Monday's Tattler

This is play week! This week on Friday, we will perform our Spring Play! The play is at 2:00 and refreshments are served after. Please plan to bring a treat to share.

The children have worked very hard on our play. We are a group activity place, and this group activity helps children find a voice, experiment in make believe and work with other children to build a kind of adventure that is unmatched by anything else they do.

This year, we have had an especially young group. They are doing a miraculous job of learning and acting. It will be blocked this week, and children will learn their final parts -- where to stand and how loud to shout!

We will dismiss after refreshments are served.

Your child will be costumed by the school.

Please plan to be at school by 1:50 so that you will not disturb the play in progress.

Please remember that we are a very little school, and our space is limited. Every child must have an attending adult.

If you have any questions, please ask a teacher.

It will be much warmer this week. Please DO NOT send children in boots.

We are slowly putting in our garden in the back of the school. We are also looking for homes for some of our wild cats. If you are looking for a pet, please let us know. They have been neutered.

Have a spectacular week!

Hamburger Buns...

I really hate buying hamburger buns. They are expensive and even the whole wheat ones are too "store bought" to really interest someone who has a broader bread sense. Store "boughts" have a lot of sugar and there is too much "food" when all is said and done. When you buy hamburger buns, you get eight, so what do you do with the other six? Normally, they sit in my fridge for weeks...and that's a bit frightening...

So I have traveled the Internet week after week to try to discover a really good hamburger bun recipe that would make only two buns at a time...do you know how impossible that is? I've made several recipes and have ended up with more food than I wanted while having so much left over, all of them were a complete disaster.

Then, one evening when I really wanted a nice sirloin burger with onions and mushrooms and green peppers, I sighed a heavy sigh about not having anything good to eat this delicious beast on, and the lightbulb went on in my head!

I quickly made a very small batch of pizza dough. (Warm the bowl, dissolve a 1/2 teaspoon of yeast into a 1/2 cup of warm water, add a pinch of sugar; let stand for five minutes; add a pinch of salt, a cup of flour and a little more until not sticky when you stir) And presto I had enough dough for exactly two hamburgers! I rolled out the dough, cut it with my hamburger press and baked four thin round crusts at 350 degrees for about six minutes and these little guys were just right and they were hot and ready by the time the hamburgers were cooked!

Then next time I made them, I used a big fist of Parmesan and some Chicago Steak seasoning right in the dough. I can imagine using any cheese, seasoning or ground veggie in the pizza dough to give you exactly the flavor you want - dill seasoning, perchance?

I'm thinking some bacon and cheddar and those canned friend onions would be exceptional!

Last night, I made the little pizza rounds and put some chili and cheese on the tops and baked them full, and served franks on them which was really fun and easy. It was a giant sandwich like creature...

Making pizza dough is a snap and takes no time at all. If you let your "sponge" develop in the warm water until it is truly a sponge...about five minutes...and you let your dough rest for another five minutes, you'll have a dough you can use for any number of things...calzones, inside out pizza, regular pizza, buns, tortilla like shells...the sky is the limit.

Something for Friday...

I got this from Vivian Ewalefo

What do you think? It's a workout by Sara Haley. Her bio info is published at the end.

12 moves in 20 minutes for 20lbs in 2012

Each exercise is performed 20 times and some require one set of 12 lb. free weights. Throw exercises, with the exception of the 2012 Hustle warm-up, into a hat and pull them out one by one to set the order of your workout for the day. Perform each exercise 20 times in succession, taking breaks for water and breathing whenever needed. You may have to work up to 20 reps of each, as well as work up to finishing the program in less than 20 minutes. Use the modifications and challenges as needed.

1. 2012 Hustle: Always begin with this exercise as a warm-up. Part 1: Alternate lifting your knees to your chest 4 times (right, left, right, left). Part 2: Alternate kicking your butt 4 times (like a hamstring curl). Make sure to use your arms like you are really running. Repeat entire sequence 20 times. 2012 Benefit: By lifting your legs high, your hips and hamstrings will mobilize and your core will activate. As you kick your butt, your quads dynamically stretch as you reach your heel towards your butt. As you pick up your pace, you’ll get your heart rate up and your body ready to work.

2. Total Body Make-Over: Part 1: Begin by squatting with hands on the floor in front of you. Part 2: Jump your feet back to a push up position and simultaneously lower your chest to the floor. Part 3: Using your arms to push up, return to squat position. Part 4: Jump up and clap your hands together. Repeat 20 times. Modification(s): a) Walk feet out and in, instead of jumping back and forth. b) Hold the top of a push up, instead of letting your chest hit the floor. c) Reach up instead of jumping. Challenge: As you jump up, simultaneously kiss your feet together and clap your hands. 2012 Benefit: Full body workout that will get your heart rate up quickly.

3. Chop Away: Part 1: Holding one weight with your feet shoulder width apart, pick up your right toes and your left heel to rotate all the way to the right. As you rotate, bring your free weight up to form a diagonal line from your shoulders. Part 2:In one motion swing it down over your left leg as you rotate into a lunge. Repeat ten times and then repeat ten times to the other side. Modification(s): Take away the free weight and instead clasp your hands together with straight arms. Challenge(s): After you rotate up, squeeze your butt to lift your back leg up off the floor. 2012 Benefit: Full body workout that targets the obliques - one of the best belly blasters around!

4. Froggie: Part 1: Rotate your hips out with your knees tracking over your toes, and squat as far to the floor as you can, putting your hands on the floor in front of you. Part 2: Push up from the floor, jumping up in the air. Land with bent knees to protect the joints and go back into your squat to prepare for the next jump. Repeat 20 times with little to no stop in between. Modification(s): a) Until you gain flexibility, put your hands on your thighs instead of the floor. b) Reach up instead of jumping. Challenge(s): On each jump perform a 180 degree turn. After 10 times rotate the opposite direction. 2012 Benefit: Excellent cardio exercise that targets the legs and butt, and opens up the hips.

5. Plank, Jack & Row: Part 1: Hold a 12 pound weight in each hand and begin in a plank (top of a push up) with the feet wide. Part 2: Soften the knees and squeeze the legs together (like a jumping jack). Part 3: Jump back out to your wide plank. Part 4: Row one weight to your rib cage, keeping your hips square to the floor. Repeat jack and then row on the other side. Repeat 20 times (10 on each side). Modification(s): Execute entire combination on all fours with no Jack. Challenge(s): Repeat 12 jacks in a row, followed by 12 rows on the right, 12 jacks, and 12 rows on the left. 2012 Benefit: Better than any crunches you could ever do, plank will help define your abs and keep your entire core strong. The jack tests the stability of your plank, especially your hips and back so work to keep your hips facing the floor and your shoulder blades squeezing together. The row will also challenge your stability as it strengthens and sculpts your back and shoulders.

6. Shuffle It Off: Part 1 & 2: Staying on the balls of the feet, quickly step and touch your feet together all the way to the right (Ideally give yourself fifteen feet). Shuffle back to the left. This is one rep. Repeat 20 times. Modification(s): Shorten the distance or slow down. Challenge(s): a) Bend your knees and get closer to the floor. b) Touch the floor once you shuffle all the way to the right and again once you go back all the way to the left. c) Hold one free weight at chest level. 2012 Benefit: Targets the inner and outer thighs, gets your heart rate up, and burns your 2011 calories away.

7. Dip ‘N Walk: Take tricep dips to a new level in 2012. Part 1: Sit with your hands behind your butt and feet right under your knees, with your toes lifted off the floor. Hold on to your free weights (to help keep wrists comfortable and stable) and lift your butt up off the floor. Part 2: Lower your body down by bending at the elbow working the triceps. Part 3 & 4: After you push back up, keep your arms straight and walk your feet out and in (right, left, right, left). Lower back down into your dip. Repeat ten times leading with the right leg and then ten times leading with the left. Modification(s): Perform tricep dip without the walk. Challenge(s): Elevate your body on a chair or table and walk out and in when you lower down AND when you push up. 2012 Benefit: Get rid of flabby arms once and for all as you challenge your core, glutes and hamstrings all at the same time.

8. Speed Skaters: Part 1: Begin with one leg crossed behind the other. Reach your opposite arm across towards the supporting leg. Part 2: Just like a professional speed-skater, hop laterally (side to side) and cross back with the opposite leg. One rep equals one hop to the right and one hop to the left. Repeat 20 times quickly. Modification(s): a) Rather than hopping side to side, slide so the feet stay close to the floor. b) Tap the leg down rather than balancing on one leg. Challenge(s): a) Land on one leg with the opposite foot crossing back but not touching the floor. b) Stay low and try to touch the floor with the reaching arm. 2012 Benefit: As you work for speed, it becomes a great cardio exercise. Targets the “saddlebag” area that is so hard to get rid of - works outer thighs, hips, glutes and abs all at the same time.

9. Tri Push ‘N Plank: Part 1: Begin in the top of a pushup position with your hands directly underneath your shoulders. Part 2: Lower yourself down keeping your elbows close to your sides to work the triceps and chest. Part 3: As you return rotate your body completely to one side and stack your feet into a side plank. Hold for a count of two before returning center. Push up again and rotate to the opposite side. Repeat 20 times (10 on each side). Modification(s): a) Perform pushup with knees on floor. b) When you rotate to side plank cross your top leg behind the front leg.Challenge(s): a) As you push up slowly count to four. b) In Side Plank lift the top leg up. 2012 Benefit: To perform a successful pushup and side Plank (let alone twenty), your entire body has to stay tight so you actually end up working every muscle in your body. Additionally, by keeping the elbows in tight you work the triceps more than a regular pushup, while finally getting rid of those turkey arms.

10. Core Control: Part 1: Begin on all fours with your left leg extended back and your right hand behind your head. Part 2: Round your back to the ceiling and slowly bring your opposing knee and elbow to meet into the center of your body. Repeat 10 times and then 10 times on the other side. Modification(s): Keep both hands on the floor and just extend the leg. Challenge(s): As you extend back out, lift the leg and rotate your torso to your right. 2012 Benefit: Strengthen and lengthen your spine and you work your entire core, especially the neglected lower back.

11. Booty Burn (Squat ‘N Curtsey): Part 1: Holding one weight at chest level, start with your legs shoulder width apart. Squat down with your chest lifted and weight in your heels. Come up quickly so your legs straighten to get full hip extension. Part 2: Cross your right leg behind your left (enough so you see your right foot on the other side) and lunge down, lowering your weight to the floor. Bicep curl the weight to your chest as you stand back up. Repeat 10 times and then repeat on the other side. Modification(s): Get rid of the weight and place your hands on your hips. Challenge(s): Add a balance challenge by lifting moving knee up to attach at inner thigh in between each squat and lunge, and/or add a shoulder press as the knee lifts up. 2012 Benefit: By combining these two leg exercises together you’ll tone your entire lower body. You’ll hit up your glutes, quads and hamstrings with the squat and target your outer and inner thighs with the curtsey (remember to squeeze those inner thighs tight as you curtsey lunge).

12. Picture Perfect Bicycles: Love to work those abs? Part 1: Lying on your back, with your hands behind your head, pull your knees into your chest and lift your shoulders up off the floor. Part 2: As you slowly extend one leg out, rotate your torso to the opposite leg. After you rotate, think of lifting up even higher and holding for a few seconds. Repeat on the other side. Repeat 20 times (10 on each side). Modification(s): Keep the extended leg on more of an angle. Challenge(s): Lift your shoulders even higher off the floor, and lower the extended leg closer to the floor. 2012 Benefit: Strengthen your abs and sculpt your love handles away!

About Sara Haley

Sara Haley is a certified trainer and instructor through the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA), as well as a member of the American Pregnancy Association (APA). Specializing in prenatal fitness, functional training and dance methodology, Sara has over twenty years of dance and fitness training, and has been a Reebok Global Master Trainer since 2008.

Time Off...

Well...we WERE going to go away for a couple of days...but every time I thought about taking time off, I remembered how much needs to be done right here...and the old balance of work then play which is like the essence of my life, becomes so dramatically lopsided, it destroys any real delight in leaving town...even for the beach.

So...this morning Terry and I dragged ourselves upstairs to our bedroom of many years and dug out what has become a storehouse for kids moved away; stuffed toys I can't part with; computer collectibles; the books that don't fit anywhere else; travel equipment; furniture that is in need of mending; exercise and gym equipment; pictures and frames without walls...well you get the idea.

Actually it's been like that for twenty years, so today, when we started going through this amazing pile of junk, it was no wonder a car load went to M Teresa's and another pile was created for my grandson that was once his father's; and books were moved downstairs, pictures were stacked for later examination...and I started to think about what you save and pitch as the kids get older and move away.

I have terrible trouble throwing away old friends...those are stuffed toys that were once so treasured by one of the little "houseselves." If it has a face on it, I usually give it to someone else to give away, because I'm a nut job and can't do it myself. There is something really odd and beautiful and emotionally gripping about the worn face of a doll or stuffed toy. Personally, I have all my stuffed toys from my own childhood, and as I get older their faces bring me a lot of joy, soooo I keep them.

Today, I went through a very deep closet whose contents belonged to my son. I found his boyhood stamp collection; his boy scout camping gear, prizes, awards and regalia. I found a hundred books stacked and in boxes. I found funny old clothes he used to wear. I found pictures and other keepsakes and games that brought all those years back.

I found the college books that belonged to my eldest daughter and among those books were shoes and trinkets...more memories. And memories are sweet. Yes, they are gone now, and living their lives with their own families, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

I found a lot of the wooden dressed character dolls I made for the younger children...Molly and Anne, and I held them back to look at later. They are made of clothespins carefully cut and wired together and dressed complete with bloomers, aprons, hats, dresses, and all decorated with lace and beds.

Older kids are funny about that stuff...they don't want to pitch it themselves, but they sure don't want to drag it home. How often we think to save things for our children's children...and how often they don't want it, and maybe that's a good and independent thing. Things really don't last; they grow old like we do...

So now that the clutter is mostly cleaned out of the closets, it's time to create a new room. Luckily, it's a big spacious room with hardwood floors and a lot of dark cabinetry at one end. Going to paint it a dark cherry color with driftwood appointments...because that will give me something to do at the river...lots to do...lots to do...tables to be made...blinds out of slender washed branches...drawer pulls of washed wooden knots...lots to do...

It's important to let go of children so they can go live their lives...but at the same time, it's important to have your own life and fill it with all the things you wanted to do as a young mom and couldn't because all your time and energy needed to be spent on your children. It's important to do a job you like that has growth and also creates memories you can grow old with.

So for a couple of days, it's time to clean and paint and re-create. Not recreate, but re-create. No, I didn't go to Florida; I stayed home and worked, and you could say, poor Judy, but Judy has a real life working every day, so these things like rooms and collecting driftwood too often get pushed to the sidelines...except for today... when it was tons of fun.

This is hoping that everyone who reads this will enjoy every part of his or her life...and will in turn teach their children to do the same. Life doesn't end when your children walk out the door...that's just part of the great story you build every day. Enjoy every day...

Obedience and Disobedience...That is the Question...

I was talking to Terry the other evening about this and that, and our conversation drifted over to scripture, and as we began to talk about the New and Old Testaments, I finally realized why the New Testament is so much more difficult to teach children than the Old Testament, I mean duh!

If you think about it, the OT is the child of the NT. It's the foundation for the basic tenets of how to honor and obey God. Every story in the OT is about obedience and disobedience. It's about heroes and those who failed and about how each hero mastered his life and the quest at hand and became a figure to admire and revere thousands of years later.

If you think of the OT as the years during childhood, you see the story of Adam and Eve establishing obedience for the first time, just like the slap on the paw we give to just toddling children. No! No! is established. As we move to the story of Noah, we learn that through disobedience, all is lost, and by obedience all is saved along with our family and friends. This helps to draw our family closer in the eyes of the child, and the fact that the family pets are involved is also a good lesson on responsibility toward creatures less that we are.

As we move to the Abraham story, we are reminded that trust in God is essential. The Moses story is about friendship with God, and how we are able to have that if we work hard enough at the obedience ideal. It's about responsibility toward others and how we are here to learn and then to guide others towards goodness.

David's story is one of championing his people, defender of the faith, defender of good...and he is rewarded as perhaps God's favorite.

Job is a story of friendship as well. It's Job's story of unbreakable love for God no matter what the Devil does. We are growing up!

As Scripture is read, the child of the OT grows into the man or woman and is ready for the next step...the New Testament and the adult world.

We are established now, and can listen to the message of Christianity with more complex issues and more a more complex agenda. "Why" is not a question for children under six because they don't have the cognitive skills to answer. So we deal in lots of "whats." The OT has a great supply of "whats" and a lifetime of answers like "because it's good." Obedience...

We know how to establish ourselves with God from the OT, and when we move over to the NT, it's time to establish ourselves with others. We learn how to treat others, how to behave ourselves with others, and how to live peacefully in the world of those who are not so inclined to have a relationship with God.

We glean what is important, what is necessary and we go about doing in a righteous frame of mind.

So where do children fit in? Since children are establishing themselves in the world, the OT is a wonderful teaching tool that helps them grow into adulthood with a balanced sense for the achievement of good and the disdain for evil. They need to hear these stories as a foundation to righteous living because without the collective bond of a people determined towards good rather than evil is a world that's too dangerous for anyone. Fairy tales do the same thing, but without God. If God is important to parents, they will use the OT to establish a guide to life choices rather than fairy tales because fairy tales aren't true and Scripture is.

Teaching the NT to children is done much like teaching the OT, it's a story...listen and hear, and then, when the mind of the child develops, he can understand what he is supposed to understand. It's a long process, a lifetime of thinking and being trained to think and doing and falling and doing and rising and doing whats and knowing why.

Thursday's Thought

Just got back from Walmart...and as I was checking out, the two very very nice people working behind the counter actually asked me a question...now you know how I feel about questions...too few ask and fewer still listen...and I answered, "I work with children."

It started right then" "Oh, I couldn't work with children."

"I don't know how you do it."

"You need a vacation because you work with children."

"You must work very hard."

Now if you know me at all, you will say, "She never does anything hard," so I just smiled and thought, you work at Walmart and you're saying those things to ME?

It never ceases to amaze me that people think working with children is so very hard. If you really think about it, working with forty people who have not yet reached the age of reason, who sometimes lose control of bodily functions...and sometimes can't tell you when they need or want something isn't frustrating, it's hilarious...most of the time. I mean where else can you ask a client if he's wiped or flushed or washed his hands when he comes out of the bathroom...lol.

Children don't hate. They rarely seek revenge. They are usually lovers rather than brutes...and they learn...which is the best part of what I do.

Children have bountiful energy...I mean where else will your clients bounce off the walls ALL day every day and still have enough pizzazz and vigor to hug you, MMMMM?

Caring for other people's children is actually easier than caring for your own. Since I started the Garden School, I've had my own grandchildren nearly every year. Because you know just what they are thinking and you're really tied to them emotionally, you tend to over-ride the knowledge that spoiling them rotten is really a poor idea, and you do it anyway, and then you have to live with the results. Mostly, that means re-writing the gma role and letting everyone eat cake!

Other people's children are more of a puzzle, a constant series of questions and possibilities, and there is where the delight comes in. Years ago, I was hired at the local newspaper as a columnist because I could get into a kid's head and figure them out and I could put a decent sentence together that most of Evansville loved reading. It went National...it was fun and you can see those columns by Googling Judy Lyden. But that ability to understand children as whole developing human beings stays with me. And that is probably what keeps me loving the job. I understand...

Understanding a child means figuring out what he's thinking and why. Then, to befriend the child and get him to trust you, you meet the child on a level HE will understand, and do it honestly without guile and without a traitorous agenda. Children need to know that you are on their side and that you ALWAYS keep your promises not only to them but to the people they love.

"Don't you get upset a lot?"

"Rarely with a child."

So...if you want to work with kids and do it well you need the following:

A big heart

A smile

An understanding that kids are mostly good

A sense of humor

What do you need to leave at the door?

Any dishonesty

Any grist

Any desire to oppress

And your frown

See? I never do anything hard...lol

Dr. Seuss Day on Friday...

Celebrating Dr. Seuss this week. He was a wonderful writer who dedicated a lot of his life to children. Here's a little biography to read. We will be dressing up as our favorite Seuss characters on Friday.

"OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!
THERE IS FUN TO BE DONE! THERE ARE
POINTS TO BE SCORED. THERE ARE GAMES TO BE WON."
Oh, The Places You'll Go!

TM & © 2002-2004 Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. All Rights Reserved.
Site developed by Tortus Technologies, Inc.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ted's father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were brewmasters in the city. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. Ted credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known.

Although the Geisels enjoyed great financial success for many years, the onset of World War I and Prohibition presented both financial and social challenges for the German immigrants. Nonetheless, the family persevered and again prospered, providing Ted and his sister, Marnie, with happy childhoods.

The influence of Ted's memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work. Drawings of Horton the Elephant meandering along streams in the Jungle of Nool, for example, mirror the watercourses in Springfield's Forest Park from the period. The fanciful truck driven by Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches could well be the Knox tractor that young Ted saw on the streets of Springfield. In addition to its name, Ted's first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, is filled with Springfield imagery, including a look-alike of Mayor Fordis Parker on the reviewing stand, and police officers riding red motorcycles, the traditional color of Springfield's famed Indian Motocycles.

Ted left Springfield as a teenager to attend Dartmouth College, where he became editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine. Although his tenure as editor ended prematurely when Ted and his friends were caught throwing a drinking party, which was against the prohibition laws and school policy, he continued to contribute to the magazine, signing his work "Seuss." This is the first record of the "Seuss" pseudonym, which was both Ted's middle name and his mother's maiden name.

To please his father, who wanted him to be a college professor, Ted went on to Oxford University in England after graduation. However, his academic studies bored him, and he decided to tour Europe instead. Oxford did provide him the opportunity to meet a classmate, Helen Palmer, who not only became his first wife, but also a children's author and book editor.

After returning to the United States, Ted began to pursue a career as a cartoonist. The Saturday Evening Post and other publications published some of his early pieces, but the bulk of Ted's activity during his early career was devoted to creating advertising campaigns for Standard Oil, which he did for more than 15 years.

As World War II approached, Ted's focus shifted, and he began contributing weekly political cartoons to PM magazine, a liberal publication. Too old for the draft, but wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ted served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps (U.S. Army) making training movies. It was here that he was introduced to the art of animation and developed a series of animated training films featuring a trainee called Private Snafu.

While Ted was continuing to contribute to Life, Vanity Fair, Judge and other magazines, Viking Press offered him a contract to illustrate a collection of children's sayings called Boners. Although the book was not a commercial success, the illustrations received great reviews, providing Ted with his first "big break" into children's literature. Getting the first book that he both wrote and illustrated, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published, however, required a great degree of persistence - it was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press.

The Cat in the Hat, perhaps the defining book of Ted's career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children's primer using only 225 "new-reader" vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of The Cat in the Hat, Ted became the definitive children's book author and illustrator.

After Ted's first wife died in 1967, Ted married an old friend, Audrey Stone Geisel, who not only influenced his later books, but now guards his legacy as the president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, Ted had written and illustrated 44 children's books, including such all-time favorites as Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His books had been translated into more than 15 languages. Over 200 million copies had found their way into homes and hearts around the world.

Besides the books, his works have provided the source for eleven children's television specials, a Broadway musical and a feature-length motion picture. Other major motion pictures are on the way.

His honors included two Academy awards, two Emmy awards, a Peabody award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Monday's Tattler

This is the first day of a three week play extravaganza. Every child will participate in the play, have lines to learn and lines to offer at the play. It's a wonderful fun play about St. Patrick...a musical comedy with singing and snakes and lots of fun lines. We hope the children really enjoy this. We do the same spring play every year and make a lot of changes in lines to suit every year's group of children.

Play lines will go home this week once we have chosen the leading rolls.

Congratulations go to our newly elected President, Alexis, and Vice President, Logan. Good choices. These are really great kids who will really add to our year.

As our health game finishes this week, we will add some self discipline activities. These are part of good mental health.

Please continue to watch for ill children. Children who need OTC medication in the morning should not come to school.

Have a great week!

Monday's Tattler

It's President's Day and we will be in school. We are hoping that every parent checks their child's throat this week BEFORE coming to school. We have had several cases of strep throat. Some children breeze through this as if there it is nothing...and some people become very very ill. Miss Lisa was so sick, her health was compromised for two weeks. It's simply a matter of looking at your child. If your child is puny enough in the morning that he or she needs over the counter medication, he is obviously not well enough to come to school.

A headache in the morning means something is incubating. A child should not wake up with a headache.

Profuse green mucus running from the nose means your child has an infection. Keep him home.

If your child has a rash around his mouth, it could be impetigo which is caused by either a Strep infection or a Staff infection...he needs to be seen by a doctor.

A fever at 10:00 a.m. means he was given medication when he awoke and is ill and mommy knew it and sent him anyway.

If a child becomes ill by 10:00 a.m., there will be a school safety fine of $25.00 and your child MUST be seen by a doctor BEFORE coming home.

This is your duty as a parent. Your child's health is your responsibility, and illness is not one of those things that we share.

This week at school, we will be talking about what it means to be the President. We will talk about the great presidents. We will talk about what a president does. And then we will give the children an opportunity to run for Garden School President. The campaign will be this week starting on Tuesday, and our vote will be on Friday. Your child is welcome to bring campaign posters and give-a-ways like pencils and candy.

On Wednesday, Mr. Terry will turn 70. We will have a party for him on Tuesday p.m. at snack time.

Wednesday begins Lent. We will have the children make a "bona opera" which is Latin for a good work. This good work will be sent home and parents are encouraged to support your child's good work the forty days of lent.

If you do not have a red sweatshirt, please let Miss Judy know because I have ordered them and they will be in on Tuesday.

Have a great and healthy week.

Possibilities by Judy Lyden

What makes a restaurant great? A zoo great? A town great? The managers all see the endless possibilities and work to bring about those dreams until they are not dreams but realities. As I watch Newburgh get bigger and bigger, I remember it as a population of 500 and much of the downtown abandoned. But in the thirty eight years we have lived here, the population is probably 10,000, there is a cancer center, a hospital, a strip shopping center with a Walmart, the old part of town is vibrant, there is the largest concession of baseball in the country, and the school system is outstanding...because people brought the possibilities of their hearts and minds to Newburgh.

Dreaming is a great past time...I fully recommend it. But dreams should never stop with a passing thought. Dreams need to be worked on until they are reality.

I once thought it would be a wonderful life to own a bed and breakfast retreat way out in the country. Just think of all the possibilities... a hobby farm where people could come and live the life...gardening, breeding and raising animals, putting food by as an art, cooking, quilting, knitting in the winter, building things, walking and exploring nature, riding animals... beautiful occasions...the list just goes on and on. Wrong house, wrong location, wrong husband...so there had to be a compromise.

I once thought it would be fun to have a little boarding summer camp...same possibilities with more sports and more work! So the compromise was the Garden School.

When I wrote my first novel, I wrote it for college. My professor was very happy with the first chapter and told me that I had fulfilled my senior thesis obligation...five hundred pages later, I agreed. There were these absolutely wonderful characters...John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III (1350- 1399) and I had traced his life for fourteen years. I even got his household journals in Middle French and poured over them for weeks. Then I created Anne...the perpetual thorn in his side...now was I going to just abandon them on page 22? What WERE the possibilities? Thousands...so five hundred and 25 pages later...it was finished.

There are possibilities in every possible dimension of life. Look at your closet, at your refrigerator, your living room, your next occasion...the possibilities are astounding. As I walked by the river this p.m., I realized all the possibilities of having my very small front garden have the addition of carefully picked driftwood so that certain plants would be shaded when necessary, and have things to grow near, in and on. Not too much...just a piece at a time...can't wait to see the possibilities.

Raising children is no different. What are MY child's possibilities. What are his or her interests and how can that be guided toward the endless possibilities that mean productivity in their adult lives. My own son was interested in lots of things like stamp collecting, soccer, dangerous activities like swimming across the river...and then the love of his life took hold in high school...physics.

"Mom, I'm going to build a nuclear accelerator in my room."

"Go ahead."

"I need lots of copper."

"Go to the hardware store, but if you plug it in and my house explodes, I will kill you."

"Mom, it's perfectly safe."

It was extremely safe aside from the copper wires I've pulled out of the carpet for twenty years. But the possibilities were all there to offer him an opportunity to grow as an inventor, a developer, a man with ideas who was not afraid to try.

"I'm going to learn Arabic," said Anne at age seventeen after informing a restaurant owner that she would be cooking for him. He said he would give it a week, and she lasted seven years.

"Go ahead."

"I will need books."

"Get them."

And she did get the books and she does...know Arabic.

Providing opportunities to children begins with Legos, with glue, reams of paper, colored pencils, dolls, trucks, sand, fabric, sports equipment, lessons, books, and so many things we take for granted as everyday childhood supplies that find their way to the bottom of the toy box.

Remember, these ordinary supplies are new to children, and children need to have an abundance of them be able to explore ideas and possibilities that will make their dreams come true. So make a place for their supplies and encourage your child to play, create, invent, explore and develop.

And while you're at it, don't forget to ask questions, and give those special words of support.

"You did what?"

"I swam across the river and back."

"You idiot."

Monday's Tattler

This week is Valentine's Day on Tuesday. We will need for you to send forty Valentine's Day cards that are signed but not addressed on Tuesday morning.

If it is snowing, and schools are called, we will do Valentine's Day on Wednesday.

There will be a party for the kids on Tuesday at 3:00. Parents are welcomed but it's not mandatory. If you are coming, please bring a treat to share.

School will dismiss at 4:00 for everyone.

We will be continuing our health game this week. We will be studying fruits and vegetables as our "energy foods."

For school closings, go to WFIE channel 14.

Have a great week!

What Have We Lost and Gained? by Judy Lyden

As I was taking a nice long walk by the river today, I started to think about things and came back again and again to how much things have changed in my remembered years. As I thought about conversations I've had with my young teachers and some of our parents, I see a really see saw of good and not so good in the lives we all live.

I remember a time when you went to the library to look up information you wanted to know because it was interesting to you. You borrowed a stack of heavy books and dragged them home for two weeks and poured over them and made notes with a fountain pen and binder paper. Then you dragged them all back again for another stack.

We now have an ability to get information from the Internet at a moments notice. We can find out just about anything from who bought a certain piece of property, to how many calories there are in the chocolate covered beetle we ate at the last fair. We can find out who is who and why they are who. We can find out the answers to our children's homework, why you can't go to Saudi Arabia if you're Jewish, and what it means to be a Catholic...

But what have we lost? In the grand scheme of information, have we lost the ability to be educated and only "informed?" Have we lost the desire to read whole books in our wild scramble to collect what is essentially useless information? Do we know more or less? Is our Weltanuchaung wider and more complete, or sadly lacking?

I remember twice a year, I would put my best dress on, my Mary Jane's, my dress coat and go with my mother down to the ferry and ferry across to San Francisco for a day of shopping, lunch out at Blum's with both my parents, and ended the day with a huge Golden Gate Bridge dessert made from ice cream and wafer cookies. Sometimes we would go to a very very rare movie; it was a vacation day and treasured.

Today, we can shop on line, buy nearly anything we want, and we can have it delivered overnight. We can pay with a card, get deferred payment on money back cards that earn us vacation dollars by punching in a number or even clicking once to buy. We can watch any movie we want anytime we want.

But what are we buying? What are we watching? And are these things treasured? Has the joy of Christmas buying and wrapping only turned into a mind boggling chore? Do we dread someone's birthday because it means endless shopping for something they "don't" have? Have we lost that human contact with local shop owners? Do we know from whom we are shopping? And do we actually "watch" a movie or just have it on for the distracting noise?

I remember eating out a lot as a child because my parents were very modern. We ate abalone and whole jalapeno peppers, and tiny bay shrimp. We ate Polynesian food at a place called Tiburon Tommy's and it included tiny sweet spareribs and egg rolls. Every year we waited for strawberries, peaches and grapes to come into season. You got cake on your birthday, and ice cream as a really special occasion treat, and soda pop was a Shirley Temple at the restaurant. We ate pizza once a week at another place and few of my friends knew what a pizza was.

Today, people can and do eat out any night of the week. We can have out of season food every day. We can eat, chocolate, ice cream, soda, chips, pizza and strawberries every day.

But what have we lost? While we take grapes for granted as a year round fruit, we have lost the ideal of cooking and have substituted carry out as the ideal for food. We have gained weight, lost general good health, lost the desire to try new things, and have decreased our longevity. We are the first generation who will not outlive our parents.

We can travel anywhere with a click of our mouse. If you even said those ten words to someone I grew up with back then, he or she would have thought that you were telling a story filled with imagination. Today I heard from Facebook that my son is going to Saudi Arabia. He travels all the time. He was in Switzerland last week, and he will be in Southern California by the end of the month. He lives in Germany. Travel is instant, and people do it all the time.

In a George Bernard Shaw production years ago, I heard a statement, "Travel narrows one." Terry and I laughed at the statement years ago. How funny that someone would even say something as completely stupid as "travel narrows one." But has it become narrowing? Is it as exciting today as it was years ago? Or has travel become a chore, an invasive, abusive chore that is dreaded by those who have to do it over and over again.

I'm a writer, so I "rarely take my body with me when I travel..." and for many who do travel, they would laugh at that statement today much more readily than "travel narrows one."

When I was a little girl, I had a doctor who was kindly, cared about us, made house calls, and chatted with my mother for what seemed to be hours. When I was a young woman, I had a doctor I adored. She was, for me, my safety zone. She is still a friend.

Today, I put off going to the doctor as if it's a death sentence. It takes years to make those appointments. Only the bitterest and most sleepless nights will drive me forward...and what have we lost? Routine medicine has taken over personalized medicine. The idea that we are being lined up like cattle to be shot, wormed, numbered, and stamped sends chills up my spine. One must have the doctor read your name on the file before you can be confident the doctor even has the right patient.

In the gush to have everything done now, have we lost the personal touch? Have we lost that "wait and see" kind of medicine that got you through without a pill and without a quick fix that takes the rest of your life to repair? Are we saturated with medication? What happened to a hot bath and a nap to fix a headache? What happened to a little brandy and someone to talk to to save you from taking a Xanax? What happened to the idea that we can fix type two diabetes with diet and exercise? What happened to building a body that could withstand chronic illness?

With all the marvelous developments we have been blessed with over the years, are we really taking the best advantage we can and benefiting or are we grabbing defeat at the hands of victory? It's probably a crude combination. Personally, I love the Internet, my Kindle, buying all those out of season foods, and shopping on line...I just hope I don't take those things for granted.

Brain Food

By Alan Greene from the Center of Ecoliteracy:

(This is an excellent article and well worth reading.)

What's on your child's plate today?

It is my strong conviction that children deserve a healthy breakfast to start the school morning right and a healthy school lunch to fuel their growing and their learning. I have come to believe that nutrition plays a key role, by providing them with a critical physiological foundation to help them succeed in school. Behavior and academic performance are significantly affected by the quantity and quality of the foods we provide children during the school years.

Today in the United States, one in six children suffers from a disability that affects their behavior, memory, or ability to learn. We spend more than $80 billion each year to treat neurodevelopmental disorders. Diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) alone up are up 250 percent since 1990. How much of a role does modern food play in this increase?

Children's brains are built differently depending on what they are fed when they are rapidly growing. Healthy brains are about 60 percent structural fat (not like the flabby fat found elsewhere in the body). As the brain grows, it selects building blocks from among the fatty acids available in what the child eats. The most prevalent structural fat in the brain is DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), one of the omega-3 fatty acids. DHA is also a major structural component of the retina of the eye. A large number of studies have suggested that low DHA levels are associated with problems with intelligence, vision, and behavior.

DHA is the most prevalent long chain fatty acid in human breast milk, which suggests that it's intended for babies to consume a lot of it. Studies have shown that babies who have not gotten DHA in their diets have significantly less of it in their brains than those who have. My point here is not about the superiority of breast milk, but that growing children quite literally are what they eat. When you think about this, you begin to feel differently about "cheap" food.

Iron is another nutrient that is essential to optimal brain function. Here's a very interesting study reported in the December 2004 Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine – the first to connect children's iron levels and ADHD.

Between March 2002 and June 2003, 110 children from the same school district in Paris, France were referred to a university hospital to be evaluated for school-related problems. Researchers analyzed blood samples from the 53 of these children who met the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, and from 27 of the children who did not. The average ferritin (iron) level in the non-ADHD kids was normal, but the average level in the children with ADHD was about half that of the other children. Fully 84 percent of the children with ADHD were iron deficient. And the lower the iron levels, the worse the ADHD symptoms – worse hyperactivity, worse oppositional behavior, and worse cognitive scores.

The stunning part of this study was that none of the children had iron levels low enough to indicate anemia. The iron deficiency was subtle enough that all tested normal on the hemoglobin or hematocrit blood tests used in doctors' offices to screen for iron problems. I suspect that inadequate iron in the diet is also affecting the attention, focus, and activity of many children who don't meet the full definition of ADHD.

When other researchers fed appropriate iron to children with ADHD, their test scores and ADHD symptoms improved.

Kids need more than isolated, individual nutrients to boost their brains and school performance. There are big-picture benefits to eating a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and fiber.

Antioxidants include a large variety of compounds found in a large variety of whole foods. Antioxidants in foods have been linked to improved memory and brain function.

Even in the same food, antioxidant levels can vary depending on how the food is grown. Organic foods, on average, are about 30 percent higher in antioxidants than are their nonorganic counterparts. That means each organic serving may be packed with more valuable nutrients. Talk about extra credit!

Organophosphates are the most commonly used insecticides in conventional, chemical agriculture. These chemicals act as nerve agents, and have been linked to neurodevelopmental problems. Organically grown foods are produced without the use of toxic pesticides such as organophosphates. Choosing organic foods for children can immediately and significantly decrease their exposure to organophosphate pesticides. That's good protection for the developing brain — it's elementary.

Some are afraid that school children would have to eat unfamiliar or unappetizing foods in order to make a difference. Not so! A February 2006 study conducted by Dr. Chensheng Lu and colleagues demonstrated an immediate and dramatic ability to reduce organophosphate pesticide exposure by making simple diet changes in elementary school children.

The researchers conducted this study with typical suburban children. The elementary school kids began eating organic versions of whatever they were eating before. For example, if they typically ate apples, now they got organic apples. Only if there was a simple organic substitution available for what the kids were already eating, did they make a switch. The kids didn't have to learn to like any new foods. Within 24 hours, pesticide breakdown products found in the urine plummeted! They continued this way for five days, with clean urine samples morning and night. Then the kids went back to their typical, nonorganic diets, and immediately the pesticides returned.

Researchers at the University of Southampton studied over 1800 three-year-old children, some with and some without ADHD, some with and some without allergies. After initial behavioral testing, all of the children got one week of a diet without any artificial food colorings and without any chemical preservatives. The children's behavior measurably improved during this week. But was this from the extra attention, from eating more fruits and vegetables, or from the absence of the preservatives and artificial colors?

To answer this question, the researchers continued the diet, but gave the children disguised drinks containing either a mixture of artificial colorings and the preservative benzoate, or similarly colored drinks from natural food sources. The weeks that children got the hidden chemicals, their behavior was substantially worse. This held true whether or not they had been diagnosed with hyperactivity, and whether or not they had tested positive for allergies.

The Journal of Pediatrics reported that there is a more pronounced response to a glucose load in children than in adults. In children, hypoglycemia-like symptoms (including shakiness, sweating, and altered thinking and behavior) may occur at a blood sugar level that would not be considered hypoglycemic. The authors reason that the problem is not sugar, per se, but highly refined sugars and carbohydrates, which enter the bloodstream quickly and produce more rapid fluctuations in blood glucose levels.

Kids' brains are high-performance engines, and if we want them to do their best in school, we need to provide them with clean, high-quality fuel. For growing children this means a balanced diet of delicious whole foods, grown in a nutrition-enhancing way without toxic pesticides, and prepared in an appealing manner that also preserves nutrients.

Solid science has shown that food affects kids' memory, attention, and cognitive skills. Even whether or not they eat breakfast changes their test scores. What they eat, how their food is grown, and how their food is processed can all help their brains to operate at their very best. Let's give our kids the edge they deserve.

Wednesday...and its Wonder

Having a lot of fun with the health game...so far, we have jumped three feet, caught a ball, and today we are hula hooping! The kids are doing a fabulous job and we are really pleased. We had 13 children who could hula hoop. Kayla was our all star for the hoop! Tomorrow we are thinking of hopscotching...

Today our first food awareness lesson was on milk as brain food. Our theme for the week is "Don't let an opportunity for brain food go by...drink it all now!"

Parents of children at the GS can look at the game boards to see where your child stands in the game.

Monday's Tattler

Good morning to all you sleepy heads! Brave New Week starting...please please please keep an eye on your child's throat this week. We have had ten cases of Strep, and it's a bad one.

If your child is behaving strangely...sleeping too much...not eating...puny...and muley...check his throat...he may not be able to tell you, and even if he or she does not run a temperature, he is in danger. Strep can drop into the kidneys and cause permanent damage. Please, please, please be aware!

This week we begin a week of science with a new health game. We will be playing the game for six weeks. The object of the game is to bravely try new things...jumping, swinging, climbing, eating new things, speaking up, answering a question, and many more. Every day, we will present a new challenge. Every child will be issued a game piece - a clothespin with his name on it. This clothespin will move around the game board. If a child does not make the challenge, we will try again in a couple of days so that everyone is fully engaged in the game.

We hope this is a fun activity for the kids and that they learn a lot about being independent.

We will be keeping a health book along with our game to be taken home at the end of science.

Have a great week!

Efficiency in the Home by Judy Lyden

I was talking to one of our beloved parents the other day about kitchen efficiency, and I got to thinking about what it means to be efficient anywhere in your life, and how some people are efficient and some people just make any job six times harder and anything difficult a one time gig.

I can't tell you how often I have watched while a job is being done and a mess is being made at the same time that is so deep and so tall and so wide and not small! It always makes me cringe.

I've heard dozens of "helpful hints for harassed housewives" over the years that advocate ways and means of cutting down on time, energy, and mess in the daily stream of life, and these suggestions are wonderful...They have helped me become an ultra efficient person. But being that person means I have to actually look for easier routes in life, and then practice the steps it takes to make life easier, and that's where people go astray. A person who is interested in making life corrections and slips back into a bad habit again and again, isn't climbing out of the dumb.

This past Christmas, my wonderful son thanked me for all I had done for him and for his family during their time with me. My usual response was a smile and a reminder that nothing I do is hard. He carefully told me that it was a lot and that I had made it look effortless, and that splendid compliment got me through Christmas with a smile.

My life is fairly effortless, and that's because I work at it. Little things really do add up. I think you have to ask yourself where you are most inefficient, and tackle those places first. With some people it's a basic mess of things. There are simply too many "things" in one's life that have no place and consequently are unmanageable.

I have a small kitchen and very little counter space, so when I turn out a dinner for fourteen, there are going to be pots and pans at the very end of the cooking just before it all goes on the table. So after dinner, when the mess is there, do we really want to empty the dining room onto all that mess and make a bigger mess, or should we clean up the first mess to make space for the next mess? Washing the pots and pans and putting them away along with any garbage that has collected is the smart thing to do before any of the plates come into the kitchen. I wash all my dishes by hand because I find it quicker than a dishwasher. Once the kitchen has been cleaned of all the cooking mess, the dishes are a ten minute gig and it's done.

Clothes, I hear, are another mess agenda that baffles most people. I've been up and dressed before anyone else in my family all my married life - 42 years this year- and so I've always dressed in the bathroom. My closet is nowhere near my bedroom and I use a tiny dresser on the top shelf of the bathroom for underwear. I have five huge dressers at my house, but you won't catch me using one. Folding clothes and shoving them into a drawer means two things: wrinkled and lost clothes. Hang them up. It's easier to keep track of what is there, and you never have to iron.

Children will always wear the first thing they see in a set of drawers, plus, dressers take up a lot of space, and most of what they are holding is useless and unworn. Use the closet and every time you buy a shirt, skirt, pair of pants, take something out that doesn't fit, is torn or worn, and put it in your "poor" basket.

I have a "poor basket" by my front door. I use those Schnuck's reusable grocery bags. They cost $1.25. When it's full, I drop it by my closest charity which is on my way to work. It's neat, easy and simple, and doesn't require hours of cleaning, or storage.

And never leave hangers in the closet; it's a huge mess maker. Always take your clothes out of the closet on the hanger, and leave the hangers someplace to collect, so that you can take them to the wash room and have them there ready and waiting when you need them. There is nothing like groping stuffed closets for hangers to create a miserable laundry time. Laundry should take minutes a day. With a family, every child should have a hamper and there should be a towel rack in every child's room on the back of the door. That towel rack can be made from a toilet paper roll and a doweling rod. This will cut down on laundry.

One load of one child's laundry when you first get up can be dried when you first get home and folded just after dinner when the child can put it away if he or she is old enough. If you only have one hamper, you need two so that people can put their whites in one and color clothes in the other. Individual hampers mean less sorting and less time doing.

Always keep your wash area neat and clean.

There are dozens of kitchen helps like never put a spoon down and always put everything away the minute you use it. That way, you'll never have a mess, and you'll always know where things are. Establish places in the refrigerator and on the shelves for all foods so that you can know at a glance what you need at the store. Milk goes here; bread here; sandwich material here; left overs here; condiments here; vegetables here; what ever your needs are, and every week while you are making out your grocery list, wipe out your fridge, that way, you'll never have to clean it; it's always clean. Years ago, I started using index cards for notes, lists, and things I didn't want to lose. These cards sit in my phone box - yes I have a rotary in a box - with a cup of pencils near by.

I wear a watch, and although I have absolutely no sense of time at all, a watch helps me keep an eye on times when certain things must be started in order to get them done on time. Knowing how much time certain jobs take helps in the streamlining of life.

I cook for fifty every day, and it takes about 1.5 hours to have a relaxed, easy time of it. Like any of life's routine jobs, making a dinner for 50 is really a formula. I have to serve so much protein, bread, veggie and fruit and milk to so many children. You do your formulas ahead of time and have the stuff bought for the maximum number of children. Then it's a matter of getting the meat cooked on time and adding the other foods in an order that makes them all come out together. Serve.

Organizing life is simple and easy if you think it through, balance your time, wear a watch and not get distracted doing things that are not on the agenda.

Then, when you've got your life by the tail, teach your kids.