Monday's Tattler

Good Morning!

Today starts our Halloween week! It will be a fun week of Boooo!

We will have regular classes with an emphasis on making neat stuff. Ghost stories a la Miss Judy and the history of Halloween! All in good fun and all to make children well rounded and knowledgeable.

Friday is our dress up day. We will wear costumes to school and then board the bus to visit with some elderly people in nursing homes.

On Friday at 3:00 p.m. is our Halloween party. It begins at 3:00 and ends at 4:00. Please plan to bring a Halloween treat to share - a plate of cookies or cupcakes or a salty treat. Parents are welcome to wear a costume. Every child needs an adult, so please plan to have someone there for your child. Children who are left stranded cry all afternoon, and this is truly a children's holiday, so make it sweet.

That's all folks! I think.

Sunday's Plate

Vegetables - the inscrutable little thing mostly forgotten and thought of as a duty. Me too, Iguana!

Like many of us, I was not reared on vegetables. I was reared on a myriad of fruit that mostly grew in my back yard or just down the street. I ate it all with delight. Vegetables were another story. The vegetable I probably ate more often than any were hot pickled peppers because they were always on the vegetable tray that came with the olives and man, was I hungry.

We had frozen mixed vegetables, canned peas, corn, and lettuce. I ate artichokes, but it was a solo in my house. Not tomatoes? My father knew they were poisonous. That was about it at home. At Thanksgiving we had sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes. We had those hideous French fries occasionally, and roast potatoes that were so thick with time in the oven, they were impossible to eat. I did eat Chinese vegetables a lot and loved whatever was in the mix. There were times when a shish kabob had mushrooms, green pepper and tomatoes. I was not a picky eater, I was a deprived eater.

So introducing my own family to vegetables was not an easy gig. I had never eaten broccoli, cauliflower, most lettuces, squash, leeks, turnips, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, etc. But I learned.

And that's the attitude other people of deprived backgrounds should take when re-discovering the vegetable market. Especially in a store like Schnucks that looks like an outdoor market. It's a great way to re-up your acquaintance with vegetables. Don't be afraid they will taste bad.

Vegetables are still relatively cheap, and can be the center of your meal if you play them up. It's just a matter of trying to mix and match.

Let's start with a salad. My husband once told me that my salads were as dull as the plate. I was horrified, but he was right. I had never really eaten a salad that did not consist of lettuce. So the effort began with adding one thing at a time to the family dinner salad until I finally had to lessen the amount of lettuce. Nearly anything goes into a salad, I discovered: raw onions, raw broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumber, peanuts, celery, carrots, raisins, nuts, cheese, berries and the list can go on forever. Salad dressings do not have to be those egregious bottled yucks. They can be made easily and made to go with the salad at hand. Mayo, lemon juice and Parmesan cheese make a great salad dressing. It's a matter of trying and doing. Takes five minutes. Cost: about $1.00.

Let's talk about the hateful canned vegetable. Let's ask the Judy question: Why? Why would anyone buy an overcooked, water- soaked, nutrition free slop - ever? The only thing you can do with canned vegetables that's even remotely palatable is leave them on the front porch for the possums. They have taste buds that correspond to canned vegetables. Frozen are OK in a pinch, but they still taste remarkably like freezer paper.

Let's now talk about fresh vegetables: They are cheap, they are good, they are nutritious. They should add, grace, and enhance everything you serve. Let's start with the hamburger. Instead of serving those potato paste sticks that drip unconscionable amounts of questionable added heart attack fat, let's look at the little red potato. @ $2.99 for five pounds, you can't go wrong. You wash, slice into wedges and bake for 25 minutes - about the same as frozen French fries. Yum. To the hamburger and potato wedges, we can add sauteed onions and mushrooms ( in olive oil) for the adults, and carrot sticks for the children. Dinner served. Cost of vegetables: about $1.00.

When steaming broccoli, cauliflower or brussels sprouts, don't over kill. These vegetables take about four minutes in the average micro and about that long on the stove. If you buy a steamer basket, it helps keep the vegetables from turning troll green.

But what about the other vegetables you see and never buy: turnips, leeks, funny looking squash, odd mushrooms, Asian vegetables, rutabaga, kale, and all the things you would have to ask the green grocer about before buying. Try one thing at a time.

I like turnips raw with dip. Three turnip chips on a plate is plenty. You can also julienne them. They are stunningly cheap. Leeks are funny little onion looking things, but they really taste more like an artichoke. One leek makes a ton of boats into which we can put meat, rice, bread stuffing, and some rice like noodles - and they are invitingly cute!.

Kale makes a great leaf to stuff much like a grape leaf. Beet leaves are good in salads, cooked, and shredded and added to rice and noodles. Beets are delicious and turn everything red. They aren't like those nasty canned enemies, they are sweet, and vaguely crunchy.

My favorite these days are odd squash. Cut in half, baked and filled with rice and a little meat and then topped with cheese sauce is a very filling dinner.

Vegetables are delicious rubbed with salad dressing mixes, seasoned with a favorite spice and baked. Cube them and mash them and serve like applesauce. They are great baked into a "critter" and topped with crumb crust. Lots of bland vegetables make great fruit buddies. It's just a matter of taking the time - about 20 minutes - and reinventing the wheel.

Summer squash like zucchini and yellow crook neck make lively little dishes sliced, and alternated with sliced tomatoes with a cheese topping. Dipped in pancake batter, these three make wonderful fritters. All squash make great dumplings, breads, cupcakes and cookies.

One of my favorite dishes is sliced cucumbers, onions and green peppers in an oil and vinegar brew. It only gets better with age.

None of these things take much time. A whole squash can be zapped in the microwave in a matter of ten minutes. Don't forget to pierce like a potato. Don't over cook anything.

The whole gig with vegetables is that you buy probably less than a pound of anything and then divide and use a little at a time. Fruits and vegetables should cost less than $25.00. You don't have to buy every veggie every shopping trip. For a family of four, you need about half a pound of broccoli, some potatoes, a bag of carrots, an artichoke, lettuce, mushrooms and onions and a squash. Next time try six more.

Here is the Garden School recipe for cheese sauce:

1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup flour
3 cups milk
1 tablespoon chicken bouillon

Bring mix to steaming, add 8 slices American Cheese - don't use cheddar - it will taste like soap.
1/2 cup sour cream once to take it from the heat.

Salad dressing:

Real mayo, and then anything you can think of.

Make it fun and add one new veggie every week. You'll be glad you did, and well prepared vegetables will really cut down on your meat budget.

Saturday...Something New?

From Kids Lunch Box Cards

Comment: Here's an article on Applesauce that's well worth reading.

Applesauce

Honestly, when I started this taste test I thought "How different could applesauce really taste?" Well, very different! Some are tart, some bland... chunky or smooth. I have new respect for choosing applesauce- even for cooking and baking. Though we tested many brands, I am sure you will come across many more- the ingredient list for the applesauce you plan to buy is: APPLES. Many brands we tested just had this one ingredient- some also had fruit juice concentrate, water and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). NOTHING ELSE. Our winners are: Trader Joe's single serving Organic Apple Sauce (kid friendly taste), Solana Gold Organic Apple Sauce (their ingredient is apples only- wow!), Trader Joe's Applesauce Crushers (whipped taste, kid-friendly FUN packaging) and Trader Joe's Big&Chunky Applesauce.

I prefer dolling out from the large jars into lunchboxes because I know I can recycle them. I rarely use the single serve, but if I do, I have the kids leave it in their lunchbox so I can make sure it goes into recycling.

Because there are so many varieties, this taste-test is for basic applesauce- no flavors or spices. Later in the year we will be testing spiced and fruit flavor apple sauces!

Tastefully sponsored by:
Lassen's Health Foods
Trader Joe's Market

Friday's Tattler

It was a beautiful day yesterday - a real ball game of weather. As I approached school at 5:45, I wondered if the mist on my car would stop the field trip. I pulled into the parking lot and fed the cats, and then started making lunch. I thought that it looked less threatening as the dawn approached. The sky was wild with activity, but as a more or less daring person, I bet on the sunshine. As the hours ticked away and the apricot bars finished baking and the Pizzel was packed for a trial run as bread for the peanut butter and jelly, I hesitated to pack drinks till the trip was a go.

About 8:45, I called our bus driver Sandy and the farm. The farm had planned on our cancellation. I told them we didn't want to cancel, but they said they didn't have anyone scheduled to do the field trip. Nice, I thought. But they gave us the green light for about fifteen minutes, and then called to say it was raining out there and the mud and the... every excuse in the book.

We ended up doing a regular Friday, but it was fun. We ate our picnic outside, and the children literally ate every single thing we had. That's a real reminder that the combination outside and lunch is a great big green light.

It was Elayna's birthday so there was very nice treat for snack. All in all, a very nice day.

Music and Movement - Instrumental in Language Development By Maryann Harman, M.A. Comment: Edith sent this article, and it's well worth reading.

“A B C D E F G.” Even before the brain research findings, teachers and parents have taught the alphabet to children with the help of a song. Now, based on the research, we understand why. With the help of cat scans, we have been able to see what happens to the brain when listening to music. Each component of music affects a different part of the brain, e.g. a familiar song activates the left frontal lobe, timbre the right frontal lobe, and pitch the left posterior. One side of the brain processes the word while the other processes the music – activating the whole brain ensures better retention. Short-term memory has the ability to hold only seven bits of information. If bits of information are bonded together, as in a song, it can be processed as one piece. By condensing the information, the brain is able to receive and process more. In this article, we will discuss brain research findings and explore how music and movement can be used to enhance memory skills and retention and language development. For more of the article go HERE

Tuesday's Thought

One of the things that children have to do when they first come to school is to learn to communicate beyond that special language they have had with their parents at home. The intrinsic knowledge that exists between mother and child, and sometimes father and child stays at home when a child enters school. Nobody can do that like the parent.

Being able to communicate well is the highest level of being human. It is what we do that other creatures can't. We speak, we ask questions, we reply. Animals can growl and hiss and spit and bite and kick and get their point across, but humans can organize their thoughts and speak about what is important to them. I have yet to listen to a cat reflect on anything.

So teaching a child to act on being fully human is important. The first step is listening. You can't listen if you are speaking. So, getting children to be quiet in a group is a big challenge. "It is time for you to listen, and we listen with our ears not our mouths. So we need to stop talking and listen." Many children have a great difficult with this. The question is why.

Listening to someone else means that "I" have to take a step back and lose being the center of attention. I am no longer the focus when "I" listen. The selfish child thinks, "I may lose myself if I listen to another person, and that would not be a good thing. So, I will never listen, and while they are talking, I will make as much noise as I can, simply because I want to be the center of all things."

This is typical of three year old behavior. The child has not let go of the image of self as a small god, and a god who needs to be reckoned with. In a normal child, this dissipates by age four.

By age four, children have mostly learned that we share air space, and sometimes the child gets to talk and sometimes the adult gets to talk. So no longer fearing that he will lose himself, the child begins to listen, and he discovers that he likes what he hears. He's learning because he has learned to listen. He is growing up.

The next step to solid communication is learning to ask questions. This happens in late four and at five. It is utterly amazing to me how hard learning to ask a question is. It is a task few people ever acquire. Many people grow old without ever inquiring out loud to another person about the things they see, hear or experience around them. They will tell, tell, tell, but they will never ask. It is no wonder so many relationships fade, die or crash because the inability to ask someone - even someone who is close to us- a genuine and concerned question is so difficult, so Herculean, that actual asking must be tantamount to death.

"I saw a wonderful movie last night."
"I saw one about..." and the communication is grabbed like a football and the play is lost because the initiator is left in the dust while the ball carrier runs away.

Better:
"I saw a wonderful movie last night."
"Oh, what did you see?"
"I saw High Noon."
"What was it about?"
"It was about..."
"I like that kind of movie. I happened to see a movie last night as well.
"Oh, what was it?"
"I saw..."

This is called conversational exchange. It is begun by one person and through the curious question, an exchange is made. In the first dialogue, it is not conversation at all. It is "show and tell."

"I made talapia for the first time last night."
"I made gumbo. It was really good. I used..."

Better:
"I made talapia for the first time last night."
"How did it turn out?"
"It was really good. I was surprised by..."
"I know what you mean. Whenever I make something new, like...."

One conversation is communication and the other is a launching pad into ignorance because nobody learns. One person initiates a conversation, and the other reports his own story. That kind of "palaver" is learned in childhood, and it's taught by parents who never ask a question. There is a not so rare social ill that says: "I don't have to ask questions because questions make me look foolish." So the child who models his behavior after the not so rare social ill poops in his pants because he might look foolish asking where the bathroom is.

Asking a question never makes a child or an adult look foolish. Not asking questions makes the child look like a three year old and the adult look like an idiot. Asking questions is the second step in basic communication skills. Learning to ask a simple question allows a child to enter into a social order that will serve him all his life. He doesn't have to wander all over the high school aimlessly because he can ask someone, "Hey, where's the coach's office?"

One of the problems with children who are reluctant to learn to ask questions is that they are always in the dark. "I didn't know" becomes the standard excuse. "I didn't think you wanted me to" or "I didn't know what you wanted me to do" are also phrases of excuse that somehow allow the unspoken question to be validated. The proper response from the loving adult is, "If you don't ask, you won't know. Next time ask."

Perhaps the problem is a deeper one. Caring about one another should produce a steady stream of questions. It's only natural to want to know about someone you care about. Imagine going to a doctor who tells you that your child will need surgery and you never ask "what or why?"

The further up the social ladder one travels, the more elaborate the questions become: "Say, I heard that you are traveling to -------. I've never been there, but I'd sure like to go. Can you tell me..." Or, "I've been reading such and such a book, and I'm interested in ________. I understand that you know _______."

There are certain given questions a child will learn when he is learning to write essays that will allow him to converse with adults. The questions are about who, what, when, where and why. By learning to ask questions that cover who, what, when, where, and why, a child will begin to grasp real knowledge and climb the social ladder. But it doesn't begin on it's own, and it can only be half taught in school. The home is the place where children either learn to communicate, or they don't.

Talk to your child and ask him questions - not why until after he is six. But ask him questions and then listen to his response. Help the youngest child respond. Shaking heads and saying, "yeah" will not count. The response to any question should be a full sentence. And don't, whatever you do, walk out half way through his response. People who cut off other people, interrupt, finish other people's sentences, change the subject, or point to extraneous objects mid remark are not only rude, they are ignorant. What we are saying when we do this is, "You're not important enough to listen to, so I'm not." Communication is the high point of life. So let's begin to work on that with our children. Stop, look and listen. It's always a good idea, and then ask, who, what, when, where and why.

Monday's Tattler

A little warmer week this week! Good morning!

This is farm week. We will look at farms and farming and even do a little of our own. Growing things is a human condition. Growing things teaches children all kinds of virtues like patience, and gentleness, and observing. We will talk about the plants at school and how we take care of them, what they need to grow, and what they offer us as owners.

We will continue to work on our vocabulary. Please check the word wall at the front of the school and help re-teach and remind your child about the words he hears daily at school. Vocabulary is a thing that sets a child free of the constraints of non-communication. Communication is a lacking thing these days, and without the word power to get the point across, the child is hobbled by silence.

This week we will talk about Johnny Appleseed. He was a real character who lived in the East as a farmer - an apple farmer or nurseryman. He traveled much of his life sewing apple seeds, making friends and taming wild animals. He never wore shoes and wore a pan on his head. Many of his apple trees are still around and that was two hundred years plus ago!

On Friday we will be going to the farm at Mayse Farm. We will learn about growing corn and about growing broccoli, and other things on the farm. We will take a hay ride and do some maze running.

Then it's a picnic at the park.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate

This week's Sunday Plate is about meat. Meat is a very controversial topic. Some people denounce meat as the first and last contribution to the decline of Western Civilization. On the other side of the ticket, there are those who regard meat as a constitutional right.

Let's put meat in the middle where it, and most things, belong.

Buying meat for a big family is a really tough project because meat is very expensive and then shrinks when you cook it. I remember making a lot of things that looked wildly big and having them all but disappear in the pan, pot, and especially the crock pot. The object is to buy enough but not too much. Meat is the one item on the table people will want to eat too much of - especially if it is cooked properly and tastes like it smells.

Let's look at what we are buying to understand meat. Meat is the center of most meals. It's what we base the rest of the menu on. So meat must be the first priority in constructing a week's menus. Meat is set up at the butchers by kind - beef, pork, chicken, and fish and shellfish, and if you add eggs, and cheese and beans, you have eight totally different meal bases for the a week. meat contains the essential amino acids we need in order to live. Meat is brain food for children and contains the fat that their hungry brains thrive on. But too much meat, or the wrong kind of meat will damage health. So arranging the diet and menu plan to be healthy means a little thought and a little domestic engineering.

We can start with Monday. If Monday is the beef day, you browse the butcher's for the best deal. There are so many kinds of beef dishes, it will be hard to run out of fun things to do on Mondays. If you buy a roast, it will be more expensive than if you buy ground meat, but with a roast, you will probably have a little left over for soup on Saturday. Sometimes there are sales on steaks, but rarely are there leftovers. Cubed meat make great fondue dishes, great stews, meat pies and stir fry. Ground meat can be the basis for a hundred different foods, and if you make meatballs, you can use them in as many ways as the cubed meat. Buying no more than 4-5 ounces per person is not only wise, it's a healthy way to buy beef. Buy the leanest ground meat possible because the fat just goes down the drain.

On Tuesday, you might choose pork. Chops, ground, sausage, hot dogs, ham, ham steaks, pork roasts, and pork steaks for piggie pie. Pork is bought the same way beef is bought - about 4-5 ounces per person, and it doesn't have to be served as a huge hunk of meat. You can use ground sausage, which is cheap, and it can be used in place of hamburger. It is great in chili and spaghetti sauce.

Let's take a breather from meat on Wednesday and use eggs and cheese. Eggs and cheese make great breakfast-for-dinner meals as well as quiches, Welsh Rarebits or open face cheese sandwiches. When you add pancakes or waffles to the show, everyone seems to enjoy this. Cheese also makes a great pizza night.

Thursday makes a great chicken night. The cheapest and easiest chicken meal is a whole baked chicken. You pop it into the oven at 350 degrees when the kids get home from school, and it's ready in 1.5 hours and best if cooked for 3 hours. Chicken pieces are easy to bake and if you crank up the stove to 400 degrees, it's done in 45 minutes. Legs, thighs, wings, all make great dishes. Chicken also makes a great last minute stew. You saute chicken pieces quickly and then add bouillon, wine, a tablespoon of ketchup and 30 minutes later thicken with a rue of cornstarch and water. Chicken is one of the most versitile meats there is.

Friday makes an excellent fish day. Fish is not hard to cook if you remember to thaw it out or buy it fresh on Friday. Fish cooks fast, so don't leave it, and don't cook it on high. Salmon makes a wonderful dinner and can be baked. Trout is a bit of a challenge, but talapia, sole, and cod can easily be baked, breaded and broiled. There are as many fishes in the sea as you could count, and shopping for fish should not be hard. Shell fish is just as easy to cook. Make sure you add your shrimp at the very very last minute or it will shrink up to nothing and taste like an eraser. When buying fish, buy 6 ounces per person. Tuna and canned clams make great patties and soups, and the cost is really quite doable. When making tuna patties use a lot of Parmesan cheese and make a cheese sauce to dip.

Saturday makes a great soup and bean day. By using all your leftovers, and adding a can of beans, you can make a great swamp soup that in a busy schedule will not hinder. Swamp soup is probably the best nutrition of the whole week. Everything goes into the pot - except tuna.

Sunday is a great catch up day. Whatever you didn't eat the week before is served on Sunday.

One thing to remember is that meat does not have to be served in a whopping big chunk. By using smaller pieces, and distributing it among vegetables, noodles, rice and eggs, you are making your meal a lot healthier. This weekend I stuffed acorn and butternut squash with brown rice and a pound of bacon. The bacon cost me $2.79. I fed six adults with a meat base of $2.79 and everyone thought it was wonderful. Meat does not have to be expensive.

For the frugal buyer a typical week's menu might be:

Spaghetti with ground beef cost of meat $4.00
Cubed ham steak in brown rice and cheese sauce cost of meat $4.00
Breakfast for dinner with bacon and eggs cost of meat $3.00
Roast Chicken cost of meat $4.00
Shrimp and pea pods on rice cost of meat $4.00 (Aldi's)
Pizza with peperoni cost of meat $3.50
Swamp soup cost of meat $0.00

This does not include all the other things needed to make dinner, but it does show that a good and simple diet can cost less. This, of course, is for a family of four. It does not overdue the meat but it does provide with an adequate amount.

Cheese sauce recipe:

1/2 stick of butter melted in a sauce pan.
Add 1/2 cup of flour and cook for about a minute.
Add 2 cups of milk, 1 tablespoon of chicken bouillon, 6 slices real American cheese
bring to a boil, remove from stove and stir in 1/2 cup sour cream. It's ready to serve.

Next week: vegetables

Something New for Saturday

Momapedia.com

Andrea Evenson sent this to me. Thought some of you might be interested.

There is a new site that is helping parents find the answers to all their fall related questions, it's momapedia.com

From keeping your kids healthy through cold and flu season, to Halloween preparation tips, mamapedia.com has all your answers. This great new website allows you tap into the wisdom of other parents to get inside scoop! Mamapedia.com is a unique website that gives parents access to answers from other moms and dads. You can type a question/topic into the search engine and find similar questions posted by other parents to get help you get the answer you are looking for. All the answer are provided by other parents themselves, so your getting great info from people who have experience it first hand! The site is completely free and very user friendly. You can even look up questions asked in your own area!

Friday's Tattler

A good week, all in all. We looked at Columbus. It was amazing how much the children learned and remembered when asked. We drew ships, pasted ships, painted ships and listened to the story of how Christopher came to the new world. We even navigated his boat across the water using longitude and latitude lines. The kindergarten did a first rate job.

We've been re-organizing the playroom for winter and for more floor space. Some of the toys taken and put away are re-appearing. The boys got their trucks and cars back and seem to be enjoying them.

We tasted a pomegranate in Nutrition class, and every child but one tasted it and enjoyed it. One little boy loved it so much, his mom promised to buy one for him to eat. Pomegranates make a wonderful TV snack.

We had some trouble with spitting this week. Spitting is absolutely not tolerated. Please remind your child, if he or she is a spitter, that the consequences are dire. I have a place for spitter's medals that's hard to get to and harder to retrieve.

Next week: the farm.

Something Wonderful for Wednesday

Harvard Medical School has recommended 11 foods including nuts and fatty fish that make easy work of lowering cholesterol.

The newly published list contains quite different foods that are all capable of lowering cholesterol but do so in different ways.
Some deliver soluble fiber, which binds cholesterol and its precursors in the digestive system and drags them out of the body before they get into circulation. Others give you polyunsaturated fats, which directly lower LDL, and some contain plant sterols and stenols that block cholesterol absorption.
All the 11 cholesterol fighting food groups are listed below.

1. Oats
2. Barley and other whole grains
3. Beans
4. Eggplant and Okra
5. Nuts
6. Vegetable oils
7. Apples, grapes, strawberries, and citrus fruits
8. Foods fortified with sterols and stanols
9. Soy
10. Fatty fish
11. Fiber supplements

Harvard Medical School elaborated on this list with information on potential sources of these food groups and data on their nutritional value.
It recommends that people turn to oat-based cereals like Cheerios to boost their consumption of oats to the recommended level of 20 to 35 grams a day. The average American only gets about half that amount.

For other food groups Harvard Medical School gives precise details of their cholesterol fighting impact. It says eating 2 ounces of nuts a day can reduce LDL by about 5 percent while 25 grams of soy protein (10 ounces of tofu and 2.5 cups of soy milk) can lower LDL by a similar amount.
To reduce LDL even further Harvard Medical School recommends foods fortified with sterols and stenols. Just two grams of plant stenols or sterols can lower LDL by about 10 percent.
Fiber supplements also make the list but the accompanying text says they offer the least appealing way to get soluble fiber. Beans, whole grains, oats, eggplant and okra are other soluble fiber alternatives on the list.
When comes to deciding on which foods to choose from Harvard Medical School advises people to take a broad approach. Just as investors should have a wide portfolio to cut risks people should eat from a wide portfolio of cholesterol fighting foods to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Monday's Tattler

It's Monday again...and it's time to start a new week. This week is Columbus Week. I know he's now the enemy of mankind and people love to hate him because he didn't live up to twenty first century standards in the fifteenth century. But Christopher Columbus is a fascinating person and filled with the kind of energy, perseverance, loyalty and reverence that makes someone great.

No special gigs this week. It's a stay at school week.

We will continue to work on our full names, our parents' names, our addresses and our phone numbers. This is something parents must do. Please go over this with your child on the way to school and on the way home.

The weather is cool today. It's time for long pants, but today it will be nearly seventy, so shorts are still OK. It's HOT on the playground.

We will be using a lot of pumpkin this week, and in nutrition class, we will be looking at the pomegranate for taste and health. It's a fun fruit the children will just love.

This week in geography, the older children will actually map out Columbus's voyage with their navigation skills. Should be fun.

Question for the week: If you were to leave your home and everything you owned and knew, what would you take with you? Ask your child.

Sunday's Plate

Saving money on food means the kind of commitment that goes further than a haphazard, half hearted attempt at the domestic chore of feeding self and family. It's all part of the family package. Sadly, it's a package many women who consider themselves "modern" avoid because somehow the grocery store is equated with a kind of slavery that is right up there with the stove, pots and pans, and knowing what to do with said items. Most stoves, after all, come with chains and a whip ;-}

We all know that eating is something we can't avoid, and when "take out" is available, the big modern mouthful is why not take advantage of it?

I was one of those kids who grew up in the modern period known as "cooking is the slave trade." My mother would invariable drag out something to be cooked that had a strong odor, and that was enough to have my father flee from the house dragging us all with him to one of his favorite haunts. It didn't take my mother long to work out a plan for five or six nights out a week. I think I lived in restaurants all dressed up in a party dress and falling asleep in my dessert. In all my mother's ninety-one years, she never ate a fast food meal - for her it was the real McCoy - it was my father's duty to provide and to do it well. My father, on the other hand, drank most of his dinners. After fourteen rounds of cocktails, we would finally get dinner about eight-thirty and be home just in time for bed about 10:00 on a school night. No homework done, of course - but this was my mother's response to the "no commitment" of cooking, and Mother came first, second, third, fourth, and fifth in a family of four. I'm supposing that her example was the reason I think restaurants are a treat on a special occasion.

The problem with take out and restaurant life is that it is simply not intended to be a steady diet. Restaurant food is not high grade food. The best restaurants in town buy the cheapest food they can- duh. The art of putting cheap food together has become a salable industry. But the art quickly ricochets back to a craft when you count the calories, the fat, and the dietary nutrition. One morning's MacDonald's is three days worth of fat and a day's worth of calories and the nutrition of not even half a meal.

Walt Norton, a doctor who lived behind us once told me, "There is so much self indulgence in fast food these days, that kids are coming to me with the arteries of eighty year old people - clogged to eighty percent."

Over the years, I've heard just about every excuse for not cooking. My favorite has always been: "Fast food is cheaper than real groceries."

So let's look at the budget and decide which is really cheaper. We know which is better for you. If you're budget is $100.00 for food a week for a family of four, you are spending less than $15.00 a day on groceries. If you eat three meals at home every day, you are spending $5.00 per meal. You can't take a family of four to a fast food restaurant for under $15.00, so fast is not cheaper than staying home. Sure a quick stop at a drive in is more convenient, and there is a whole lot less work involved, but trade more sick days, more trips to the doctor, and a lot more lethargy, cavities, trips to the dentist, and the trade is still in favor of eating at home.

$100.00 is about right for four. If you spend $25.00 for baking supplies, $25.00 for meat, that leaves $50.00 for fruits, vegetables, and dairy. Cleaning and paper products are not food.

Now, specifically, one of the things that really burdens the grocery list is drinks. Drinks are the thing that puts on more pounds than any other grocery item. Children drink much faster than they eat, and many children find drinking easier than eating. One trick many children pull is to ask for three and four cups of milk and eat nothing. We call it milk-belly.

Few children clamor for water, and that's a shame because water will refresh and replenish the body faster and better than any other drink and it's not something you need to bring home from the store.

As another factor, look at the waste of store bought; it's obvious. Most children will pour six ounces of apple juice into a cup and leave three of them on the counter. Milk is poured at dinner, and when milk belly is not involved, cup after cup of milk is poured down the drain. It's no wonder that parents cave offering soda. Children will drink soda, but leave dinner on the table because the sweetness and lightness of the soda makes dinner taste bitter, sour, and heavy. Try it yourself. Take a big swig of soda and then eat some cooked broccoli.

According to a kidney surgeon I know, soda and the salt in it is a leading contributing factor of kidney disease. It takes four tablespoons of salt to make a soda. Four tablespoons is three too many for a whole day's worth of eating and drinking.

Consider what is in your grocery cart when it comes to drinks. Add it up and then ask if this is really how you want to spend your money. The saddest thing about buying drinks is that they are so expensive and they are taken for granted. Children who get a few ounces of juice a couple of times a day will enjoy it much more than the child who pours endless cups and leaves most of them around the house.

And while we are on the endless cups of this and that, have you ever considered what a disease carrier a sippy cup is? A sippy cup has a child's spit and mucus in it, on it, around it, and through it which dries, festers in the sugary heaven the germs are finding, and every sip is "re-upped" every time the child finds it. No wonder there are thousands of ear infections, sore throats, and general infections around. Do children really need drinks in the car? Are they going to be dehydrated in an hour's shopping or at church? Should children be entertained by food and drink when they are out or is out entertaining enough?

And last but not least today, let's talk about the egregious dry drink mixes that encourage diabetes better than genetics. Need I say more? The very idea of making a kool-aid is tantamount to inviting diabetes to take up with your child. It's sugar water and will dissolve more than teeth. Why does everything need to be sweet? When children drink kool-aid or the equivalent, the body gets high on sugar and then continues to look for that high powered sugar fix. Children who drink a lot of dry powder mixes can't drink orange juice because to them real fruit juice is "sour." That says something about the sugar fix.

So what do you buy? A family of four probably needs three gallons of milk and a gallon of juice. That should do it. And that shouldn't cost more than $15.00. But that doesn't mean every time someone is bored they grope the fridge for something to swallow. Between meals, water will do.

Shopping wisely takes taking command of your menus, your grocery cart and your life, and saying no to the obvious junk that not only is not good for you but horrible for your health. Reducing the amount of soft and sugar drinks, and increasing the amount of water will not only reduce the grocery list, it will reduce the waistline.

Next time: buying meat.

Saturday Something New...

The Grandparents Handbook: Games, Activities, Tips, How-Tos, and All-Around Fun (November 1, 2009; $16.95; ISBN: 978-1-59474-412-9), by Elizabeth LaBan, offers modern grandparents a variety of fun pastimes and educational projects to share with their grandchildren. The book also provides a refresher chapter on various baby related tasks such as changing a diaper, swaddling a newborn, and giving kids a bath and also includes some advice on respecting your children's decisions on how they raise their children.

Divided into four sections—"Bringing Up Baby: A Grandparent's Refresher Course,” "Indoor and Outdoor Fun and Games,” "Crafts and Cooking,” and "Sharing and Exploring the World Together”—The Grandparents Handbook features such activities as:

• How to Baby—and Kid—Proof Your Home (page 30)
• How to Handle Toddler Tantrums (page 50)
• Holding a Backyard Olympics (page 60)
• Planting a Fairy and Goblin Garden (page 85)
• Creating Your Own Ice Cream Cake (page 107)
• Making Homemade Pickles (page 109)
• Planning a Special Meal Together (page 178)
• Creating Your Family Tree (page 180)
• And much more!

With dozens of interactive projects and featuring whimsical illustrations, The Grandparents Handbook: Games, Activities, Tips, How-Tos, and All-Around Fun will lead grandparents down surprising paths of discovery as they teach the youngest generation about family, friendship, and the world around them. It is the perfect gift for modern grandparents and grandparents-to-be!

Friday's Tattler

It was a dark and stormy week! The children played indoors quite a bit. We cleared out some toy space and Miss Molly brought in about a 1000 piece train set. We haven't put it together yet because we are still clearing out some of the toys to make room.

We did a little work on dinosaurs this week, but the big dig at the end of the week had to canceled on account of rain. Dinosaurs are not the big hit they used to be. Ella and Sophie and Abbie were the only children who knew the names of some of the dinosaurs. They knew brontosaurus and tyrannosaurus rex and "long neck." I was impressed!

We are working on knowing our full names, our parents' full names, our address and our phone number. This has to be done at home. Please teach your child his full name, address and phone number in the car on the way home from school.

We tried one of our Garden School trademark lunches this week and it was a huge success. We served stuffed pumpkin. It's a whole pumpkin with the top cut off, cleaned out and stuffed with cooked rice and sausage. There is a cheese sauce that goes with it. The children loved it.

Our focus at the table this month is "drink your milk." We have a lot of children who are not accustomed to drinking milk at the table. So we are encouraging them to do so at certain points during meal time.

I was delighted to see some of our old students return to the GS on Friday. A great big welcome to Skylar and Kamden. It was nice to see Elizabeth there as well.

Thursday's Teacher

From Education Week - Curriculum Matters

by Sean Cavanagh

Comment: I love this article. You can find this blog by going HERE

One of the things America has always been good at is competition. Whatever the competition has been, we have been up for it. Standardizing anything only takes the fun out of what we as Americans have come to think of as a natural fight for the top seat on the mountain. We compete with one another, with ourselves, and with the guy down the hill. That natural fight has been sent to time out by big government. The fight that's left is fought by individuals who have moxie and guts. Not everyone has these instincts. The competitive fight mentality of Americans is what made our country great.

Chinese-American Scholar on American Education, and Foreign Competition

One of the voices to weigh in recently on where U.S. schools stand internationally is that of Yong Zhao, a professor at Michigan State University who was born and raised in China. Zhao, in a new book published by the ASCD, draws upon his own experiences in the Chinese education system and argues that much of the U.S. angst over whether we're losing "competitiveness" on the global stage is misplaced. American policymakers, he says, are drawing the wrong lessons from the growing economic might of nations like China—and becoming overly enamored with high-stakes testing, to our peril.

Zhao observes, as others have, that Chinese officials are refashioning their education system to adopt some American-style features, namely less emphasis on high-stakes admissions tests and more promotion of critical-thinking skills and independent projects. One of the more interesting changes he cites is the government's decision in 2008 to give 68 Chinese colleges the freedom to admit or reject students on their own criteria, placing less emphasis on the gaokao, or national college entrance exam.

The author disapproves of what he sees as the United States' growing fixation on testing and the "accountability" measures of the No Child Left Behind era. One of his chapters is titled "Myth, Fear, and the Evolution of Accountability," which should give you a taste of his point of view. Here's an excerpt:

"Clearly, American education has been moving toward authoritarianism," he writes, "letting the government dictate what and how students should learn and what schools should teach. This movement has been fueled mostly through fear—fear of threats from the Soviets, the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Indians. The public, as any animal under threat would, has sought and accepted the action of a protector—the government."

Pretty strong language. Zhao goes on to praise what he sees as the strengths of the U.S. education system, such as its diversity, which he says breeds innovation and allows it to bring about and respond to changes in the American economy. He also describes American education as a system of "second chances," in which students who struggle initially have many chances to correct their course, seize upon a talent and prosper. (Presumably unlike other nations, where students are directed onto an academic track on the basis of test scores and kept there.) The United States needs to find ways to replicate these strengths, he says.

Zhao is by no means the first scholar to caution that fears of the United States falling behind educationally are overblown. If you've had a chance to read Zhao's work (the ASCD has published some excerpts online), are you persuaded by his reasoning?

Photo of students at Beijing's Fourth Secondary School, April 2007, by sevans for EdWeek.

Cinnamon and Holiday Spices and Health

From Wise Woman Ezine

Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Nutmeg
© 2009, Susun S Weed

Comment: I really love this ezine. I read it all the time and have found many wonderful and useful things. Susun Weed is a brilliant herbalist and so much more.

The aroma of winter is wood smoke and evergreen. But winter holidays smell spicy. Herbs that grow only in the tropics — such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, allspice, and vanilla — are called spices. Their aromatic oils and volatile esters entice us with delicious smells and mouth-watering tastes. And spices warm us from the inside, as if we had ingested the tropical sun on a cold day. Spices help preserve food and counter a variety of illnesses, too. Come, sit and warm your feet by the fire. Close your eyes and imagine the dense green forests where aromatic spices grow.

Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) made me an outlaw. A toothpick soaked in cinnamon oil was the "drug" of choice in my grade school. No matter how much the adults attempted to dissuade us, no matter how they threatened, we found a way to get our cinnamon "fix." As an adult, I prefer my cinnamon in sticks or finely ground, though I can still vividly recall the hot rush of a fresh cinnamon oil toothpick. Any food can be enhanced with cinnamon, from apple pie to baked beans, from meat marinades to salad dressings. The scent of cinnamon heralds holiday cheer.

Medicinally, cinnamon is a warming tonic. It chases chills, prevents colds, and warms the hands and feet of those who feel cold all the time. Cinnamon has been used for over 2500 years as an appetite enhancer, a stomachic, a carminative, an antimicrobial, an antispasmodic, an anti-rheumatic, and an anti-fungal. A cup of cinnamon tea — made by steeping a cinnamon stick or a scant teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon in a cup of boiling water for no more than ten minutes — is a good way to cheer up and prevent the flu on frosty winter nights.

A cup of cinnamon tea also eases menstrual cramps, soothes sore joints, relieves gas pain, and allays that feeling of fullness after a big meal. A sip or two of cinnamon tea before meals improves digestion and prevents acid reflux. Those who drink cinnamon tea regularly will have less cavities, stronger gums, and fewer insect bites.

Cinnamon made the news recently for its ability to counter diabetes. Modern herbalists are intrigued by its mildly estrogenic and strongly antioxidant effects.

Folk medicine reminds us that cinnamon tea is a gentle but effective remedy for both childhood diarrhea and infestations of worms. In India, cinnamon tea is regarded as a remedy against halitosis, nausea, and vomiting. Cinnamon is frequently used by herbalists everywhere to improve the taste of strong, rooty brews.

The essential oil of cinammon is a good substitute for clove oil in treating toothache. It is particularly effective in killing the organisms that cause periodontal disease.

Those who are pregnant and those with stomach or intestinal ulcers are advised to avoid cinnamon. It can poison. A little of the essential oil of cinnamon (of course the parents were right!) and very large amounts of powdered cinnamon can cause symptoms. Poisoning begins with central nervous system sedation — characterized by sleepiness and depression. This is followed by tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) and stimulation of the vasomotor center, which causes increases in intestinal peristalsis (diarrhea), respiration (panting), and diuresis (perspiration).

Cinnamon has been used for centuries as a perfume and a preservative. It was considered more precious than gold in ancient Egypt where it was valued as essential in embalming. Both Christians and witches are said to have known of the spiritual energy of cinnamon and so included it in their rituals. Why not make cinnamon part of your holiday rituals?

For Cardamon and other spices please go to Susan Weed

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning!

It's dinosaur week! Children will play, learn and discover a world of dinosaurs this week. It should be fun.

Children may wear long clothes if you haven't already gotten them out of the drawer or closet.

We will be making Halloween goodies all month.

Roast pork and potatoes, applesauce, biscuits and corn is our menu today.

Loving the cooler weather.

No field trip this week.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate

In a discussion last week with a couple of our Garden School mothers, it was proposed that I offer some insight into keeping the food budget way down and still making great meals every day. I've been buying for home since 1970, and I added school in 1983, so I've had lots of practice. I once made the newspaper in an article about managing a big family on a small budget.

My issue has always been providing the best food I can for as little as possible, providing that food with as little trouble as possible, and always being able to provide it simply because it is easy, quick, and tastes good with the added bonus of being very healthy. I've learned a lot over the years from constantly reading about health and nutrition, from using foods differently and lots and lots of experimentation.

Shopping is important, but it's not so much where you shop as what you buy when you shop. There are times when it's necessary to buy the more expensive cut, the more expensive product simply because it's a better overall buy for health. Slowly you figure out where it's necessary to spend money, and when it's just silly; what stores provide the best bargains, and when to buy in bulk. The big question to ask is: What is draining the budget?

The next question is: "How much do you WANT to spend?" What is that "perfect" number. I know at school that my budget is about $250.00 per week. If you break that down into meals, it costs me 42 cents a meal per child and that includes milk. Does 42 cents a meal seem like a good number? Today we will eat roast pork and home baked fries, corn, biscuits and applesauce. We had fresh apple/orange muffins for breakfast and homemade chocolate cake will be served for snack. At 42 cents a serving, that's not a bad deal.

So here are a couple of ideas to ponder: Number One: If you can make it at home, don't buy it. This applies especially to bread, and baked goods so we will concentrate on those right now.

That includes all the treat foods you buy. That's easier said than done. Or it is at least easier thought than done. The response when I say this out loud is, "I don't have time." That's the escape route most people choose to saving money and making healthier meals, and it always makes me smile. The truth is, you do have time, and the time is well spent, and the result is saved money and better health.

Let me use one of my favorite examples: If I "bought" muffins for our children every Monday, it would cost me $48.00 per breakfast. By making the muffins, it costs me the price of flour, sugar, baking powder, oil, eggs and milk and whatever extra I put into them. It probably costs $2.00. By not spending the $46.00 on muffins, I can spend my money elsewhere.

The problem and frustration of baking usually lies with the kitchen. Canisters kept full for baking are a must. A mixer left out is a must. The other thing to remember is that we don't need 24 muffins for breakfast for a family of three, four, five, or six. We need six. Buy a six muffin tin because you don't need more. Keep left over batter in a plastic container. It does expand and using glass can make a mess. Then, when you want muffins again, the batter is made. I never bake more than half a cake, a quarter of a muffin recipe, or more than a dozen cookies at a time. That way, it's quick, done, and nobody puts on the pounds and there is a next time soon.

Setting up the kitchen means keeping your stove empty, your equipment available, your mixer out and your ingredients within easy reach. When you set up your kitchen to be able to bake quickly, you can get a cake in the oven in 4 minutes while you are making that last effort on the phone, texting a friend or even using facebook. It's four minutes. You do have time.

The latest studies on nutrition say we need six helpings of grain product every day for good health. But the grain products should be whole grains, and that's not going to happen with white flour pre-made junk in a cellophane container that has a shelf life of 400 years. At the same time other things easy to make are noodles, cereal, and crackers - more about that later.

"But don't I have to have a lot of extra food in the house to do a lot of fancy baking?" The answer is for most cakes, you need flour, sugar, oil or butter, eggs, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and perhaps some chocolate. You also need a pan. Most people have these things in their homes. But don't get me wrong, it's not all the cheap stuff from Walmart. I don't buy bulk white flour products because it's not good for you. I use some occasionally, but for the most part I do buy the expensive whole wheat pastry flour at $5.00 per bag. It's still cheaper to make than to buy premade. I also mill my own flours from beans and rice, but that's a whole other ballgame.

Bread is extremely expensive, and again white bread is horrible for your digestion. It's as bad as inviting cancer to be your friend. Studies have shown that white bread and white flour products are suspects in causing intestinal cancer, so be careful. I rarely if ever buy a loaf of bread because there are so many other choices out there. When you are in the sandwich rut, it's hard to think outside the sandwich box, but there are a lot of things that can be used in place of sandwich bread.

In figuring the cost of sandwiches for picnics during the summer at school. Multiply forty children by sandwich bread and you get a cost of $15.00 just for the bread. That three times a week is just painfully expensive. So we use alternatives. We use long hoagy buns, tortillas and sometimes homemade buns.

When you look at the ingredients in any bakery cake, cookie, or muffin, the flour is not even enriched because it is not even trying to be healthy. When the sugar content is listed before the flour, you know you have a "winner" to contend with. When the fat is something you never even heard of, you know you are eating something one molecule away from plastic, so the excuse, "I don't have time" is like saying, "I don't have time to lock my doors and turn off my lights" at the end of an evening.

Baking is a habit. It's something you do while you are making other things in the kitchen, and after placing your equipment within easy use, and filling your canisters with baking ingredients, and making sure these things are on your regular shopping list, you will be surprised by how much you save.

Here is a shopping list to help:

Whole wheat pastry flour - can be used in place of white flour
Brown sugar - is better for you than white, but your product will be slightly heavier.
White sugar - can be reduced from 1/4 to 1/2 on most recipes.
Confectioners sugar - a little goes a long way.
Butter - much better for you than margarine.
Canola oil - best oil for baking.
Cocoa - is a wonderful antioxidant and has a lot of nutritional value.
Coconut - makes muffins/cakes lighter and more nutritious. Coconut is the highest quality nut.
Baking powder - always use generously.
Baking soda - add a little when using fruit.
Salt- use as needed but don't over do.
Chocolate chips - buy good dark chips. Milk chocolate has no value and is cloyingly sweet.
Eggs - best buy is free range, but an egg is an egg.
Milk - make sure your milk is vitamin D.

Here's an easy muffin recipe:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar ( can be reduced)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1-2 cups milk

add nuts, cold cereal, raisins, coconut, cinnamon, berries, chopped apples, cranberries, orange or other fruit or vegetable. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Next time: vegetables and fruits

Friday's Tattler

We had a great day out in the sunshine and crisp cool fall weather. The children were at their best when we listened to a movie about smoke, fire, time, and the danger of burning buildings. The kids answered Fireman Ryan's questions with intelligence and interest as he asked them if they knew how to crawl in a fire and why, and if they knew how to get out of their houses.


Now it's time for parents to do a fire drill at home. It's important for every child to know how to get out of his building if he suddenly wakes up to smoke in his room. There should be a meeting place outside where children will meet with other family members.

Children should be taught their full names, address and phone numbers by parents. They should be taught to dial 911 and to answer questions to others besides parents about their full names, address and phone number. Should your child be separated from you in public - say at the Fall Festival - they know to find a police officer, but do they know what to tell the officer?


We will be asking this week at school and children who know their full names, addresses, and phone numbers will get a prize.

After the fire study, we went to the playground and had a great time. We landed back in school and played the rest of the afternoon. Great day!

More School?

Published: September 28, 2009 by Teacher Magazine

Obama Pushes for More School Hours

Comment: I think the longer children stay in class, the lower their test scores. Time does not make the student - desire does, and that desire is learned from parents. It comes from the home. When the home becomes more of a target, children will prosper. ♠

WASHINGTON (AP) — Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.

Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Fifth-grader Nakany Camara is of two minds. She likes the four-week summer program at her school, Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, Md. Nakany enjoys seeing her friends there and thinks summer school helped boost her grades from two Cs to the honor roll.

But she doesn't want a longer school day. "I would walk straight out the door," she said.

Domonique Toombs felt the same way when she learned she would stay for an extra three hours each day in sixth grade at Boston's Clarence R. Edwards Middle School.

"I was like, 'Wow, are you serious?'" she said. "That's three more hours I won't be able to chill with my friends after school."

Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now. "I've learned a lot," she said.

Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime? Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and need more time to play?

———

Obama and Duncan say kids in the United States need more school because kids in other nations have more school.

"Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here," Duncan told the AP. "I want to just level the playing field."

While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it's not true they all spend more time in school.

Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).

———

Regardless, there is a strong case for adding time to the school day.

Researcher Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution looked at math scores in countries that added math instruction time. Scores rose significantly, especially in countries that added minutes to the day, rather than days to the year.

"Ten minutes sounds trivial to a school day, but don't forget, these math periods in the U.S. average 45 minutes," Loveless said. "Percentage-wise, that's a pretty healthy increase."

In the U.S., there are many examples of gains when time is added to the school day.

Charter schools are known for having longer school days or weeks or years. For example, kids in the KIPP network of 82 charter schools across the country go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than three hours longer than the typical day. They go to school every other Saturday and for three weeks in the summer. KIPP eighth-grade classes exceed their school district averages on state tests.

In Massachusetts' expanded learning time initiative, early results indicate that kids in some schools do better on state tests than do kids at regular public schools. The extra time, which schools can add as hours or days, is for three things: core academics — kids struggling in English, for example, get an extra English class; more time for teachers; and enrichment time for kids.

Regular public schools are adding time, too, though it is optional and not usually part of the regular school day. Their calendar is pretty much set in stone. Most states set the minimum number of school days at 180 days, though a few require 175 to 179 days.

Several schools are going year-round by shortening summer vacation and lengthening other breaks.

Many schools are going beyond the traditional summer school model, in which schools give remedial help to kids who flunked or fell behind.

Summer is a crucial time for kids, especially poorer kids, because poverty is linked to problems that interfere with learning, such as hunger and less involvement by their parents.

That makes poor children almost totally dependent on their learning experience at school, said Karl Alexander, a sociology professor at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, home of the National Center for Summer Learning.

Disadvantaged kids, on the whole, make no progress in the summer, Alexander said. Some studies suggest they actually fall back. Wealthier kids have parents who read to them, have strong language skills and go to great lengths to give them learning opportunities such as computers, summer camp, vacations, music lessons, or playing on sports teams.

"If your parents are high school dropouts with low literacy levels and reading for pleasure is not hard-wired, it's hard to be a good role model for your children, even if you really want to be," Alexander said.

Extra time is not cheap. The Massachusetts program costs an extra $1,300 per student, or 12 percent to 15 percent more than regular per-student spending, said Jennifer Davis, a founder of the program. It received more than $17.5 million from the state Legislature last year.

The Montgomery County, Md., summer program, which includes Brookhaven, received $1.6 million in federal stimulus dollars to operate this year and next, but it runs for only 20 days.

Aside from improving academic performance, Education Secretary Duncan has a vision of schools as the heart of the community. Duncan, who was Chicago's schools chief, grew up studying alongside poor kids on the city's South Side as part of the tutoring program his mother still runs.

"Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for parents," Duncan said. "They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table."

———

Associated Press writer Russell Contreras in Boston contributed to this report.

Something Wonderful for Wednesday

It was Heroes Day yesterday.







































♠