches at our hearts having to give her up to the education system so young and also seeing what it is doing to her. As she is so tired, she is developing a negative attitude towards school, purely on the basis that she doesn't have the physical stamina to cope with it. She is a bright girl and I can't help but feel that she would have "flown" if she attended a year later, and would not have developed any ill feeling towards school.
Richard , Norwich

Having worked in a nursery and reception class, I feel starting school later would be much better for children. It is very sad that the adults working with these children end up spending more time with the children than their own family, and in some cases even know them better. I do not understand how any loving parent would not want to fight to keep their children at home longer, in a loving environment where their personalitites can fully grow. I have seen fun, bright, children become the total opposite because they just were not ready for school.
Carrie, Salford, Manchester

My five year old is having a hard time spending so many hours at school and to make her go is a big problem every morning. I think children should start compulsory education later than 5 years old. I also disagree with the amount of hours they have to do a day, it is a big jump to go to nursery school for two and a half hours and then reception is a big jump of 6 and a half. My daughter is always tired and always looks forward to the weekend, She sounds like an adult tired from the week's work. They will be sedentary, not social, maybe depressed or overweight if they are not out there running and discovering and spending time with their families and friends.
Tania, London

I grew up in Sweden and started school at 7. As mentioned in the article, children in Sweden start at 6/7 years old (7 compulsory) but we also have to remember that their childcare/nursery is highly subsidied from the Swedish government with a nursery place costing about £100 pounds per month and child, which makes a significant difference to working parents.
Jo, Cheshire

I think that children do start school at an early age but as a working mother of two, I would then find childcare even more costly than I already do at the moment - on average I spend over £7,500 on childcare a year. If the government was willing to help working mothers a bit more and introduce better childcare schemes, then let them introduce extra school holidays and later school starting age! if not helped with this aspect, they could find themselves with a lot more people out of work because it is just not cost effective to work and have children in this day and age!
Rachel, Caerphilly

I would have no concerns about children starting school older than the current 4 to 5, having shorter classroom hours and being able to actually enjoy their childhood for longer. However, I have absolutely no idea how I would manage the childcare implications....like many other families both myself and my husband have to work full time, so unless a Scandinavian-style change in the primary education system is accompanied by a similar enlightened change in attitudes to and support for childcare, I remain a working mother balancing work, my children, my marriage and the guilt of not doing as well as I would like for any of them!
Helen, Staffs

I do not come from this country, so when I was told my child had to start school (Devon) at 4.5 years, I was appalled. As we lived so far from the nearest school in Bovey Tracey, he was collected by a bus at 8:00am and returned at 4:00pm. An 8 hour day for most adults is arduous, let alone a baby who should still be at home with his mother and having afternoon naps. I did not start school until I was 6 or 7 and even then we only went a half day. Why can't children be children rather than being shoved out into our regimented society at the age of four? I would happily have kept him home longer.
B Jones, Oxford

Take any group of young animals away from their parents, elephants, chimpanzees whatever, and voila - feral animals causing chaos and mayhem. Society needs to have a good think about things, the choices are materialism with all the ills that go with it, or a better life with nice people to live alongside.
K Lockwood, Bradford

I think our children do start a formal education too early. However, I am in a situation I'm sure like many others where I work and so my 3 year old is in nursery full-time. When he does start school proper, his day will be shorter than he is used to now. What concerns me is that 'formal teaching' is introduced too early i.e. teaching very young children to read and write when they should be learning through play. It would be beneficial I feel, if our children started formal education later as in Finland but I think I'm right in saying that they have more financial provision for parents so it's not necessary to go back to work when the children are so young. If our children started school later, parents like myself would have the financial burden of childcare for longer. It's our whole social set-up that needs to alter.
Karen, Scarborough

I happily sent my daughter to the local school in Poland at the age of seven and a half. She couldn't read and couldn't write in English or Polish. However once they start in Poland, they start. Now nearly 10 she reads happily in English and Polish. I went at 5 in Scotland, learnt to read, but rarely read for pleasure. I think all the gold star "Jack and Jill" rubbish put me off early. It's clear that the schools in the UK are a custodial service for 19th century factory workers. "A child is a fire to be lit not a vessel to be filled."
Paul, Warsaw, Poland

So, we need to send our kids to school so we can go out and work. And those kids need a good education, so they can get a good job, and repeat the cycle. Message - money is more important than kids.
Darren, Cheltenham

Both my kids attend Finnish schools. It is true that kids in Finland start school at 7 but they also attend pre-school at 6 which is usually organised through daycare. Many children can read and do simple arithmetic before they attend school at 7. The norm in Finland is that both parents work and so kids are normally in daycare from the age of 3 and during this time there are professionals over-seeing the children and ensuring that they learn in a play environment. It should also be noted that Finland has a very high proportion of parents that have attended higher education which likely plays a part in their own childrens' development. These parents spend hours with their children in the evenings and at weekends working through huge amounts of homework. Finnish children might start formal schooling 2 years later than their UK peers and spend less hours in the class but it's worth remembering that there is a lot of learning/teaching done outside of classrooms here in Finland! The Finnish system would be very difficult to model in the UK which anyway does not have the childcare model in place to cope.
Michael Hardy, Helsinki, Finland

Whilst my August-born four year old is enjoying full-time school since she started in January, I do think it is far too young an age for such a long day. They should rather finish at 12:30 or 1pm and then come home for lunch until the age of six - they would be getting the stimulation that they need, yet without forcing such ridiculously long hours on them. And perhaps more parents should stay at home with their children, but that's another 'Have your say' subject!
Pam, Teesside

My father was sent to boarding school at 4 in 1939, and I was sent to boarding school at 7 in 1982. That was considered normal by our parents and their peers. So I'm not really interested in what society or the government considers normal - I'd rather assess things from an individual, intelligent, emotional, humane point of view. My daughter's an August baby - and sending her to school when she's just turned 4 seems moronic and cruel. Just another reason I'm emigrating from this horrible country in May. The British seem to think that the answer to their decaying society is getting both parents in every family to work longer hours for more money. Good luck.
Rupert, London

My sister is a single mother, who in an ideal world would love to stay home with her children, but on the other hand does not want to live off the state on benefits. Therefore she has to work as do many parents. If school ages were to be increased I feel that there would be higher unemployment as child care costs are so high. Every parent would be happy to have more time with their children but it is not always as easy as that. There are many things that have to be taken in to consideration if a change like this is to be made.
Karen, Scotland

I think children in this country start formal education far too early, as a parent you feel under pressure to put them into school and feel a failure when they do not learn to read and write from an early age. My son is 7 and is in his third year at school, he has only just started to read and write and is taking in the concept of learning. He was always very well behaved and participated but just could not write or read in any activity, this made him feel very stupid which has taken alot of work to compensate this. I strongly think that children should not start school until they are 7 when they are mentally and physically mature enough.
Libby, Tetbury, Gloucestershire

Having been raised in England and with a September birthday, I actually started school at four. Now living in Alberta, children attend kindergarten (4-5 mornings or two full days a week) at five and full time school at six. Unlike the UK, the huge majority of students remain in school for the full twelve years until they are eighteen. I could not imagine sending any of my children, especially my youngest who is now four, off to school full time at age five. I think children have a hard enough time remaining children in today's society without pushing them out of the door into full time education prematurely.
Susan, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

My summer-born 4-year-old son goes to a public nursery school in the afternoons and absolutely loves it, even his homework. His reading, writing and math skills have come on no-end, and he gets help at home with everything as well. He's one of the brightest in his class according to his teacher, and we're looking forward to him starting "full time" in a few months. Right now, we've no problem with him spending 6 hours a day getting an education to set him right for the rest of his life.
Craig, Nottingham

In France, children start school at three years old (although it is not compulsory until six years old). A comparison between my daughter (educated in France) and her cousin (in the UK) at exactly 4 yrs 9 1/2 months old showed that a British education gives kids the tools they need to read and write much more quickly.
Sarah, Apt, France

Whereas the minimum compulsory age for schooling in Ireland is 6 years, 95% of four years olds and 98% of five years olds attend state schools (National Schools). The number of children in each class can be anything up to 35 with one teacher and they follow a curriculum made up of 11 subjects.
Mary, Dublin, Ireland

Here in Austria children start school at 6/7 and have 12 weeks summer holidays like Sweden. However as somebody who works with pre-school children (aged 3-7) I think you cannot make generalisations about children starting either earlier or later. I have some children that are able to start doing reading at the age of 3 but have to wait around in Kindergarten for 4 years before they are given the oppurtunity to develop further in school. My parents in law purposely held back their youngest son to start school at 7 and I know it's a decision that they regret, as he is now underchallenged in school. The grass is never absolutely greener on the other side.
Catherine, Vienna, Austria

As a teacher in an underprivileged school, most students are actually better off the longer they stay in school. Parents with long hours in poorer communities cannot provide adequate supervision at all times. After school activities decrease the students participation in violence and use of drugs. Unfortunately, some cases, the teachers are the adult role model that is healthiest for the child
Kristen, Knoxville Tn, USA

Children can start school at 2 1/2 in France. It's a rigid system of learning, controlled from the centre, focused on results, tests marked out 20 most weeks. Yet, I don't think it is a system that turns out unbalanced adults, and some of the best creative talent comes from France, Nobel winners etc, so I don't think that starting early in school is necessarily a big problem. I think this is all about the right balance between traditional schooling, from whatever age, and support from home.
Joe, France

I live in Sweden and there are many good things for parents and kids and some things that are more of a problem.
1. Childcare is cheap ie subsidised (I pay £180 per month for 2 kids).
2. We get 14 months parental leave at 80% pay which is shared (2 months reserved for mum and for dad, the rest you split as you like). Most parents make this stretch to 18 months by taking less pay, so kids start daycare much later than in the UK.
3. All parents of children under 8 have the right to work 80% on a full time post (for 80% pay). This is meant to create more equality between mum and dad which is good, in reality while many mums work 80%, the vast majority of dads work full time. One consequence is that there are hardly any half time jobs or job shares. The expectation is absolutely that both parents will have a full time job as their norm. So starting school later doesn't mean kids are with their families more.
4. School starts at 6 for 99.5% of kids who attend the voluntary reception year (there is no other childcare for 6 year olds available). There is no expectation that kids will learn to read or write before this.
Is this good or bad? Kids are individuals! Your kid and my kid may love learning early or it may create feelings of failure. But is it really important for 4-5 year olds to be able to read? The important thing is that kids are stimulated mentally and physically and learn good social skills. When they start to learn to read at 7 - well they just learn faster! So why inflict the sense of failure on those that aren't ready to read! There are other equally valuable forms of stimulation.
Katherine, Stockholm, Sweden

Being an August baby, my son was barely four when he started school - he was much too young, not developmentally ready to be launched into formal learning and still needing to play and be a little boy. I phoned the education authority to ask if I could hold him back a year (it was a matter of being a few days short of the cut-off), but was told categorically no. Consequently, I always feel he started school on a back foot and has been disadvantaged ever since.
KF, London

Full-time education is not mandatory until 6 but is certainly the norm here as young as 2. My son loves school, is bi-lingual, eats really healthy school lunches including thing such as calamari, fruit everyday and is slowly learning to write and read. He has music, PE and has swimming lessons in the schools pool.
Stacey, Barcelona

My daughter could have started school in Spain when she was 2 years and 11 months old! I thought this was far too early and as it was not compulsory I sent her the following year as the majority of children attend school at the age of 3 in Spain. I don’t think that it has done her any harm but probably the only benefit was learning to read and write early. The day is far too long though but they have a 2 and a half hour break at lunchtime.
Joanne, Barcelona, Spain

I am of the view that British children start school way too early, and would advocate a change to the mainland Europe approach of starting when they are 7. My daughter's birthday is 31 August and due to the increasing number of school having only one intake each year in September (as apposed to having a second in January) she will be due to start school a mere couple of days after her 4th birthday! This horrifies me, and I can see no direct benefits to her through starting school so young.
Clare, London

It's on dodgy ground in PC-terms to say this, but I'm going to anyway... I firmly believe that the discrepancy between richer and poorer kids' grades is nothing to do with money. The money is merely an indicator of well-educated, caring, conscientious parents. In broad terms a richer modern household is comprised of better educated parents who spend more time and give more priority to supporting their child's learning. It has little to do with money, and everything to do with the fact that if a child comes from "good stock" they will be a good child.... There are exceptions to prove the rule, and my exceptional but certainly not affluent ex-miner parents are a testament to that. I credit them with my success.
Dan Mann, Bristol

Here we go again! It is the too early, I send them but my heart bleeds for my angel versus the we have to both work and all can blame the classroom for the woes. As someone who is intimately connected to the early years system, the truth (heaven forbid we should ever get this) is that many children arrive at 4, they are not compelled to attend until the year in which they are 5 and do not know how to socially interact as their overindulgent parents are too busy to teach them, nor do they know how to say please or thank you; another great British tradition that is being lost. Therefore, the schools spend an inordinate amount of time educating these 'angels' in basic manners and social interaction, not to mention toliet training to establish any basis for formal education. There is a quantum shift needed to our system and that is seen in the Finnish, French and other nations where respect and community still forms part of the social fabric of the country; rather than the self interest and blame others for your shortcomings of this once world leader.
James , Lincoln

As a father of a summer baby, we will need to start applying for a primary school place this autumn for our son. Personally I would prefer him to start school a little later. However I am worried that if I hold him back, he will not get a place at a decent primary school and end up in an estate sink school instead. Starting school too early may be bad for a child's education but I think that being in a bad school would be even worse.
Matt, Hampshire

It's simple, it's a necessity for both parents to work so getting your kid into education early helps you get back to work. Clearly if there's no tangible advantage for being at school earlier and longer then I would suggest the problem is about what's actually going on in the classroom.
Martin, London

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/7234578.stm

The Garden School Tattler ... After a pause...

Just a few lines to say that I was off this week because my mother died. She was 90. She lived a very long and very full life. For her, medically speaking, it was not supposed to have been painful or long. It was a matter of simply taking a last breath. She had lost the ability to swallow properly and was aspirating food regularly. She went to the hospital on Tuesday night with a particularly vicious aspiration, and nearly died. They managed to stabilize her by midnight, and when we left her on early Wednesday morning, she was sitting up and alert.

Miss Molly, Edith, Amy, Kelly, Lindsay and Tom all pulled together so that I didn't have to come to school on Wednesday, and then again on Thursday and Friday. When I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday morning about 9:00, I expected my mother to be rallying and improving. She was not. She had slipped into a semi responsive state and remained in that state Wednesday and all day Thursday. I was so very grateful to our teachers for allowing me to spend those 36 hours with my mother. I was able to sit by her bed all that time and try to comfort her. She was able to receive the last rights of her faith, and then on Thursday evening about 11:00, she passed peacefully away with Miss Molly, Miss Katy, and Terry and I all standing there saying an Our Father. She looked surprised as if to say, "Oh! It's all true...!"

My mother's death was not a sad occasion. There had been much missed in life between us, and that's a sad thing, but her death revealed so much. My concern for her was a matter of getting the spiritual care she needed, and that was easily and beautifully achieved.

My brother drove up for the memorial service at Holy Rosary, and we later got together for a party at my house. It was asked at that time by someone not familiar with American custom, why we would celebrate such an occasion. He was a little surprised.

The celebration was in her life well lived, that death, as a natural experience, was not a rough or painfully ordeal, that she would not return to a difficult life on a feeding tube, and finally, that her death united so many people, and the love pouring forth from this event, her death, could not have been greater. Everyone has to die. When death is as positive an event as my mother's death was, there is reason to rejoice.

My mother would have loved the party in her honor. Every member of our staff was present either at the Mass or at the party. My only sibling was there and all my loving family.

I wanted all my grandchildren who were there to understand that death, although sad and sometimes untimely, can be a joyous occasion because like birth, it's a part of our life.

My mother was an amazing woman. She was born with polio, had diphtheria as a child and still managed to live a very very full life. Women like her will not be seen again.

Rice Bowl

Robynn sent this and it is fun and also goes to a good cause. You will practice your vocabulary, learn and also contribute an enormous gift to people who have nothing. Click on Rice.


For each word you get right 20 grains of rice are donated through the U.N. This is quite fun and for a great cause.
Robynn

The Garden School Tattler

It's a rainy Monday and likely to be a rainy week. Rain always inspires me to do. Having grown up on an island in the San Francisco Bay, I find rain and fog delightful and comforting. So this week, our continuing a much confused week of Narnia last week because of the snow non-event is an obvious put together a bit like potatoes and ketchup!

We will continue to "listen" to Narnia and play listening games. Last week I whispered a short sentence to one child and he was supposed to whisper that to another, and he to another for about 4 whispers. Then the last child was supposed to tell the group what he heard. This was formerly known as telephone. It was amazing what the children did not hear. They got it wrong most of the time because they didn't listen.

Few people listen. There are all types. One type of listener walks out or zones out on the spoken sentence three words in. The "walker" doesn't listen out of habit. He is too busy with his own agenda to worry about what the speaker is saying because he doesn't care. Then when he wants to know what has already been said, he has to ask again. Directions for this kind of listener are a nightmare. At one time not too many years ago, this would have indicated Autism!

The next type of listener is the listener who only listens when he wants to. They call this selective listening. The selective listener blocks out large amounts of information for one reason or another, and my guess is that the information is either too hard to understand or it doesn't suit what they want now. It also allows them to avoid a lot of plain living and responsibility. We all know this type of listener.

Anther type of listener is the ammunition gathering listener who listens intently to what you say, and then shoots you with the information you've given him. This listening has a lot of catch words that are easy to identify: "But I thought you said..."

Then there is the silent listener - the listener who listens beautifully and refuses to respond. These people are like talking to a wall. You can talk and talk and talk and the response is a lame look.

The best child listener is the one who listens with good manners because it's expected, has fewer and fewer questions about the information, because the habit of listening has been made, and can freely offer what he has learned back to the teacher or another child who asks. That's the task, that's what we are looking for.

So why don't children all learn to listen well? Because for some children, models have been poor along the way, and unlearning a basic skill like listening takes a long time. That's why we do the Narnia thing. The Narnia film is a children's film with people - something many children are not used to watching. The story has many levels and many events, so the child has to listen in order to understand.

A film like Narnia establishes a kind of a learning through listening. Those children who can't really listen to the film don't get anything out of it. When they hear their classmates speak positively about it, they will take another look and hopefully begin to learn to listen. It's not always easy, and there is a certain maturity that is required to listen.

Listening well is one of the keys to academic success in big school. Learning to listen, and then listening to learn is a way of life we'd like each child to grab for his own and make his own style.

From England

Too much, too young?

Child psychologists are challenging the latest guidelines on learning goals for toddlers. Janet Murray reports

Tuesday January 29, 2008
The Guardian


Nursery - a good time to develop 'mathematical ideas'? Photograph: Alix/Phanie/Rex


Comment: I think this is interesting. It seems that somebody is not quite sure what a child is supposed to do. Don't worry; it's on its way here!

What did your child do at nursery today? Dressing up? Messing around in the sandpit? Perhaps baking fairy cakes? Or was he or she learning to read and write?

Under new government guidelines for early-years education, three- and four-year-olds should be taught to "form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation", and write in different forms such as "lists, stories and instructions". Meanwhile, they should also be "developing mathematical ideas and methods to solve practical problems".

Dubbed "the national curriculum for babies", the early-years foundation stage (EYFS) is a merger of the Birth To Three Matters framework, introduced in 2003 to support early-years practitioners working with nought- to three-year-olds and the foundation stage of the national curriculum, aimed at three- to five-year-olds. From September 2008, delivering the early years foundation curriculum (EYFC) will be a legal requirement for every nursery, childminder and reception class in England.

Early-years practitioners will have to monitor children's progress against no fewer than 69 "early learning goals" and more than 500 development milestones. At five, each child will be given a score, which will be passed on to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

A group of academics, led by leading child psychologists Richard House, Penelope Leach and Sue Palmer, are campaigning for an independent review into the EYFS, claiming such a regime may harm children's development. The Open Eye campaign was launched in November 2007 with a letter to the Times Educational Supplement that claimed this so-called headstart to literacy was "known to precipitate unforeseen difficulties later on, sometimes including unpredictable emotional and behavioural problems". While the children's minister, Beverley Hughes, claims she has the "wholehearted backing of the majority of early-years specialists", the group claims that there was little consultation over the EYFS.

Top of the list of concerns are the prescriptive learning goals. According to House, senior lecturer at the Research Centre for Therapeutic Education at Roehampton University, the idea that children of this age should be taught to read and write is "symptomatic of an increasing obsession with childhood development".

Leach, author of the parenting book Your Baby and Child says: "I think the government has confused aspirations with goals. Yes, some children will be reading and writing comfortably before the end of the foundation stage, but the majority won't."

Sue Palmer is a former headteacher and author of Toxic Childhood, which claims childhood creativity is being stifled. Up until the age of seven, she says, all children need is "love, play, talk, song and stories". In fact, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that introducing children to formal education too early can be damaging. "Forcing children to write before they are physically able means many fall at the fence ... they can be put off writing for ever."

Then there is the exhaustive assessment process, increasingly commonplace in education. "I know of children being tutored at the age of two or three to get into a particular nursery," House says.

Another concern is the effect on early-years practitioners, particularly childminders. My own childminder, who provides fantastic care, says the new guidelines have made her think seriously about retirement. Another childminder, who doesn't wish to be named, says: "Most childminders work alone, so how the government expects them to do all this paperwork while looking after the children is a mystery to me."

The National Childminding Association acknowledges that some childminders are worried, but says that the requirements of the EYFS are not radically different from what registered childminders already do.

"What are we going to get next," asks House, "a national curriculum for parents to follow in the home?"

A meeting with the education select committee chair, Barry Sheerman, last Thursday brought promising news. "From the meeting, it is clear our concerns are being taking seriously," says House. "Sheerman was sympathetic to our concerns and invited members of Open Eye to participate in further discussion with the select committee."

In the meantime, the campaign continues to gain momentum. A Downing Street petition has gained more than 4,000 signatures and a conference is being held in London in February. "What we want to avoid is creating 'mini adults' in nursery education, bringing them into adult consciousness well before they are ready," says House. "In the early years, all children need is a healthy, nourishing and loving environment."