Friday's Tattler

We had a spectacular day on Friday. The children arrived in costumes and spent the early morning reveling in make believe. We had every kind of costume - police, princesses, super heroes, a candy girl, spider ladies, cowboys, vampires, and many more. We had a quick breakfast of cereal, and then got ready to go to two nursing homes.

We sang all our wonderful Halloween songs in both places, and the residents gave us candy and lots of hugs and handshakes. Then we headed off for the Pizza Hut in Newburgh. It was great fun to eat lots and lots of pizza. Then we boarded the bus and came home pooped!

We spend sometime watching the Headless Horseman, and then our parents arrived and we sang for them and enjoyed lots of homemade and delicious treats.

All in all a great day!

Many thanks to all the wonderful parents who donated such great treats for our party.

Thanks to the teachers who spent so much time on decorations and art projects. These will go home on Monday.

Thursday's Thought

One of my favorite parents said to me on Halloween that it was days, like Halloween, that we teachers, at the Garden School, have the very best jobs! In some ways that's true. But from a place behind the scenes, it's really a whole lot of work.

What few realize is how hard the extras are to deliver with the high expectation of children, and the additional load of managing it all with a smile. Just caring for forty children for ten hours a day is a tough call in itself, but when the excitement gets high, and the children are wearing two sets of clothes, and are traveling, and eating out, it could get a little hairy, so the watchful eye can never take a break.

What if one child tumbles off the bus from five feet up, and breaks every tooth out and cracks his or her head on a sidewalk curb... one child accidentally steps on an elderly man's foot at the nursing home, and breaks it causing the man to scream in pain. A child's costume is covered in pizza and then torn in the bus door making his time at school a tearful hateful time. A child has to use the toilet and doesn't tell, and destroys his costume and embarrasses himself to the point he can't continue for the day.

These are the things that go through a teacher's head all day long. Fortunately, at the Garden School discipline is in full swing even on fun days. That means the word "NO" is a constant, and the little give or bend in the deportment can't give or bend. It's a high energy job for high energy people, an energy that must be maintained till the last parent leaves in the late afternoon. Teachers can't just turn the morning and afternoon over to the others. It's on every teacher's shoulders and there is no break.

So why bother?

The answer is the same every time someone asks. We bother because it's very important to children. It helps them learn about culture and others within their culture. It helps them socialize, and understand. It exposes them to things they would ordinarily, in other places, not experience at all. These outings and experiences will stay with them all their lives.

But that doesn't ease the stress or the strict government of the day. That's why summer is such a stress loading time. We take 40 children to the pool twice a week, and on Fridays we take them to many places including other cities. These are high stress days for teachers.

Next week we begin the play, and a new stress is on. Will they learn their lines? Will they be able to perform? How will they receive the play? Will they enjoy it? Can we make it really fun?

But from behind the scenes, I can honestly say that we have done a wonderful job this year teaching, and as I listen to four year olds count to one hundred and sixty en Francais, and when I know that the entire kindergarten is already reading, and are beginning to navigate with big numbers, and are learning vocabulary words most sixth graders wouldn't recognize, it does allow for some R&R during the day.

With much affection for all who make this project a successful one, I say, Thank you!

Wacky Wonderful Wednesday

Something fun for Wednesday:

Dear Sir:

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month.

By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly

deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years.

You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.My thankfulness springs

from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally answer your telephone calls and letters, --- when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person.

My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check,addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offense under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative.

Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, at MY convenience, I will issue your employee a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows: IMMEDIATELY AFTER DIALING, PRESS THE STAR (*) BUTTON FOR ENGLISH

#1. To make an appointment to see me

#2. To query a missing payment.

#3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.


#4 To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping

#5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

#6.. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home

#7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required.

Password will be communicated to you at a later date to that Authorized Contact mentioned earlier.

#8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7.

#9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service.

#10. This is a second reminder to press* for English.

While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous New Year?

Your Humble Client and remember: Don't make old People mad.We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.

Teaching Tuesday

Let Them Play by Jane Ching Fung From Teacher Magazine


Comment: This is a great article and well worth reading. One of the delights of working with young children is to create a playroom from heaven. The better the playroom, the more there is to do, the more there is to learn from, the better our students do in school. We ALL learn from play - even as adults.



"What is 'Choice Time?,'" she demanded. "Students don’t have time to play."

My heart sank when I heard these words coming from the mouth of a district administrator. Everyone on our kindergarten team had included "Choice" minutes in her daily schedule. Choice was a time for students to engage in centers and activities that were not teacher directed, assigned, or graded but intentionally designed to be open-ended, student driven, and to promote unstructured interactions among the children.

Dare I say that "Choice" was time set aside for our young students to play?

Since when did the word "play" become outlawed in kindergarten? I remember a time when kindergarten classrooms were stocked with wooden blocks, paint, and dramatic-play corners complete with costuming, furniture, appliances, and play food. Not so long ago, there was a period during the day when we encouraged kindergarten students to freely explore, create, and interact with the materials and people around them.

On the surface, children may appear to be only "having fun" during this unstructured time, but take a closer look and you’ll discover what I know: Play is so much more than idle entertainment. Play, including the ability to make your own choices, helps children develop and use essential social-emotional and academic-learning skills. Through play, I have seen my students develop social, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities in a safe, risk-free environment. Has our early childhood curriculum become so narrow that we now focus only on what is being tested and ignore all the other areas in a young child’s development?

As a primary teacher for the past 25 years and as a parent, I know that play is the foundation of learning. Young children have a natural desire to explore the world and the people around them; play provides them with an avenue to discover things on their own and to develop autonomy. In today’s diverse classrooms, providing opportunities for every student to choose and engage in activities meaningful to them can produce positive results in all areas of the curriculum. Learning is another word for it.

The Benefits of Play

Kenny was a reluctant learner with special needs. During the more structured, academic times of the day, he would often cry for his mother, put his head down on the rug, or sit at his table waiting for someone to help him. Kenny was academically behind his peers and he knew it. He couldn’t write his name or draw simple pictures, so he shut down. They only time Kenny felt success during the school day was when he was able to build a city with blocks, engage in dramatic play with friends, or explore lines and shapes using playdough.

There is no failing when you play. Play allowed Kenny to develop his self-esteem and his interpersonal skills. He learned how to work with and communicate his needs to others and in return his friends provided excellent role models during the other periods of the day. His attitude towards school and himself changed and he was willing to put more effort in his work.

Christopher, a child with autism and speech delay, also used choice time to develop his social and communication skills. Interactions with others during play taught him how to communicate his needs and wants. Christopher was able to learn how to work cooperatively in a social setting without the pressures of a structure. Through play, he was able to work out conflicts with peers and come to realize that others had different points of views.

More cognitively demanding, structured tasks posed a challenge to Christopher, who would fail traditional forms of assessments. While he was unable to produce a pattern or sort objects on paper for a math test, he was able to demonstrate his understanding of the concepts when he was playing with colored teddy bears and lined them up in a pattern or while he sorted foods into categories. Play proved to be one of the best ways for Christopher to show what he knew.

For students learning English, there is not a more powerful way to acquire and develop oral language than in a natural setting. I noticed that Cassandra, a native Spanish speaker, would often pass or remained quiet when asked to participate in class discussions, but during Choice Time she actively engaged in conversations with her English counterparts, readily exchanging thoughts and ideas. Play provided Cassandra with opportunities to interact with her peers in a stress-free environment. She saw value in using her new language during a more social setting.

Voices From Choice Time Past

Allowing students opportunities to make choices and play with materials does not take away from academic time. Academic skills are embedded in all aspects of play. When Alessandra plays school, she writes sight words she has learned in class and asks her "students" to read them aloud. When Hamza constructs his Lego car, he has deliberately planned which pieces he will need to form a vehicle that is symmetric and will move. When Junieth plays restaurant, she uses the charts in the room to write a menu while her friends sort the play food. The evidence is overwhelming: Young children learn through play.

I asked my former students, all adults now, to share their thoughts on choice time and self-directed play. This is what they said:

Hannah: "During play, I could actually socialize with other children, which I did not get at home. If it weren’t for play time, I never would have learned to interact with other people."

Shirley Jean: "I wasn’t always playing with others, I was reading. It was a fun time to catch up on random reading. But what I think I liked doing most was the puzzles with my friends on the rug. It was a challenge to us to get the puzzle finished before center time was over. Every day, we tried to beat our original time to see if we could get the pieces together without as much difficulty as the days before. Not only did it allow us to think and work together, but it also helped create strong friendships."

Kathleen: "I was able to be a child—carefree, lively, innocent, and spontaneous. I was able to run around and let out all the energy inside me so that when it was time to go back on the rug, I could focus and not be all squirmy and distracted."

Dante: "(It) allowed us to exercise our brains and imaginations, while at the same time developing our social skills through team work and/or compromise."

Raul: "It was fun. I got to interact with others while building structures and engineering ways to create something huge through teamwork. It created an environment of friendship and joy. It was a very healthy part of my education and growing up."

Sebastian: "Playtime gave me the tools to be around different people from various cultures, and interact with them on many levels inside and out of the classroom. Sometimes playtime gives students a reason to come to school—and if students can have something to look forward to at school, even if it isn’t academically related, it’s good for them to be excited in classroom and hopefully that excitement will manifest into a greater excitement for learning."

I am not advocating that we get rid of direct instruction and structure; what I am saying is that there are crucial learning skills that young students need to develop and make sense of on their own. Play provides a path for students to acquire these abilities, as well as academic skills.

Students may not have "time" to play, but they need to play.

Jane Ching Fung is a kindergarten teacher and new-teacher mentor in inner-city Los Angeles. A 2002 winner of the Milken Educator Award, she is a National Board certified teacher and a director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. She is also a member of the Teacher Leaders Network.

Sunday's Plate

It's been a wild and crazy week, and the next weeks will be just as wild and crazy. I've been doing 10.5 hour shifts, so I haven't had a lot of time to add to the blog.

I am looking for a wonderful teacher to help with afternoon projects, art, recess, snack, and the last hour of the day. If you know someone looking for part time work, please let me know.

This coming week is Halloween week. We are planning a costume party on Friday at 3:00, and before that, the teachers will take the children to a couple of nursing homes and then out to lunch in costume, so costumes should be simple and comfortable.

The party will be a parade and filled with Halloween songs. Please plan to come to the party and bring a treat for four. Something simple like cookies or cupcakes, chips, fruit, cheese or veggies. Popcorn is another great suggestion.

Following Halloween week, we will be beginning our first play of the year. It's a special occasion, and requires three weeks of play practice, costuming and set construction. It's an all school gig, and the kids really get into this. A play is a great way to build school cohesion. We are a group activity place, and the children benefit from learning how to cooperate as a team.

We will perform our play on November 19, at 3:00.

Following the play, we will celebrate Thanksgiving Week. When we return from Thanksgiving, it's an all school push to Christmas. Can't believe the time is running so fast!

Parents will get a Christmas packet. We're a busy place!

Please continue to sell the candy. If you need more, please see Miss Amy.

Over the past weekend, we cleaned and changed things around at school. We are trying to build a big theatre area with costumes. If you have the kind of clothes you think the children would like to dress up in, please donate!

We are planning something I saw in Loogootee this past month. It was a corn box. Like a sandbox, it was made with corn. As an indoor play area, we think this would be fantastic for our children.

One of our models is putting things away where we got them. This has been nearly impossible this school year so far, but we are working on making order make sense. We can't hope to have a makeup section, jewelry, big crazy hats and other accessories if children can't put a puzzle away with any sense or order. So we are working on "all the pieces" and "all the parts." Please help your children see order as a necessary tool to living well. When they pick up their toys, try to oversee how this is done. Legos with Legos, blocks with blocks, crayons all in one tub...etc.

We will be experimenting with new foods as much as possible now. We will try baked squash this week. We hope the children like like this.

Have a wonderful week.

Tuesday's Teacher

The Telephone...a little history.

Monday's Tattler

What YOU should know about this week:

On Monday, we will be looking at and thinking about Explorers.

On Tuesday, we will be looking at and studying Native Americans.

Wednesday will be our pure art day and will probably paint our pumpkins.

On Thursday, we will have a visit from Dr. Yu from Greenbriar Animal Clinic

On Friday, we will try to have a field trip to Angel Mounds. More about that later.

Sunday's Plate

One of the most important things you can do for your child, in fact, for your entire household is to sit down, without the phone, TV or any interruptions verbal or visual, and eat a meal with your family.

I can't begin to tell you the arguments I have had with this statement. I've heard it all. "We don't have time to do that; I'm not cooking; I don't cook; We have ball practice, band practice and theatre practice; we don't all want the same thing; our schedules are miss matched; the kids don't like eating..." And so it goes.

So what is the alternative to sitting together to eat a meal? The alternatives are:

The drive through for children six and under; a take out for adults; a quick frozen pizza or a bag of chips and a coke for those in between. No wonder the age expectancy of children and adults is declining. No wonder teeth are decaying, BMIs are out of control, and heart disease is on every door step.

Is it really easier to drive across town where an anonymous teen who has been doing who knows what with his hands puts questionable food in a bag which gets eaten in the car than to drop a pound of meat, a bag of carrots and four quartered potatoes and a can of tomatoes into a crock pot?

Now, the whole table concept...

When we ask the children if they ate dinner the night before with parents, some say yes, but the majority of children say they eat in front of TV.

Should TV be the company your child keeps in the evening?

Should the unending wail and groan of the TV be the adult your child hears most of after a day of learning and play?

This past week, I pulled a double shift four days running, so I know what it is like to get home late and not have much time to make a good meal. And the meal doesn't have to be stellar every night. The point is not to put on one's dream dinner every night, the point is to sit with your child and converse. You can't do that if every three seconds he and everyone else in the room is craning to see the TV.

No matter if you have a bag of dinner or a frozen disk in the oven, sitting down at a quiet table and exchanging ideas for a quarter of an hour will make a huge difference to your children in the long run.

Children with whom parents exchange ideas and their days are children less likely to seek out poor companions, drink, smoke, or engage in lawless behavior. It does matter.

Children should have the option to report on their day. They should be able to verbalize their likes, dislikes, concerns and achievements of the day with people who say they love them.

But it won't happen the first time you do this. It is something that comes together with a little practice, so don't sit down one night and expect the table sitters to jump on the expectations and fly. Children need to practice full expressed thoughts and that takes time.

If you never sit down, try planning one night where you have time to spend on making something your family really likes to eat. Set the table even if it's a sheet over the table. Put tableware on the table and some decent plates, and then turn off the radio, TV, and the phones.

Explain to your family what you are doing and why. Tell them you love them and want to spend this special time with them. Have each member of the family tell everyone what he or she did that day and ask him or her two questions that will allow him or her to express his or her special likes and dislikes.

Thank your family for participating and ask them if they like this and would like to do this more often. Then arrange a day or two days or even three when sitting down will be a fun and welcomed plan.

It's a positive habit and well worth thinking about.

Saturday's Book

New children’s book by bestselling author Andy Andrews

Changing the World: Everything You Do Really Matters

Who would dream that a boy playing in Iowa cornfields would grow up and save the lives of more than two billion people?

The Boy Who Changed the World is the new children’s book by bestselling author Andy Andrews. Andrew says his goal is simply to teach children how important they really are.

“The reason I created this book was to give children proof about how much they matter,” he said. “The lesson I want people to learn is that the decisions you make today, big and small, can truly change the world.”

This delightfully told and superbly color illustrated book tells stories of how each of our lives is interwoven by decisions, big and small, that all together make up the world we live in.

Here is the incredible story of Nobel laurette Norman Borlaug, a simple boy with a desire to feed the hungry. Norman Borlaug was personally responsible for creating a hybridized high yield corn and wheat that grew well in arid climates.

But Norman couldn’t have done it without the help of another man, a very special man by the name of Henry, that is, Mr. Henry Wallace, Vice President of the United States. Who gave young Norman a job to work at an isolated experimental farm experimental research station in Mexico on funding provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But Henry couldn’t have given Norman that job were it not for the fact that Henry’s father was a professor and one of his students was named George. And George turned out to know a lot about plants and when he was 19 years old and a student at Iowa State University he was asked by his professor to take six year old Henry on “botanical expeditions”.

This brilliant student’s name was George Washington Carver and it was young George who pointed young Henry’s life in a specific direction, long before he became Vice President of the United States. George Washington Carver was the man who later went on to develop 266 things that we still use today from a plant we know as the peanut, and another 88 things we still use today from another plant we know as the sweet potato.

But George couldn’t have taken six year old Henry on those field trips were it not for a man named Moses Carver and his wife Susan. Now Moses and Susan lived on a farm and didn’t believe in slavery. This was a problem for criminals like Quantrill’s Raiders who terrorized the country side destroying property of people. And sure enough, one cold January night, the Raiders came to Moses and Susan’s farm, burned the barn and dragged off several people including a woman named Mary Washington, who refused to let go of her infant son. So they kidnapped her and took them away.

Moses went after them and convinced them to trade his only horse for the contents in a dirty burlap bag. As the Raider’s thundered off, he fell to his knees and opened up the bag and found a cold, naked, baby boy. He took him home and Moses and Susan adopted the baby and raised him as their own, and he survived to grow up to be the man we know as George Washington Carver.

So who is it that really saved two billion people?

The Boy Who Changed the World is an easy-to-read, beautifully illustrated book. It is written specifically to inspire and motivate children of all ages. The stories were carefully selected to provide children with a memorable experience that can be taught and shared with their parents and the proof that what they do really matters.

Andy said, “I think encouragement is great, I just think proof is better”.

The Boy Who Changed the World

By Andy Andrews

Illustrated by Phillip Hurst

List $16.99

Hardcover trade color 38 pages

Tommy Nelson Publishers

ISBN 978-1-4003-1605-2

The Boy Who Changed the World reveals the incredible truth that everything YOU do matters-what you did yesterday, what you do today, and what you will do tomorrow. Every choice you make, good or bad, can make a difference.

In this engaging tale, bestselling author Andy Andrews shows children that every action, however big and small, can have a ripple effect around the world. The Boy Who Changed the World, is a children’s version of his popular book The Butterfly Effect.

The book is full of vibrant illustrations created by English illustrator Philip Hurst. They are as varied as they are frequent, going from green Iowa cornfields, to a blazing Kansas barn, to a flourish of butterflies against a pale blue sky.

Several additional free PDF file downloads are being released to enhance parent and teacher and children’s experience with the lessons Andy teaches in the book. A 54 Page Teacher’s Curriculum Guide has been developed for schools and homeschoolers. A one page Reader’s Guide is available containing 15 discussion questions for parents and teachers to help expand their children’s experience and learning of the key lessons in the book. The guide includes questions like:

1. When you have an idea you should act on it right away. Do you agree?

2. If you had an idea that could potentially change the world, what would be your first step?

3. Do you think you have the ability to be anything you want to be? Are your chances better or worse than anyone else’s? Explain your answer.

4. Why should you never give up on what you set out to do? What does it mean to persist without exception?

5. Do you have big dreams and goals? How do your dreams and goals affect the rest of the world?

The Teacher’s Guide and the Reader’s Guide can all be downloaded at the Andy Andrews website:

http://www.andyandrews.com/education/

For more information visit www.AndyAndrews.com

WHO IS ANDY ANDREWS?

Andy Andrews, hailed by a New York Times writer as someone who has quietly become "one of the most influential people in America,” is a best-selling novelist and in-demand corporate speaker for the world’s largest organizations. The Traveler’s Gift, a featured book selection of ABC’s Good Morning America, has been translated into nearly twenty languages and was on the New York Times bestseller list for seventeen weeks. His latest book, The Noticer was also on the NY Times bestsellers list. His recent books include The Heart Mender, The Butterfly Effect, and Return to Sawyerton Springs.

Andy has spoken at the request of four different United States presidents and toured military bases around the world, being called upon by the Department of Defense to speak to the troops. He is one of the most popular and in demand speakers in corporate America. Arguably, there is no single person on the planet better at weaving subtle yet life-changing lessons into riveting tales of adventure and intrigue—both on paper and on stage.

He lives in Gulf Shores, Alabama, with his wife, Polly, and their two sons.

Friday's Tattler

It was a glowing Friday! We had lots and lots of nice weather this week, in fact, so nice we actually bobbed for apples. The children had a ball. They loved the challenge and met it well by each child actually getting an apple, and boy were those apples sweet. Success makes things taste especially good.

We tried a new game - a Cheetos relay! It didn't have much point except pure fun. The kids took a Cheeto in their teeth and ran across the playground, chomp chomp chomp, and then took another and ran back. The biggest consumer won!

We had our Golden Bead Club, and all but eight children got a bead. Two of those who did not get one were newly enrolled, and two had been out the week before, so that makes very few children who lost their medals for behavior. Remember, we have to be at school, and we have to be well behaved to get a Golden Bead.

The Knowledge Bee was won by Phoenix and Jack HA who had eight correct answers. Makenzie came in with seven answers, Jill H with six, and Josiah and Ely with five correct answers. We congratulate them on their efforts.

Tom Lonnberg came to talk about Trains on Thursday, and we left his visit for the middle kids and the Kindergartners simply because the younger children were so tired. Mr. Tom talked about the kinds of things older trains had aboard. He brought different hats with him that conductors and baggage men would have worn. He brought big tools with him and an old light.

All in all it was a very special week.

Thursday's Thought

Sometimes the best times are ordinary times when there are no pressing holidays, birthdays or festivities of any kind in any way that add or detract from what we ordinarily do.

Ordinary uncluttered, undemeanding time is a good time to take measure of how we live, to make changes, to reorganize, to stop, look, and listen to the life we have created around us. It’s a time when the children in our care should take precedence.

Ordering ordinary takes time. It’s like spring housecleaning everything but the house because what we are really doing is cleaning up our regular routine and that’s no easy thing to do.

Beginning with our relationship with the children in our lives, parents and providers should re-examine what enables the philosophy of our child care to develop. What makes it good and not so good. What are our expectations and goals and then the ultimate question: Am I living up to my own expectations.

Sitting while watching children play is a good way to bring one’s thoughts to mind about the children in care or our own children. It’s an excellent time to ask questions:

Joshua will be going to kindergarten in the fall. How do I think he will do? Will his social maturity let him make friends easily? Will his interest in numbers and letters be as strong as his interest in stories and play? Will kindergarten be an academic success? Is he regularly happy? What does Joshua like? What makes him unhappy and what is my part in his happiness and his general success?

These are important questions to draw attention to as often as parents and providers have time. The answers need to be shared. Parents enjoy providers’ insights as well -- providers need insights to the children in their care.

Last year, Steven’s teacher said he was attention deficit with hyperactivity. What can I do to help Steven focus at play? What toys can I buy that will help him desire to sit and do?

Examining homes where children play is another productive activity of ordinary time. Parents and providers who consistently find better ways to keep playrooms and play stations will find any kind of child care easier.

Ask: where and how are the toys kept in my house? Are they up and out of site or available and orderly and inviting to the children? Do I use a toy box so kids have to dig and find all the pieces, or shelving with bins so everything is always available?

What are the favorite toys? Is TV on because the toys are few, unexciting with pieces everywhere? Whose fault is that?

Personal child care goals are always a thing to think about in ordinary time. The number one question is: am I just making it through another day, or am I meeting my goals and thriving on my child care successes?

Thinking about ordinary things in ordinary times gives a kind of polish to our lives. Stopping to ask ourselves questions about self and those others we love helps make ordinary time the best time of the year.

Tuesday's Teacher

I have not been able to add much to the blog; please bear with me. I'm working a double shift these days, so I'm home about three hours a day. I've been spending a lot of time at school and really loving it. The kids have been a bit squirrelly this week because of the weather fronts coming in, but all in all it's been a great week.

Because I don't teach a morning class, I don't have individual contact with each child. One of the things I've noticed is how many of the little ones don't listen. Listening is the most important thing that we can teach a child, and children who don't listen are children who are very far behind both in development and broader knowledge of the world.

Getting children to listen is not that hard, but it has to begin at home. It begins with parents who read to children and who eat dinner with them with the TV and radio off.

"He won't let us..." is often the common complaint. Reading takes time. It's a time that needs to come into every child's life once or twice a day at least. Even if the few minutes you choose to read to your child is spent talking to him and having him listen to YOU is the only thing you accomplish at first it's time well spent.

Find a book with pictures and point out certain things, and have your child point out other things. This is an excellent beginning. Then when he or she is comfortable sitting with you, begin to read. It might not last more than a couple of pages, but within a few weeks, he or she will look forward to this special time and begin to listen, which means trust, and enjoy it.

Children hear all day long a myriad of things, but listening means taking it in and learning from it. Listening is a learned skill, and it means the difference between understanding and not.

Monday's Tattler

This week is a stay at home week. We will be doing our Knowledge Bee and Golden Bead club today. It's a questionable day, because we have so many out from illness. This has been a pernicious flu and grabs whole families. If your child talks of a stomach ache, please take him seriously!

We will try to make papiermache pumpkins on Monday and study Columbus on Tuesday. We are inching into a whole week of Native Americans next week.

The weather is still quite warm, so shorts and t shirts are the best choice for school.

We will be having easy on the stomach foods this week.

We are delighted with candy sales and appreciate all that you parents do for us. It is an honor to have your children at school.

If you have any questions, please speak with a teacher.

Sunday's Plate

Here's an old family favorite that I haven't made for years. When we were out at the farm on Friday, Mr. Mayse gave me a cabbage, and I brought it home thinking I would make glumki, a Polish dish, out of it, and on Sunday I did.

The dish is stuffed cabbage leaves, and here is what you do:

You peal as many leaves off the cabbage as you want to make rolls. I made eight - two each per person per night. We will eat this two days running.

Set the cabbage leaves aside.

Make a cup of dry brown rice per instructions on the box.

Brown a pound of ground beef, ground lamb, ground pork or sausage, or a pound of bacon.

With the meat, also brown half an onion.

When the rice is done, mix rice, meat and onion and set aside.

In a small pot, make a nice tomato sauce with your regular spaghetti spices.

Divide the rice-meat mix into each cabbage leaf and close. You can use a toothpick or just turn the closure down so the weight of the roll keeps the roll closed.

Pour your sauce over the rolls and bake for about 35 minutes.

Serve with sour cream.

Friday's Tattler

It was a great and dirty week. That playground is making us all crazy. It is so dry and dusty out there, we all need safety masks!

It was an interesting week. Lots in the hopper. The great event is Miss Nita's Middles are beginning to read. This is being helped along by Miss Amy's writing class. We are soooooooooo proud of these children who are coming along so fast. It is sooooooooooooo exciting to see and hear them read for the very first time. When a five year old can read the word vocabulary, it's just tear making!

We had a nice visit on Thursday from the Knight Fire Department. The children who kept their medals were able to spray the hose.

We did not do a golden bead this past week or a Knowledge Bee because we went to Mayse farm for a wonderful hay ride, a walk through two mazes, a lesson in the green house, and a cookie and juice. Such fun! With our heads filled with farm information, we went out to Newburgh Fortress of Fun. It was a splendid day. We had a nice picnic lunch and a romp on the playground and then we came home for Popsicles and play. We were all exhausted.

Thursday's Thought

There was a time when using the wrong fork was considered a child’s bad manner. Now, grabbing his neighbor’s fork and hurling it across the room is supposed to be tolerated.

I remember as a child trying to be inconspicuous by walking quietly down the right side of the hallways in school trying to compensate for squeaky shoes especially past open classroom doors that I wouldn’t have dared look into.

Now, children clamor down hallways knocking into one another, pushing and screaming no matter what is going on in the next room. They will disturb anything and anyone in their attempt to grab as much attention as they can. Two weeks ago, a fifth grader came up to me at a public playground, pointed her finger at me and said, “You. Yeah you. I think one of your children is hurt.”

I wasn’t surprised when I read a press release that said more parents favor academic success than social success in the classroom. It shows. The headline read:

Although Americans Grapple with Right Balance, Academic Concerns Trump Character Development in New Nationwide Poll

Is it really more important for a very young child to succeed academically than socially especially in today’s bad manners world?

According to the article, men gave more importance to academics than character development (40 percent to 28 percent), while women were evenly divided between the two at 34 percent.

Those with post-graduate degrees were the biggest proponents of character development over academics (45 percent to 33 percent).

On a regional basis, only respondents in the Midwest viewed the academic/character tradeoff with equal interest. Academics were clearly more important in the Northeast, Southeast and West.

Are the awful character problems now an acceptable cost of failed parenting? Are children who disrupt, destroy and antagonize an entire group OK provided they get good grades?

Strong academic pressure seems to be all parents can muster. Parents fear academic demands are all a child can bear. Parents are afraid adding moral responsibility will cause a child to implode, so they cower at the point of punishing behavior because grades count. In grade inflated, teacher bullied classrooms, the child has license to do as he pleases.

Few adults are really comfortable enforcing rules and that begins early, so many let poor behaviors stand like cheating and lying and aggression towards other children. Most parents will not issue a real punishment corporal or otherwise because it’s simply too dangerous, too emotionally hard. So many have turned this vice into a virtue touting any punishment somehow damages the well-being of the child.

But isn’t that the point of punishment? It’s supposed to damage the well being of the child. If a child is contented with atrocious behavior, a good parent should want to damage that contentment with great swiftness.

The real question is: how can parents stand a poorly behaved child? The work it takes to undo early formation is tantamount to reprogramming a computer with color crayons and scrap paper.

Besides, ignoring nightmare behaviors often leads to emotional problems. According to the Parents Survey on Discipline, reported in the Chicago Sun-Times in January, 93 percent of schools say kindergartners today have more emotional and behavioral problems than were seen just five years ago.

While we place enormous academic pressure on children at the expense of character development, emotional intelligence is undervalued. Think of what doors that opens for the future, and the beat goes on.

Wonderful Wednesday

WATCH THAT DOGGY DOOR

Could you imagine coming home from work
to find this tiny creature napping on your
couch with your dog?
Guess who came home for dinner?
It followed this beagle home, right through
the doggy door. This happened in Maryland
recently. The owner came home to find the
visitor had made himself right at home...
This hit the 6 o'clock news big time.


Posting this so friends who are
animal lovers can have a
big smile.

Tuesday's Teacher

Published Online: October 5, 2010 in Education Week

Published in Print: October 6, 2010, as Proposal on Head Start Aims to Turn Up Heat on Lagging Programs

Head Start Proposal Aims to Turn Up Heat on Lagging Programs

Niahla Johnson peeks out from her class line after recess at Skelly Early Childhood Education Center in Tulsa, Okla. Proposed federal rules would impose tighter accountability standards for Head Start programs.

—Shane Bevel for Education Week

Low-Performing Centers Would Have to Compete

In one of the biggest changes to Head Start in its 45-year history, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced proposed rules that would force low-performing programs to compete for their federal funding.

About 1,600 Head Start grantees around the country run programs for low-income preschool children, at a cost of about $7.2 billion annually. At least a quarter of the grantees being evaluated in any given year—those falling below a certain performance threshold—would be required under the new rule to "recompete" for their grants against other interested entities in the community.

The 25 percent requirement would go beyond a recommendation from a federal advisory committee that 15 to 20 percent of grantees be required to recompete in any given year. But government officials said that the 25 percent number sends a message that Head Start will only support high-quality programs. The recompetition requirement would also apply to Early Head Start, which serves pregnant women, infants, and toddlers.

'Tough, But Fair'

"For the Office of Head Start and the department, we are really trying to get the message out to grantees that it's about increasing quality and holding grantees accountable," said Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, the director of the federal Office of Head Start, in an interview.

Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a member of the Head Start advisory committee, said he was "floored" that the federal agency accepted the recommendations and made them even more stringent.

"This is great, and it should have happened a long time ago," he said.

And Joel Ryan, executive director of a Head Start advocacy group for programs based in Washington state, called the proposed rules "tough, but fair."

Nancy Scales works on an art project with Key'Shon Holmes, left, and Sacira Polley during class at Skelly Early Childhood Education Center, a Head Start program in Tulsa, Okla.

—Shane Bevel for Education Week

He added:"Those programs that aren't doing a good job are holding everyone back."

Head Start programs are evaluated on a rotating basis, and not every one is reviewed each year. The proposed rules say those up for evaluation in a particular year would be reviewed under seven performance conditions that fall into the categories of program quality, licensing and operation, and fiscal and internal controls.

Programs that are above a certain threshold will be federally funded on a five-year cycle. Programs that fall below the threshold would recompete. And even if serious deficiencies noted during a review are corrected, the grantee would still be required to recompete for federal funds.

If examining the seven conditions do not result in at least a quarter of the grantees evaluated in any given year recompeting for federal money, monitoring officials propose to look at additional factors in order to meet the 25 percent requirement.

Program Struggles

The proposed rule does not change existing regulations for when a grant can be terminated. Funding can still be terminated immediately if a program has a serious violation related to child care or financial integrity. Terminated grantees will not be permitted to compete for funding for five years.

Comments on the proposal will be accepted until Dec. 21.

The proposed changes come in the midst of difficult times for the preschool program. The intent of Head Start is to meet the social, educational, and physical needs of poor young children, preparing them to achieve in school at the same levels as their more-affluent peers.

However, studies have found mixed results for children in Head Start. The latest large-scale study, which was released in January, evaluated nearly 5,000 children. The Head Start children showed marked early gains in language and literacy. But by the end of the 1st grade, most of those advantages seem to have disappeared.

In 2007, the Congress made major changes to Head Start. Programs were no longer able to keep their federal grants indefinitely, absent major issues of mismanagement or regulatory noncompliance. Instead, grantees were to be given awards every five years. The Congress also authorized the health and human services department to create the recompetition process.

'Ambitious' Proposal

Mr. Haskins, a former White House and congressional advisor on welfare issues and the co-director of the Washington-based Brookings Center on Children and Families, said that "potentially, it's the most serious reform in the history of Head Start. It's a signal that we're really serious. We intend to close bad programs."

W. Steven Barnett, the co-director for the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., had similar praise for the proposed regulations, calling them "the most ambitious change in Head Start possibly in 40 years."

The proposed regulations mark a necessary change, he added. "We have a long way to go to excellence. Just 'good' isn't good enough," he said.

The new rules may prompt Head Start programs to use performance data to see how well their preschoolers are prepared for school, as is now done in the Head Start program run by the Community Action Project, or CAP, in Tulsa, Okla.

Oklahoma has a pre-kindergarten program, and CAP has a collaborative partnership with the 41,500-student Tulsa school district to also provide pre-K services. While the district educates about 2,200 4-year-olds, the CAP Head Start program serves about 600 additional 4-year-olds, plus 600 3-year-olds. Cecilia J. Robinson, the senior director of early childhood programs for CAP, said the program uses data to improve its education practice, for example, providing professional development to teachers after determining that children in the program were weak in cognitive and language skills. "We really see ourselves as a small, early-childhood school district," she said.

The new rules "are not something we're worried about as a grantee," Ms. Robinson said. In a reform-driven age, the rules "are not targeted at agencies, so much as focused on improvement."