Monthly Archives: November 2011

Monday’s Tattler

Posted on by

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!

Wonderful Wednesday…

Posted on by


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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by


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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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…

Posted on by


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

Posted on by


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.