Something Sunny for Saturday

A group of 40 year old war buddies meets and discuss where they should meet for dinner. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at Gasthaus Gutenberger restaurant because the waitress's there have low cut blouses and nice breasts.

10 years later, at 50 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gasthaus Gutenberger because the food there is very good and the wine selection is good also.

10 years later at 60 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gasthaus Gutenberger because they can eat there in peace and quiet and the restaurant is smoke free.

10 years later, at 70 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gasthaus Gutenberger because the restaurant is wheel chair accessible and they even have an elevator.

10 years later, at 80 years of age, the group meets again and once again they discuss where they should meet. Finally it is agreed upon that they should meet at the Gasthaus Gutenberger because that would be a great idea because they have never been there before.

Friday's Tattler

It was a slow day on Friday - just a few children came to play. We had a nice pancake breakfast and then a morning of listening to the story of Rumpelstiltskin, and then acting it out. We talked about the children learning quickly what their character would say or do. With some kids it's an easy lesson, and with others it's a no-go.

We waited for the snow all day. I think some of the kids were thinking that it was NEVER going to happen. Surprise!

It was too cold to go out, so we stayed indoors. We had our very popular pizza for lunch, and then had a nice long play period. In the afternoon, we had one of Mrs. St. Louis's very wonderful drawing lessons. We drew giraffes.

For snack, we had a new cookie: apple, oat, coconut softies.

Still working on the cookbook when time permits.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the snow.

Thursday's Teacher

Published Online: January 27, 2010 by Teacher Magazine

Comment: as an employer of teachers, I can attest that some teachers will take advantage and blame it on their children. One teacher, who apparently was not cutting it in the classroom, did exactly what this articles says they will do - repeatedly missed school. In the ordinary workforce, repeated absences are not tolerated, but somewhere along the way, we have come to take it for granted that a teacher will miss and miss and miss days and days- that's ridiculous.

Teacher-Dismissal Powers Found to Affect Absences

By Dakarai I. Aarons

Chicago teachers who didn’t have tenure took fewer days off after principals were given more flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers, a new study has found.

The policy reduced teacher absences on an annual basis by about 10 percent and cut the number of teachers with 15 or more annual absences by 20 percent, according to the report by Brian A. Jacob, a professor of education policy and economics at the University of Michigan. It has been published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, for which he serves as a research associate.

“We think teacher absence is somewhat correlated with student achievement,” said Mr. Jacob, who is the director of the university’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy. “Some of it is hard to measure.”

In Chicago, principals were given the ability to dismiss the probationary teachers—those with five years of experience or less—without completing elaborate documentation or attending a dismissal hearing, under a 2004 collective bargaining agreement between the 409,000-student school district and the Chicago Teachers Union.

In return for the flexibility, the district expanded the pool of teachers who were placed on a tenure track. The policy change went into effect for the 2004-05 school year.

The study examines the effects of the policy from that year through the 2006-07 school year, and compares teacher-absence rates from before and after the policy was implemented for probationary vs. tenured teachers. Mr. Jacob used payroll records to review the teacher-absence data, and the academic years 2001-02 through 2003-04 were used as the pre-policy period for comparison purposes.

In the two years before the policy change, the study found, the average teacher was absent about eight times a year, a figure that declined starting in 2005, especially among nontenured teachers. By 2007, that number for probationary teachers was just above six times a year.

Tim Daly, the president of the New York City-based New Teacher Project, said Mr. Jacob’s study is noteworthy.

“Teacher attendance is an overlooked aspect of performance that we know has a direct impact on students,” he said. “We know that it matters if kids have a teacher that shows up. I think he’s bringing that into focus.”

‘Social Norms’

Even with the flexibility, 30 percent to 40 percent of principals in any given year examined in the study did not dismiss a single teacher. That was the case even among schools in the lowest quartile of student achievement.

“I think this is a caution. It isn’t simply the nature of the contract,” Mr. Jacob said. “There’s a lot about the social norms of the schools and the availability of high-quality replacement teachers that limits how much principals would use the flexibility even when given it.”

More than half the dismissed teachers, in fact, were later hired by another school in the district. In 2005, for example, 50.6 percent of first-year teachers dismissed in the spring were rehired by a Chicago school for the fall, the study found. In some instances, that was because principals used the nonrenewal process to dismiss teachers who would otherwise have lost jobs because of budget cuts, allowing the teachers to begin looking for another position earlier.

Since the study was conducted, the district’s policy on absences has changed. Now, principals are required to do more-formal evaluations of the probationary teachers, Mr. Jacob noted.

“It’s not clear if that is a good or bad thing,” he said. “It is re-erecting some of the procedural requirements to dismiss a teacher that were eliminated initially.”

Rosemaria Genova, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Teachers Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, said the shift reflects the feedback novice teachers say they need.

“For teachers who are new and are making decisions on whether to stay in the teaching profession, it is the most critical time when they need evaluation, feedback, and mentoring,” she said. “If principals can eliminate staff without due process, who is to say cronyism won’t take over the whole system?”

In a related paper, Mr. Jacob takes a look at the characteristics of the teachers who were dismissed by principals. It finds that absences and previous negative evaluations were key factors.

In addition, principals were more likely to get rid of teachers whose students had shown less value-added achievement compared with those of other teachers, and who had fewer academic credentials and accomplishments before becoming a teacher. Teachers who were dismissed and rehired were also much more likely to be dismissed again compared with first-year teachers.

“These results provide suggestive evidence that reforms along the lines of the Chicago policy might improve student achievement,” Mr. Jacob wrote.

In a November report, the New Teacher Project found that a majority of the more than 7,000 Chicago teachers it surveyed believed that factors other than seniority should be taken into account when making layoffs. Teacher absence was among the top four factors listed by teachers.

Mr. Daly said other districts would be wise to take a harder look at attendance policies.

“If you make clear attendance matters, teachers will put forth more effort,” he said. “We probably should be considering having attendance woven into more policies. If absences have no consequences, they will continue.”

Wednesday's Wonder

Not many people get a picture of this proud bird snuggled up next to them!

Freedom and Jeff

Freedom and I have been together 10 years this summer.

She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't open all the way
even after surgery, it was broken in 4 places. She's my baby.

When Freedom came in she could not stand and both wings were broken. She was emaciated and covered in lice. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vets office. From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a huge dog carrier with the top off, and it
was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lay in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay there looking at me with those big brown eyes.
We also had to tube feed her for weeks.

This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn't stand. It got to the point where the
decision was made to euthanize her if she couldn't stand in a week. You know you don't want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning.
She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday
afternoon. I didn't want to go to the center that Thursday, because I couldn't bear the thought of
her being euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear
to ear. I went immediately back to her cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good
day.

We knew she could never fly, so the vet asked me to glove train her. I got her used to the glove, and then to jesses, and we started doing education programs for schools in western Washington. We wound up in the newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV. Miracle
Pets even did a show about us.

In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had stage 3, which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of chemo. Lost the hair - the whole bit. I missed a lot of work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight
the cancer. This happened time and time again.

Fast forward to November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving. I went in for my last checkup. I was told cancer was not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all the cancer was gone.

So the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty
and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her up, and we went out front to the top of the hill. I
hadn't said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me and wrapped both her
wings around me to where I could feel them pressing in on my back (I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she touched my nose with her beak and stared into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I don't know how long. That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever
since she came in. This is a very special bird.

On a side note: I have had people who were sick come up to us when we are out, and Freedom has some kind of hold on them. I once had a guy who was terminal come up to us and I let him hold her. His knees just about buckled and he swore he could feel her power coarse through his
body. I have so many stories like that.

I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom. Hope
you enjoy this.

Jeff

The Selfish Child by Judy Lyden

Some children are selfish; it's a personality trait. It begins with a little thing called "lazy." It's the same question as which came first the chicken or the egg. Truth is - the chicken. But with the selfish- lazy debate, these side by side unruly disorders are very fluid. Sometimes you get the lazy first, and then sometimes you get the selfish first. Either way, the teeter totter is an unlovely balance!

I know about lazy because as a kid I was always accused of being lazy. It was a title I carried throughout my life growing up, so I had plenty of time to think about lazy. Quite frankly, I have always wondered what "they" meant as I analyze walking two miles every morning down island roads, and then dodging waves breaking over the sea wall to keep as dry as I could in the uniform I had ironed myself. I walked the length of the peninsula, crossed the railroad tracks and the highway, and then stood waiting for my ride to school with no breakfast. Is this actual laziness? When you are seven, eight, nine and ten, and you do this every day once uphill and once down, and at the end of the day, four or five days out of seven, nobody is home to receive you but a note to say make your own dinner; I think someone is lazy, and it isn't the child.

My beautifully dressed mother was always so concerned about my school work. I wonder if it was because she was off playing while I was struggling to keep up all by myself. Past hurts? Not at all. All these things in my life helped to make me a hater of lazy, a hard worker, a problem solver, and develop a good eye for parents who put on a show.

What I've come to know is that lazy means "I won't do it." Lazy is the ego centric thumbing the nose at the world and saying, "You can't make me do it no matter what you do."

Lazy is extremely self-centered. Lazy allows the world to work around you, to do it for you while you play. Lazy is always short sighted, short willed, short brained, and short on everything simply because lazy begins and ends with self - an underdeveloped, dull and grasping self.

So when confronted with a lazy child, what do we do? Lazy is something we recognize after the fact - when it has been allowed for a long enough period the child becomes comfortable with it. But lazy still carries the stigma of guilt. Every thinking human knows what he or she should do and will feel the pangs of guilt when caught not doing it. But playing on guilt creates a battle in a domain where lazy is residing. No lazy person is going to allow someone to guilt them into work without a huge struggle.

Best thing to do with a lazy child is quietly present what you need, want, or expect in as few words as possible and then have a ginormous crushing repercussion happen when they don't do what is expected. Here are some examples:

A little boy was lazy every morning about dressing. One morning his mother told him what she expected and he relaxed back watching his cartoons. She scooped him up as is and brought him kicking and screaming to school with one foot of his pajamas dangling off his skivvied body. Needless to say, he never did it again. He was dressed before leaving his bedroom for the rest of the school year.

A mother was always yelling about picking up the mess before dinner because her lazy children were always reluctant to get started. It was too big a job, to hard, to much to handle. They didn't know where to start...so the mother told them what she expected quietly, and then when the mess was still a mess, the mother sat down with the father to eat dinner. "My place isn't set," said one selfish lazy child standing at his chair, and the mother replied, "You didn't clean up your mess. When you do, you can eat."

I can't tell you how many times I said, "I'm going to the store. If you want to come, be ready in five minutes. When they weren't ready, they didn't go. It was that simple.

One of the biggest lazy makers is TV and that includes video games, movies and anything that is watched. Not turning TV on in the morning makes for a much more productive morning. Not allowing TV to be turned on in the evening with the exception of the news makes for a much more productive evening. No child HAS to watch TV or play video games. It's not like breathing, eating or taking a bath. It's an extra.

But lazy never needs to be the cause for yelling or punishment. Lazy should always punish the self very nicely. If laundry is not put where it belongs, then the child has no clean laundry. If the toys are not put away properly, then there is no "next." If a child is not ready for bed at his prescribed time, then he goes as is. The lights are turned off at 8:00 p.m. no matter what. If a child does not comply with morning routine, then he goes to school as is. If he refuses to do his homework, he suffers in the classroom until he does. These are child tasks, not parent tasks. Lazy cannot be cured by the parents picking up the slack. Lazy can only be cured with consequences.

Letting a child feel the consequences of his behavior is the quickest route to learning that hard work and relying on self is the name of the growing up game.

Next week - talking to the lazy child.

Monday's Tattler

It's a cool morning. Looks like snow on Thursday. It's kind of a nothing week, but it is January, and because of the possibility of snow, we don't plan a lot. But February is next month, and we already have four or five things in the hopper. Full report later this week with a calendar!

We noticed that seventeen families out of forty-one read the calendar note. That's not a good. There was a little bribe at the bottom of the note that said if you say...and only seventeen families "said." We'll try it again this time. The project is not to single out anyone, but to try to grasp who is reading and who isn't. Reading your child's material that comes home from school is a habit every single parent should get into right now because it's not going to stop for all the years he is in school. Being the last to know that the Football Banquet is tonight and you are expected to... is a nightmare at 4:30. So it's best to start reading right now.

This week we are still working on the Geography "I know where ______ is on the map."

We will look at rocks today in science.

In art class, we will be building monsters from colored paper.

Today we will celebrate the Americas and have chocolate cake for snack and for lunch we will be having enchiladas, fruit and salad.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate

This week I am suggesting that a cookbook for parents that is personalized as a keepsake is in order. We are going to publish all our recipes at the Garden School for all the parents. Each page will have a list of ingredients, directions, a picture with a "how to" by a child along with a nutrition corner, a shopping tips place and serving suggestions. We hope you like this. The estimated arrival date is Mother's Day. Not sure of the cost - somewhere around $10.00. The book will be spirally bound.

Today the topic is cake. All that glistens is not cake. Although one of the best treats in the world is Donut Bank cake, cake does not have to be mostly sugar. Cake is a very old treat, and only when sugar became available in Europe in the Fourteenth Century did cake really become what it is today. Cake takes its shape because of the balance of sugar and flour. A cake without sugar is bread.

Today we are lucky because we can actually buy a small mill to mill just about any kind of grain into flour. Yesteryear allowed us the flour we could buy at the store, and that was nearly always limited to wheat - whole or white flours - containing only the limited vitamins and nutrients found in wheat. Today, you can also buy many different flours at both ethnic markets and upscale markets in most areas.

Today, our cake product can contain a healthy list of foods far better than many other foods. This weekend I baked a cake that began with whole wheat and bean flour. This upped the vitamin ante with a nice helping of nutritious beans - fifteen kinds. I used both brown and white sugar, carrots, pineapple, peaches, cherries, coconut, and orange peal. The fruit I ground into pulp with my food processor.

I used butter and canola oil. Both are better for you than either margarine or the kinds of oil and fats that are in cake mixes.

The recipe called for molasses as well which is full of iron, and four eggs. There were nutritious spices in the cake as well like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. All these fresh spices are really good for hearts, brains and body functions.

The cake is light, delicate and filled with flavors and tastes that are actually good for you. In the frosting, I used powered sugar, butter and ground oranges.

The whole idea behind making a light and delicate cake is not so much the ingredients as the way you add your ingredients. It is necessary, if using butter, to let it become room temperature or put it in the microwave for about 25 seconds. When beating butter and sugar together, the idea is to turn the mixer on high and really beat it. Dropping one egg at a time into the butter and sugar and then add your vanilla.

In a whole other bowl, it's best to whisk all your dry ingredients together and spoon into the beating sugar butter and eggs. Last, it's nice to add your additions one at a time with a spoon.

Bake at 350 degrees in a preheated oven. When your cake is done, it's best to cool it on a rack. If you don't have a rack, jack up one side of the cake pan on a book. Frost when cool.

Here is a no-fail chocolate cake that you can't destroy and kids love:

2 and 1/2 cups flour any kind
1 and 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1 and 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 and 1/4 cup warm water
1 and 1/2 stick butter
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat butter, sugar eggs and vanilla

Whisk all other dry ingredients together

Add water and then the dry ingredients

Beat, beat, beat

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes

Frost with:

1 stick butter, 1 box powdered sugar, and 1/2 cup cocoa mixed together in a food processor.

Friday's Tattler

Friday was pajama day, and almost all of the children wore their pajamas to school. It was fun to see what everyone does at home at bed time. Apparently, Jasmin and Miss Judy have the same taste in pjs! Because of the rain, we couldn't go out - which was just as well. We played many many things at school and finished our Shirley Temple movie which Miss Amy said the children liked very much.

We listened to a Bible Story - the Finding of Jesus in the Temple, and had a directed drawing lesson that taught us how to draw a donkey. And these donkeys were adorable. I brought them home to download ;-} Children will take them home on Monday.

It was a fun day even though we had two teachers out with illness. There is a crummy flu going around that really attacks the stomach - must be careful - it's very contagious. Please ask your child every morning for the next week how his stomach is feeling. If you think he's snowing you to stay home from school, offer him a candy bar... ;-}

We are house cleaning at the Garden School, and there is a car toy at the front of the school. If anyone wants this toy, please take it home. I will take it to Mother Theresa's on Wednesday.

We are looking for big handle-less baskets. If you have one you do not want, please bring it in.

Last week we studied North America with its 23 countries. This week we will review South America. Please help your child learn where one country is on the map at least. There is a contest and it is going very slowly. Please remember that it's never too late for parents to learn this stuff right along with their child.

Have a great "rest of the weekend!"

Thursday's Teacher

Comment: This is an excellent article and well worth adding to any school or curriculum. The very idea of this article makes my heart sing. Read it and enjoy!

Published: January 20, 2010 byTeacher Magazine

Giving Classrooms a Purpose

By Larry Ferlazzo

I read, hear, and even write a lot about “techniques” that are supposed to improve schools and classroom instruction.

Professional development books, workshops, and teacher hand-outs at staff meetings are filled with lots of ideas on how to use multiple intelligences, technology, and specific instructional strategies with students that have special needs. The list seems endless.

These techniques are obviously important. I wonder, though, if we teachers and our students, our schools and districts might be better off if we spent a little more time focusing on the cultural orientation of our institution. In other words, shouldn’t we question our ways of thinking?

A few months ago, I noted the 100th anniversary of Peter Drucker’s birth. A renowned business and management philosopher, writer, theorist, and analyst, Drucker is considered “the first real management guru.” In an interview this fall on the public radio program Marketplace, Harvard business professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter shared that Drucker’s greatest contribution to organizational behavior is the idea that corporations need to have a mission, a sense of purpose in order to be successful.

When I talk about a “cultural orientation” or a “way of thinking,” I mean something like what Drucker proposed—a sense of mission and purpose. And I mean for us to have a mission beyond simply, “whatever is good for kids.”

In my previous career, I was a community organizer. Before we did anything, we would ask ourselves these two questions:

• Does our action help develop leadership among local residents?

• Are we honoring the father of modern-day community organizing Saul Alinsky's "Iron Rule"? Alinsky famously said, “Never do for someone what they can do for themselves. Never.”

If the answer to either of these questions was “no,” then we either dropped our plan or we revised it. This way of thinking often resulted in what some might consider missed opportunities or decisions that didn’t appear to result in an immediate benefit.

But in the long term, staying true to our mission often resulted in the emergence of self-realized community groups that had confident leaders and committed members. These groups were more successful in gaining affordable housing, creating jobs that paid a living wage and benefits, and building safe neighborhoods than other organizations that never developed their own sense of identity and purpose.

Schools and classrooms need a mission and a shared way of thinking to be effective. I’d like to give three examples of what I mean for the classroom, a school, and in the context of our connection to parents.

In a Classroom

In the first part of each school year in most of my classes, I lead a discussion with students asking whether they want our class to be a “community of learners” or a “classroom of students.” On our overhead, I enter the choices in side-by-side columns and give examples of the difference between the two.

In a classroom of students, a teacher does most of the talking. In a community of learners, students work in small groups and are co-teachers. In a classroom, people laugh when others make mistakes, but in a community, people are supported when they take risks. In a classroom, the teacher always has to be the one to keep people focused. In a community, students take responsibility for keeping themselves focused.

At this point, most students will say that their previous classes have been more like a classroom of students. I then ask students to share what other differences they might see between the two types. Here are a couple of examples my students gave this year:

• In a classroom, “students start a fight and end up hurting each other.” In a community, “they don’t start a fight, they talk it out.”

• In a classroom, “the only way to succeed is doing exactly what the teacher says.” In a community, “you have more than one choice in succeeding.”

After adding to the list, students then decide which one they’d rather have. No group has ever chosen to be the “classroom of students” option.

By starting with this cultural orientation or way of thinking, students develop their own approaches or techniques for how the class will operate. What emerges is a lens for looking at numerous issues throughout the school year. It’s my job to honor my own rules of community organizing, to promote leadership development and self-sufficiency by respecting their judgments and desires.

In a School

Ted Appel, our high school principal, has done a tremendous job of working with teachers over the past few years to develop their mission. Basically, it’s not acceptable for students to not do well. Everybody must succeed. That way of thinking operates almost universally among the faculty, and it is prevalent among students as well.

Our tutoring project, which allows students to hire (and fire) teachers of their choice, is an example of this way of thinking. We didn’t set up an after-school tutoring center and then blame the students for not showing up. Ted and our staff began with the idea that some students needed help, and then they looked for the barriers that might keep students from getting the most effective assistance. They thought outside the box and had the courage to give students the chance to control their own destinies.

Engaging Parents

In my book Building Parent Engagement In Schools, I highlight the differences between parent involvement and parent engagement. When schools involve parents, the primary involvement tool is the mouth. When they engage parents, the primary tool is the ear. Involvement is often about one-way communication: educator to parent. But engagement is about two-way conversation. The invitation to become involved is often through irritation, since educators challenge parents to do something the schools want them to do. With engagement it’s often about agitation—challenging parents to do something that they themselves say they want to do.

Here again, the strategy begins with a commitment to leadership development and self-sufficiency, and it produces a community with a shared sense of purpose that guides its members.

I wonder how many schools and districts are overlooking Drucker’s admonition to develop a sense of mission or purpose that defines why they exist and what greater good is being served? How many instead focus their attention on tasks and techniques that they think might produce short-term results, without developing the cultural compass that every community needs to guide their continuing journey?

Techniques are important, but no laundry list of them will ever be long enough to help administrators, faculties, or students resolve the challenges they face each day, to the benefit of everyone involved.

I wonder if faculties, schools, and districts should devote more time and energy to developing compasses and less time rushing down the road, never certain where we are, or what we will do when we round the next bend.

Larry Ferlazzo teaches English and social studies to English-language learners and mainstream students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. He is also the author or a popular resources-oriented education blog. He is the author of Building Parent Engagement In Schools (with Lori Hammond) and the upcoming English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, which will be published this spring.

Wednesday's Wacky Wonder

In a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tin y size, died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger, after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically, she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment.. Sometimes a mother of one specie s will take on the care of a different species. The only 'orphans' that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops?

Take a look...

Tuesday's Thought

Lately I've been playing Lexolous on Facebook. I find it a wonderful diversion. The game makes me think about things I only get to think about when I am writing - words. Lately, I've heard a lot of positives and negatives about the game that made me spend a little time thinking about game playing and what it means in development.

A game like Lexolous - scrabble - for an adult is a measure of self. Every time you face the board and are asked to deliver your best word with what you have to work with is a wonderful test of self. Some people like this and some don't. The question always begins in childhood about why this is a likable thing or a hated thing.

As a child, I always wanted to play games with my family. My parents were home maybe twice a week in the evening, and sometimes they would play games with us. It was my job to do the dishes by myself after dinner from the time I was five. So after I cleared the table, washed the dishes, scrubbed the pots and cleaned the counters, I would go in to find a game already started. When I asked to play, they always said, "We started already, maybe next time." I think as a result, I often played games with myself, so consequently, I like the challenge of a game because I really feel the test of self.

Testing self against self is only part of the game. Testing self against others is the other more daring part of a game.

When do children begin to experience real game playing? It depends upon maturity and the cognition of application of rules to life. Children can hear, but they can rarely apply what they hear to any problem and a game is often a problem, a strategy, and difficulty to solve. Watch a child put on a coat. You can tell, tell, tell, and show, show show, but until a child can apply what is said or shown to what he or she is doing, the child will not be able to put on a disheveled coat by himself.

This is problem solving and it amounts to that algebraic equation: "If a=b, and b=c then a=c." Until a child can understand this idea, he or she will be lost at many things.

I've tried to teach Chinese Checkers to the kids many times. Very few will grasp the concept of jumping one marble over another in a direct line. Most children will understand jump, but will jump the whole game board without application. This is because they can't see the value of a carefully played game. The game doesn't matter because they are neither testing self nor others.

Taking turns is also a concept of maturity. The very idea of a line, my turn your turn has to be taught to young children because most young children are egocentric, so the idea of your turn is an impossible bend. It's really quite funny to watch. You also see this in the very elderly - it's always their turn to speak, to reminiscence....

Teaching children to play games takes time. The time is in the maturity of growing up. The first step is in respect of the game pieces. When children stand back from a game taken out by adults, and watch, they are indicating the initial interest in the game. Children who grab without asking are not ready. Then it's a matter of listening and trying to learn the rules. Children who stop listening and just do their own thing are not ready to play a game. The next thing is turn. When children are ready to watch the next guy take his turn, they are ready to play.

Games should not be long, complicated, nor should one person always win. That was my lesson this week. I've won a lot of Lexolous games, and I realized this week that the whole idea of playing the game is that sometimes I win and sometimes I don't. It's the play with people you love that makes the game fun. I have also learned that if I play my best game and still lose, I still have played well, and that is what should matter to me.

It's a lot like life. It can't always be peachy. Games are like a little vignette of life. If you don't step into the game or into life, you can't win or lose - you're just a spectator and burying your talents in the backyard. These are the things I want to teach the children.

I want to assure them by their sixth year - give me a child before he is six and he's mine forever - that their contribution is important and that their involvement is crucial to the lives around them, so don't step back and let someone else - step forward and give it your best shot.

Games are an important lesson and well worth learning. The ability to play well, to win, to lose, to smile, to be confident, to be amused, to be happy to play is the mark of a well developed personality and this is what we should aim for in teaching our children to play as their primary educators.

Monday's Tattler

Good morning. It's 6:15 and there is freezing fog outside. Not sure if I've heard of freezing fog. Need to drive in it in about fifteen minutes, so we'll see. Need to take the twenty year old Bronco in it...mmmm...

What do you need to know for this week? We are going to try to do the pajama party on Friday. Looks like clear sailing with the weather, so it's a green light ;-}

Please remember to send a coat your child can live with. He will be going out all week.

Thinking about putting a cookbook together. If you have any input into this, please let Miss Judy know.

This week begins our geography race. I will be sending home a political map. That means a map with names of countries. Please help your child learn where the countries are. There are are about one hundred and eighty five countries to learn. Every time your child learns a country, his name will be put on a flag. The child with the most flags wins.

This week's menu: M meatballs and biscuits; big squash; applesauce, oranges and grapefruit -
T Ham and cheese casserole, fresh spinach to dip; peaches and raisins - W Breakfast casserole with bacon, pineapple, oranges and apples - H Pork roast, potatoes, apple critter, corn and pineapple - F Pizza, fruit salad, vegetablesmix and dip and oranges and grapefruit.

Have a great week.

Sunday's Plate

I posted on Facebook about a possible cookbook, and the first response was positive. I think maybe it's time to do a third cookbook. Last time we did a cookbook, every parent participated and we still came up with too few recipes, but with today's technology and ease of use, we might just be able to do something cheaply and still have a nice product.

At the party, several people asked me about the chicken curry. Chicken curry is one of those twenty minute meals and only twenty minutes because you have to wait for the rice.

You start by making rice.

Next you cut your chicken breasts into bite sized pieces. Do this with a kitchen sheers; it is half the work.

Next, pull out of the closets and refrigerator all the stuff you have that might make a nice side boy. Now a side boy is an addition to the dish that allows every taste to be different. Curry is not curry without the side boys. So into little dishes, and we used disposible bowls at school, you place those things in your closet that you can add to the plate.

Suggestions: bacon, crumpled egg yolks, chutney, chow chow, pickle relish, celery, green pepper, onion, apple, coconut, walnuts, peanuts, almonds, raisins, and anything like this you think you would like to "sprinkle" on the actual curry. My husband loves soy sauce on his curry.

In San Francisco, back in the early 60s, I had dinner with my father at the India House. I had chicken curry and the side boys were a gigantic plate of fresh fruit. The hotter the curry, the more fruit you will eat because it takes the sting out of very very hot curry.

Now for the main dish - the simplest dish on earth. You saute your chicken breasts with some of your cut side boy onions, celery, green pepper and apple, and add about a teaspoon of curry - more if you like. I add about a tablespoon at home, and at school I added about a teaspoon. When the chicken is done, you add enough water to make what looks like a stew. Add a tablespoon of chicken bouillon. Then you thicken it with a roux of cornstarch or flour and water. When it thickens, it's ready to serve over rice. Add the side boys.

You can substitute milk, but don't boil it. You can sub soy milk, or almond milk or chicken stock.

Buy yellow curry. Green curry is a little bitter. Spice Islands makes a lovely curry. You can also get it at the Asian Market. What you buy should be a deep yellow color - and it stains. Nutritionally, curry is one of the healthiest foods you can eat, and there are studies that show that not only does curry thwart the growth of cancer, it often keeps it away.

Curry like this can also be made with lamb, beef, fish, and pork. I curry rice at home. You saute your rice in butter and curry powder then add stock or beef bouillon and water.

I make a steak sauce with mayo and curry powder that's to die for - just mix 1/4 cup mayo and 1 teaspoon curry powder.

Curry is a fantastic party food because it is cheap and beautiful and easy to make. You make a vat of curry - time - 30 minutes. You assemble 10-15 side boys and arrange them around a large bowl of curry. Rice on the side makes a fantastic party spread. You don't need another thing.

I will post all the other recipes for the wonderful International Feast as I get them.

Friday's Tattler

Friday was an exceptional day. We had a delicious pancake breakfast with whole grains including bean flour. Bean flour makes the pancakes lighter and have a slightly nutty flavor without being overwhelming. After breakfast, we told the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Each of them had a personality and a name: Melvin; Thaddeus; Lester and each had a different reason to cross the troll ridden bridge and come out victorious on the other side.

The kids acted this out for about an hour and had a great time.

We got to go outside for recess on Friday, and the children loved just being out in the sunshine.

We had our International Feast with ten parents for company. We had such a fine fare:

A delicious seaweed salad and sushi; a great bread dish with a unique filling; scrumptious hummus and crackers; fabulous hummus and pita bread; perfect enchilada dripping in cheese; light and tasty egg rolls; inscrutable spaghetti; magnificent cheese lasagna; an incredible Italian beef dish; and Miss Judy's own curried chicken, lovely Italian shells; a really interesting Philippine coconut pudding and the kids favorite potato chips.

It was a nice party, and the best thing about it was the kids tried all kinds of new things. They trusted, tasted and enjoyed, and our families also tried new things. We were so delighted.

Our thanks to all our parents who participated in the International Feast. Well done!

Thursday's Teacher

I'm usually not a fan of Alphie Kohn because I don't like his dismissive attitude toward emotional need, but this is really a very good article and well worth reading. It comes from Education Week and it's about the ridiculous nature of standards. I totally agree.

Debunking the Case for National Standards

By Alfie Kohn

I keep thinking it can’t get much worse, and then it does. Throughout the 1990s, one state after another adopted prescriptive education standards enforced by frequent standardized testing, often of the high-stakes variety. A top-down, get-tough movement to impose “accountability” began to squeeze the life out of classrooms.

A decade ago, many of us thought we had hit bottom—until the floor gave way and we found ourselves in a basement we didn’t know existed. Now every state had to test every student every year in grades 3-8, judging them (and their schools) almost exclusively by test scores and hurting the schools that needed the most help. Ludicrously unrealistic proficiency targets suggested that the federal law responsible was intended to sabotage rather than improve public education.

For the rest of the article go HERE.

Tuesday's Thought

Normally I have Tuesday morning off, and I try to put a little column together. This week I had to work early, so I didn't get a chance. But today someone said something to me that made me want to add a little something today. This person asked me what my expectations are for the children in my care. I replied without even thinking. "The sky is the limit."

Now let me put it this way: If God were to ask you what you wanted, would you say, "A ham sandwich?" Would you say, "I would like to have a new toilet seat, God." How about "God, since you're asking, I could use some stamps; I ran out?" Probably none of the above.

Well it's the same with being a parent or a teacher. In many ways, an adult in a child's life mirrors the part of God in that the parent or teacher teaches by his actions, about God. He models someone who has all the control. At the same time, the child must satisfy the parent or should satisfy the parent because that's his role. The expectations that come from the parent should be as high as God's are.

When I expect the works, I usually get it. If I were to expect little or nothing, I would get that. So parents have to ask themselves, "What do I want?" At this point, parents should say, "I want everything because when my child gives me his best, the top of the heap, he is responding to being the best human he can be.

Doing one's best every single time is the achievement of life. It doesn't matter if it's some dumb little worksheet or a meal for a special friend. It could be giving the dog water or fetching something for mom upstairs. Each and every act in one's life is important and each and every act is an act of love for the people around the child. Falling short of the mark in ordinary things can only mean that when the big things come up, a child will not be in the habit of doing his very best and he will lose out.

If a child is asked to water the dog, the best job of it means doing it right away. It means washing out the dog bowl and filling the bowl with cool water and placing it properly on the floor. If there are spills, it should be cleaned up right away.

If I ask a child to clean up a puzzle for me, I expect that he will put it together and then put it back where it goes. I don't mean that he will casually heap some of the pieces on the tray and then leave it on the table.

We are by nature bound to work all our lives. It's simply part of being a human being. Shirking, skimping, leaving things half done, is the work of an immature and lazy person. The ability to appraise work, understand what the whole task is from beginning to end, approach the task with positive affection, do the job without complaining, and finally finish the task without detours is the work of a fully developed person, a person of skill and grace. Now which of these do I want for the children in my care?

I want the children I teach to master the art of work - happily - and the only way of achieving that is to expect the very best each and every time. So when my friend asked me, I told her. "The sky is the limit."

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning. It's going to be a hot one :} starting at 21 degrees here in downtown Newburgh, and rising to a fast 30 today. Please make sure kids have gloves and hats today! Long sleeve shirts are preferable in this cold weather.

Lots of things in the hopper this week. State inspection today; new teacher, Miss Dana, tomorrow, and on Friday we'll have International Feast.

If you are free at lunch time 12:00 on Friday and would like to come to lunch with your child, please plan to bring an ethnic dish for four. This can be anything. We will eat buffet style with children with parents eating first. It's only about forty-five minutes, so it's doable on a lunch break. Parents can bring food early and we can refrigerate it for you.

If you still have candy money out, please bring it in.

Have a great day!

Sunday's Plate

This last Friday when my grandchildren came to my house, I had all the usual junk food waiting. I had pretzels for Jack, cheese puffs for Bill and regular potato chips for Bob. Now you'd think at this grandmother's house I'd have something fabulous and made of whole wheat. If they would eat it, I would, but they usually won't so whats the point?

Having watched a program on the making of junk food, I found out that the egregious little cheese puff is really cornmeal and water and air, and it's covered in real cheese - about the same as powdered milk - powdered cheese, so it's not a bad little treat although they tend to stick to your teeth.

I also had something good on Friday - homemade pizzelle cookies. I made these from whole wheat flour a little sugar, some rum, some ground oranges egg and milk - I think. I made a whole plate of them and thought at the time, "They won't even touch them." I made vanilla frosting and offered them to the kids who ate the whole plate, so I did feel good about grandma's baking, after all.

I also made them a homemade pizza and homemade cannelloni for their father and for us. The boys finished off the pizzelles and dove into the pizza. Then Bill whined that he was "starving" and only gma's granola would fill him up - that or the two pizzelles that I had hidden in the closet for his dad. After consuming both the pizzelles and the granola, he was not quite full and finished off another slice of pizza. The cheese puffs and the chips and most of the pretzels stayed in the bags.

Now these are picky boys and it took months to assure them that what I was serving wasn't going to poison them, grab their tongues, bite them back or taste challenging. These children will not even consider eating most candy, sandwiches, they choke on the idea of mashed potatoes, won't touch a noodle, vegetables are from Mars, and they think that most meat needs to be back on the hoof. But inch by inch, mouthful by mouthful they are getting more adventurous.

One of my methods is just ignoring the whole routine and trying to have something they might like even if it's a saltine cracker. I made a whole batch of granola on Saturday just for Bill. By next week, he may not be eating granola. It's almost a game.

I love the game. It's a matter of getting the formula right: nine parts wallpaper paste and one part sugar. Sometimes it's eight parts wallpaper paste and two parts salt. Depends on the stars.

A picky child will eat if the stars are in the right mix. The food has to look like something that won't offend them - Chinese won't cut it - something that smells good - no smell at all - and something that is small of nature - like cereal. When Jack tried his first pizzelle, he took a tooth full, and when that didn't resemble snakeskin dipped in gasoline, he tried a regular mouth full, and then ate the whole thing. Pizzelles are about the size of a saucer.

Children who are picky are usually the ones who can separate foods correctly into salty, sweet, sour and bitter. Children who are not picky can't. It's an interesting phenomena.

Being patient with kids is hard sometimes, and I've had my share of fits when a child won't eat anything. I usually take a medal if a child won't eat one bite. I always make sure my picky eaters have something on the table they like. When they refuse everything, it's not a healthy choice. I can't and won't force a child to eat, but I can regard that behavior as non- honorable.

Having fun with food is a wonderful part of life. Encouraging kids to eat is the job of the loving adult, and that works when the TV is off and adults actually sit down with kids and eat what they expect the children to eat. We eat with the children at school, and sometimes we have something on our plates that the children don't have simply because we don't think they will eat it. I make a lot of salads with weird dressings that contain raisins and nuts and onions and cheese and anything else I can find. I call the dressing sludge. The kids love it and eat most of it when I sit by them. One way of getting kids to eat something new is to have a plate filled and let them ask what it is and if they can have some. This is the way to build strong appetites and adventurous palates.

Recipe for sludge: (.5) = half

.5 cup olive oil
.5 cup balsamic vinegar

Some:
ketchup
lemon juice
pepper
garlic
mustard
soy sauce
hot sauce

Oh, and try this: .5 pint mayo;4 tablespoons lemon juice; 1 teaspoon pepper; .5 cup Parmesan cheese.

Snacking wisely should enhance meals not take away from it. If possible, make your snacks. It only takes a few moments. More about snacks next time.

Friday's Tattler

I was not surprised they called school on Friday. I ventured out on Saturday afternoon for the first time since the snow, and my hill was still a sheet of ice. Newburgh roads were still slushy. I'm supposing the cold prevented a lot of ice from melting. I can only imagine what they were like at 6:00 a.m. Friday morning. I envisioned sliding down Monroe Street through Jennings and into the river.

We will postpone the pajama party for the end of the month.

This semester is getting off to a slow start. We have been out more days than in, but that is the way it is this time of year.

In the hopper we have a new teacher and are losing another. We are losing Miss Elise who is leaving us to be a full time mommy and continue her education. We wish her well. We will miss her enthusiasm and her gusto.

We welcome Dana Palmore as our new art teacher. Miss Dana has a nursing degree and has worked with children for many years. Dana has a child at the Garden School - little Jil who is in the preschool class. Jil played the peacock in the Thanksgiving Play.

This coming week we will be having the International Feast on Friday. This is a voluntary participation for any parent free at lunch time. The feast begins at Noon and goes until it goes. If parents are interested in coming to lunch, please plan to bring a dish for four to share among the diners. The dish should be an ethnic dish that your family enjoys. Salads, entrees, breads and desserts are welcome. Miss Judy will be making Chicken Curry with 8 sideboys.

This coming week we will be going outside for recess when the temperature rises to 35 degrees. Please make sure your child has a hat that is separate from whatever his coat offers. Please send mittens that fit so that he will be warm.

Have a peaceful Sunday!

Thursday's Teacher

New Rules Will Give Hoosier Students More Knowledgeable Teachers Subject-Experts from Outside Education Welcome

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Media Contact:
Stephanie Sample, Press Secretary
317-232-6616, ssample@doe.in.gov

The state board overseeing teacher licensing and preparation voted today to advance new teacher licensing regulations that ensure all new teachers will be experts in the subjects they teach and allow adults from other careers to more easily enter the teaching profession. These new regulations—called the Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability or the REPA—aim to improve student achievement through better classroom instruction.

“We crafted these changes with the belief that students’ academic success is determined, in large part, by the quality of their teachers,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett said. “These new rules for licensing go further than ever before to make sure all Indiana’s school children receive the high-quality instruction they deserve.”

Members of the Advisory Board of the Division of Professional Standards, including Bennett, have been meeting since July, 2009, working with the Indiana Department of Education and education stakeholders statewide.

In addition to passing exams that test their knowledge, the new rules require those who teach grades 5-12 to earn baccalaureate degrees in the subjects they teach. This creates a better balance in teacher preparatory programs between coursework on how to teach and subject-specific training on what they will teach.

Dr. James Fraser, senior vice president for programs for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and professor of History and Education at New York University, said, “The proposal to require every future secondary school teacher in Indiana to complete a full discipline-specific arts and sciences major makes very good sense. Indeed, such a move will bring Indiana up to a standard that is currently in place in many states across the United States. A solid major in the discipline to be taught is an essential minimum to truly knowing the content one aspires to teach.”

Equally important, the rules take steps to address future teacher shortages and bring more knowledgeable adults into Indiana schools. The advisory board will have the authority to approve online and non-traditional teacher preparation programs in the future. Without these alternative licensing programs, it’s unduly difficult for successful adults in other careers to enter the teaching profession. These new regulations allow for new pipelines to bring real world experts into Indiana classrooms.

Ariela Rozman from The New Teacher Project said, “We commend the IDOE for taking important steps to increase teacher and administrator quality—through an expansion of teacher and administrator pipelines, a focus on content knowledge which has been linked to student achievement, a requirement to measure the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs and a commitment to school-based professional development.”
The new regulations go even further to improve teacher support and provide greater flexibility. Incoming teachers will work closely with school-level administrators to create targeted professional development plans to benefit student instruction. Current and future teachers will have more options to renew their licenses—options that won’t require them to pay for college coursework. The new rules also make it easier for teachers to make their licenses more marketable; they can add subjects to their licenses by passing exams that test their knowledge.

“I’m incredibly proud of these teacher licensing changes,” Bennett said. “They address a foundational aspect of my plan to reform education in Indiana by targeting instructional quality. This is a great victory, and it should energize all of us to work even harder to improve Indiana’s schools in the year ahead.”

The REPA regulations go into effect July 31, 2010. Students currently enrolled in teacher preparation programs will be transitioned into these new rules between now and August 31, 2013.

For more details on REPA and to view an updated summary of the rule, visit www.doe.in.gov/news/2009/07-July/REPA.html.

Tuesday's Thought

One of the things I would like to do in this new year is to teach the children to look for the possibilities in life. Every day is filled with opportunities and possibilities and discoveries that will make their little lives richer and deeper. It's a matter of the eternal search that makes that richer life apparent. I would like to teach this to them before they go off to school, because I believe that school can be a "safety zone" of "not having to discover - only having to 'hand back' what is expected" and that nullifies the whole human notion of possibilities.

A possibility is something that can happen if one works hard enough to make it happen. But that possibility is all but hidden from the non-curious, the non doer, the guy who is trapped in the idea that there is only one mousetrap out there.

My daughter, Katy, has a sign in her office at work: "Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it was always a stupid way of doing it."

This sign is meant to shake up the people who think that just because they have always done something one way, there isn't a better way to do it. Let's look at cooking as an example of "always...." "I've always used this pan to make this dish; I've always made it this way; I've always struggled with this dish, so I don't make it very often." Maybe it's the pan; maybe it's the way the dish is made that makes it difficult. So if you change the pan and change the way you make it, the dish might be a whole lot easier to make. A recipe book is a consultant not a jailer!

Let's look at paper mache. Who says that paper mache must be made from strips of paper? Very young children hate to use paper mache because to them it seems no matter how many tedious strips of newspaper they manage to put on, the thing never looks any different. So if we look at the possibilities, we can see easily what to do and how, and the project of paper mache becomes not only interesting to children, but doable. It's a matter of thinking it through and changing the "It's always the way I've done this..."

Teaching children to see all the possibilities of life is fun, but it's tricky and they have to be on your wavelength. Children are learning to follow directions. They are learning the rules of play, so it can be complicated, but possibilities take a kind of thought that children are very adept to because their desires have not been tired out, and their curiosity about how things work is strong.

For adults, making changes always seems like too much new work, but that's for the negative thinker. Making changes should nearly always lighten tasks, renew the world at hand, and make life a little better. It's a matter of "thinking it through." But all of this takes energy and desire and a sense that things can truly be made better with a little effort.

The hardest part is thinking it through and it begins like this: "What if... and I would need to...and that would enable...and then...." It's a green light for 2010!

Monday's Trailer

It was the day after Christmas at a church in San Francisco . The pastor of the church was looking over the crèche when he noticed that the baby Jesus was missing from among the figures. He hurried outside and looking about saw a little boy with a red wagon, and in the wagon was the figure of the little infant Jesus.

So he took a deep calming breath and walked up to the small boy and said, "Well, where did you get your passenger, my fine friend?"

The little boy replied, "I got Him at church."

"And why did you take Him from the church?"

The little boy explained, "Well, about a week before Christmas I prayed to the little Lord Jesus, and I told Him if He would bring me a red wagon for Christmas I would give Him a ride around the block in it...."

And just a little more cute and good:

Javeon and Brady earned a Treasure Box pass today by inventing and then playing and winning a new game of their own design.

Kylie won a Treasure Box pass today for finding a mistake in Miss Amy's work, and correcting it very politely. Way to go, Kylie!

Emily won the Writing Contest in Miss Amy's Class. She carried it away and will wear a symbol of her work.

Reese won a Treasure Box pass for knowing what "decade" means.

Yeah team.

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning!

Welcome back to school. It's been a while, but it's been a great break for teachers. We are all chatting about getting back to school, and that is always good.

January brings a quiet month. We will have a pajama party at the end of this week. Children may wear their pjs and robes to school, but must wear shoes and socks. If we can go out, slippers will be ruined.

Calendars have gone out. Please read them. This is your reminder of what is going on at school.

On January 15, at Noon, we will have our annual International Feast. This is completely voluntary. If you are free at lunch time and would like to spend a half hour or and hour with your child, and you enjoy cooking, please plan to bring a dish from a culture besides America to share. Please bring enough for four adults. Children will choose their meal by smorgasbord. Suggestions include: spaghetti, African rice and peanuts, pizza, Egg rolls, Curry, roast guinea pig, sea cucumbers, swan and anything else that strikes your fancy or your child's ;-}

Snow and Ice!

The Garden School closes when the public schools either in Warrick or Vanderburgh Counties close. We will not be issuing a separate school closing. If counties are on delay, we will be on delay as well. A two hour delay means the Garden School will be open at 9:00. If schools close early, parents will be called to pick up children with the same punctuality as is expected in the public schools.

Ill Children.

Please remember that a child who "doesn't feel well, Mommy" in the morning should not be brought to school at all. If your child needs over the counter "help me feel better quick" medicines in the morning, PLEASE keep him at home. Children left at home for one day will usually get better that day than if they are brought to school. Be smart and cut his bug off at the pass.

As a tip that really works, if you feel that tickle in your throat and think you might be coming down with something, gargle with straight lemon juice three times and you'll be surprised how you seem to ward it off.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate

Well, after a long and needed rest, we're back at it. Sometimes it's nice to put regular things aside so that when you pick them up again, there is something new and delightful about those regular things!

I spent a great deal of this vacation on one of the little barn cats that has been coming around the school for food since this summer. He was horribly injured a couple of weeks before Christmas, and for about two weeks, we tried to save his paw, but failed. He needed an amputation. So to make a long story short, I brought him home Christmas Eve having had his hind leg removed at the hip, and by Christmas he was up the tree with the other little beast. It took more than a few days of worry and work to put this all right.

I did manage to stay at home a few days, and learned some new things about cooking. As this is supposed to be Sunday's Plate, I will share them with you.

I was making some ordinary vanilla cupcakes and knew that the recipe would be mediocre at best, and decided to add another 1/2 cup of milk and leave it beating at high speed for about five minutes. The cupcakes turned out to be one of the best batches I've ever made. One of my children asked me warily if I had store bought cupcakes! I'm going to try that at school this week when I make spice cupcakes. You can't have a light enough cupcake!

***
Another thing I learned was how to make Pizzelles. They are little griddle cakes you make with a press that turn into large cookies or ice cream cones, or bowels. They are charming and delicious. I made orange rum flavor and they were wonderful. I plan on making them for the kids this summer as sandwich bread for their peanut butter.

****
I learned how to use condensed milk to make bar cookies. This is a very nice substance and very usable in making all kinds of bar cookies. One recipe calls for:

2 cups flour
2 cups of oats
1.5 cups brown sugar
1 package white chocolate chips
1 package walnuts or pecans
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs beaten
1 can of condensed milk
2/3 cup peanut butter

Mix all dry ingredients; divide in 1/2.

Into one half mix your beaten eggs and press this half into a baking dish and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Mix milk and peanut butter together and pour over first layer hot from the oven.

Put second half of dry mix on top, press, and bake for 20 more minutes. Let cool and cut into big fat squares - to die for.

****
One of the things I learned to do properly is fry left over mashed potatoes. The secret is to mix them up with eggs and let them sit. Then when you melt your butter in the pan, you LEAVE THEM ALONE until they are fairly brown on one side then flip them ONCE!

*****
One of the things I've been making is "The Recipe." This is made with fruit and brandy. Needless to say I can't make it at school; it has to be a home recipe ;-}. It's made with sugar, brandy, and canned fruit beginning with pineapple, then cherries, then peaches. The ultimate goal is to make a very adult fruit cake. It's very delicious. This is NOT traditional fruit cake. This is really quite a different kind of cake. Upon giving one of our teachers a small bit of pineapple, she had to sit down. Now if you are reading this and would like to sample some, please let Miss Judy know. I will be making them this coming weekend.

*****

Until next week c'est bonne!