Femininity is an interesting idea. What is it? Is it still useful in the early twenty-first century? Who is feminine and who is not? Does femininity disburse when the work starts? Or do those who are feminine just scatter or "swoon" when the work starts? Is femininity something of value? Is it a natural trait? Is it a cosmetic thing or is it from the heart? What does this illusive trait mean?

Two years ago, a pair of sisters told me I was the least feminine person they knew. I suppose it was because I could open the gallon pickle jars and they couldn't. I thought a lot about that for a long time because the idea or the definition of femininity didn't come with pickle jars for me. It came with a much deeper meaning.

Is femininity really and truly measured in the depth of pancake makeup, the length of finger nails, the showiest clothes, the jangly-est earrings, the latest fashions, the best car, the nicest hair cut...or is femininity something that comes from the heart and manifests itself in generosity, kindness, and affection for others?

When I think of manliness, I think of a man who will defend me at all costs. I think of a service man, a policeman, a fireman who will go into situations to make me safe. I don't care if he wears a dress in public, a man who will defend me against perpetrators is a masculine man. That ability to go into combat comes from a conviction that it's his job and his duty. He puts self away to protect those around him. If he's wearing a pink tutu while he's loading his gun, who cares?

At the same time, someone who is feminine also has duties, and those duties and the ability to fulfill those duties well reflect on her ability to be feminine. Women in marriage naturally give life. It's a product of marriage. When that happens, the chain of events also demands that this woman give time, talent and treasure to the family she has naturally produced - without ceasing. It's the prayer of the feminine woman. Can the wife and mother who announces, "I don't do domestic things" be a truly feminine person? "I don't know how to..." fill in the blank. Can this ever be a good and positive response to a woman's life?

What are the needs of the family she has created, and who will provide for that need if she refuses? Should the man in the tutu provide for her job as well? Will that make him feminine? Is there a need for the feminine contribution, or can we just depend on anything and everything to do it for us because we don't want to?

Roles have certainly changed in the last one hundred years. Women dictate a lot of what they will and won't do. Is this a femininity booster or is this in fact a femininity destroyer?

When I think of the ultimate woman, I think of someone who can and does it all. Someone who can achieve a good public voice, someone who can manage a home, entertain, be successful at any job, manage children, and entertain the kind of hobbies that produce good. But more than anything I think of someone who is understanding, someone who is generous, kind, and involved with others. The last thing that occurs to me is what someone is wearing, driving, or their hair cut. And the fact that she can open a pickle jar...

So how does this effect the treatment and care of children? Teaching a child to live up to his or her potential means offering ideas based on truth. If a girl likes building, that means her mathematical interests are growing - support that, encourage that and help that grow. Let her take her interest in the direction that makes her happy. She is learning good things.

If a boy likes messing around in the kitchen, that's wonderful. Let him mix and mash and organize all he wants. He might become a great chef, a chemist, a biologist, a forensics master.

Interests are precious and particular, and children will openly voice their likes and dislikes about what they do. My favorite example is paper mache. Children are not allowed to get their hands dirty today, and that's the reason there is so much illness now, but that's another topic. So paper mache is not considered "fun" by many children, both boys and girls, who can't stand goo on their hands.

Let's talk about goo on the hands. Life can't be lived well with no goo. May I suggest kneeding bread, changing a diaper, cleaning, gardening, art...are these things we shy away from because they are NOT feminine? Is the feminine mystique so "pillowed and protected" that we lose these activities in favor of something encased in plastic? Sounds a bit like a return to endentured servatude.

As an advocate of reaching the "real child" in all they do and all they can do, the idea of feminine and masculine can be reached from many sides and many avenues. There is a natural law which dictates certain things, but that's fundamental, and given. The avenues to the natural should be fun and filled with all kinds of choices.

My advice for parents is not to shorten those paths with a rediculously cheapened version of either masculinity or femininity.

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning.

I hope the kids had a great time last Friday. It was certainly exciting and something new.

This week we will concentrate on swimming. It will be nice all week, and we will be getting the kids into the water to jump and then swim back to the side of the pool. This is a big step in learning to swim. We have about 10 kids who are really ready to go off the board. Zoey is our latest swimmer.

On Monday, spelling words will be given out. Please study one or two words with your child every day on the way to and from school. So far our results have been awful! I am saving these tests to make a book at the end of the summer. Some of these books should never be made! Please study with your child. It's a parent and me time.

Tuesday we will swim and picnic at Newburgh Community Center.

Wedensday we will also swim and picnic at the NCC.

Thursday is our last day of school this week. We will be closed on Friday. On Thursday, we will have our spelling test.

If you have any questions, please ask Miss Judy.

Sunday's Plate

Edith sent this and I just love it. Enjoy:

Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.

Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.

But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.


Depression:
According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases.. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a 'cooling' fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking &Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, 'A banana a day keeps the doctor away!'

Friday's Tattler

We had the adventure of a lifetime on Friday. It didn't start out that way. It was a regular trip to Garden of the Gods, and then we would spend the afternoon at Pounds Hollow Lake. We started off early, about 9:00 and drove right up in the mountains in Illinois. No mountain lions today, although I've seen one before on another trip. It was getting hot, and I was concerned it would be miserable in the park. We arrived with little trouble and toured the great sights at this truly memorable place.

Leigh took the big kids and disappeared down the trails while the little kids got to go out on the rocks only if they were holding an adult's hand. It took about an hour for all the kids to get to see everything. Safety takes time. It's our new slogan. The view is of seven states. Garden of the Gods is what is left from a vast sea, so you look down into the sea. It's quite a place. The rock formations are breathtaking, and that's why we do this every year. It's in our area; it belongs to us, and the children should be familiar with it.

At the end of a very thirsty trail, Mr. Casey, Alexis's dad, pumped the old drinking fountain with pump handle while all the kids got at least one long cool drink. Then we boarded the bus for a short drive to Pounds Hollow Lake and beach. It was closed. It was closed because of the ice storm last winter. We couldn't even get close. So back in the bus and off we went to ask at the nearest civilization, and that's taking the word lightly, about another swimming lake.

Well the store owner, where we stopped, told us about a swimming hole just up the road. After hearing the directions we headed out. The kids were desperate to cool off. We had ice water on the bus, and drove 20 miles down a dusty dirt road until we came to another "National Park." We ate a short lunch - too hot for much- and Mr. Todd and Mr. Casey volunteered to take the children down to the swimming hole.

Well down to the swimming hole is a matter of semantics. We walked through primitive wild woods down a narrow path to a vast set of rock stairs, under the overhanging rocks, down more paths to a stream. We took our shoes off and marched across the stream and ended up in the prettiest little lake at the bottom of this box canyon I think I've ever seen. It was unbelievably beautiful and pristine. One would pay a fortune to travel there, but we were seeing this in our own back yard for nothing. The kids threw themselves into the water of this very primitive place.

The older kids watched as the natives jumped from the cliffs into the lake. Four of our older kids and Miss Leigh jumped too. Austin G, Jack S, Morgen, Michaela all climbed the cliffs and made the 25 foot jump. It was the glory of their day.

We put our soggy socks and shoes on and an assortment of clothes and made our weary way back to the bus. We started for home about 4:30. I'm sorry we were late! It was just too good to pass up the swimming hole. I think this is something the children will remember for years to come. It was one day in one million. I don't think we could duplicate it. It was hot and sticky, but the long adventure was a breathtaking one.

Many thanks to Miss Christi, Miss Cathy, Mr. Todd and Mr. Casey for making this a fabulous trip.

Thursday's Teacher -- Vetetarian Vegan

One of the things I've learned recently is how to listen to someone who believes differently from the way I think, and evaluate the differences and revere those seemingly very different and hard to believe ideas.

It's easy to brush someone off as a flake and regard what they believe as just nuts, and then regard them as a nut too. But people think differently and believe differently do so not because they are necessarily nuts, but because what they know to be true is taking them in a different direction. And it's not a matter of "setting them straight" it's a matter of listening - because we all need to listen to learn.

One of the things that has come into my life lately is Vegetarianism and even Veganism. Now we are not talking about paganism, Nazism, Atheism or Communism. We are talking about a belief that meat is not a go on the plate. With Veganism we are talking about no byproducts of a mama go on the plate.

When you first think about this, it strikes an emotional chord. You think of all the animals who die to fill our plates. You think of death animal camps and brutal killings. But then you go to the grocery store and packaged meat just looks like packaged meat.

There is information on both sides of the issue:

Is meat good for you or isn't it? In what amounts can meat be deemed a benefit to the body? Is the perfect food really an egg? Why is it so hard to drink milk after 40; is nature telling us something?

If you don't eat any meat or meat byproducts, do you have to supplement your diet with chemicals that will keep you alive? If you don't eat animal byproducts are you constantly searching for substitutes to eat a like diet? What happens if you just nix the like diet and eat only those things that can naturally be made without substitutions or chemicals?

But these are questions about the life of a carnivore, a vegan or vegetarian. They are not questions that bespeak the goodness or the creativeness nor spiritual essence of the person who either eats meat or doesn't eat animal byproducts. They are about lifestyle only.

Based on what a person eats, would you rather be friends with someone who thinks about what they put into their body, or someone who eats a steady diet of glutenous muck? It's a personal response. I vote for the thinker; their friendship would be more valuable to me because they would necessarily think about other things as well.

People come at life from different perspectives in life. It seems to me that all these things are interesting and worth time and effort to listen to and to try to understand. Understanding is a gift from God. So it's a green light to stop, look and listen.

I think more than anything, I've learned so much from my new Vegan friends. I've learned to think about different perspectives on a lot of foods for my own health and the health of the people I serve. I've learned that substituting can be fun and creative and actually make food taste better. And learning about new foods has certainly been an eye opener. But vegetarianism is not too far from my state of mind because twice a week at school, we eat byproducts (eggs and cheese) and no meat.

Learning, it seems, should be a life long process.

Wonderful Wednesday

I got this from a friend and think it's pretty neat. Will Trillich is a good thinker and wonderful with kids. He's the uncle of a former student at the GS, and he's put together a really nice page. Go Here for some amusing thoughts and some down to earth thinking!

Read...Read...Read to Your Kids!

Hi Everyone,

The Early Childhood Development Coalition (ECDC) and Napoleon Peacock are hosting a fun-filled Nature Party at Wesselman Woods Nature Preserve on Saturday, June 27th from 1-3 p.m. Please think about taking your children to this event.

The purpose of these parties is to spread the message of the importance of reading and to encourage families to visit the attractions featured in their latest Napoleon Peacock children’s book.

When children experience first-hand what they read, it reinforces their knowledge and adds to the meaningfulness of their reading experience our own local ones. This all directly supports United Way’s focus on education.

For more information go HERE.

Have a great week!

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning. It's a brand new week. We hope this week is as much fun for your children as last week.

This week on Monday, we will issue a new set of spelling words. Lots of parents have been concerned that the spelling words are too hard, too long, too, too. This summer's spelling project is supposed to be a fun parent and me project that encourages parents to work with children. Education is a partnership.

So far this summer, we have heard, "I didn't have time; my mom didn't have time; we were busy and didn't have time." That's the way some summers go, but when the child sits down on Thursday and takes his test, he is lost, and that's a shame. As a remedy to this, try doing one word every day in the car going home from school. It will take probably three minutes, and the work is done. Keep your child's spelling list in the car.

At the end of the summer, we will be making a book to remember, so you will want your child's book to be more than blank!

Tuesday and Wednesday we will be swimming at Newburgh Pool. It will be very hot on those days. We will be taking a big cooler of water with us and we will encourage the children to drink a lot of water.

On Friday, we will be going to the Garden of the Gods. This is a very save place when children listen and follow directions. No child can go out on a rock without holding and adult's hand. It's as simple as that. As one teacher holds the line, the other teachers proceed out on the rocks. It's really not that unsafe. The reports you have heard about children falling are also about neglect by teenage day care help. We don't employ teens and we don't put them in charge of little kids.

We will be picnicking and swimming at Pounds Hollow. This is a beautiful swimming lake for children in Shawnee National Forest.

It will be hot all week. It is a great suggestion that children get a lot of rest. Children who retire before 8:00 do best.

Have a marvelous week!

Sunday's Interesting Plate

Could vinegar be natural fat fighter?

By Stephen Daniells, 18-Jun-2009

Related topics: Science & Nutrition

From Food Navigator

For Food Navigator's web site go HERE.

Ordinary vinegar – acetic acid – may prevent the build up of fat, and therefore weight gain, according to results of a study with mice from Japan.

Animals fed a high-fat diet and supplemented with acetic acid developed about 10 per cent less body fat than mice just eating the diet, according to findings published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

If the results can be repeated in further studies, particularly in human studies, it could see vinegar establish itself in the burgeoning weight management category, estimated to be worth about US$0.93bn (€0.73bn) in Europe in 2005 and $3.93bn in the US, indicating that call to slim down or face the health consequences is being heeded by a slice of the overweight population at least, according to Euromonitor International.

The Japanese researchers, led by Tomoo Kondo from the Central Research Institute of the Mizkan Group Corporation, found that vinegar was working at a genetic level, by influencing genes linked to fatty acid oxidation and heat-generating (energy burning) proteins.

“We intend to perform further clinical studies to confirm fat pad reduction and energy consumption enhancement by vinegar intake. Moreover, we will investigate the effect of acetic acid on fatty oxidative activation in other organs, particularly skeletal muscles,” wrote the researchers.

This is not the first time vinegar has been linked to weight control. In 2005 scientists from Lund University reported that increasing intake of the common flavouring could help dieters eat less and reduce cravings brought on by sugar peaks after meals (European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 59, pp 983-988).

Study details

Kondo and co-workers fed mice a high-fat diet, with 50 per cent of energy coming from fat, and treated the animals with 1.5 per cent vinegar (high-dose group), 0.3 per cent vinegar (low-dose group), or water (control group).

At the end of the study, the researchers noted that that both vinegar groups produced reductions in fat mass of about 10 per cent, with no apparent dose-dependent effect, compared to the control mice.

Furthermore, the researchers noted changes in the gene-expression of peroxisome-proliferator-activated receptor-alpha (PPAR-alpha), which controls enzymes linked to fatty-acid-oxidation, such as acetyl-CoA oxidase and carnitine palmitoyl transferase-1, as well as a protein linked to thermogenesis called uncoupling protein-2.

“The results of this study suggest that acetic acid suppresses body fat accumulation by increasing fatty oxidation and thermogenesis in the liver through PPAR-alpha,” wrote the researchers.

Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Published online ahead of print, ASAP Article, doi: 10.1021/jf900470c
“Acetic Acid Upregulates the Expression of Genes for Fatty Acid Oxidation Enzymes in Liver To Suppress Body Fat Accumulation”
Authors: T. Kondo, M. Kishi, T. Fushimi, T. Kaga

From Lunch Box Cards

Here's something from Lunch Box Cards:

Hot dogs


We all know hot dogs are made from the parts of the animal that no one wants to eat... ground up tails, feet, ears etc ("meat by-products" or "variety meats")... but I don't believe that's whats so bad about hot dogs. Heck, in many countries, crickets, spiders and brains are a delicacy.

So what DO we have to watch out for concerning hot dogs? I spoke to Abby Beeler and she informed me that many brands use gluten (an allergen) for binding, and nitrates, sodium nitrite and msg as a preservative. MSM (mechanically seperated meat) is associated with mad cow disease and finally, Robbie (Lassen's amazing store manager) informed me last week that many brands use food grade plastics as casings!

All this is quite enough for me to find a tasty organic whole meat hot dog, skinless or in natural casings, and to shun the others!

Here's what won: Applegate Farms Organic Uncured Chicken Hot Dogs, Beeler's Fully Cooked Uncured Wieners made with whole pork in natural casings, and Trader Joe's All Natural Uncured All Beef Hot Dogs.

Saturday's Newbie

I try to put something new on the blog every week. This week, I found a new gadget. It's a search key you can find on the right side of the blog. Scroll down past the slide shows and you will see it. It's powered by Google. I tried it out using the word hyperactivity, and it worked very well. It will take you to all the topics I've written about and also to the Web. I hope this is not only fun but informative. This is really an incentive for me to write more about early childhood.

Friday's Tattler

We had a really hot day, and I'm sure the kids were exhausted when they got home. But as a field trip planner, I have to say that this was a keeper. Land Between the Lakes is just beautiful. If we had known what to do and where to go, it would have been better coordinated. Now I've got the numbers and the information, and next time...

We boarded the bus about 8:10, and started south. It would be a long trip and no stops until we got to the visitor's station in Land Between the Lakes. We crossed some really beautiful water on some really old and really rickety bridges, but the kids loved looking out into the water. They saw a huge nest built on a pole. There were two parent birds in it and probably some youngins we couldn't see from the bus.

We arrived at the visitor's station and planned the rest of our trip - "No, there weren't any beaches for the kids except..."






I was really disappointed.
We went down to the Homeplace, a farm estate that was representative of the 1850s.
It was HOT. We toured the main house,









the work shop, the barns, the smoke house, the creek house, the singles house, saw pigs, oxen, horses, lambs, chickens and baby ducks.

We ate near a stream that had mostly dried up for the season, but we went in anyway. Disappointment big time. Alex cut his foot, but we were prepared and patched him up. It was HOT.

Then we called all the kids together and said, "If you are packed up and on the bus in three minutes, we'll go to that swimming place we hear of in the visitor's place. In 2. 5 minutes we were rolling again. The cove for swimming was cool, sandy and shallow enough to accommodate all our kids. We swam about 20 minutes in our clothes like real kids, and then we had a soda and some cookies and we took off for home.

Next time, we will stop at the nature preserve and see a couple of other things as well.

Teaching Thursday

A good friend made a comment to me recently about language. She said of a professional friend of hers, "How could he have a college degree and still use poor grammar?" Grammar, strangely enough, is not a matter of education, it's a matter of the home.

A professor friend of mine, years ago, told me that if you want to speak properly, you have to choose the right parents. Instantly, I thought back to my own parents who spoke impeccably. My father was a word artist and my mother tagged along. I thought about their parents. My mother's father was an engineer for the State of New York, and my grandmother was a Chemistry teacher. My father's father was a police officer who rose to Deputy Commissioner of New York City, and my grandmother was the daughter of immigrants who spoke seven languages. Back one generation, you run into lots of immigrants who really had to struggle with English. My father's grandparents owned the lofts that made Brooks Brother's clothes and one was a furrier. All these people used language as a necessary tool in communication and moving up the social ladder.

In my family, there came to be money and position, and there better be good grammar, because grammar and manners were much more important than either money or position. I was reared to understand that it was a duty to learn to speak the language as flawlessly as possible, because one could distinguish your family by the way you presented yourself in public. If you "Couldn't speak the 'King's English' then you might as well be the hired help." And speaking of hired help, one was ALWAYS ALWAYS gracious to anyone working in a capacity of service NO MATTER WHAT, and no matter how they spoke. But you didn't copy them...

As I grew up, we moved quite a lot. As a Californian, I struggled with "There's eighteen reasons why." And as I moved east, I began to hear really poor grammar for the first time. "Where is it at?" I heard "ain't" for the first time and people using double negatives. I began to ask questions because it sounded so strange to me. I began to really look at our language and try to understand it simply because that is what my family did.

English is an interesting language. We have tenses unlike Chinese and some of the more primitive languages. We can also un double the negatives to make sense of what someone is saying. We can interpret because of the language not in spite of it.

Today, in a world where the classes are mixed, you hear a lot of language oops and being in college won't change poor grammar unless you make the effort. What your parents give you as "language skills" will probably stay with you because language is sound, and what you grow up hearing will always seem to be correct simply because it is so familiar.

Why bother? Who cares? Isn't it a snob gig... it is and it isn't. If you consider language to be your primary communication skill, then you need to ask yourself if your communication with other people matters and to what skill or level? For whom does communication not matter? Is anyone exempt? Is it OK to say, "I don't speak properly because..." I can't think of an ending to that sentence that isn't poor.

From an understanding of history and psychology, traditionally, people who didn't speak properly usually didn't read well orally, and had less ability to understand what they read on an intellectual level. These people had a diminished vocabulary, couldn't put a sentence together on paper... but it all fit together. Historically, undereducated people didn't need vast vocabularies, didn't need to use language for more than their daily lives, so it didn't matter.

Today, it matters getting the job you want, in keeping the job you want, in teaching your own children, and in presenting yourself to the world on a different plain. Does a company want an executive to present himself by saying things like, "I have went there before?" Companies will interview for a whole day for jobs of importance, and communication skills matter a lot. In fields like education, there are those who "get" the degree and never read another book. There are those who can't read another book because they simply don't have the vocabulary to do so, so the education ends with the diploma and a certain relief that there is a lot of grade inflation, and yes ANYONE can get a college degree if he or she sits long enough.

So how does language change for the poor user? First by listening to it, and then by really hearing it. Language is very closely related to music. When you write, there is a balance and a lilt and you can hear it if you listen. When you read aloud, there should be a music to every line. The music begins, it is either short like staccato, or long like a violin stroke; it has ups and downs, it has a beginning and an end, and the good reader keeps the listeners spell bound by the words presented in the best of communication.

Good grammar flows from rules, so you don't always feel as if you have to go back and re-write what someone said. The rules are not that hard to understand if you listen. Asking questions of what you hear and say is a good practice. Can I "went?" No. I can "go," I can "have been," but I can't "went." The best thing to do is to listen and think and form new good habits one at a time.

Education is an internal thing not an external thing. Some of the best educated people in the world never stepped foot on a college campus. And some of the least educated people teach on a college campus. The ability to be educated is the ability to understand. It takes a certain kind of personality not time in the classroom.

Wednesday's Wonder...

Apparently, this incident happened recently in North Texas.
A woman went boating one Sunday taking with her some cans of coke which she put into the refrigerator of the boat. On Monday she was taken to the hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit. She died on Wednesday.

The autopsy concluded she died of Leptospirosis. This was traced to the can of coke she drank from, not using a glass. Tests showed that the can was infected by dried rat urine and hence the disease Leptospirosis.

Rat urine contains toxic and deathly substances. It is highly recommended to thoroughly wash the upper part of all soda cans before drinking out of them. The cans are typically stocked in warehouses and transported straight to the shops without being cleaned.

A study at NYCU showed that the tops of allsoda cans are more contaminated than public toilets (i.e.).. full of germs and bacteria. So wash them with water before putting them to the mouth to avoid any kind of fatal accident.

Teaching Children to Swim by Judy Lyden

Learning to swim is one of the important landmarks of growing up. Swimming is a natural thing for children, and they take to it easily if given the chance or the opportunity to swim often. For non swimming adults, this can be a nightmare. Fear is a natural and healthy part of water play, but follow these next steps, and even non swimming parents can teach their child to swim and will enjoy swimming together.

The first goal of teaching a child to swim is a matter of safety, not skill.

Being safe around deep water takes a kind of discipline many parents are wont to exercise. Deep water is dangerous for non swimmers, so many "nos" come with the first exposure. "No, you may not jump in water over your head; no, you may not play on the raft until you learn to swim; no you may not go with your older siblings to the diving area- YOU can't swim."

Swimming is not a me too situation until me too has learned some basics. Teaching the basics begins with letting a young child simply play in the water. Most very young children or non swimmers will have two different play issues: water in the face, and "It's cold!"

The first few times of being near water, a child will not like most of his body in the water, especially his face, and that's because he is not used to bathing in cold water and playing with water on his face. But more than that, a child feels he has no control of a large body of water and control is a big issue for beginning swimmers. That's why it's a great idea to go to a pool that has a graduated pool surface. Letting a child get wet a little at a time is what will create a no fear zone and encourage swimming because it's a little at a time - his time - his control - his body.

A child who "thinks" will be naturally afraid of being in deep water. Trust is another issue of swimming, so taking a child into deep water too soon can create a fearful situation. It's always better to wait for a child to ask rather than force a non-playful situation - especially around a danger zone like deep water.

So while a child is prattling around in the water, dont' fear, he is learning. He is learning not to be afraid. He is creating a comfort zone, and that's the first swimming hurdle to be passed.

As the child becomes increasingly comfortable, he will begin to be more adventuresome. He will advance on the water, which no longer feels cold, all the way up to his head. That's a good thing because that means he is nearing the next step - head under!

Putting a face in the water is not easy for some children. I attribute it to difficult births. Children who struggled to be born seem to have a difficulty with swimming. Their eyes are closed and they are trusting that they will be OK. It's a big step. Going under all the way is an even bigger step because they are taking themselves out of the air and the light and the company, and they are "going under" which is a very brave and frightening thing to do - first time.

Once a child is willing to go under all on his own because he wants to is the time to show him that he should be horizontal in the water instead of vertical. This is a key to swimming, and many children skip this step. It's also a safety factor. "Will the water hold me up," they wonder. "What happens if I can't touch the bottom?" It's also a control issue.

At this stage, it's time for the adult to get involved. Taking a child to a deeper part of the pool and catching him as he jumps into the water is the next step. Most children who are not afraid to go under will love jumping to an attentive adult. They will hurl themselves off the edge of the pool into the adults arms and gleefully "get back to the side of the pool" so that they can climb out and do it again and again.

During this fun, the adult needs to show him that he can paddle and kick so that he can get himself to the side of the pool quite nicely. The adult needs to show him that kicking is the power behind swimming. Many children want to swim with their arms, and never become strong swimmers because their feet are always searching for the bottom of the pool. The feet are the engine for the body, so kicking with power will give him the control he is naturally looking for. Encourage him to kick, kick, kick.

So when that child jumps the adult must be ready to move deeper and deeper into the pool to make the jump a big one. Always catch the child but let him go a little deeper every time and make him swim longer and longer to the side of the pool, and encourage him to kick his feet and paddle his arms.

When a child is swimming fifteen feet or more without difficulty, it's time to let him jump off the board. This must be his decision, and he needs to want to do it. Once a child can jump off a diving board and swim to the side, he's a swimmer. He will be able to swim anywhere in the pool, and do well. He understands most of the swimming issues, and he will begin to challenge himself.

That's swimming. It's that easy, and children will not even think, "I'm learning to swim." They will just do it in the play and the excitement of the moment.

Monday's Tattler

Good morning! Another prize winning week ahead? We hope so. This week we are planning our usual trek to the pool on Tuesday and Wednesday. It will be a little cool to swim on Tuesday, but with luck, the temps will rise and we will have a great day.

Thursday is spelling test day. This weeks words are animal words. Please help your child study.

Friday we will be going to Land Between the Lakes. This is a new trip for us. We have never been there before, so it will be quite an adventure. We will be touring the Homeplace, a mid nineteenth century working farm and then, hopefully, we will be picnicking near a beach. Not sure how we will handle the swimming yet. A letter will go home on Wednesday.

Please continue to check your child's popsicle status. Three popsicle sticks, and your child stays home on the field trip.

There will be a $25.00 charge for late pick ups on Friday after field trips. There were three families who picked up children late. We close at 5:30 and make every effort to be at school by that time unless posted. This past week the bus rolled in at 5:20.

Please do not send children in long pants. It is simply too hot. Children sent to school in long pants will be sent home. As well, please do not send children to school in dresses. It's summer and they are too much for summer days. We have a new mister for the garden and we would like to use it on the kids, but when there are long pants and dresses, we can't.

Today's menu is Pizza and fresh fruit :-}

Have a splendid week!

Sunday's Plate

Last Thursday night, when I came home from work, I picked up the new copy of Yoga. It's a great magazine for people wanting a better kind of life. It's filled with articles on exercise, food, and meditation. One of the articles that really struck home was one about wheat.

Wheat is one of the things we all take for granted.
It's in many many foods, and it is very very good for you.

But for some people, eating wheat is a real liability. An inability to digest wheat can mean several symptoms of illness: chronic fatigue, migraine headaches, chronic abdominal pain, chronic sinus infections and other more disturbing problems like Celia's disease.

I notice when I eat a lot of bread made from wheat, I feel draggy. I feel like I weigh more than I do. I feel bottom heavy, sluggish, and my temperament declines. I get unusually sleepy even when I shouldn't be tired at all.

I took wheat out of my diet this past winter for a time, and I felt good. Now I generally feel good, but I felt "good!" But like all attempts to make changes, only some changes stick,and I slid back into wheat flour about as quickly as I came away from it.

As I was reading the article, I kept wondering if Mr. Terry would benefit from a "no wheat" diet. I took the article to him, and as a last ditch effort to shake the sinusitis he's had for almost a year, he agreed to stop eating wheat. Terry has never been sick a day in his life, and he's been really struggling with this for months. The sinus gig has made him chronically fatigued.

"Not so easy," he said after visiting the store on Friday and finding little food substitutes. "There is little to eat and it's all expensive," said he. Fearing he would be instantly discouraged, I told him that shopping was all about the approach, and Saturday morning I visited the store and read and read. It took about an hour.

What I read were the odd packages of flours that you look at but never buy. I bought three. Brown rice flour, potato flour and an all purpose gluten free flour all by Bob's Red Mill. I read the back label stem to stern, and these flours are not processed with wheat at all. Some other flours might not be wheat, but they are processed with wheat and are therefore not suitable for this no wheat diet.

In addition, I bought Rice Chex, fruit, veggies like always, meat, fish and dairy, and rice snacks for when I get lazy...

Now the big question was: could I sub a gluten free flour for whole wheat? The answer was in the mixing. I beat two eggs with a little sugar, baking powder and oil until light and then added milk. I added about 2/3 a cup of each flour, a cup of coconut, some walnuts and some cheesecake pudding mix just for fun. The muffins came out light. I was surprised. I thought they would have dropped like glue pods to the bottom of the stone muffin pan and then abruptly burn.

OK, I thought, I can make dessert stuff, but what about regular bread? Before I try the yeast gig, I thought I'd try a kind of pancake flat bread that Terry can wrap ham and cheese in. Using the same recipe as the muffins minus the sweet stuff, I made the batter runny and used a hot saute pan and presto bingo, the best tasting, best looking "sandwich wraps" came forth easily. Yeah!

Palettes are different, health needs are different, religious choices about food are different, as well as tastes, likes and dislikes. Luckily for me, I'll eat anything with the exception of guts or innards. And fortunately for us, food is abundant here in America, and taking advantage of that is something that is precious. Being able to choose from so many foods is a blessing that I treasure.

This time, there was no demanding health issue involved. It's just an attempt to change something in the diet to incur a change. I know, most medical people would direct a person to a pill, but I'm not a medicine person; I'm an herb person. I truly believe that what you eat has a tremendous affect on your body. So changing my diet is hopefully tantamount to changing the source of the problem. Effecting a cure of the sinus problem could be as easy as taking wheat out of Terry's diet for a time.

As far as the GS children are concerned. They will continue to get whole wheat and whole grain foods. But for a time, T and I are going to try this. I'll keep you posted...

Friday's Tattler

We arrived at the zoo with few problems. There was a single lane most of 64,, but the bus made great time. We were excited to get there and we left our lunch at the front of the zoo and toileted and counted heads and then took of. It was a great day. It was cool and the animals were pretty lively.





We went to the dark houses first. The first thing we saw was the orangutan who greeted us with as much curiosity as we met him. He seemed interested in amusing the children which they loved. He was a lot bigger than I remembered, and the children were just fascinated with him. It took quite a while to peal them away.




Then the children got to see an albino crocodile. It was almost eerie. The caging was very nicely done. We stood on a platform and the croc was down in his pool, about as you would imagine if you came across him while out in the wilds.





Then it was off to see the penguins. They were wonderfully lively and we got to watch one come down the rocks and dash into the water. It's funny how they balance on the rocks. Lots of rocking lots of hopping. Many of the children did not like the fishy smell of the penguin house.







The next stop was the snake and spider house. One of the children was really surprised by what he saw. We saw lots of poisonous snakes, and spiders and huge frogs and my favorite, the bats. They were vampire bats and were feasting on little bowls of blood. I always find bats interesting.










Once outside, we made another head count. Very important for safety. It was crowded at the zoo, and the children mixed with lots of schools and lots of people. They did a great job.





We visited all the animals on one side of the zoo including the gorillas which were very accommodating and fun, and then we sent the men for lunch and walked down a pretty substantial hill for lunch.











The children got to play on the playground while we made a nice lunch for everyone, and everyone ate. They were starving!








After lunch we took off our shoes and socks and played in the water park. The kids had a ball.







They were soaked, but we knew they would dry off quickly, and they did as we walked back up the hill and saw all the animals on the other side of the zoo.









The lions were majestic and we got to see the baby giraffes.











We stopped for a little while at the petting zoo, and Miss Judy met an old goat she had known years ago...











Then, as it grew late, we made a beeline for the park entrance and had a brief soda and cookies to refresh us, and we climbed the bus for home. Twenty two children were asleep by half way home.