A comment:

I think it is fantastic that David has grown in to an eater. David is so precious and reminds me of a little girl that was so shy when she started at GS and has blossomed into a beautiful little girl. I think by the time David is six he will be just as outspoken as the little girl is now. I do have to admit that I can certainly understand the blog comment about the clean plate club. If in fact it is being used to get the children to try things that is one thing. If it is to teach the children to clean the plate that is another. I will be the first to admit that I think you do a wonderful job at feeding the children and teaching them to branch out. I know that a lot of times the last thing some of the children have to eat that day will be what you feed them so kudos to you. If you have never had an overeating disorder you can’t really relate. The last thing a child should be taught is to clean a plate…and rewarding them with candy is insanity!! I know the reward has to be enticing but maybe it just isn’t a good idea! The parfaits were a great idea last week. Maybe that could be the reward. It is just a suggestion. You have a fantastic program and I wish I were little again so I could go there each day. I believe the initial comment about the clean plate club was just a genuine concern.

Response:

Most Americans over eat. But what I am finding out is that it’s not about how much we eat, it’s about the choices on the plate. Cleaning a plate filled with fruit, vegetables, and healthy portions of whole grain foods and a proper amount of meat and cheese is different than forcing someone to eat an over filled plate of processed carbs, a lot of greasy poorly cooked meat, gravy, white bread and fake butter filled with trans fats. Telling a child to finish his milk is probably a good idea; telling him to finish his soda is quite another story.

Many of us grew up eating over cooked, poorly arranged, variety-less sameness night after night. And those of us who were told to clean the muck off our plates grew up, and the choice to clean a plate or not became a new choice, as there was a new choice of what to put on the plate! The question remains – clean what?

According to a new article about fruits and vegetables, we are supposed to eat 4.5 cups of them a day. I’ve tried, and I just don’t eat that much food, and most people know I’m no light weight!

The whole idea at the GS is to learn to eat different foods so that we can make those wonderful choices that enhance our lives and lead the next generation of children to very long, very healthy lives free of illness and physical trials, but that won’t happen if we cater to a narrow spectrum of food choices and experiences.

As for candy, adults have to look at candy as a legitimate food with a time and place. Interestingly enough I brought some ginger candy to school. It is potent enough to take nail polish off, and the kids loved it. Did they love it because they crave sugar calories or because it was different and had an interesting taste? It’s hard to know. Ginger brings down cholesterol; it warms people plagued with chill; it soothes stomach problems and much much more. Ginger has been used as a medicine for years. Where else but cookies and candy will a child get to eat ginger?

In the same mode, dark chocolate is also good for you. It is an antioxidant. Mix dark chocolate with cranberries and peanuts and you have the same components as the wine from Sardinia that is said to actually fortify the arterial system. Did you know it is fundamentally better for you to eat a snickers bar than six saltine crackers?

The idea that chocolate would be served after meals is not a bad idea. But without preparation, without structure, half the kids would be eating just to get the chocolate and half would be leaving other things on their plates to make room for the chocolate.

So when you consider all these variables and eating choices, it all comes back to the plate. What are we cleaning? What are we eating? What are the meal choices we make to both eat and to serve, and how can we continue to make all our choices better?

We had another “inside” day, but the kids were great. The longer we are inside, the bigger the buildings get and the more engineers we claim for the good of man.

We accomplished a lot today. We’ve been talking about volcanoes from the infamous iron center of the earth and the kids are all ears. We talked about how the rest of the planet worked – water cycle, plants and animals, air, etc, and then we went “down, down, down,” to the very core of the world where the hot stuff is and then we talked about how the earth belches and then throws up. They all thought this was hilarious, but it’s an image that works. We watched a movie on volcanoes put out by Nova.

The bigger kids played a game of fill in the squares which means they took a blank 100 square number chart sheet and filled in the numbers as I called them out. They needed to figure out in 100 squares which one was the 66th square, the 37th square, the 54th square in fifteen seconds. They did a miraculous job. I could not have been prouder of all of them.

We painted today – hearts and flowers in the form of coffee filters. The kids seemed to enjoy this. I sat with they little kids and had time draw people which I promptly hung but the front door. They are wonderful and fun. I especially like Ian’s. Emma had a grand smile on her face as she began to discover that her person had shape and form. She is such a delight. Cole was just as excited. That’s why I love the threes. They always are so lively about discovery and they never say, “I can’t do that,” they just plunge into the task and do it.

Abby and Aidan discovered that the gerbils who have escaped their box love tissues. So they were offering the gerbils tissues this afternoon to see where they drag them to see where they are living in the pet room.

We had kiddie-wiches and teen-wiches today and the kids got to choose between soft wheat bread and more adult wheat bread, and most plates were pretty much emptied into hungry kids. I always double my cheese and of course I use real cheese. We served fresh green grapes and carrot sticks and dip and chips for fun, and of course milk.

I really stretched for snack today. I’m trying this golden mean thing. I read about bread all weekend and the ideas out there are nearly preposterous – whole wheat bread causes pancreatic cancer; white bread causes bowel cancer; sandwiches are bad because we shouldn’t mix carbohydrates with protein, sour dough bread is the only… so what to think. Well, ideally, I suppose we should be grazing, but most of us can’t bend that low comfortably, and we don’t have a long enough digestive tract, so we’re stuck using our brains to figure all this out.

I think the golden mean is using both whole wheat and white flour and creating a wide variety of recipes the kids like and offer a variety of tastes as well as a wide variety of nutrients.

Today I put some dark chocolate into a baking dish, melted it in the oven while I made caramel on the stove, and then over the melted chocolate, I put a box of Kashi, and then dribbled the caramel over that to make the whole thing stick. Jana cut it in bars and the kids loved it; it was good for them and also had a modicum of sweet they crave.

By using the worlds goods with a positive sense of joy and fun, we can eat great stuff, be satisfied and be well fed with grace and ease.

Caramel:

same amounts (1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, 1 cup – depends on how much you want or need) of the following: brown sugar, white sugar, Karo syrup, cream, butter and milk. Boil until thick but not burned.

Moving off food and onto more fun:

Miss Beve brought an album of candid pictures of the children she’s taken the last few visits. They will be on sale at the Valentine’s Day party. Each picture is $3.00. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Beve is a fabulous photographer and we are lucky to have her.

We will have a Valentine’s Day card swap on Wednesday morning. Your child will deliver his cards to every child a la musical chairs. It’s a lot of fun, and the kids love opening them. We will have our party at 3:00 with a 15 minute dance and a table full of goodies.

All in all, a great day!

Judy,

David never even ate until he came to the Garden School. I think your approach has worked wonders on his appetite. He may not always love what I serve at home, but he understands that we don’t waste food, and you have to at least try something new. Ironically, things he hates are the worst things for him. Case in point, I had some left over cool-whip from some dish I made over the weekend. When I was at the grocery yesterday I bought some beautiful strawberries, and I thought they would be fun to have with the cool-whip. He didn’t want any part of it at all. He insisted that he eat the fresh strawberries without anything else, sugar…etc. If that isn’t proof that your style works I don’t know what is. Thank you again for taking such wonderful care of the kids each and every day.

Mary Beth

Thank you Mary Beth for all your help and encouragement. David is an excellent example of a picky eater who does fine. David chooses what he will eat and he eats it. There is never any problem with him. He eats some things and not others, and sometimes we have a “clean plate” which at the GS means a child tried something new and enjoyed his lunch.

Here is a comment recently posted on the blog:

I think teaching children to clean their plates in hopes of earning a food “reward” is a problem. We have long taught our child – eat until you’re full – then stop; don’t clean you plate so you can get a candy bar. I think it sends a terrible message to our children. As an adult with a weight issue, I do not want to pass this behavior on to my child. I can still hear my mom saying “clean your plate”.

Response:

I think the question here is why we are offering prizes for “trying new foods.” That’s what we are doing. The fact is, there are some children who aren’t just eating until they are full; they are just passing by a plateful of food in order to wait till snack because they know snack is cookies. These kids can wait all day because they have made a habit out of it.

Every child at the GS is capable of trying new foods and each one has shown us that they can, but lately, there have been a few children who have decided that they don’t even want their milk, and that’s sad because we are building bodies now, not ten years from now.

I suppose it’s a matter of a point of view about food, and this point of view comes from home.

Is a meal made with affection, as food often is, something someone can simply regard as garbage?

Do we want to tell our children that food is disposible, unimportant and that all food is the same? Is a candy bar the same as a salad or an apple?

Do we want to teach them that it’s OK to pass by the good stuff because dessert is coming?

The message at school is: If you try new things and put in an effort, there will be a reward down the lane. It’s not a matter of over eating; it’s a matter of being open to new things. It doesn’t matter what the reward is, it’s a matter of learning that new things won’t hurt.

The State requires that each child be served the same thing and that the amount is the same. It seems rote to me, and I hate it. I’d much rather have children choose their food, but I’m bound by the State to put a 1/4 cup of this and that or a 1/2 cup of this or that on every plate.

Establishing likes and dislikes with the State order is more difficult and at the same time even more important. These likes and dislikes need to be real and not imagined. Good eating habits begin now – not later. “I don’t like that because it doesn’t look like the boxed kind” or “I don’t like that because it didn’t come from a fast food restaurant” is not a real response; it’s an imagined response.

Establishing good eating habits does mean to eat until we are nearly full. It’s probably a good idea to leave the table just a little hungry, but that’s not what we are talking about. We are talking about establishing an openness to variety which leads to good health. The best diet is a broad spectrum of foods.

We will continue to offer new things at school so children have a real appreciation of the world’s choices. The choice to eat or not to eat will always remain with a child, and rewards will be lovingly given at appropriate times.

Comment: Lots of parents have asked me to “watch the seconds” with some of the kids. Here’s an article that might help sort out why some children pack it on. When you break down food into groups, there are very few – protein, dairy, fats and carbohydrates.

When you break down carbohydrates, you get two groups – one kids love and one kids are so so about. When you really take a look at a child’s diet, you see that fruit, vegetables and whole grains which are supposed to be a big contributor to any diet are so limited and so rarely eaten…

But what takes the place of the calories a child really needs? Sugar.

Read the article; it’s from Baby Fit. You might be surprised about some food, and then remember that we are slowly introducing better carbohydrates at school. It’s been a bit of a battle, but if it means children develop better habits and are healthier for it, it’s a battle worth winning.

Sugars are simple carbohydrates. When we typically think of sugar we think of such things as granulated, brown, powdered, raw, or cane. However, things like honey, syrup and molasses are also sugars. You’ll also find it used in things like jam, jelly, soda, pies, cakes, cookies and candy bars.

Your body needs carbohydrates to supply the energy that is necessary to function and perform. Complex carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables, whole grain products and dried peas and legumes provide the same energy but are less likely to be converted and stored as fat.

It is generally recommended that pregnant woman get about 55-60% of their calories from carbohydrate sources, which includes both simple and complex carbohydrates. However, complex carbohydrates are the best choices.

So in a 2000 calorie diet, about 1200 of your calories should come from carbohydrate sources–that’s 300 grams of carbohydrates.

Sugar (simple carbohydrates) will be included in this total, but you should limit it to a small portion of your daily selections.

To track carbohydrates in your Nutrition Tracker, go to “My Plan”. Scroll down and click “Add Nutrient to Track/Change Nutrition Goals”. On the new screen click “Add another nutrient to track”. Then select “carbohydrates” from the drop-down list, and “Save” your changes. The program will automatically add the recommended grams of carbohydrates you should consume based on your recommended calorie level.

The “Please KISS Me” Plan can be a great help for selecting meals that promote complex carbohydrates while still including some sugar.

Burlington Free Press

My Turn: Child-centered learning works best

By Laurel Bongiorno

February 4, 2007
What’s the purpose of early childhood education? What do we mean when we talk about “quality” programs?

The primary goal of an early childhood program is to stimulate growth and development, while igniting intellectual curiosity. At this age, children are rapidly developing cognitive, language, social and motor skills. They play, discover, explore, try out new tasks, go to new places, and act curious. By offering a “child-centered” setting, high-quality early education programs promote this.

Students often come to my Preschool Curriculum course with a picture of a preschool experience as teacher-directed. Children are expected to sit quietly in a circle and listen as the teacher talks. At a specific time, everyone eats snack. At another specific time, the children all do the same art project. Does this sound like a high-quality preschool classroom? My students think the answer is yes.

But this is not the most meaningful picture. In fact, this picture needs to change. Children learn through experience; this experience is called play.

Picture a child-centered setting in which the teacher has specific goals for learning, focused on play. The room is filled with busy, noisy children making their own choices at learning areas. There’s a water table with tubes and funnels; there’s an art area with paint, glue, feathers, colorful paper and scissors. There’s a teacher sitting cozily with children in the book area. Some children are at the snack table; others are in the dramatic play area, playing restaurant with menus, money and pretend food.

If the purpose of an early childhood program is growth and development, how is that happening here?

The water table teaches science and logic. The children are exploring liquids; they are adding to their scientific and mathematical vocabulary by learning such words as pour and funnel, more and less, full and empty.

The art area focuses on creativity. Cognitive skills develop as the children explore color, shape and texture. Motor skills expand as children use scissors to enhance their collage designs. The book area is a place to develop literacy skills, while children interact, think, move, speak and even learn to negotiate (“I’ll be this, and you do that …”) in the dramatic play area. Play is rich with learning opportunities.

Before we can discuss the need for pre-K funding, we need to speak the same language. We need to understand that quality early childhood programs provide valuable learning opportunities through child-centered activities like play. We’re not talking about 4-year-olds at desks, taking notes with pencils. We’re not talking about robbing children of their childhood.

Quality early childhood programs in Vermont should be a place of wonder and joy, of learning language, of developing curiosity, of reading, of gaining a sense of self, of learning to interact with others. They should lay a solid — and invaluable — foundation for the years of learning to come.

Laurel Bongiorno is an associate professor of education at Champlain College and president-elect of the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children.

Comment: She’s right. Play is probably the most important part of a child’s day – that and drinking his or her milk. Everything should be play, even those group moments like today when we acted out Noah’s Ark.

Winnipeg Sun
By JOYANNE PURSAGA, SUN MEDIA

Two wild playground visitors surprised kids travelling between day care and elementary school yesterday.

Slavica Maric, a supervisor at Carpathia Children’s Centre on Grant Avenue, said a pair of red foxes were spotted shortly after 8:30 a.m., as staff were walking kids across the field to J.B. Mitchell School.

“At one point we stopped and the fox was right in front of us, maybe a few metres away,” said Maric. “At that time you are scared because if they get closer to the children, how will the children react?”

Maric said the animals ran off as soon as the children came near.

She said one fox darted into traffic and narrowly missed being hit by a van on Lanark Street, but for the most part it was a rare sight the kids took in stride.

“They were beautiful animals, lying in the snow and resting,” said Maric. “There was a lot of excitement.”

Kim Perring, director of On The Move day care, located in the same building as Carpathia, said the children’s reaction was mixed.

“Some of the kids were frightened, and one little guy was trying to call (the foxes) like a pet to see them,” said Perring.

ANIMAL SERVICES

Perring called Animal Services for assistance, but the animals quickly ran off the property and did not require removal.

She said a staff member at the agency told her it was likely a female fox was being chased out of her natural habitat while in heat.

J. B. Mitchell rang its bell a few minutes before the regular 8:50 a.m. scheduled time. The principal said the incident was handled quite smoothly, despite the fact staff at the day cares and school has not dealt with foxes on the property before.

“Everybody was pretty calm. A few kids were just a little concerned about what would happen to the animals,” said Marie Giasson.

Comment: I loved this because it’s true – kids love stuff like this. We’re in a rural area as well. We had a coyote in our back field just three weeks ago.

Comment: We’ve been using curry from time to time to flavor rice and the children seem to like it. So I went on Internet to find out how this combination of spices benefit or don’t benefit what we eat, and this is what I’ve found. I thought it was really interesting. It’s from the BBC News:

Turmeric is the crucial ingredient

A spicy ingredient of many curries may be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, say researchers.

A team from the University of California at Los Angeles believes that turmeric may play a role in slowing down the progression of the neurodegenerative disease.

The finding may help to explain why rates of Alzheimer’s are much lower among the elderly in India than in their Western peers.

Previous studies have found that Alzheimer’s affects just 1% of people over the age of 65 living in some Indian villages.

Vindaloos

Drugs with similar properties could potentially be used as preventative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease

Dr Richard Harvey

Turmeric is found in everything from mild Kormas to the hottest Vindaloos. The crucial chemical is curcumin, a compound found in the spice.

Alzheimer’s is linked to the build up of knots in the brain called amyloid plaques.

Turmeric reduced the number of these plaques by a half.

The researchers also found that turmeric had other health benefits.

It aids digestion, helps fight infection and guards against heart attacks.

In the study, middle aged and aged rats were fed a diet rich in curcumin.

All the rats received brain injections of amyloid to mimic progressive Alzheimer’s disease.

Not only was there less evidence of plaque build up in the curcumin-fed rats, they also outperformed rats on normal diets when carrying out maze-based memory tests.

Curcumin also appeared to reduce Alzheimer’s-related inflammation in the brain tissue.

Researcher Dr Sally Frautschy said the compound had potential as a treatment for the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease – particularly in tandem with anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen.

Dr Richard Harvey, director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Curcumin has both anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

“Drugs with similar properties could potentially be used as preventative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.”

However, Dr Harvey warned that it could be many years before such drugs were made widely available.

What a day! Calm at school, but nearly all the faculty had “issues” with one thing or another like Miss Jana who woke up to her little one throwing up and discovered that her furnace at quit working at 2:00 in the morning. Molly’s husband started a new job today and on the way, his car broke down, so she had to get Snigglefritz out in the 4 degree weather a lot sooner than she had hoped.

Miss Kelly and I are going to give a workshop at the Spring 4C Conference on Cooking for children. Since I have been asked to be on the nutrition subcommittee for the United Way Early Childhood Coalition (sounds important!) I’m just going all out. I asked Miss Kelly to help because she sells Pampered Chef kitchen equipment, and I find the materials absolutely essential in working with food. So we will combine efforts and put on a great show. It’s March 10.

In addition, the Garden School is sponsoring a puppet workshop in May with Mary Jo Huff. All our people are welcome to come. Dinner will be served. We will probably do this in May.

The kids were outstanding today. They politely listened to some words on Asia and in my class, practiced some handwriting techniques. Please correct your children when they begin their letters on the bottom line, or write up. Even though they get the thing looking vaguely recognizable, they really need to begin to make the letter correctly because it will all come back on them later when they can’t keep up.

Today we sorted playing cards and lined them up according to number. Reading numbers is important, and the class seems to be doing very well.

We will be working with rice this week. If you have a bag of rice you don’t use and would like to donate it, we’d love to have it.

If you have a copy of Ricki Ticki Tavi, please let me know.

Would anyone like to review new children’s features? I get new releases from promoters because of my column on WFIE, and I would like someone with a small child to watch this stuff and tell me what they think. If anyone is interested, please let me know. I can review these things, but I want to know what the child thinks.

Maestro sends his regards.

Fruits, Vegetables, and Cardiovascular Disease

There is compelling evidence that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can lower the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The largest and longest study to date, done as part of the Harvard-based Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, included almost 110,000 men and women whose health and dietary habits were followed for 14 years. The higher the average daily intake of fruits and vegetables, the lower the chances of developing cardiovascular disease. Compared with those in the lowest category of fruit and vegetable intake (less than 1.5 servings a day), those who averaged 8 or more servings a day were 30% less likely to have had a heart attack or stroke.(2)

Although all fruits and vegetables likely contribute to this benefit, green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, and mustard greens; cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, and kale; and citrus fruits such as oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruit (and their juices) make important contributions.

Increasing fruit and vegetable intake by as little as one serving per day can have a real impact on heart disease risk. In the two Harvard studies, for every extra serving of fruits and vegetables that participants added to their diets, their risk of heart disease dropped by 4 percent.

Comment: Fruits are so easy to serve. Unlike meat, they are peal and eat or just eat. It doesn’t make sense to avoid these foods!