Tuesday's Teacher

The Stranger


A while ago, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.

If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind.

Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them.

Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home... Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished.

He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER was asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?.... .. .



We just call him 'T.V.'

(Note: This should be required reading for every household!)
He has a wife now....We call her 'Computer.'
Their first child is "Cell Phone".
Second child "I Pod"

Monday's Tattler

Good morning and welcome back to school! We are beginning Advent this week. That's the long wait to Christmas. We will be making a Christmas ornament every day until Christmas. We are doing regular classes in the morning and a lot of crafts in the afternoon.

There will be some notes sent home today about two Christmas things we need to know about.

Every year we adopt an Aids family. This year our family is small - a mom, dad and child. We donate their Christmas.

The other thing we do is have a big Santa Party. This entails bringing a gift for your OWN child and ANY child who will be attending the party. The gift should be a "Santa's Workshop" toy - wooden or something without a logo. Do NOT wrap the gift, Do NOT tell your child. It's a secret. Please bring the gift in the bag that will be sent home.

More about these two projects later today.

We will be baking a new Christmas Cookie every day. If you would like the recipe, please let either Miss Amy know or Miss Judy.

Please take a look at the mittens at the front of the school. These are the best mittens for the kids. They are a perfect size and fit into small pockets and sleeves.

As the weather gets colder, children will need a hat and mittens or gloves. Coat hoods are not hats and will not protect ears from the cold.

Please send your child in long sleeves. Short sleeves are not warm enough for young children.

Have a great week!

Saturday's New Book

Grandmother Remembers Holidays

An Album of Memories and Photos for My Grandchild

By Judith Levy

This adorable designed fill-in journal provides grandma with pages to record precious memories of holidays, birthday, vacation trips, and other family celebrations. Charming full-color illustrations and heartwarming verses enhance every holiday, with plenty of room for grandmother’s treasured photos! Grandmother Remembers Holidays is the perfect gift for a grandchild to receive from a beloved grandmother.

Beyond the Family Tree

A 21^st-Century Guide to Exploring your Roots and Creating Connections

By Jennifer Worick

Whether you have a great relationship with your family or are separated by distance or differences, there is so much more to learn about one another. Here is a handbook on how to forge better family relationships by initiating more interesting conversations and creating an online means of communication. With more 1,000 insightful questions, Beyond the Family Tree helps the reader create dialogue during family gatherings or one-on-one get-togethers.

For a complete look at our year’s books, go to http://www.abramsbooks.com/catalogue.html

The Ugly Word Called Boredom by Judy Lyden

The Ugly Word Called Boredom

Boredom is a dangerous word for very young children. They should never have the opportunity to use the word nor even know what it means. Because boredom is really the inability to entertain the self. Boredom comes from within rather than without.

Being bored means a child has yet to develop a life of the mind. His imagination is flawed; he can’t make believe or invent without a great deal of hard work, and that’s an effort which seems beyond him.

Children who whine that they have nothing to do -- don’t. Watch them. They mill around without entering the play because they don’t know how. They don’t know what to do with blocks, with a play kitchen, a box of crayons, a puzzle, or nearly anything that takes effort.

Drifting or milling is passive and it’s easy. It means: “I don’t have to make a commitment.”

It comes as a result of not being expected to play -- without the help of parents or providers -- by parents and providers. It comes from laziness. Playing alone begins in infancy for short periods. By the time a child walks, his natural curiosity should be encouragement enough that he spends some time exploring his young world by himself. Children will still “home base” parent or provider, but the actual play will be self started by the child.

Preschoolers should be able to play for long periods without a participating adult. But this won’t happen if the tools of play aren’t available to the child both at home and at child care. It also won’t happen if parents play for children or use too much TV.

At the very least, any day care, preschool, or child care situation should provide enough play options, child focused activities and planned lessons designed to entertain and delight children the whole time they are in child care. Teachers should be on the ball enough to have planned at least for the day, and be enthusiastic about every child’s activities.

Now -- walk through your child care door and really look around. Does the warmth of color and things that belong to children, that they have made, welcome you? Lights on please! Toys out please! Noise shouldn’t deafen an adult, but a certain play noise should entice children to enter the games.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. But so are children next to God, and their concept of clean and neat will differ from appearance conscience teachers and providers who fuss about cleaning up the mess. Mess belongs to child care. Best looking child care room award goes to the teacher who produces the most interested kids.

Do you see children who are idle? It should never happen. There should be at least a play station for every three children, and they should be well equipped, well thought out capturing a child’s imagination. This is where many children learn to play. How is taught by other children.

Lots of books please-- information, picture books, poetry, rhymes, stories, and toy catalogs. There should be a puzzle station, a table time toys station, a science corner with natural wonders, a dress up station, an art station with all the media and a block area.

A day care child’s day should be filled with learning and doing. It’s called hands on. If there is enough to do, children will never lose their way into that awful unmentionable thing called boredom.

Wednesday's Wonder

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.

Tuesday's Teacher

Soup is easy to eat; that’s why kids like it.

Soup is also one of the most nutritious foods because its liquid is contained and eaten.

Soup is easier than most people think to make.

Sounds like a quiz. It isn’t; it’s a trilogy of facts.

What constitutes soup?

The dictionary says soup is a liquid food made by boiling foods together. If you describe that to kids, they will pour it on the dog. Quite frankly, adults don’t have to tell kids anything about soup. For the most part, soup is friendly eating. Kids like soup.

It’s friendly to a child, perhaps, but not when the adult realizes that there isn’t enough nutrition in an ordinary can of soup to count as even a part of a meal. That fact can turn into a real guilt trip and that’s never friendly.

Cooking is the last thing on lots of busy parents schedules, but homemade soup is almost as easy as canned if you take a few short cuts, and it’s stocked full of quality food. I make soup every Saturday. It takes me fifteen minutes, and even my chef daughter has a bowl.

First step: put two or three cups of water in a two-quart pot.

Second step: put four tablespoons of chicken or beef bouillon in the water. Bouillon comes granulated now, has a shelf life better than snack cakes, and it can be used in lots of meals like macaroni and cheese for flavor.

Third step: go through the refrigerator and put all the leftovers from the last week into the pot. Add a little more water if necessary. Add some fresh or frozen vegetables if the left over section of your fridge is a little low.

What kinds of leftovers? Noodles, Chinese food, rice, stew, baked chicken (without bones) spaghetti and sauce, roast (cubed), vegetables, salad (with and without dressing, croutons etc) cheese, casseroles, cheese potatoes, macaroni and cheese, beans, tacos, barbecue, just about anything but tuna and sweet stuff because they will alter the pot too much.

Let it simmer until it begins to boil. Thicken if necessary, and serve.

I’m kidding, right? Nope. I’ve done it for years. My kids call it swamp soup. It’s a marvelous use of leftovers, and everyone likes it. It looks a lot like hearty minestrone. The mixed flavors are rich and hearty and pleasing to child and man. I once made five gallons and fed an army of picky teens. They ate the whole five gallons and never asked once what was in it.

The fun of swamp soup is the endless combinations that all come together to create something new and interesting. Salad dressing adds flavor as does melted cheese and mashed potatoes. But swamp soup is not for palate sissies whose personal menu could cover one side of a business card. It’s a hearty, robust meal that satisfies for hours.

For a child, serve soup in a teacup and saucer. Children will eat more of anything on small plates and in small bowls. Remember proportions. A dinner plate to a child is like a turkey platter to an adult. Add a fun bread or cracker. Try using a cookie cutter to cut bread or toast into fun shapes.

For mom and dad, add a cold top. Cut up raw onion, tomatoes, summer vegetables like squash, green pepper and cucumbers and sprinkle them on top just before serving with a layer of shredded cheese and bacon.

For refrigerators lacking in leftovers, try saving more from meals eaten out and save that tablespoon of this and that in a seal and close bag. Bottoms up!

Monday's Tattler

A nice slow week at school. We will be open on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We will have regular classes on Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday, we will have a craft and baking day.

Today will be 70 degrees. Please keep that in mind.

Medals have been washed. We will be distributing them when they dry.

Tuesday, we will practice a Thanksgiving dinner menu with Turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed and sweet potatoes, apples and cranberry sauce.

Have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

Sunday's Plate

Here is an interesting idea I found on Cooking.com. It's a recipe for two potatoes - sweet and russet.

You either bake both potatoes in the traditional oven for 60-70 minutes, or you can nuke them in the microwave.

For two, it's just two potatoes, so the microwave makes sense, but if you're going to make this for a crowd, it's definitely an oven gig.

You bake both sweet and russet potatoes, and then you cut them long ways. You dig out half the potato in each casing without spoiling the skins. Mash both kinds of potatoes separately, mixing in your favorite extras like sour cream, onions, bacon, cheese. Put the mashed potatoes back into the skins filling half the casing with each potato.

Not only is this pretty, but it's nutritious. Reheat the potatoes if necessary - might add some grated cheese!

Friday's Tattler

We had a great turnout for the play on Friday. The place was packed and we were so grateful to parents and grandparents for coming to the play and supporting the children. Lots of really nice snacks too!

The children were delightful. Early on Friday morning, about 9:00 - we ran through the play for the last time. The kids were great. Every line was crisp and clear. The inflection perfect, the lines delivered with vamp and style.

Then at play time, the kids were so busy looking out into the audience, they needed prompting, but it was still cute, and the children did a really nice job. The costumes were cute and the children handled them well. We were so proud.

August won the five pound candy bar as the fund raiser prize. We were glad to see it travel to a home. Teachers were getting itchy fingers! There is still plenty of time to sell the rest of your candy. This will help the school buy much needed playground equipment.

And so there it is - play done and it's on to Thanksgiving. Lots to be grateful for this year...

Wednesday's Wonder

GOOD VISION IN A DOWNPOUR

How to achieve good vision while driving during a heavy
downpour.

We are not sure why it is so effective; just try this method when it rains
heavily. This method was told by a Police friend who had experienced and confirmed it.

It is useful...even driving at night.
Most of the motorists would turn on HIGH or FASTEST SPEED of the wipers during heavy downpour, yet the visibility in
front of the windshield is still bad......

In the event you face such a situation,
just try your SUN GLASSES (any model will do), and miracle!
All of a sudden, your visibility in front of your windshield is perfectly clear, as if there is no rain.

Make sure you always have a pair of SUN GLASSES in your car, as you are not only helping yourself to drive safely with good vision, but also might save your friend's life by giving him this idea..

Try it yourself and share it with your friends!??? Amazing, you still see
the drops on the windshield, but not the sheet of rain falling.?

You can see where the rain bounces off the road.? It works to eliminate the "blindness" from passing semi's spraying you too.?

Or the "kickup" if you are following a semi or car in the rain.? They ought to teach that little tip in driver's training.. It really does work.

This warning is a good one!

I wonder how many people know about this
~

A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago and
totaled her car.

A resident of Kilgore , Texas she was traveling between Gladewater & Kilgore. It was raining, though not excessively, when her car suddenly began to hydro-plane and literally flew through the air. She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden occurrence!

When she explained to the highway patrolman what had happened he
told her something that every driver should know - NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON. She thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain..

But the highway patrolman told her that if the cruise control is on when your car begins to hydro-plane and your tires lose contact with the pavement, your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed making you take off like an airplane. She told the patrolman that was exactly what had occurred.

The patrolman said this warning should be listed, on the driver's seat
sun-visor - NEVER USETHE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE PAVEMENT IS WET OR ICY, along with the airbag warning. We tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive a safe speed - but we don't tell them to use the cruise control only when the pavement is dry.

The only person the accident victim found, who knew this (besides the patrolman), was a man who had a similar accident, totaled his car and sustained severe injuries.

NOTE: Some vehicles (like the Toyota Sienna Limited XLE) will not allow you to set the cruise control when the windshield wipers are on. If you send this to 15 people and only one of them doesn't know about this, then it was all worth it.

You might have saved a life.

Tuesday's Teacher Continues

From Food Navigator

Low fat diets could increase heart disease risk, say nutrition experts

By Caroline Scott-Thomas, 16-Nov-2010

Related topics: Science & Nutrition, Fats & oils

Many Americans aim to eat low-fat foods but there is strong evidence that replacing fat with carbohydrates could be harmful to health, according to nutrition experts at the ADA conference in Boston last week.

Recommendations to reduce saturated fat intake are largely based on the notion that high levels increase risk of cardiovascular disease, but unless saturated fat is replaced with other fats, many studies have suggested that fat reduction could increase risk of heart disease.

During a symposium called “The Great Fat Debate: Is There Validity In the Age-Old Dietary Guidance?” at the American Dietetic Association’s (ADA) Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo, four leading experts presented evidence suggesting that low fat diets may be less healthy than those containing at least a moderate amount of fat. In particular, all four agreed that replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates – as has been widely recommended in the United States – is likely to raise the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The low fat message

Director of the cardiovascular health laboratory at Tufts University Dr. Alice Lichtenstein said dietary advice to adhere to a low fat diet is based on an oversimplification of recommendations.

“The emphasis should be on displacing saturated fat and trans fat with unsaturated fat because that is where the data is,” she said. “…‘Displace saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat’ was simplified to ‘low fat’. Then ‘low fat’ became ‘low calorie’. The low fat message is still very pervasive, especially in the lay press.”

‘Massive distraction’

Chair of the Harvard School of Public Health’s nutrition department Dr. Walter Willett takes this even further.

“If anything, the literature shows a slight advantage of the high fat diet,” he said. “The focus on fat in dietary guidelines has been a massive distraction…We should remove total fat from nutrition facts panels on the back of packs.”

He added that while the pervasive dietary guidance given to consumers has been to eat fats sparingly, to load up on starch and eat non-fat products, “the food industry quickly realized sugar was cheaper than fat and laughed all the way to the bank.”

“It was really the type of fat that was important,” he said. “If you replaced saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat there was a reduction of risk.”

American eating behavior

Meanwhile, distinguished professor of public health and professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, Dr. Lewis Kuller, said that dietary guidance to reduce saturated fat should not change, considering that too much of the fat in the American diet is saturated and not enough is unsaturated.

“The biggest problem in America at the moment is eating behavior,” he said. “…Eating is a social pleasure and not a therapeutic challenge. We have done a great job of confusing the public.”

The importance of overall diet

Assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School Dr. Mozaffarian agreed with the other speakers about a lack of evidence linking total fat consumption and cardiovascular disease risk.

High levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL cholesterol) and high triglyceride levels have both been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but Mozaffarian said there has often been overreliance on single biomarkers in drawing conclusions about fats’ impact on heart health, “even one as hallowed as LDL cholesterol”.

“Overall dietary quality is very important for cardiovascular risk,” he said. “Saturated fats may raise LDL cholesterol but increasing levels of all fats lowers triglycerides…You can’t look at data across countries and draw conclusions. Nor can you look at animal studies or a single biomarker and draw conclusions from that.”

Concluding the discussion, Dr. Lichtenstein warned against focusing on single nutrients for disease risk reduction.

She said: “We need to stop focusing on individual dietary components because when one goes down, another goes up.”

Tuesday's Teacher

What Does Love Mean?

From the point of view of children:

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love..'

Rebecca- age 8

---

'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'

Billy - age 4

---

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'

Karl - age 5

---

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'

Chrissy - age 6

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'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'

Terri - age 4

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'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'

Danny - age 7

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'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mommy and Daddy are like that.. They look gross when they kiss'

Emily - age 8

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'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'

Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

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'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,'

Nikka - age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

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'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.'

Noelle - age 7

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'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'

Tommy - age 6

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'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.

He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'

Cindy - age 8

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'My mommy loves me more than anybody You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night..'

Clare - age 6

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'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'

Elaine-age 5

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'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.'

Chris - age 7

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'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.'

Mary Ann - age 4

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'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'

Lauren - age 4

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'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)

Karen - age 7

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'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.'

Mark - age 6

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'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'

Jessica - age 8

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And the final one

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,

'Nothing, I just helped him cry'

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning!

Another great week at school. This week we are focusing on our entries and exits. We will assemble in the classrooms and learn to be quiet and listen to the play and know when it's our turn to come out and act. It's a cohesive building tool. Curtains up, costumes ready, and it's "Lights, action!"

Children are getting chilly in short sleeves. It's a good idea this week to dress children in long sleeves. During the winter our thermostats are low because of the activity in the building and the ability of the sun to really pump up the heat inside. But sometimes a short sleeve is not enough. We do not raise the heat because someone is dressed for summer.

Now is the time for parents to teach children to put on their own coats. We go out every day unless the temperature drops below 32 degrees. A thirty minute recess in the morning becomes five minutes when every child needs to be "dressed." The theme song runs something like, "Your coat, your body..."

Getting children ready for the independence of big school is one of our jobs. Please help make your child independent by allowing him to dress himself.

Please instruct CHILDREN to put hats and mittens into his or her coat sleeve and hang the coat by the tab. If there is no tab, by the curve of the opposite sleeve. Why? Because it works.

Today we will be enjoying steak, potato wedges, big bread, oranges and frozen grapes.

Our Thanksgiving Play is on Friday at 3:00 p.m. Every child is expected to have someone there for him. Please plan to bring a snack to share for the party following. School dismisses at 4:00.

Sunday's Plate

Introducing new foods to kids is tough. Sometimes I think it's just the expectation that makes kids shy away from new possible yucky stuff.

With Thanksgiving approaching, we will do our best at the Garden School to teach the kids what Thanksgiving food will be like. Next week we will have a full Thanksgiving practice meal with the kids. We will bake a traditional turkey, stuffing, homemade and canned cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and the general works. Kids can sample everything and be ready and waiting for their family's version on Thanksgiving.

One of the things we will do is to bake our own cranberry bread to take home and share. This has always been fun for kids. More about that later.

Making food fun is part of the art of eating well. The simple fact is, it's not the organics, the naturals, or the store where you buy food that makes a healthy body, it's the fact that we eat as wide a variety of foods as we can that makes us healthy. And that variety can be daunting to kids.

One of the things I did as a young mother that seemed to work, and I still do it today at school, is to build menus and meals around a schedule that takes in all the various kinds of meats, fish and other proteins.

On Monday, I try to serve beef. Doesn't matter if it's ground, roast, steak, or ribs.
On Tuesday, I try to serve pork. There are dozens of varieties including snausage ;-} chops, roast, piggy pie, ham, ribs, ground patty, tenderloin - you name it.
On Wednesday, it's a non meat day. It's breakfast food sans meat, eggs, cheese, beans. I have to serve 2 ounces of protein at every lunch, so our menus must include an alternate protein on non meat days.
On Thursday, I serve chicken. This week we're having chicken legs.
On Friday, I try to serve fish, but sometimes we resort to another pizza day.

This allows children to sample the basics, and still not have too many red meat days. This schedule has served me for thirty years, and it encourages children to eat different things as they come on the table.

Taped to my desk, I have a list of twenty possible fruits and vegetables that we serve in a kind of rotating menu plan. I add things on sale, strange and interesting things from the Asian market, and weird stuff I find at Schnucks. All in an attempt to bring to our children the widest possible menu plan.

By eating a wide variety of food, children's bodies are taking in a wide variety of vitamins, proteins, and minerals that they would not get by eating the same thing every day. As a workshop giver, I have many times been met with the statement by a day care provider who will tell me, "I don't cook, so my kids get boxed pizza, French fries and applesauce every day." No wonder children are constantly ill.

Monday at the Garden School, we will have marinated baked steak, potato wedges, big bread, frozen grapes and oranges. It will be a plate beautiful to look at. But I wouldn't serve beef again that week, because the body can only use so much beef at a time. Too much beef is not good for anyone, so we limit it to one day.

So next week when we serve the turkey and trimmings, we will set up the round table with all the food and serve buffet. I hope it will look like what the children will sample on the big day. Buffet means the children can choose the food they want. The turkey will be there in all it's glory and we will ask, "Would you like white or dark?" And we'll put on a nice show and carve right there for them. It should be fun.

Next week: How to bake a turkey.

Friday's Tattler

It was a wild and crazy week! The kids were on fire! We practiced the play every day and did some class work, and on Thursday, we had our pictures taken by Miss Beve Pietrowski. She's a marvelous photographer and makes it so much fun for kids.

The children all know most of their lines and this coming week we will practice from classrooms and learn how to be quiet while the other children perform. Costumes will be given out this week and backdrops finished. It's a process, and the kids have been great.

We experimented with one of our fall specialties from the kitchen this week. It's baked squash with rice and cheese sauce. This week we may try it again with bacon added.

It's time to think about getting candy money turned in.

Please set your calendars for this coming Friday - it's the PLAY -- Yeah!

Some special attention goes to some of the kids who have been outstanding with lines:

Garrett, Makenzie, Reese, Phoenix, Jill, Michael, Avery, Logan, August, Alex, Annie, Hailee, Jack HA, Alexis. Great job.

Thursday's Thought

Early one morning I heard a short homily, “If the only religion you know is the one you learned as a child, no wonder you left your faith.” It made me want to shout out, “Foul ball!”

It made me cringe until I picked up William Bennett’s book The Educated Child, 1999 and was reminded how the early years are the most critical period in a child’s formation.

From Part One, The Preschool Years, the first paragraph includes, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,” Proverbs.

And, “The most important part of education is right training in the nursery” – Plato.

Reaching into my own Catholic tradition, I recalled, “Give me a child before he is six, and he’s mine forever.” The Jesuit who said it knew first impressions are lasting.

Making lasting impressions in any of life’s disciplines is a teacher’s struggle. Getting children to love the arts and sciences, languages, history and geography and especially religion is a matter of presentation.

The arts, after all, are the many languages of the heart. Without a working knowledge of music, art, and literature at a teacher’s fingertips, an emotional void darkens any classroom and the languages of the heart fail to materialize.

On the other hand, the simple acts of turning on first class music and drawing children’s attention to certain pieces welcomes the curious child; music is easy and delightful and lifts the heart.

Reading poetry is another fundamental fine art that children love and sadly miss because the timidity of reading something more elevated than directions confounds a lot of adults.

Capturing a child’s curiosity about the world around him is early childhood science. Bring science into the classroom in the form of a hedgehog. Children will fixate on a rather dull creature whose primary interest is in going forward. That says something about children and the ease of presenting childhood science.

Add a new interest in clouds, shapes and patterns and movement, include a kite, and again the captive audience will remain for weeks, fixated on looking up.

Presenting history as a story is early history. “Matthew was a pilgrim boy; he lived in a place called Massachusetts. Let’s all say Massachusetts. Five times every day, Matthew carried water in a wooden bucket, just like this from the stream near his house (now show a bucket, let the children try to carry it). He fed corn to his pet goose. Matthew wore a big white shirt and pants with buttons.” And that’s how it starts.

Religion captures the heart when it is taught from the heart. But don’t tell me; show me.

Pick up an art book and ten children will come to see what’s in it. Turn on music and the desire to move to the music is nearly unstoppable. Read a story about God to children and they begin to explore in their minds. Bring life into the classroom like plants and animals, and the delight will astound anyone.

Give me a child before he is six, and he’s mine forever. It says it all.

Wacky Wonderful Wednesday

My Trip to San Francisco in 1940. It's a little dated, but fun to see the changes.


With ten snapshots.

1. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

Dear Friend,

Arrived in Oakland a few hours ago and finally we're on our way to SanFrancisco .

We paid 25 cents at the Toll Plaza to enter this wonderful bridge that was opened four years ago. It took me awhile to get used to the traffic.

The bridge has two decks. The top deck is for automobiles and the bottom deck for trucks and electric trains. You can see the tracks at left. The trains are run by the Key System and Southern Pacific. They can take you all over the East Bay to wonderful places like Neptune Beach in Alameda .

2. The Yerba Buena Tunnel

We have just passed through the Yerba Buena Tunnel and can finally see San Francisco in the distance. Notice that the traffic has thinned out. Many of the cars got off the bridge at the island to go to the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island . The fair opened last year and will close for good later in 1940. I'm going to try and go there.

Right now we're heading for the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill for cocktails. It's a great place to see San Francisco .

3. Top of the Mark

Isn't this a great view of San Francisco ? We're at the lounge called the Top of the Mark. The Mark Hopkins Hotel is one of the city's great hotels.

The Russ Building , by the bridge tower, is the biggest office building on the Pacific Coast . It's 31 stories high.

Near the Ferry Building is the Produce District made up of small beautiful, old brick buildings. You can go there early in the morning and watch the grocers come in to pick out all kinds of vegetables.

4.Chinatown

After leaving the Mark we walked down California to Grant Avenue . Here is San Francisco 's world famous Chinatown . There are wonderful shops and the best Chinese food anywhere... and so reasonable. You can get a large bowl of pork noodles for 35 cents.

Do you see the Shriner's Flags at the top of the picture? They are having a convention in San Francisco . There is a Shriners Hospitals for Crippled Children on Nineteenth Avenue . It provides treatment for many children ever year without charge.

Every New Years Day the famous Shrine East West football game is held in Kezar Stadium.

5. Flower Stands on Powell

After leaving Chinatown we walked down to Powell Street . Around Geary Street there are wonderful flower stands.


San Francisco is sure a different place.

6. The Cable Cars

We're at Powell and Market where the cable cars get turned around to go to Fisherman's Wharf. There is a great cafeteria just a few feet from the turntable. It's called Clinton 's and I hear the food is great… but we plan to have dinner at Fisherman's Wharf and that's where we are heading.

7. Fisherman's Wharf

We walked along the docks to look at hundreds of fishing boats. The one coming in here is a crab fisher. They are all painted wonderful colors and the fishermen are all Italian. They are very friendly, and we watched them sitting on the docks mending their nets and singing.

8. Dinner at Fisherman's Wharf

Fisherman's Wharf has to be one of my favorite places in San Francisco . The men who do the fishing bring them back to the restaurants and outdoor stalls. People can pick out a crab and it's cooked right there for you to take home.

One night we went to a great restaurant a man told me about. It's called San Remo 's, near Fisherman's Wharf. You can get a wonderful Italian dinner for $1.00 from soup to dessert. Another dollar gets a bottle of house wine. You go into the bar to pick it up.

Our waiter was very friendly. I think he had been sampling the house wine.

9. Playland at the Beach

San Franciscans love the beach. The water is too cold to swim in but Playland at the Beach has everything else; a wonderful roller coaster, the Fun House, Shoot the Chutes, and great food. A favorite is Topsy's Roost for delicious fried chicken and dancing. If you're eating on the balcony you go down to the dance floor on a slide!

My favorite was the Pie Shop... the best chicken and beef turnovers imaginable… fantastic crust and a wonderful gravy. San Franciscans take them home for dinner.

10. The Golden Gate Bridge

We left Playland and drove through the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge . The Presidio is still an important Army Base and has been on active duty since Spain built a fort there in 1776.

The Golden Gate is my favorite bridge. We parked the car near the Toll Plaza and walked across the bridge for 25 cents. You can't walk on the Bay Bridge .

Our trip to San Francisco is over too soon. I hate to say goodbye to this beautiful city. The people who live here are sure lucky.

Hope you enjoyed my letter and the photographs.

Say hello to everybody.

Picture Day Today, November 11!

Picture Day today! We will have pictures all morning with Beve Pietrowski. She is a wonderful photographer and the pictures will have a beautiful black background and be ready for Christmas. If you will be dressing up your child, please send play clothes along. It's a dirty dirty world...

Teaching Tuesday

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

Comment: I thought this was hilarious for all you guys who love your snack cakes! Go for it!

By Madison Park, CNN

November 8, 2010 8:40 a.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Nutrition professor's "convenience store diet" helped him shed 27 pounds
• Haub limited himself to 1,800 calories and two-thirds come from junk food
• Haub said it's too early to draw any conclusions about diet

(CNN) -- Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.

The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.

For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day. A man of Haub's pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned.

His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.

But you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.

Haub's "bad" cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his "good" cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.

"That's where the head scratching comes," Haub said. "What does that mean? Does that mean I'm healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we're missing something?"

Haub's sample day

Espresso, Double: 6 calories; 0 grams of fat

Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat

Centrum Advanced Formula From A To Zinc: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat

Little Debbie Star Crunch: 150 calories; 6 grams of fat

Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat

Diet Mountain Dew: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat

Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat

Kellogg's Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fat

whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat

baby carrots: 18 calories; 0 grams of fat

Duncan Hines Family Style Brownie Chewy Fudge: 270 calories; 14 grams of fat

Little Debbie Zebra Cake: 160 calories; 8 grams of fat

Muscle Milk Protein Shake: 240 calories; 9 grams of fat

Totals: 1,589 calories and 59 grams of fat

Despite his temporary success, Haub does not recommend replicating his snack-centric diet.

"I'm not geared to say this is a good thing to do," he said. "I'm stuck in the middle. I guess that's the frustrating part. I can't give a concrete answer. There's not enough information to do that."

Two-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. And he ate vegetables, typically a can of green beans or three to four celery stalks.

Families who live in food deserts have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables, so they often rely on the kind of food Haub was eating.

"These foods are consumed by lots of people," he said. "It may be an issue of portion size and moderation rather than total removal. I just think it's unrealistic to expect people to totally drop these foods for vegetables and fruits. It may be healthy, but not realistic."

Haub's body fat dropped from 33.4 to 24.9 percent. This posed the question: What matters more for weight loss, the quantity or quality of calories?

His success is probably a result of caloric reduction, said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a dietitian based in Atlanta, Georgia.

"It's a great reminder for weight loss that calories count," she said. "Is that the bottom line to being healthy? That's another story."

Blatner, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said she's not surprised to hear Haub's health markers improved even when he loaded up on processed snack cakes.

Being overweight is the central problem that leads to complications like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol, she said.

How well are you managing your diabetes?

"When you lose weight, regardless of how you're doing it -- even if it's with packaged foods, generally you will see these markers improve when weight loss has improved," she said.

Before jumping on the Ding Dong bandwagon, Blatner warned of health concerns.

"There are things we can't measure," said Blatner, questioning how the lack of fruits and vegetables could affect long-term health. "How much does that affect the risk for cancer? We can't measure how diet changes affect our health."

I was eating healthier, but I wasn't healthy. I was eating too much.
--Professor Mark Haub

The ultimate Twinkie diet

RELATED TOPICS

• Healthy Eating
• Hostess Twinkies
• Kansas State University
• Weight Loss
• Diet and Nutrition

On August 25, Haub, 41, started his cake diet focusing on portion control.

"I'm eating to the point of need and pushing the plate or wrapper away," he said.

He intended the trial to last a month as a teaching tool for his class. As he lost weight, Haub continued the diet until he reached a normal body mass index.

Before his Twinkie diet, he tried to eat a healthy diet that included whole grains, dietary fiber, berries and bananas, vegetables and occasional treats like pizza.

"There seems to be a disconnect between eating healthy and being healthy," Haub said. "It may not be the same. I was eating healthier, but I wasn't healthy. I was eating too much."

He maintained the same level of moderate physical activity as before going on the diet. (Haub does not have any ties to the snack cake companies.)

To avoid setting a bad example for his kids, Haub ate vegetables in front of his family. Away from the dinner table, he usually unwrapped his meals.

Study: U.S. obesity rate will hit 42 percent

Haub monitored his body composition, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose, and updated his progress on his Facebook page, Professor Haub's diet experiment.

To curb calories, he avoided meat, whole grains and fruits. Once he started adding meat into the diet four weeks ago, his cholesterol level increased.

Haub plans to add about 300 calories to his daily intake now that he's done with the diet. But he's not ditching snack cakes altogether. Despite his weight loss, Haub feels ambivalence.

"I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it's healthy. I'm not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it's irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn't say that."

Monday's Tattler

It's another Monday in Play Week! We're going to do some class this morning - some reading, writing and arithmetic. Then we will do play practice until recess. We will try to do this all week.

Please review your child's lines. It's important to the whole group that he or she really knows the lines. Then we can have some fun with the lines and the movements and the inflection.

It will be quite nice this week. It's supposed to be in the 70s most of the week.

We will be enjoying lasagna for lunch today, and later this week we will have pork tenderloin sandwiches, breakfast for lunch, baked chicken and on Friday, fish.

There is nothing special going on this week. It's a real "Ordinary Time" week.

Blessings to you.

Sunday's Plate

One of the things that has been hot and heavy in the news recently is the San Francisco action of taking toys out of Happy Meals when the calorie count is higher than 600 and there are no fruits and vegetables offered.

I have mixed emotions about this. Personally, I regard fast food as a treat not unlike a candy bar, ice cream sundae or a big piece of birthday cake. It's a particular kind of treat. Not good for you because of the high fat content, but seriously people, that high fat content makes it taste good - same with birthday cake from the baker - no nutrition - just junk yummyness.

To take away the toy is silly. It's a government big head screaming in the wrong direction. If they are taking toys away from children and at the same time trying to legalize marijuana for adults, that's a truly conflicting message... and San Francisco is my birthplace, so I'm not a left coast hater! Just an observer.

At the same time, I'm a grass roots person. I believe if you want a job done, don't ask your neighbor, husband, or the government. Do it yourself.

So putting the grass roots thing together with the persistent health game, I'm always trying to come up with delicious treats that are actually the healthiest thing you ate today...and it's fun.

What's the problem with the happy meal? It's fried beef on a white bread bun served with fried potatoes. It's farmer food because people who work in physically demanding jobs need lots of calories quick. Kids who play outdoors hours a day can certainly handle a Micky D.

But many of our children don't play outside much at all and spend an enormous amount of time sitting, and for them, a Micky D simply makes them fat and clogs arteries.

Making the hamburger or cheese burger or chicken nuggets healthier would be simple. If you baked the burgers and chicken so the fat separated from the meat, and you used whole wheat buns and baked the potatoes, it would be healthier, but we're talking time and it's supposed to be fast food - it's a treat, and like ice cream or candy bars, it's supposed to be fun, and delicious.

For about two years I belonged to the Evansville Coalition on Early Childhood Development. My goal was to unify childcare places on the matter of feeding children healthy foods. My ideas were grass roots, and I was tabled so often, I finally decided it wasn't worth my effort through the coalition, but soon, I will be meeting with other people who create and cook for some of the largest childcare centers in the Evansville Area to discuss this very issue.

When we cook at the Garden School, Miss Amy and I go over recipes carefully. How much sugar can we remove from cookie dough to make it healthy, but keep the flavor of cookies. Mostly it's half. We are currently discussing milling beans into flour to cut the carbs down for one of our children who is a diabetic. By using whole grains, half the sugar, and many spices with antioxidants, we are enhancing our recipes to make even our baked goods a health part of our day.

When we make Italian food, it's strictly whole grain. I hand pick all our meat. Our fruits and vegetables are whole and mostly fresh. We do use an occasional jar of applesauce. And I hand pick all our meat. When the inspector came in, she couldn't find our pantry. "Oh," she said, "I understand. Your food is in the refrigerators. And you don't use canned products, so you really don't need a big pantry."

And what do the kids think? They eat just about everything. Even our picky eaters are eating. It's a blessing.

So what for the occasional treat? Life would be dull as gray paint if there weren't treats. Treats make me hum. Maybe Monday will be a fudge day - it's pure fun and a pure treat, but the kids will have eaten well, so what the heck?