Happy New Years!

With some much needed time off thanks to our brilliant staff, I am pleased to say I'm a happy camper. Just time enough between grandchildren to send out a message to our blog readers to say Happy New Years!

One of the resolutions that would be "fabulous" for the new years is for parents to read the material that comes home from school.

At Christmas time, we sent home a calendar in a folded heavy paper forum with all our activities. We posted our calendar here on the blog. We posted our activities on the Parent Board. We sent home notes, told parents about activities at the door and reminded children all day long. The upshot was that twenty-five percent of our parents did not have a clue as to what we were doing at Christmas Time.

We are going to pursue the folded calendar heavy paper forum this coming year, and we hope that parents will read what is sent home.

Reading what is sent home from the Garden School will help parents get in touch with big school. This is an "Every Day" job. Papers going home are important. Please take a minute to go through your child's folder and read his work, and all notes going home.

We will be starting a new reading and math program for the kindergarten starting January 3. We will be sending home a reading and math bag with your child's name on it. This is not a toy. It is a tool. This bag will go home with your kindergartner every day and come back to school every day. This is where you will find your child's homework, reading books, and flash cards. It is our way of saying we love you and hope you will enjoy working with your child at home. It is wonderful practice for big school, because you will be expected to work with your child all through grammar school.

We will be starting Geography January 3. We will be sending home some political maps that we hope you will encourage your child to study. The more places on the map your child can identify, the better!

If you have anything to share with the school regarding a culture or a foreign place, please see Miss Judy. We would love to have you as a guest.

If there is anything our school can do for your family, please let us know.

Happiest of New Years!

Tuesday's Tattler

Tuesday, December 27, we are in school. We will be tackling Geography with a great introduction starting tomorrow. Lots of games and prizes We hope the children really enjoy our study.

Hoping that all the kids have had a great break and are ready to get back to work~

Please remember! In the case of snow, please look at Channel 14 weather for our school closings. This blog is another way to check and see if we are closed due to snow.

Please remember to dress children warmly during cold weather. Long sleeves please!

Please do not send children to school in boots unless there is snow.

Have a great week!

Monday's Tattler

Here's what you need to know and do to make your child's party days a success:

Make sure your child's Santa gift is at school today. Do not wrap the gift.

Make sure your child will have someone at the party tomorrow. It starts at 2:00.

Bring a small treat - a dozen cookies or cupcakes to school tomorrow to share.

Take your Child's Christmas decorations home with you on Tuesday.

Make sure your tuition payment is in so we can pay teachers!

Enjoy your time at school on Tuesday!

Merry Christmas!

Sunday's Plate...Homemade Candy

Every year we make candy at school, and every year it's a hit. Now, I'm not crazy, but I am crafty, and when you put those two things together, you get: "I never do anything hard..."

The key to perfect candy is a good candy thermometer. Buy one.

The second trick is to use dairy products and not field products.

When it says butter...use butter, cream, and milk.

When I make candy, I make it so that not only do I look like Martha in the kitchen, but it looks like M is wearing her Superwoman shirt as well.

Here's how to:

Truffles:

Using a food processor, use a box of powdered sugar and two sticks of butter...process and remove. Do that twice.

Divide the mix into six cereal bowls.

Into every bowl add a flavor. Here are some suggestions: fresh ground coffee, mini chocolate chips, toasted coconut, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, lemon, orange rind, peanut butter, ground fresh cranberries, chopped apricots, jams of any kind, but only add a teaspoon.

Mix plain candy dough with your flavors and put the bowls into the freezer. Taking one bowl at a time, divide the dough into the size truffle you want, roll into a ball, and put a tooth pick into the ball. Line the balls up on a cookie tin and freeze. You might want to label your flavors.

Once the candy balls are frozen, you can divide by flavors and put each into its own ziplock bag. Keep until you want a plate of fresh candies - for company, party, to take with you, or just impress a friend.

When it's time to complete the truffles by dipping them, take as many frozen balls from the freezer as you think you will need. In a very very small pan, heat slowly a half package of your favorite chips like milk chocolate, or mint, or dark chocolate, or butterscotch or peanut butter. Add a tablespoon of oil, and a half block of paraffin wax that you get in the canning department of your supermarket.

Dip your candy balls in the chocolate wax combination, let drip to avoid a candy collar, and then place gall on wax paper to try. You only have to do a dozen at a time, and the rest can stay in the freezer for the next time you need to look like Super Martha. When you are done dipping, twist the toothpick out of the candy, and dip the hole into the hot dipping chocolate and decorate with non parielles, or nuts or unmelted chips.

If you make larger truffles, it goes quicker and it is easier, and they are like eating a whole candy bar.


Now, just for fun, here's a recipe for about the absolute best caramel:

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat to 250 degrees on a candy thermometer:

2 cups white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup karo syrup
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup whole milk
2 sticks of butter

When the thermometer reaches 240 stir to avoid scorch.

Take candy off stove and add 4 teaspoons of vanilla. Stir.

At this point, you can do anything with this mix. Add nuts, pour on a bed of chocolate, drop chocolate candy into the setting caramel or nothing. Leave it out. It does not need to be refrigerated.

Caramel can be reheated to use as drizzle. It makes great individual candies and will taste great for ten days or more. It will take the shape of any container.

Have fun, and look like Supermartha any time you want!

Anyone want the absolute best nut brittle recipes? Let me know!

Friday's Tattler

We were off to the Nutcracker early on Friday. It was a great set of seats! We were front row. I wondered if the kids thought they were watching a movie, or if they really knew that there were actors and dancers on the stage.

I was disappointed by the performance. A maid came out and told nearly the entire story of the Nutcracker...then there were two dance routines and it ended. The performance was twenty minutes late, and ended ten minutes early.

There was no rat battle and no introduction to the nutcracker. What was done was good, but there was no story.

I was sorry for the kids because they really looked forward to this, and it was a big zero.

After the Nutcracker, we went over to visit Miss Amy's mom in the nursing home. We sang a lot of our songs and visited with the residents. Then it was home for a delicious pizza. The kids ate the WHOLE eight boxes...

The afternoon was slow and busy with play. Everyone was tired.

All in all, it was a nice week. Looking forward to the party next week.

Have a great end to your weekends!

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning!

Last full week before Christmas Break! We are trying to keep the lid down...kids getting excited.

Classes this week; arts and crafts in the afternoon.

Pot roast as our new food this week. Hope the kids like it.

The weather promises to be warmer this week, so out we go. Please make sure your child has what he needs to go outside!

On Friday, we will be going to the Nutcracker Suite. It begins at 9:00 and in order to get there and get a front seat for the kids, we will be leaving school at 8:15. So children need to either have breakfast or be at school by 7:30 to have breakfast. Please do not bring children at 8:00 who have not eaten.

School uniforms will be expected. If you do not have a red sweatshirt, please tell me. I have it at school.

Please read the ill child policy at the front end of school if you are not sure of it. Children who need over the counter medication in the morning should not come to school.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate - Pork Roast

After years of making pork roast both at school and at home, I kind of fell on this recipe and love it.

You buy one of those enormous cheap sliced pork shoulders - you know, the huge piece of meat that's cheap and looks nearly square and is sliced.

At home, you pull all your left over bread from the refrigerator. The three pieces that have been hanging around for weeks, the rye that nobody wants, yesterday's muffins...the whole ball of wax. I'm not a believer in going to the store for stuffing...because stuffing can be made from any bread. You should have about a half loaf to a full loaf for this pork roast when it's all put together.

Toast or bake your bread for about fifteen minutes, and cut into small pieces about the size of a checker.

Heat a stick of butter and a cup of water and a tablespoon of chicken bouillon in a pan.

Slice about a half cup (together) of celery and onion and any other veggie you like and add to the bread.

When the butter/water/bouillon is hot, pour it on the bread and veggies.

You won't need salt because of the bouillon, but you will need pepper, and a spice called Masala. Add other spices that you like. I used oregano.

Put a handful or about a cup of fresh cranberries into the mix. Toss. It's ready to use.

In a very large baking dish, string two pieces of string that can be baked the long direction of the pan that are long enough to tie entirely around the meat.

Lay the first piece of meat against the side of the baking pan and the next flat. Put a handful of stuffing on the flat piece and lift to stack next to to the first piece so that both pieces are standing. Lay the next flat, stuff and lift until the whole roast has been stuffed.

Tie your roast so that it holds together.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 2.5 hours.

It Makes a Good School...Great!

One of the issues I tackle almost every week is faculty cohesiveness. "Working together" is my first order of business most weeks. When you are working sans break hour after hour in a small space with many loud children, the whole name of the game is being sure of your co-workers. And that surety comes from certain personality traits that actually determine whether someone is going to fit in or trip up the day. It is remarkable to me how often grown women opt to trip up the day for everyone around them.

Energy is probably the first and most important personality trait of a successful teacher. When a teacher comes to work exhausted day after day; comes to work preoccupied with too many worldly troubles; comes to work clueless about routines, projects, the order of the day; comes to work ill, angry, or caught up with everything but the job, the job rolls over onto the laps of the other teachers, and everyone takes a hit while Miss Pitiful Pearl is paid to do nothing.

When a teacher is reticent to step forward to take the group for story time, for class, to get kids in line, to manage the bathroom, take role, lead prayer, set a table or offer assistance to a teacher struggling with a project...that reticent teacher is doomed.

When a teacher believes that his or her job is other than pitching in and helping, she's taking up space that might as well be taken out to the dumpster.

My favorite is the teacher who comes to "work," only said lightly, in order to "have her lunch" and then spends the rest of "her" afternoon begging for attention and pity from everyone around because her lot in life is untenable to her...out, out, out damned spot! Go home; look in the mirror and thank God you're alive. Get a grip; and put down the hand mirror.

As a school, we don't have time to cater to the incredible selfishness of the narcissist. We have time for one thing only - to work as a team for the sake of the children whose parents are paying tuition. Our job is to teach, not to cater to spoiled.

A brilliant, illuminating and strong teacher, and we have five, is someone who comes in knowing what they intend to do for the day. Someone who is prepared; knows her audience; knows her work partners and what she can expect from them; knows the task and what to expect from the children.

The children don't expect anything, so a great teacher will have something for each and every child...sometimes in a group and sometimes individually, and that can't be done by teachers holding a hand mirror in one hand and a handkerchief or a cell phone in the other.

A great teacher has a rapport with every child, knows every child's name, personality and needs, so when there is an art project, or a song, or a lesson, or even a coloring project, that great teacher knows what to say to a child to get the best work from him, and it compliments every other teacher.

Teachers who don't speak to the children should be escorted out the door NOW. Mostly, teachers who don't speak to children probably aren't speaking to the other teachers either. That's because they hold themselves in such high regard, that condescending to speak to a child, much less another employee, is beyond some special selfish plan they have created for his or her self. It's part of the Narcissus Plan, and that plan only exists off the property.

OK, now that I vented, I feel better.

It's going to be a great winter season, Miss Judy has learned some really valuable lessons, and all seems right with the world.

Friday's Tattler

It was a wild and crazy week! We made some absolutely darling Christmas ornaments and decorations to send home. The children did a beautiful job and followed directions and got beautiful results. It's really a team effort...it means eyeballing the craft and heading of any possible issues that little kids might have trouble with.

When faculty work as a team, the kids sail...fly...race to the finish line with great ability! I always keep an eye out for those teachers who bring a craft to the table. When teachers hang back and let others take the lead day in and day out, it really hurts the team.

The kids were great all day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but on Friday, as the latest cold front moved in, they were atrocious! We gave out the Advent Boxes with caution...

We are really racing toward the Santa Prize...there are about six children in the lead, but that could change at any moment! One child will find his altruistic hat one day and earn three elves; the next day, someone else has picked up the hat and is headed down elf lane. It's really remarkable to see.

We had an outstanding pork roast on Tuesday. I'll post the recipe on Sunday's Plate.

We also had one of their favorites...chicken soup. We added a lunch waffle that had onions, green pepper, celery and cheese in the batter.

We want to remind parents that teaching at home is a Godsend, but teaching wrongly is a nightmare. Please do not teach children to write their names in all upper case or capital letters. The first letter of their name is Capitalized and all the rest are lower case.

Please remember to teach your child to put on his own coat and hat. Knitted gloves for $1.00 can be purchased at the Family Dollar. These three inch gloves fit. Adult sized gloves are a nuisance on the playground.

We go out every day, so please send your child to school in LONG SLEEVES and a coat that zips or buttons and one that is meant for weather of 20-40 degrees. We DO go out nearly every day.

It's been a great week!

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning! Here's what you need to know for the week:

Christmas gifts for the Santa Party are welcomed anytime. Please just hand your bag to the teacher who opens the door. Please do not discuss this with her.

Your child needs a coat...not a hoodie...not a light jacket. We go out most days.

Your child needs to be able to put his or her coat, hat and mittens on by himself.

Please review the ill child policy you have signed here at the Garden School. If your child needs Over The Counter medications in the morning...they don't belong at school.

Please don't forget to pick up your recipe cards at the front of the school. They are written for parents who want to try the cookies we make here at the Garden School. They are a little gift for you.

We will be making ornaments every day at school. Please check your child's folder every day.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate - Banana Cake

OK, guys, this is the absolute best cake on the planet. I got it from Jackie Knights about twenty-five years ago, and there is no cake that tops this one. Make it and enjoy.

3/4 cup butter
1.5 cups sugar
1 cup mashed bananas
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup flaked coconut


Cream shorting and sugar and add eggs. Beat three minutes. Add bananas and beat another two minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat two minutes more.

Bake at 350 for about 25-30 minutes.

Frost with butter cream frosting laced with maple flavoring.

To die for.

Friday's Tattler

We had a really nice week at school. Toward the end of the week, the kids worked hard at the Santa Prize race. Lots of extra elf winners. Connor D won the Advent Box because of his helpfulness on Thursday. Some of his friends saw that and immediately helped with picking up toys and helping the little guys with projects. That I really love to see. I heard Annie say that "We need to clean up this mess," and four children jumped on it. Such wonderful, wonderful children.

We made some wonderful Christmas ornaments so far this season. Miss Lisa invented a rather charming wreath, and Miss Carol invented a rather wonderful snow scene. Miss Molly has started preparing a cinnamon ornament for next week.

We had our first turkey for the season on Thursday. I expected some left overs for Friday, and the children ate the whole bird. So Friday, I made a new dish: chicken bread. It was a rolled bread featuring chicken and cheese. It turned out to be rather good even though there was some skepticism. I'm not narrow and obstinate about food. I'm not picky and bothered by new ideas and new ingredients, so it's much easier for me to invent than it is for other people who have a grand personal list of what should, must, has to be when it comes to making, baking or inventing.

In fact this week we had a surprising sticky bun made with ground fresh pineapple and fresh blackberry sticky buns with a great caramel sauce.

The turkey I stuffed with cornbread muffins we had earlier in the week, pumpernickel bread and whole wheat bread. I always stuff a bird with something interesting, because it keeps the white meat from drying out. People tend to cook meat too much anyway, and then you have a dry tasteless and expensive meal that's a disappointment.

The chicken bread was actually pretty good. It was very cheesy and most of the kids enjoyed it. I seasoned the meat with taco seasoning and masala. It's not going to be everyone's favorite, but children can't hope to enjoy their lunch, especially if it's something new, without a great deal of help and encouragement from the teachers. When teachers are supportive and positive about what we are eating, it goes a long way.

One of our jobs at the Garden School is to encourage children to be positive about their whole day. Food is an important part of any child's day because a child is building his body, and when he builds it properly, he is healthier for a lifetime. We know that many children go home to fast food, canned soup, or a bowl of cereal, that's why giving them all the nutrition we can during the day is a fundamental good.

"I was hungry and you gave me to eat..." In today's world, that "gave me to eat" has become, "You gave me nutrition." Bones, teeth, hair, eyes, organs...all need quality food, and that's our mission.

One of the things that has been really well done this year is the singing program. We are teaching the children one new song a day, and they are really learning them with all the verses. There is no point in teaching part of a song...I mean would you like the chorus of Jingle Bells to be the only song your child knows? How about all three verses with the chorus... We sent home a folder to collect each child's music as it comes home. We hope you will use the folder. Sing with your child!

Please pick up the recipe cards in the front of school. They have our traditional recipes and the new recipes we will use this season. Lots of fun to bake, and none of them are hard.

Enjoy your weekend.

Thursday's Thought

So busy these days...I finished reading a great book. It is "The Sociopath Next Door." It's a scientific approach to the making of a sociopath, but it does not disregard religion, so it's a very nicely written book about a percentage of the society that we never really hear about until it makes the news.

Interestingly, one in twenty-five people is a sociopath. Does that mean one in twenty-five is a vicious killer? No. It means that one person in twenty-five has no conscience, and no ability to love. These people have no remorse for what they do or fail to do. A sociopath lives a failed life.

A sociopath could be the principal of a school, a businessman, or your mother. A sociopath cannot feel love, empathy or connection to another person. They learn how to hide this fact, and can be charming, attractive and play a huge part in ordinary people's lives.

The one outstanding identifying trait of the sociopath is the begging for pity. "Feel sorry for me because..." and then they invent the reason in order to manipulate anyone they think they can because that's their only joy - using and abusing other people - it's a game and the only delight in their lives. They will lie, cheat and steal without much thought because to a sociopath, nothing is really wrong to do. The world of right and wrong exists intellectually, but since there is no conscience, they can freely act on either side of the moral fence without regret.

A sociopath is lazy at heart, although can behave as if they are hardworking. A sociopath will begin a task and slowly let someone else take the work over while they either fain illness or some other pitiable weakness. Prolonged work, building and investment are nothing to a sociopath because that's not their game. The game is hurting others by destruction, even if it's one person at a time. A sociopath is irresponsible with money and he has no affection for success because he has no affection for anyone or anything even his own talents.

A sociopath denies that they have ever made a mistake because ultimately, they haven't. They don't need forgiveness because they are always innocent. But they do choose targets, and that target is one they think they can manipulate. The game is to get the target to do as much for them as they can.

The sociopath is born a sociopath with determining factors set in stone...you can't stop being a sociopath. A sociopath can learn to function very nicely in the world, and is often someone who wreaks havoc in good and kind people's lives.

Sound familiar? It was a great book and well worth reading.

Monday's Tattler

Are we there yet?

It's Monday morning after break...rain is mixed with snow at 5:15 in the morning. Even the cat failed to go out...where's the coffee...

It's the first week of Advent, and children will begin to see some Christmas changes this week as we move towards Christmas. A Christmas calendar will go home this week.

We will be going to the Nutcracker Suite with the kids in December.

There will be a visit from Santa on December 20. We need a Santa.

Parents will be asked to bring a small gift to school for their own child in a brown paper bag for the Santa Surprise. Please don't show your child!

We will be out of school December 21- December 26 and resume school to the 30 and be out to January 3.

Lots to do...lots to do...have a great week!

Happy Thanksgiving

A beautiful and wonderful and tasty Thanksgiving to everyone who reads this. May the blessings of God wrap your day in goodness and light.

Love you all,

Judy

Wonderful Wednesday...

Something from the literary world gone awry... thought readers might enjoy...World's Funniest Analogies.

Annual English Teachers' awards for best student metaphors/analogies

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law George. But unlike George, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up...

Thanks, Cayce

Tuesday's Teacher - The Troubled Three

Skipper, the precious three year old son of a nice young couple begins school throwing tantrums, becoming defiant and belligerent, spitting, using bad language, disrupting and deliberately assaulting other little guys at school. The teachers immediately corner the parent.

"He doesn't do that at home," says the astonished parent to the teacher.

"He doesn't have thirty-five competitors at home," retorts the teacher.

"We don't tolerate that kind of behavior at home," reassures the parent.

"I'm glad to hear that, because we can't allow this behavior to go on here either. Now what are we going to do about it? Let's begin with the tantrums. What do you do when your child throws a tantrum at home?"

"We give in and appease him. It's just easier."

A child who throws tantrums is a child who has taken or been given the command of his home. And when a child rules at home, that child will usually take that ruling hand with him to school and assume that his is the last word. Many children are shocked when they find out that they can't command teachers as easily as they do their parents. It's a respect issue.

A tantrum means a child is screaming for boundaries, for the word "NO." A child who throws tantrums is a child out of control because there is no control, and that child is frightened to death that he or she is all alone in the world. There is no law and order and that is the most unsafe, scary, and lonely feeling in the whole world. Because children don't have the vocabulary to express that fear, they throw tantrums.

Best way to stop tantrums is to insist that the tantrum go to a place where it cannot be heard. The parent says not a single word, but carries the child to a quiet place and leaves him or her there to wallow in self pity alone. We don't discuss tantrums, we don't scorn, laugh, punish, or lose our temper. We carry and ignore. When the self indulgence is played out; it's over. The child can return to the activities.

It is never a good idea to appease bad behavior. It is always a good idea to remove badly behaved children from other children's play. Consistency and a casual calm will do more to curb tantrums than all the words there are.

But the root of tantrums is a gap in parenting. Somehow, the child has gleaned that all is not safe, and somehow he or she is not protected. Finding that gap and filling it in will help in ending tantrums. Children don't like too many adult choices. They like routine, they like security, so that they can enjoy playing and being a child. Too often, children are given too much responsibility and too many choices. It's confusing to a very young child, and too much choice often makes children frightened that they are unsafe.

Most poor behavior including tantrums is copied from the parents or older siblings. When children spit, hit, scream at other children, use bad language, you can be that this is what they are seeing at home in the ongoing example of everyday life.

When children are disruptive, you can bet that life at home is chaotic, that order is far from the door. Order teaches order. Chaos teaches chaos.

Changing a child's behavior often means changing an adult's behavior first, because children model their behavior after their parents. Children want to be like their parents. They want to do what their parents do.

No parent has to shout, scream, punch a wall or hit a child. The very best response to poor behavior in a child, after examining one's own conscience, is to tell a child quietly that their behavior is not acceptable, and then remove the child to think about what the child has done or failed to do. When a child knows what he's done, no words are necessary. Send or take the child to his room or sleeping place and leave him there to think about his behavior.

Less is always more. Children never listen past the third word of correction. Ranting and raving only make children rant and rave. But that steady, calm look of disdain, and the silent removal to the sleeping place will do more as punishment than all the words or smacks that an angry parent can muster.

Sound easy? It's never easy, and emotions will always make anger rise. But if a parent can separate himself from the offending child, it helps mitigate the angry emotions on both sides of the parent/child conflict.

Children do know the rules. They can probably recite them and everything you've always told them about the rules. So why do they disobey, disrupt? I don't know. Go look in the mirror to answer that question.

Monday's Tattler

What you NEED to KNOW!

Monday - Wednesday we will be in school regular hours.

We will be doing some all school academic review.

Please DO NOT SEND SICK CHILDREN TO SCHOOL. Every parent signed a contract with the school not to send children who have vomited or who have had fevers. We have had a lot of fudging on this, and because half of our faculty is out sick, we are going to get tough. If your child has been ill this weekend - especially Sunday - he or she may NOT come to school. It is unfair to everyone. If children come to school on Monday and end up going home sick by noon, that is their LAST day this week.

On Wednesday, we will be making cranberry bread with the kids, so PLEASE send an EMPTY soup can or a can of soup size or two or three. Please only open one end.

We will be doing a sock drive for the orphanage in Mexico during the month of December.

Please watch the weather. The temperature is going to bounce this week, and that means one day we will be warm, and the next cold. Please pay attention and dress children appropriately.

Payments as usual are due on Mondays. It is a full tuition week.

Sunday's Plate - Stir Fry

Here's a new gadget for Sunday's Plate: It's a salad, fruit, noodle server. It's called a Snappi and sells for 6. 95.

I thought seriously about making a big roast turkey this week to teach the kids about what they would eat this week at grandmas or Aunt Susie's, but on second thought, I thought I'd let them experience it as a novelty on Thanksgiving instead, and cook a turkey next week just for fun. o this week we are going to have Italian, Mexican and Chinese food as a compliment to feasting.

On Wednesday, I'm going to make my favorite stir-fry. It's made with angel hair pasta and shrimp and ham and chicken and veggies. It's quick and easy like everything I do.

Here's the recipe:

Boil a pound ( and in our case three pounds) of angel hair pasta. Set aside.

In a big wok, stir fry your favorite veggies like onions, garlic, green pepper, broccoli, carrots and anything you have in the fridge in a half stick of butter.

(Stir fry is really a use for left overs.)

Add a 1/4 cup of soy sauce. I use the sweet ABC stuff from the Asian Market, but regular soy sauce will do. Add a teaspoon of ginger and some cracked pepper.

Add your ham cubes or shreds and your cubed uncooked chicken.

When your chicken is cooked, mix in the pasta and then add your shrimp. It will take about three minutes for your shrimp to cook. Serve and eat as a once course meal.

If you need more sauce add more soy sauce.

The Thanksgiving Play

A very busy week concluded with our Thanksgiving Play. On Thursday, we had eleven children out sick, so we were very surprised when the whole group showed up on Friday, and for the most part, were well.

Plays, as I explained on Friday, are important because they satisfy so many of the kindergarten standards expected by any school. They build cohesiveness among students. Plays offer children opportunities to explore that no other teaching technique does.

Does it always work, and can every parent hear and understand every word? Nope. It's a developmental structure that individualizes every child, but just trying, just getting in the game, just playing the part to the best of his or her natural ability is what is important. This breeds success, confidence, and the knowledge that the child can and did and is successful.

With that success under his belt, it's time to return to learning. It's hard with Christmas looming in the near future, but with enough games, prizes and new material, the natural course of learning just takes off now. Readers will be stronger, math skills will come more easily, and there is a huge new level of being grown up that paves the way to more success during the cold blustery winter months.

Children all learn at different rates. Two of our stars are four. Public confidence, the ability to project a line, the natural clown of both children burst forth in a success that will carry these four year olds the rest of the year - they are in Kindergarten already and reading.

Yet, there are other four year olds who can't remember their lines, can't pay attention, and can't deliver an ouch if you stomped on a toe!

So what makes one child so far ahead of another? Nature and nurture. Some children simply grow up fast. They want to know, to do, to explore, to understand, and you hear that in their questions because they see that these desires open the doors to success. It's intelligence right up front. You can see them try to understand what is expected of them, and they try very hard to comply. It's called motivation, discipline and virtue.

The home is also a source of advancement. When parents have expectations, children tend to be more grown up. When time is spent on directing children's activities and behavior; when correction is made, when rules are made and enforced, children tend to be more aware of their surroundings. Children who are talked to, directed and taught at home have a wonderful advantage.

Children who are unmotivated and have neither discipline enforced or encouraged at home won't have any. Chaos is chaos and it fails to breed virtue. When one child could recite the whole play, and another is busy pulling his velcro shoes wondering where he is, there is a sad difference.

So when working with a group of children to produce a play, there are many things to be considered. The writer and director choose lines they think a child may, could, might and probably will deliver. Sometimes those lines have to be changed to fit the ability of the child.

The standing statement before every rehearsal is: This is YOUR responsibility. This is YOUR homework. This is YOUR part of the whole. Do it well for your classmate's sake. Then, when they do their lines well, it's a HUGE hurdle, a huge learning process, and a huge success.

Our children will be involved in group activities right through college. Each one has a voice, a separate need, a desire to be singled out, and sometimes they are, but when there is discipline and virtue, it all works together. I think they worked together brilliantly and did a fine play. Our congratulations to children and parents!

Stuffed Pumpkin

Thought I'd put this here because you can refer to it later. Lots of the kids really liked the stuffed pumpkin yesterday. It was easy to make and makes a great presentation!

Bake a whole pumpkin in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. Squash will do as well, but you don't need all that time.

When pumpkin is DONE, cut the top and clean out the seeds.

While your pumpkin is baking, make three dry cups of rice, brown is preferable because it is better for you.

While rice is cooking, bake a pound of sausage, a pound of ham and a pound of bacon or any combination on a rack with the pumpkin.

When the meat is cooked, chop in a food processor and add to the cooked rice.

When the pumpkin is cooked and cleaned, stuff the rice and meat into the pumpkin.

Cheese sauce:

Melt 1 stick butter and add 1 cup of flour in a sauce pan and make a paste. Add 3 cups of milk and 15 slices of American cheese, a tablespoon of chicken bouillon and bring to a boil. Add a huge dollop of sour cream.

This cheese sauce recipe can be halved and quartered for smaller meals. Cheese sauce lasts in the fridge for a week and is a great soup starter and chip dip.

Slice your pumpkin into slices and pile on your meat-rice mix and pour over your cheese sauce. It's a seller!

Have a brilliant day!

Tuesday's Teacher - Age One to Three...

I'm always harping on the stages of development, and that can be as dull as it comes. But more and more, I'm finding that children who are not living within the bounds of what nature has established are losing out on their lives, on being happy, on growing and developing the way it was meant to be.

That peculiar age: one to three is an especially difficult age for many parents to handle emotionally. Their beautiful baby is suddenly walking - toddling - and he or she is just not the same and no matter how much mom or dad cuddles, holds, and whispers baby nonsense into those sweet little ears. He's a toddler, and he only wants to push away and run his little legs off!

At one, the child is not an infant anymore. He's a toddler, and his life is changing, and so his care is changing too. There is so much for a child to learn between the ages of one and three, there is no room to allow infancy to continue. He has to learn what the word "no" REALLY means. He has to learn to eat at a table with a fork and out of a cup. He needs to learn to sleep in a big bed and perhaps give up his nap. He needs to learn to be quiet when it's appropriate. He needs to learn language and communication skills. He needs to learn words so that he can communicate. He has to learn to wait, to stand in line nicely with his parent, to take his turn, clean up his toys, put his things away, put on his coat, shoes, and gloves. He needs to learn to climb, to run, when to climb and when to run. He needs to learn to come when he is called, to dress himself, to use the toilet, to comb his hair, to brush his teeth, and to say "thank you" and why he is saying "thank you."

It's a lot; it's a whole lot, and if we spend six months of his toddlerhood keeping him a baby, that only gives the toddler eighteen months to do everything a toddler needs to do to get to the next stage.

Parents who use the expression, "He's just not ready" are usually meaning "I'm not ready" to let go of my infant. And who is that fair to?

Expectations for a child who is one to three, are not cruel and inhuman punishment. Expectations begin at one when the child is no longer an infant. The child will have those expectations put on him the rest of his life. These "expectations" establish a child as a functioning member of the community. Avoiding the expectations of life are not doing the child any favors. Letting a two or three year old child behave like a screaming, undisciplined, mess making, indulgent infant are not contributing to society, but detracting from it. And the fault is not the child's but the parent's.

But one does not get from expectation to accomplishment without an enormous amount of work on the side of the parent. It's a daily struggle, a daily chore to repeat a thousand times, "NO" or have to push a little chair to the table, or clean up spills, or change soiled pants, or chase across the grass or down the hall. Teaching, re-teaching, repeating, redoing, undoing, and redoing for two years in a marathon race to the age of three. And thank God it's only two years.

Beginning on time with discipline and training will do more for a child than letting him remain an infant because, "he's not ready."

So what do you do when the child turns three and none of the above accomplishments have been accomplished...next time.

Monday's Tattler

I'm a little late today...we are still working hard on the play. With so many little guys, it's been a real slow go. We are getting costumes together now, and working on polishing our two songs.

The play has been moved to 2:00 on Friday because 3:00 is just too late for some of our very little littles. The children get too tired, and they are not at their best. If parents are taking time off anyway, then we need to put children first. Please be on time.

We are asking parents to bring a small treat to share. A dozen cookies, a dozen cup cakes, a bag of chips, a bag of popcorn. Please do not bring candy or food needing a fork.

School dismisses on Friday at 3:30.

Saturday's Under the Sun - Flat Stanleys Still Traveling!

In Dillon, volunteers working to collect gifts for needy kids worldwide
Operation Christmas Child up and running

By Kathryn Corazzelli

Summit Daily News

Comment: For those of you who have followed our Flat Stanley Project, our Flat Stanleys have made the news! In the picture, three of the children are holding our class's Flat Stanleys!

While many are busy polishing off leftover Halloween candy and planning how to brine the Thanksgiving turkey, folks at the Dillon Community Church are busy wrapping Christmas presents.

The gifts come in the form of empty shoe boxes filled with school supplies, stuffed animals, toys, hygiene items and notes of encouragement for needy kids overseas. The effort, dubbed Operation Christmas Child, is a year-round project of Samaritan's Purse, a religious-based organization that provides emergency relief around the world. Through Operation Christmas Child, 86 million gifts have been hand-delivered using whatever means necessary — including sea containers, boats, camels and dog sleds — to kids worldwide since 1993.

“This may be the only gift they get, not only this year, but possibly for their lifetime,” Kathryn Jo Pfeifer, collection effort coordinator in Dillon said. “It's an amazing opportunity to be able to know you're touching children's lives so far away.”

This is the fourth year the project has been coordinated at the church. They collected 294 boxes in 2009 and 405 in 2010. Last year, 117,466 boxes were collected statewide. “Each box made really counts,” Pfeifer said. “We are hoping we will continue the trend of increasing these numbers each year. We are encouraging people to do neighborhood parties, pizza parties and get together with friend and have some fun with this project while they put together boxes.”

Groups like the local cub scouts and girl scouts, classrooms and individual families like to get together to contribute, Pfeifer said. Just last week, about 90 people met at the church to decorate and stuff 66 boxes — Bass shoe outlet “has been wonderful with collecting shoe boxes” — with presents and supplies, and personal notes and pictures. Each gift is labeled for a boy or girl, and suitable age range.

Countries the gifts are sent to can be tracked online, by making a donation and printing out a tracking bar-code from the organization's website.

That's great for our kids,” Pfeifer said. “It's been fun for them to know where these boxes end up.” And while the individual child the present goes to can't be tracked, contributors do sometimes hear stories from volunteers who make the long trips to deliver the presents.

“They said the kids love the presents, love everything, but a lot of times what they dig through the box looking for is the picture and maybe the letter they get from the individual who made the box,” Pfeifer said.

Many times, volunteers report it's “the kid without shoes that gets the box that has the shoes in it.”

Volunteer Anneke Crowe wraps presents along with her children, who are 8, 6, 5 and 3. Her older two, who have been participating for the last few years, always get excited. “They say ‘it's time to go buy presents for other people, isn't this great?'” Crowe said. “It's rewarding to see that they understand why they're giving.”

While Crowe hasn't heard back personally from any of the children — along with a personal note, volunteers can include mailing addresses — her sister witnessed the impacts the gifts have last year on a trip to Mongolia.

“They were staying in a yurt. The children there were so excited to show my sister their things. When she went back to the little corner where they were sleeping, they pulled out their Operation Christmas Child boxes to show her,” Crowe said. “We wrap shoeboxes, and they save the wrapped shoeboxes. Their special treasures are in those.”

In Summit County, the due date for boxes is Nov. 20 so they can be delivered on time for a pre-holiday arrival. “So that is why we're celebrating Christmas early,” Pfeifer said.

The Plays...

People are always a little amused when they interview at the Garden School when we say we put on two fully costumed and fully acted plays every school year. I tell them that it's important to the children, and they nod and smile...

The truth is, the play is one of the most important things we do at the Garden School. First, it fulfills many of the kindergarten standards, secondly, it allows children to step outside themselves and become someone else in public...and that's fun, but it's also a kind of creativity that begins on the inside of a person and continues all the way out and into an audience.

My theory on Kindergarten is that is most kindergarten curricula should be a project for four year olds because that's when they want it. By five, a child is into his first formative imagination where he directs his mind to explore, experience and dream about what ifs. If a child has the reading and writing skills AT five, he is more likely to be more creative and therefore brighter and therefore more aware...and that train follows right into old age.

Plays encourage the arts, social skills, imagination skills, and group activity. It's not MY play, it's not YOUR play, it's OUR play, and my line is important in the story to get to your line which moves to other lines until we have told our story, made people laugh and had a splendid good learning experience.

Plays are not things one will generally find in most schools because they are hard to do. Enterprising teacher, who think things through, will know that when you produce a play, it generally fulfills a lot of state standards.

But where do you get plays? I write mine, but that's something children can do, many parents would love to do, and even the Internet has plays.

A good play needs to be the length the children can handle. Our first play is about fifteen minutes long. Our Spring play has been a half hour. This is long enough. A play needs to tell a story and have enough dialogue that every child has at least one line. Some children will not deliver a line in public. One year, my grandson held up a sign that said his line because he was terrified. He didn't mind standing on stage, he just didn't want to say anything. By the time he was graduated from the GS, he was a top star.

Don't be afraid of changing lines mid practice. It's good for the kids and it's good for the play. Children should always be comfortable reciting their lines, and they should not fear getting a chuckle from the audience.

We invite parents and grandparents to our plays. It's always a grand time. Children always grow so big during play practice and especially on the performance day.

Plays also bring children together and make the group bonded as no other thing can bond them.

This year, Miss Amy is directing our play. She is doing a fantastic job and the kids are loving it. Can't wait for the end product... November 18 at 2:00!

Just Thinking It Over

This weekend was lovely. My beloved Anne came home to spend a rushed day, and Miss Molly and Anne got to spend some time together and I got some time with Anne...and it caused me to think about my own mother. I loved my mother, there is no doubt, but the mother/daughter gig was not a happy arrangement.

My mother died at ninety-one, and I would say she spent very few days affectionate towards me. She simply did not like me, nor did she wish me well. She was unkind most of the time, humiliating and punishing and rarely approving. She was golden girl of the Alphie Kohn method of parenting, and it did NOT work.

People sometimes talk about spending time - just one more day, hour, lunch, or evening - with someone who has died. I see it on Facebook all the time..."If I could just spend one more day..." Not me. I wouldn't want to spend thirty seconds with either my mother or my father simply because I don't want to spend time with anyone who is constantly unkind to me. It's that simple.

It's the same with friends, husbands, and other relatives and even work environments. Do you really want to spend the time you have been given with people who make fun of you; cut your dialogue off; make you wait in line for any recognition; take phone calls on your time; forget you in all kinds of situations; lose your things? It's really no ones duty to sustain constant insults, belittling, lies, and even taking seconds over and over again for the sake of "family" or the "work environment" or for the sake of an "old friend" simply because you've known them forever? Or even a husband who is rude, unkind or simplistically male?

Over the last year, I've lost three old friends who I've had for at least twenty years...no they didn't die...they simply became so unkind, I decided that the cost was too great to continue the friendships. Do I miss them? Not in the slightest. I can't seem to miss people in my life who are unkind who use me, abuse me and then ignore me.

When I look at the children at the Garden School, I sometimes watch them play, and occasionally I will hear, "If you don't, I won't..." I would love to hear the response, "So what?" or "Go ahead because nobody cares." Children need to have their friendships monitored by loving parents. They need to know when they have taken the friendship on a wrong turn. Children need to learn from the beginning that there are rules about how we treat one another, how to say a "no" if their friend does something un-friendly.

Friendships are meant to be cherished, to be cultivated, to be loved and not to be a stepping stone to another one, or a time waster, or a crutch, or a pathology looking for a place crash. A friendship is companionship; it's a give and take; it's a soft spot in the road of life.

Encouraging real friendships is not only a parent's duty, it's a responsibility. Ask your children who their best friend is and why. Talk about your child's friend at home, and encourage your child to always be kind.

Monday's Tattler

Good Monday!

With our travels over until the Nutcracker in December, it's time to really focus on the play. Play lines have been sent home and it's time for the children to learn to say these lines in the order in which they must be delivered. Memorizing just the line is not going to help. Parents should review the whole scene with their children so that the children know when they are supposed to come in.

It's a process, like anything else.

The play will be at 2:00 (and not 3:00 p.m.) this year on November 18. We have changed the time for the sake of the children. 3:00 p.m. is just too late on a Friday to expect them to do a good job. Fridays are tough enough, but there has always been a "holding tank" between 1:00 and 2:00 when the kids just ran and exhausted themselves and then had to put on their costumes and half of them just wanted to go to sleep. So this year the play is at 2:00 p.m.

Costumes will be provided for every child. Parents are welcome to help with refreshments.

This is going to be one of those warm, then cold, bright, then breezy, dry then wet weeks. long sleeves and jeans work well. Please remember that as the weather gets colder, short sleeves in a heavy coat just doesn't cut the chill. Children need long sleeves to play outside.

Have a brilliant week!

Sunday's Plate - Baked Beans to Die For!

Here's a great new recipe for baked beans. I'm not a bean lover, but Mr. T loves baked beans, so I tried these and they were so good, I would have had them for dessert too!

Soak small white beans over night.

Boil beans until cooked - about an hour.

Reserve 3 cups of bean water. (I forgot to do this the second time I made them. Will let you know how they turned out without this.)

In a crock with a lid that is ovenproof, place beans

7 slices of uncooked bacon cut up into pieces ( use a scissors)

1 very large raw chopped onion

1 cup maple syrup - can be made by boiling 1/3 cup water and 2/3 cup sugar + maple flavoring

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup yellow mustard

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Mix in the crock, cover and cook two hours at 350.

These are truly yum.

Friday's Field Trip!

Field trip at 9:30...wear your red sweat shirt and school t shirt. Philharmonic Lollipop Concert.

Lots of fun. Returning to the school at 11:30 for lunch.

Field Trips

Last field trip for the season on Friday, November 4.

Field trips are wonderful for kids and we try to do as many as we can in a safe and exciting way. There have been a lot of field trips lately, and this one on Friday to the Lollipop Concert is no exception to the exciting. We do this every year, and the children love it. We are learning a song from Cinderella, "Bippity Boppity Boo" to sing at the concert.

Field trips are not cheap for either parents or the school. We charge a uniform rate for all field trips regardless of admission or bus fare. This makes it easier for parents and for collectors.

It costs between $150.00 and $1000.00 to take the bus out. Miss Sandy cuts a fabulous deal and is the ONLY driver in EVV who would do what we have asked her to do. She takes us on long fantastic trips anywhere we want to go. I am sure if we said we were going to Disney, she'd be there to drive. She has driven for us for sixteen years.

Every trip is a different expense, and when you add up the costs overall, they work out to about $10.00 per child per trip, so that's why we charge a uniform fee. Also, we never know how many children until we are pulling out of the driveway, so it's really hard to plan otherwise.

All our field trips are teaching. That's why you will never see a trip to put put or Holiday Village or any amusement parks. We go on our field trips to learn, and the children really benefit from these trips. I wish there were a trip every Friday, and there could be...but the kids get so tired. There is, of course, during the summer. We put a protractor on two points: Evansville and St. Louis, and we draw a circle and anything within that circle is fair game, so if you know of something in that circle you think the kids should see, please let us know.

So Friday, the kids should wear their new Garden School field trip shirts or old green shirts, and their red sweatshirts. Those without red sweatshirts will have them tomorrow.

Have a great rainy day!

Monday's Fun on Halloween

We had a spooktacular time today. The children came in beautiful costumes. They could not have looked cuter. So proud of them. Every child behaved beautifully. We left early early and arrived at our first nursing home in Boonville at 9:30. We brought a huge bag of gifts for the residents that the children collected all month. The residents gave all the kids candy and the children thanked everyone and deposited the candy in a bag to be divided later. We sang several songs and then visited with the elderly. It was a great visit!

We moved on to another home in Boonville and were greeted by some really nice people who took the children's presents to distribute to the residents. We sang, collected candy and were photographed standing by their Halloween display.

We moved on to our last nursing home in Boonville and were greeted in the dining room. This was splendid. The children did a great job singing and gathering treats.

We then went to a nice nursing home in Evansville and brought our presents and were treated with lots and lots of candy. We sang our songs and kissed and hugged and said "Happy Halloween" and then boarded the bus for school.

We probably received twenty pounds of candy which Miss Lisa and Miss Amy separated into separate bags for the kids.

We had a wonderful pizza lunch and then played until our little party. We had chocolate cupcakes and milk. It was a really nice day.

Monday's Tattler

Today is Halloween and we will all be dressing up.

Please send your child to school in his or her costume today.

Please do not send masks or weapons to school.

Children should be wearing comfortable shoes. Your child may have his face painted.

Your child needs to be at school by 9:00 to leave on the nursing home field trip.

We will be returning to school by 12:30 for a pizza party.

School dismisses at 4:00 today. Please pick up your child by 4:00.

Halloween at the GS

Friday is not Halloween. Friday, October 29, we will be going to Willard Library for ghost stories and a tour of the library. We will come back to school to eat pizza and carve pumpkins. Regular dismissal.

ON MONDAY, which is HALLOWEEN:

Children may come to school in costumes. If appropriate, children should wear shorts and t-shirts under costumes so that mid day, they can take off the costume. If the costume is comfortable and not an issue, they may keep the costume on all day and won't need shorts under.

COSTUMES: no masks or weapons. Children may have their faces painted. We will be on the bus in the morning, so please consider sitting on a bus when choosing your child's Halloween costume.

MONDAY, we will be going to the nursing homes in Boonville and one in Evansville to sing to the elderly and deliver what gifts we have collected this month.

Collections for the elderly are still going on!!! Please plan to give!

At lunch time, we will again pick up pizza and return to school for Halloween fun in the afternoon. School dismisses at 4:00 promptly so that children have time to trick or treat.

There is no Adult party this year. After much discussion, we felt that Halloween is for the kids, and it was too difficult for parents to come to eight parties, so we chose the four parties that were the most important and Halloween was not one of them.

If you are reading this blog article, please say Frankenstein's Monster to a teacher for your child to receive a special bead for his medal...it's a parent read bead!

Tuesday's Teacher

Brain Study Points to Potential Treatments for Math Anxiety

By Sarah D. Sparks on October 20, 2011 7:18 AM | 9 Comments | 16 Recommendations

For some students, an announcement of a math pop quiz can send them into a cold sweat. A new brain-imaging study suggests that the way they deal with that first rush of anxiety can be critical to their actual math performance.

The study, published this morning in the journal Cerebral Cortex, is a continuation of work on highly math-anxious people being conducted by Sian L. Beilock, associate psychology professor at the University of Chicago, and doctoral candidate Ian M. Lyons. In prior research, Beilock has found that just the thought of doing math problems can trigger stress responses in people with math anxiety, and adult teachers can pass their trepidation about math on to their students.

But nobody likes to perform badly. And dyscalculia—a serious math disability—affects about as many people as dyslexia. So which comes first: the struggle to do math, or the fear of it?

The latest study suggests fear may be a bigger hindrance than previously thought. The researchers analyzed 32 college students, ages 18 to 25, identified as high or low math anxiety based on their answers to a questionnaire. The students were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI—a brain imaging technology which measures blood flow to different areas of the brain—while the students performed a series of equally difficult math and spelling tasks. As expected, students who were highly anxious about math performed less accurately on math than on spelling and less accurately in math than students who were not afraid. But the story doesn't end there.

"We know that anxiety or fear of math can lead people to perform worse than what they know," said Beilock, author of the 2010 book Choke, on brain responses to performance pressure. "We know that when people perform poorly in a particular subject area, they tend to develop anxiety about their abilities, but being math anxious doesn't mean you are going to perform poorly in math. Some of these math anxious individuals were able to overcome their fear and succeed."

Students were shown a symbol before each question, telling them whether the item would be math- or spelling-related. So the brain scan was able to distinguish a student's anxiety about the upcoming question—and response to that anxiety—separately from what the student did while actually answering the problem. The researchers found some highly math-anxious students performed considerably better on the actual math problems than others, and these students' brains looked very different as they prepared to answer a math question.

Students who were anxious about math but performed well anyway showed high activity in the frontal and parietal regions of the brain when they learned a math problem was coming up; these are not the areas of the brain associated with calculating numbers, but those associated with cognitive control, focus, and regulating negative emotions. Students who activated these parts of the brain before attempting the math problem got 83 percent of the problems correct, nearly the same as the 88 percent accuracy of students with low math anxiety. By contrast, highly anxious students whose brains did not register activity in those regions got only 68 percent of the math questions correct.

Moreover, the researchers found that students' performance had less to do with how afraid they were of the coming math problem—as measured by activity in the amygdala, the brain's fear center—and more to do with how they responded to that fear. While the study focused on college-age students, the regions of the brain that govern cognitive control and emotional regulation do not completely mature until a person reaches her mid-20s, so Beilock said the effects of anxiety may be even more important for younger students.

"Think about walking across a suspension bridge if you're afraid of heights versus if you're not—completely different ballgame," Lyons said in a statement on the study.

For highly math-anxious students, the researchers found, "it is not necessarily the level of one's self-reported math anxiety per se that predicts one's math deficit, rather it is one's ability to call upon frontoparietal regions before the math task has even begun."

Moreover, Beilock told me, that sort of focus can be taught, and math interventions that address anxiety may be more helpful than those that remediate math skills alone. Previous research has identified benefits from meditation and cognitive control interventions that improve the brain's focus and ability to control negative emotions. Mark H. Ashcraft, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is planning one such study next year of a potential intervention focused on changing middle school students' attention and attitudes.

"This study really suggests we can devise interventions that can help students reappraise the situation and control emotions before they even get into a task," Beilock said. "It shows how some math anxious people are able to engage brain power to succeed."

A copy of the study is available here: Math anxiety.pdf

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning and welcome to another week at the GS!

Ghost week this week. Field trip to Willard library on Friday.

We are still working on collecting leaves. If you have a tree in your yard, have your child bring a leaf for our collection.

We have a new science project budding in the pet room. Last week, I wondered why Corky and Bess did not like the nesting box I put up in their favorite spot. I ordered a book on Quaker parrots, and I learned that they are the only nest building parrots. I watched a short short on UTube called "Sparky Builds His Dream House," and realized just how wrong I had been about this wonderful bird. So this weekend, I put the horse barn in the zoo room and this week, we will introduce the children to the new nest building extravaganza we hope shortly ensues from the bird and new house.

We will put all kinds of natural nesting materials in the room for the birds with the hope that the children can watch these wonderful birds build a fabulous home.

Also this week, new shirts arrive on Thursday, so if you have not bought and want one, now is the time. They are $15.00. New students since August will automatically get a shirt on Thursday.

We will be trying some new dishes this week. Don't forget to ask your child what he has been eating at the GS. If he likes it, I will put the recipe on the blog.

If you have read this blog entry, please tell a teacher "Rumpelstiltskin" and your child gets a treasure box pass.

Have a great week!

We Had a Great Week!

Great week at school. Lots in the hopper and lots to do. Kids really responded well to the art projects and all that we did. The children are beginning to listen...

The single most important thing we can do for the children in our care is to teach them to listen. Listening skills are the one thing most people never learn and suffer from a lack of all their lives.

Listening means closing the mouth and opening the ears. Listening means to put self second and someone else first. Listening means to put our own ideas aside and listen to someone else talk about what they think.

Listening does not mean to adopt other people's ideas, allow people to bully us, or change everything we think. Listening, after all is passive. It's a time when we simply stop what we are doing and put ourselves on hold for someone else to "have a moment."

That's not possible with most adults, and those adults who never listen teach their own children not to listen by example, and that's a shame.

Listening usually follows a question. Most adults rarely ask a question and less frequently listen to the answer. That's because most adults are trudging through life holding a hand mirror, and we all know how frustrating that is.

We are working steadily at question asking and listening so that our children will be the absolute best students who ever lived. By learning to listen to what is being said, and that means putting self aside, and finding what is being said interesting enough to ask a question means the development of "curiosity," and curiosity about the world is one of the most important attributes a functioning human can have.

And while we are discussing such topics, teaching parents to read is a goal as well. This forum - the blog - is our school newspaper. If you are reading this article, just say "Rumpelstiltskin," and your child gets a treasure box pass.

For Ryan - Pancakes and Syrup

Pancake syrup is easy. There are two kinds regular and fruit.

Regular syrup is two cups of sugar to a cup of water. Add 1/2 a stick of butter and boil three minutes. Flavor with your favorite: maple, vanilla, rum...

Fruit syrup is made with frozen apple concentrate and a cup of sugar and a stick of butter. Boil five minutes and add fresh fruit if desired.

Pancake Batter:

I start with whole grain flour - about two cups.

Add everything that sounds good to you: 1/2 cup oats, flax, wheat germ, corn meal, dry cereal, etc.

For every two cups of dry ingredients, add one heaping teaspoon of baking powder, 1/4 cup of oil, an egg, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and milk to the consistency of a milk shake. You can use any milk. Whisk.

Fresh fruit, coconut, nuts, peanut butter, chocolate, onions, bacon all give ordinary pancake batter a real zing.

On a griddle, lightly spray pan coat, and ladle batter on a 400 degree griddle. When bubbles appear AND burst, it's time to flip. You don't have to spray pan coat every batch.

Enjoy!

Wednesday's Wonder

Here is a super good recipe for Devil Cake that is super good for you! But try to stay away from it after the first serving because it will bedevil you until you have eaten ALL of it...I promise!

1 cup white flour

2 cups whole wheat white flour

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter softened

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

4 eggs

1 15 ounce pumpkin

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 package mini dark chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350 degreese

use pan coat on two large bunt pans

mix first six ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.

In a mixing bowl using an electric mixer beat butter and brown sugar until creamy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add pumpkin and the vanilla. Blend. Alternately add the flour mix and the milk until smooth. Add the tiny chocolate chips.

Bake about an hour until done.

YUM.

Eating the Potatoes...

It was fun about a week ago when Miss Molly went into the garden she planted last spring and pulled out a five pound sweet potato. It was a thing of beauty and we all admired it.

This week, I went out again, in the rain, and pulled out enough sweet potatoes to feed the kids today. It was triumph because it was so hot this summer, the other veggies died on the vine no matter how much water we seemed to give them.

We have lots of plants at the "Garden School." We have two apple trees, a pear tree, a plum tree, a cherry tree and a peach tree. We have a blueberry bush and strawberries, and if people would stop mowing them down, we would have some wonderful black berry bushes.

This past spring, we planted two raised beds of tomatoes and other vegetables like the sweet potatoes, and it was a bust until now.

Growing your own food is an incredible journey, and well worth the time and effort. It's so much fun to harvest what you grow.

Last week, I bought a book at Amazon called "Urban Homesteading" and gave the book to my wonderful young teacher, Miss Lisa. She lives down town and is planning to grow all kinds of things on her small piece of ground.

Learning to grow food, make food, and preserve food in this era of store boughts is a thing of beauty. So proud of my teachers.

I'll let you know how the kids liked these home grown very fresh sweet potatoes.

Teaching Tuesday - Taking the Kids...

Last night my daughter, Molly, posted on her Facebook page that she was taking her kids to the movies in the pjs. It was the last night of their Fall Break at school, and they had all done A B work in school this period, so she thought some fun activities over the break would be fun. Unfortunately, she came down with a flu bug and couldn't keep her promises on Saturday and Sunday, so on Monday, the last break day, she got the kids ready for bed and then took them to see the new dolphin movie. What a treat! How fun.

Doing something out of the ordinary, something warm and cozy and just for the kids is a blessing to any family. Our theaters are close, clean, safe, and empty most of the time, so we're not talking about a crowded unsafe place. Curling up in arm-less seats with parents who absolutely love you, doing something different, daring (to a child) and fun is what family time is supposed to be about.

I cheer my daughter on with an enormous shout of approval.

Here's to something new and different.

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning and welcome to a regular week at the Garden School.

No field trips this week! We are looking at leaves, and children are encouraged to bring in unusual leaves...we are making a leaf collection for the school library. We do not want a huge assortment. One a day will do, and we will save only those for the collection.

This week we are trying out a new food: baked squash. We will stuff the squash with bacon and rice and use a cheese sauce. We are experimenting with different kinds of meatballs and this squash will go with turkey balls.

We use a charting system to encourage children to eat their meals. This week, a child must finish his milk and his lunch or breakfast to get a sticker.

We are still collecting for the nursing homes in Boonville that we will visit on Halloween. Please be generous and donate items you would like to have if you were all alone in a nursing home and no one came to see you or bring you the things you need!

It will be chilly this week, and children are encouraged to wear jeans and short sleeves and bring a light jacket. Please do not send hats and mittens with children yet. It is not appropriate clothing yet.

Please check your child's medal. It could have lots of new things on it, and your child should be able to tell you what each new bead and bauble designates.

As usual, payment is due on Mondays.

If you have not paid your field trip fee, now's the time!

Have a glorious week!