Garage Sale!!!!

Please drop off items at school today and tomorrow!!!!  This is a very important fundraiser for the school, so anything you can bring by--from neighbors, family--is welcome.  Thank you so much!

Soccer Match Lots of FUN!!!!

Next year....come join!  The more the merrier...this year, we had several former LPCS students as well as current ones play, which made it all the more competitive as well as enjoyable.

Celebrating World Festivals and Traditions

Children love festivals.  People love festivals.  They get together to celebrate the mythological as well as the ordinary (like tomatoes, oranges and cheese!)   Festivals honor film, music and religion.  Ethnic festivals can be the some of the most interesting ways to introduce your kiddos to other cultures!

We look forward to the Moon Festival every year around the end of September--that's when the harvest moon is in it's full glory.  The Moon Festival is a Chinese event where one gathers with family and friends in honor of the moon and the legends that surround it.  We make and display lanterns, have moon cakes (at least our version of them), tell stories, eat delicious, authentic chinese food and look at the moon through a telescope.  The magic of the moon is alluring to all. Most importantly, it's a tradition that we look forward to every year.

Here's a fun video which shows some of the craziest and amazing festivals from around the world--kids would love some of these for they can be quite messy--maybe it's a tradition you and your family might want to begin:

Games and Children

I married a game guy...so I've spent many a night in intense games of scrabble, cards or dominoes.  When our children were just old enough, playing games with them became a part of our routine.  Card games, board games, whatever caught and held their attention long enough to teach them patience, flexibility and hopefully perseverance.  Mastering a new game made them happy.  Their is joy in learning a new game and joy in teaching it to others.  We had a book once that showed us games that children played all over the world.  It was fantastic.  Although I can't seem to find the book--I found a link to a site that gives many variations of outdoor games played in other cultures.

So if you are looking for something new for your family and away from the electronics--try some of these:  http://www.topics-mag.com/edition11/games-section.htm

Creativity and Technology...

Is technology sapping children’s creativity?

By Valerie Strauss

The technology revolution has sparked a new debate about just how much parents should allow their young children to play with iPads, iPhones and other devices. Here’s a smart look at the issue by early childhood development expert Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Ma., when she won the Embracing the Legacy Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps for work over several decades on behalf of children and families. Carlsson-Paige is author of “ Taking Back Childhood” and the mother of two artist sons, Matt and Kyle Damon.

By Nancy Carlsson-Paige

My 4-year-old grandson Jake who lives in Guatemala recently called my husband in his office on Skype. No one seems to know how Jake managed to get onto the computer and make the call. And, as I sat talking to a friend, her 3-year old somehow found her iPhone and found his way to a video of Cat in the Hat.

A 13-month old uses a iPad (Matt Cardy/GETTY IMAGES)It wasn’t long ago that we were talking about how much TV kids should watch. And now here we are in the midst of a technology revolution that is happening so fast we can barely keep up with the number of devices and the options for screen time available to kids — on computers, tablets, cell phones, iPhones, flip down car monitors, interactive “app” toys, and on and on.

There has not been time to reflect on how this cascading influx of technology is affecting us all or to study the potentially far ranging influence it is having on our children. While electronic games for young children are flooding the market (72 percent of iTunes’ top-selling “education” apps are designed for preschoolers and elementary school children), the research on their impact is scant.

A great many adults these days tell me how impressed they are with their young kids’ facility with technology or with what they think the kids are learning as they interact with screens. But let’s back up a little, think about what we know about how children grow and learn, and consider this pervasive new influence through that lens.

Starting with What We Know

We have many decades of theory and research in child development that tell us so much about how young children learn. We know that, like children all over the world and throughout time, children need to play. We know that learning in the early years is active — that kids learn through direct play and hands-on experiences with people, with materials, and in nature.

Kids need first-hand engagement — they need to manipulate objects physically, engage all their senses, and move and interact with the 3-dimensional world. This is what maximizes their learning and brain development. A lot of the time children spend with screens takes time away from the activities we know they need for optimal growth. We know that children today are playing less than kids played in the past.

Researchers who have tracked children’s creativity for 50 years are seeing a significant decrease in creativity among children for the first time, especially younger children from kindergarten through sixth grade. This decline in creativity is thought to be due at least in part to the decline of play.

The Importance of Play

Play is a remarkably creative process that fosters emotional health, imagination, original thinking, problem solving, critical thinking, and self-regulation. As children actively invent their own scenarios in play, they work their way through the challenges life presents and gain confidence and a sense of mastery. When they play with materials, children are building a foundation for understanding concepts and skills that form the basis for later academic learning.

And it’s not only concepts that children are learning as they play, they are learning how to learn: to take initiative, to ask questions, to create and solve their own problems. Open-ended materials such as blocks, play dough, art and building materials, sand and water encourage children to play creatively and in depth. Neuroscience tells us that as children play this way, connections and pathways in the brain become activated and then solidify.

Technology, Play, and Learning

What children see or interact with on the screen is only a representation of things in the real world. The screen symbols aren’t able to provide as full an experience for kids as the interactions they can have with real world people and things. And while playing games with apps and computers could be considered more active than TV viewing, it is still limited to what happens between the child and a device — it doesn’t involve the whole child’s body, brain, and senses. In addition, the activity itself and how to do it is already prescribed by a programmer. What the child does is play according to someone else’s rules and design. This is profoundly different from a child having an original idea to make or do something.

For example, my granddaughter Isabella decided recently to make a house at a city park for a little caterpiller she found there. She spent over an hour finding building materials (sand, sticks, leaves) and creating the tiny house. To make the house in the first place was Isabella’s idea — her invention. How to make it, the materials to use, the design, the process were all up to her. With an interactive screen game, the deeper, more creative aspects of an activity such as these are not within the child’s control.

Many of the companies that market electronic products for young children make claims that these things are educational. While the research on the impact of apps on learning is meager and mixed, I can imagine studies might show that children can learn specific facts or skills by playing interactive games — such as how to count to 10. But parents should not be fooled into thinking this kind of learning is significant or foundational. Games and apps encourage kids to hit icons that lead to right (or wrong) answers. This promotes a kind of rote learning, but it is superficial. For example, a child could get right answers on simple addition problems: 3 + 2 = 5 and 2 + 4 = 6 by repeatedly playing an electronic math game, but still not grasp the underlying concepts of number.

How Might Time on Screens Affect Relationships?

Quite a few years ago, I began noticing how easy it was for parents to turn to screens in challenging moments with their children. This first hit me when I saw a little girl who was in tears over saying goodbye to her good friend and her mom offered her a TV program to watch. Now today, there are almost endless opportunities to quiet our kids with entertaining games, apps, and screen time. But when we do that, are they missing out on the chance to feel, to argue, to sit in silence, to listen, to be?

Screens can occupy, distract, and entertain children for sure; the appealing game or show really “works” in the short term. But harmful habits set in early on both sides: for the child, learning to look outside of oneself for happiness or distraction in tough times; for parents, learning to rely on screens instead of our own ingenuity to soothe and occupy kids.

I thought about how using screens could easily bypass kids’ chances for building emotional and social competence a few years ago when embarking on a family trip. My husband Doug and I were taking our grandsons Jackson and Miles away for the weekend for the first time. We were all packed up and ready to go when Miles’s eyes (he was five years old then) began to fill with tears.

“I have to say goodbye to Mama,” he said, struggling. I could see the powerful sadness sweeping over Miles now that the concrete reality of our leaving was upon him. I gently rubbed Miles’ chest (I felt so badly for him) and said, “When we go away from Mama, we have sad feelings.” I wanted to acknowledge the feelings he was having, but I wanted to help him too. “But you know what? We’re going to New York, we’ll sleep one night, then we come back the next day and Mama will be right here waiting for you!”

Then we got two photos of their family for each boy to carry with him on the trip. Miles was reassured. I knew that if he got through this, he was going to have a big accomplishment in his repertoire that would help him deal with other emotional transitions he’d have to make in the future.

What if when Miles had started to cry, I had handed him a phone app to play with to distract him from his sadness, or offered a Dora the Explorer episode to watch on my computer to cheer him up? It’s so easy to reach for this solution and it’s a sure success. But is it interfering with our longer term goals of helping our kids develop inner resilience and social skills? I’ve become concerned that many children today are learning to cope with their feelings and relationships by distraction, and that screens of all kinds have become easy substitutes for the inner life experiences and personal interactions children need to have.

What Guidance Can We Find?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity recommend keeping children under the age of two as screen-free as possible and limiting screen time for older children. I think this is a standard we should aim for. And as we try to limit screen time, we can do a lot to foster our children’s play as well. Children need uninterrupted playtime every day. The chance to play with materials that are open-ended will encourage the deepest, most creative and expanded play possible.

We can avoid buying electronic toys, games and apps as much as possible. If a child is playing with an electronic game, we can try to introduce a more open-ended material. such as blocks. I did this the other day with Evan, a 3 year old who was visiting us. It was hard to get him away from his mom’s computer, but when I pulled out some construcion toys, Evan jumped at the chance to start building.

When our kids are involved with any toy or material, we can ask ourselves, “What is the potential of this activity for fostering imaginative play and creative problem solving? Is there a more beneficial, more fully engaging, direct experience available for my child right now?”

Not long ago, a parent asked me if I thought the computer game calledConcentration was good for her 4-year-old daughter to play. “Well,” I answered, “I think the question is, could your daughter have a richer, fuller experience if she were playing the actual game of Concentration— if she were manipulating the picture cards, matching them, lining them up and sorting them, playing the game with another person instead of alone?”

Finally, as we try to make wise choices in using technology, we can ask ourselves: When and why do I choose to use screens with children? We can remember that our kids grow socially and emotionally by interacting with us and through direct experiences with others, and make sure we aren’t bypassing important everyday social and emotional “lessons” by how we use screens.

The fact that parents today have the option of so much technology can seem like both a gift and a curse. At certain times and in certain situations, when no other choice seems right, we can breathe a sigh of relief that we have a screen activity available to us. But at other times, we can agonize because our kids are begging for screen time and we want to see them engage in more beneficial activities. Trying to follow the AAP Guidelines is often challenging and takes a lot more effort than the “quick tech fix.” But remembering what we know about how kids learn and grow helps to guide us. And our own ingenuity and inventiveness as parents is the best and sometimes most untapped resource of all.

Celebrating Maria Montessori

Reading with my children has always been one of my most treasured times.  While we lived in China, I found these great websites where we discovered these amazing stories--all for free.  I thought I would share them with you because they truly are wonderful...Amber

http://www.mainlesson.com/main/displayarticle.php?article=mission
http://www.tonightsbedtimestory.com
http://www.gutenberg.org

Reading Aloud: a Gift That Keeps on Giving

by Donna Bryant Goertz | Montessori Blog

4 Comments

We know that one of the very best things any parent can do for their child’s development in reading is to read aloud to the child. Over the years, many parents and former students have told us stories of their experience reading and being read to. What these stories tell us is that reading aloud together is far more than just a support for reading development; it can be a vital and deeply cherished time in which parents and children explore the world together through books and conversation. Here are a few of the stories we have heard.

▪   She was twenty and she told us that her mom had read aloud to her every night till she went off to university. The first time she came home for a visit her mom kissed her and said goodnight. “Wait,” she said to her mom, “we can’t go to bed till you read to me!” And so their custom continued, but over time it evolved into each of them alternating to read to the other from their current book.

▪   A mom told us she went to visit her son in the large house he shared with a couple of other college students. Her son had told her to be sure to bring along the book she was reading so they could sit together in the evenings and read as they had always done in their family.

▪   A mom of three children, five, eight and eleven years old, told me she read aloud to each of them every evening for half hour from their own book. I wondered that she could squeeze out an hour and a half a day for reading aloud. She said, “Are you kidding? Looking forward to that hour and a half devoted to reading and to devoting time to each child is what keeps me going!”

▪   Keeping reading aloud going all through the years at home gives parents a strong connection with their child in relation to all aspects of life. One mom told me that, to her eleven year-old’s delight, she had just finished reading aloud Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which had provoked from her child a constant stream of questions on the history and lifestyles of the period, to say nothing of the vigorous vocabulary and the long and complex sentence structures. Her child had requested that they next delve into the Bible and Shakespeare to see how far they could get. Reading aloud is a powerful foundation for the study of art, history, current events and literature for middle school years and beyond.

▪   One dad, a doctor, told us he continued reading aloud to his daughter through middle school. He said he couldn’t imagine how else he could have comfortably held the long, complicated discussions with her about life and character, love and relationships, that meant so much to their father daughter bond and her future as an independent adult making her way in the world. All those literary characters, situations and plots made it possible for him to broach subjects with her objectively and openly and made it possible for her to listen comfortably and take in just what she needed, when she needed it. He said reading aloud is much more valuable and more deeply meaningful in a parent child relationship than simple support for a child’s reading level and love of books.

One last benefit of regular read-aloud at home: it supports the child’s work at school. When parents continue reading aloud to their child two years above the child’s own reading level, not only is family time filled with rich companionship and fine discussions, but also the child’s mind is filled with appropriate subject matter for research and projects at school with work partners.

Dallas Cityscape Fundraiser

"Parents: Please go to Galleria Dallas and visit Dallas Cityscape, an exhibit featuring the Dallas skyline made entirely from Legos, and including a Lego play area. It costs $5 per person and is a fundraiser benefitting the East Dallas Community Schools, which includes our own Lindsley Park Community School. More information at www.dallascityscape.com  If you are interested, Laura Santillan has a limited supply of free tickets, one per family. Additionally, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are buy-one-get-one free through Labor Day September 3, 2012." 

Article on Sleep for Children

Infants, toddlers and young children spend a lot of time sleeping. As William Sears says, "this is not just time when they disconnect from their caregiving world." (Sears, The Discipline Book ) During sleep, children still learn -- about themselves, their parents and caregivers, and about what happens at night. Helping our children to develop healthy sleeping rituals will aid in their ability to fall asleep and sleep soundly, and will give them habits they can carry with them throughout their lives.

When developing or evaluating your sleep ritual, it is important to remember that babies and young children sleep differently than adults. Grown-ups can go to sleep relatively easily (assuming we aren't worrying about something, or have big, exciting plans for the next day). We lay our head on the pillow, close our eyes and off we go into dreamland. Some of us read or take a hot bath to wind ourselves down.

Babies and young children go through a long phase of light sleep before they fall into a deeper sleep. (We are often so surprised how easily we wake them unintentionally, when other times they seem to sleep so soundly!) Helping children relax and settle down often challenges our patience because it takes time, longer than we would like. It is often unrealistic to expect most babies and toddlers to lie down and fall asleep when we're ready for them to sleep, without any assistance from us in the process. Babies, toddlers, and even young children need to be parented to sleep. And often they will need to be parented back to sleep during the night if they awaken.

Children's sleep habits, like much of their other behavior, is more a result of their temperament than our parenting techniques or style. Some children even from early infancy are "easy" sleepers -- they fall asleep without a fuss. Other children need a lot of help to relax into sleep and may wake often in the night. It is difficult -- if not impossible -- to "train" an easy temperament pattern of behavior onto a high need temperament child. As parents, we want to develop patterns that reflect the personality and needs of each individual, and help support them in learning how to fall asleep.

One of our critical jobs as parents is to help our children learn that sleep is a pleasant state to be in -- not something to be afraid of. Our bedtime rituals should be clear in their messages. The bed should be a safe place at all times; and therefore "going to bed" should never be used as punishment or as a threat for misbehavior. We need to be careful about mixing messages: tickling can become overwhelming for some children; "I love you some much I'll eat you up" is a confusing, contradictory message. Reading scary stories can result in nightmares. Going to sleep angry is never good for anyone. And when we give our physical love -- hugs, kisses -- it is a good idea to give them straight -- unadulterated by other conditions and games. As Montessori says "the child is sensitive and impressionable to such a degree that the adult ought to monitor everything he says and does, for everything is literally engraved in the child's mind." (Montessori, The Child in the Family )

In our house, we have a very simple routine for bedtime, which is 8:00 PM. Like many parents, we have choice built into the ritual, to support our daughter Sarah in her growing independence and in order to respect her changing needs and desires. Sarah chooses whether she wants to go to sleep in the "big bed" or her low bed; then chooses one book to read. We close the curtains, lower the lights, and turn on the "sound machine". Then we lay down together and read the book she has selected from her nighttime reading shelf. This low shelf contains books that are pre-selected by me as "suitable" for night reading. These books have repetition or counting or are about animals going to sleep. They are the tried and true classics -- books like Good Night Moon, which have helped lull numerous children to sleep. Her favorite at one year was Ten, Nine, Eight, by Molly Bang. We spent the summer on Hush Little Baby (the new version by Sylvia Long). A recent discovery is What Mommies do Best/What Daddies do Best, by Laura Numeroff and Lynn Munsinger. And she just adores Inch By Inch, The Garden Song by David Mallett (which we sing).

Usually she chooses the same book night after night for a few weeks in a row. A house rule is that she must keep her head on the pillow, while I read to her. When we finish the book, we lay quietly, breathing together, and we slowly relax together until she falls asleep. The routine usually takes about 20 minutes.
I should note however, that we have a longer sequence leading up to the bedtime ritual: at around 5:30 or 6:00 PM Sarah eats her dinner at her low table, then we clean up together. After she washes her hands, we spend a good hour or longer reading as many books as she wants from her daytime reading shelf in the Living Room, or singing songs, or drawing with crayons. Around 7:30 PM she has a bath, and brushes her teeth. After bath, she knows it is time to put on P.J.s and get ready for bed. I find the sequence works very well for us because Sarah gets a lot of time one-on-one with me in the early evening, and we're not struggling over her going to bed. I know she gets a lot of good quality reading at some point in the day. And when bedtime does come -- the reading serves as a gateway to relaxing and slowing down. Our ritual works very well for us because I can give her a lot of attention; I'm not rushing around getting dinner ready for the grown ups or other children, and it gives her plenty of time to work out extra energy and calm down as the sun sets in the sky.

A ritual helps children learn what is expected of them and helps them to feel safe because nothing is a surprise. According to Montessori, "a child needs peaceful sameness in order to construct his inner life." (Montessori, A Child in the Family ) At the Children's Center, we use many rituals throughout the day to help create a structure which defines what comes next for the children. The sequence, not the clock or the caregiver, lets the children know what follows what. This helps improve their concentration, develop independent thinking, organize their thoughts, mind and body, and, helps us move the children along to the next activity. At home, sequences are useful too. The child quickly learns that after I brush my teeth, I will take a bath, then I will have a foot rub, and then bedtime.

Predictability and routine help children gain a sense of mastery and security. By knowing what comes next, the child is able to predict what will happen and can take an active rather than passive part of her own caretaking. Current research shows that repeated experiences make physical changes in the brain and affect the physical, cognitive and emotional development. Your routines and rituals do matter for your child's developing personality.

Rituals have ground rules -- for example, no reading after 9:00 PM, no back rubs on the big bed, only one glass of water at bedtime, etc. --- and it is important to enforce your ground rules. As William Sears notes, "Establish rules but at the same time create conditions that make the rules easier to follow. Children need boundaries. They won't thrive or survive without limits; neither will their parents.... This involves setting wise limits and providing structure." (Sears, The Discipline Book)

Children will push and test limits. If you find your bedtime ritual getting longer and longer (as I did), you may need to try to find another part of the day to give your child the extra attention he is asking for -- and needs. Perhaps first thing in the morning or early evening after supper. Focused time earlier in the day or evening may satisfy the child of his need for your attention. Pay attention to the needs of your child at bedtime. It can tell you a great deal about what is going on for your child.

Montessori teaches us of the important of respecting the child. We need, therefore, to treat our children with respect and dignity at bedtime, too. We want our children to know we are there for them, and this is so critical at night. We can give them dignity at bedtime by including them in the process and respecting them as individuals. Bedtime becomes a special time: of quiet, peace and love between two people.
Many parents started a routine early infancy -- although these often evolved and changed as the child grew and their needs changed. For many, a warm bath signals the end of day. For others, it is soothing music, such as Mozart, playing in the background.

Choice also comes into play in many of the rituals, thus giving children a sense of control, and conveying respect. Some families have the children choose who puts them to bed, or the location for sleeping. For many, the choice of which book or books to read is left to the children; other children enjoy being told a story about their birth, their grandparents, their parents wedding, or a topic of interest.

Elizabeth gets a special choice on weekends, she can choose between going to bed in her own bed or Mommy and Daddy's bed.

For Eero, the bedtime ritual ends with a song, either Hush A Bye, which his mother sang to him as an infant, or Tender Shepherd, which his grandmother sang to his mother as a child.

For Eli, repetition and reminder is helpful. Eli and his mother say a Hebrew prayer and then an English prayer of thanks. Then, she reminds him that after the second time of the Hebrew prayer they will be saying good night. They say the Hebrew prayer again, and hug and kiss each other "night night."

There is no one right way to help every child go to sleep -- different experts offer different approaches -- from the family bed on one end; to the Ferber method of having the child cry it out on the other. Whatever you do, it's best to find a routine or ritual that works well foreveryone involved: one that is easy enough for you to carry out both on days where you are tired and on days when all is well; and one that treats your child with the respect and dignity she deserves. Your ritual should be one that you feel good about, one that you want your child to pass on to his child; and even, one that you can look forward to each night.

Going to sleep can be a time of quiet closeness and intimacy at the end of a hectic day. It can be a special moment of peace: a time for you and your child to snuggle in together, say a prayer, reflect on the day. It can be a time of wholeness: a time to let each other know how much you love each other and that all is okay, safe and sound.

Moving On Ceremony, 2012

Interesting article on Montessori...

What exactly is Montessori education? By Emily Bazelon | Posted Saturday, May 19, 2007, at 7:29 AM ET | Posted Saturday, May 19, 2007, at 7:29 AM ET

Slate.com

The Cult of the Pink Tower

Montessori turns 100—what the hell is it?

When Maria Montessori docked in New York on her first trip to America in 1913, crowds greeted her ship and her arrival made the front pages. Montessori, Italy's first woman doctor, was toasted as a revolutionary educator. By the end of her visit a few weeks later, "It seemed reasonable to suppose that American education would never be the same again," Rita Kramer writes in Maria Montessori: A Biography.

Instead, interest in Montessori's method withered in the United States. When she decided to leave Italy in 1934 because Mussolini's regime was interfering with her schools, Montessori decamped to Holland. While her reform movement had influence in Europe and Asia, Kramer writes how it "took on more and more of the character of a special cult rather than becoming part of the mainstream of educational theory and practice."

It took the free spirit of the 1960s to revive Montessori education in the United States. Montessori herself had died a decade earlier, but her emphasis on children's "absorbent minds" and their capacity to teach themselves aligned with the era's rebellion against school's traditional strictures. Montessori classrooms, with their silver candlesticks (for polishing), beautiful toylike cubes, and child-size shelves and bins, seemed like the perfect romantic alternative to boring workbooks and rows of desks. They still do.Mothering Magazine, my own barometer of granola parenting gone too far, calls them "magical" and filled with a "sense of wonder." On the 100^th anniversary of the 1907 opening of Montessori's first school—in the slums of Rome—5,000 schools devoted to her method dot the United States, with another 17,000 worldwide. Many are preschools, but some are for older kids as well.

Montessori would have expected no less, as she became quite the grande dame in her later years. But she would not be pleased about the confusion that continues to surround her method. In many ways, Montessori education remains a cult: No one outside the fold (and lots of families inside it) really knows what exactly it is. The fog of magic and romance obscures the key to a Montessori classroom: It's all about structure and framework and purpose. Maria Montessori might have called the child "an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form," but far more important, in the end, is a different canny insight of hers: Those splendid kids crave order.

My son Simon, who is 4, has spent the year at a Montessori school in Bethesda, Md., and I confess that I have remained one of the clueless. This is partly because parents aren't part of the scene in his classroom: We drop the kids off outside the door and are tolerated inside rarely and briefly. In the beginning, this was disconcerting. The night before Simon's first day of school, I worried about the next morning's sudden drop-off—it felt semiabusive. But when Simon started trotting off to school without complaint and chattering about the pink tower and the movable alphabet, I switched to congratulating myself for having chosen well, if blindly.

This week, I got permission to show up and watch. Promptly at 9 a.m., Simon's teacher clapped her hands, stared down my son and his friends, who were chortling over a book of Star Wars stickers, and said, "Gentlemen, it's time to get into our work." The "work" thing is one of Maria Montessori's quirks—she thought children's imaginary play was a waste of time. For months, I made fun of it. But you know what? The kids don't. Within minutes, two dozen of them were dispersed around the room, intent on their morning's pursuit.

Simon's friend Caleb set to work on a "long sevens chain," which is a chain built from increments of beads separated into groups of seven. Caleb marked his progress with little number tabs. He'd gotten up to 294 and figured out that 301 came next. A girl named Sailor took out the pink tower, a collection of different sized pink cubes, and stacked it. Nicholas wrote "spyder" and "fly" and "prayin mant" with the movable alphabet. Each letter is a grippable 3-inch rubber cutout, with blue for consonants and red for vowels. And Simon, my irrepressible, short-fused man of mischief, calmly rolled out a mat for himself on the floor, took out the "bank," and proceeded to match the number 3,987, which he'd constructed from short boards painted with numbers, to the correct combination of 1,000-unit cubes, 100- and 10-unit rectangles, and single-unit beads. (Click here to see photos of the materials.)

All of this activity proves my point about the Montessori method: It is structured, sometimes rigidly so. It's about the appeal of precision: Sailor's pink cubes fit together only in one way, so she instinctively corrected herself when she mis-stacked them. Montessori isn't magic. It's fine-tuned and detail-driven and tactile, like a workshop for two dozen good-humored but serious young elves.

Last fall, the prestigious Science gave its pages to a well-designed study that found some measurable advantages for the Montessori method. The researchers compared 59 Montessori students with 53 kids who'd tried to get in to a public Montessori school in Wisconsin and lost out in a lottery (a strategy that addressed the methodological concern that families who choose Montessori differ from those who don't). By the end of kindergarten, the Montessori students outscored the others on standardized tests of reading and math, treated each other better on the playground, and "showed more concern for fairness and justice." By the end of elementary school, the test-score gap closed. But the Montessori kids "wrote more creative essays with more complex sentence structures," responded better to social dilemmas, and were more likely to say they felt a sense of community at school.

The Wisconsin school in the study was urban and mostly minority. That's a contrast to the private and upscale cast of Montessori in the United States. But that norm is starting to change, with between 250 and 300 public Montessori schools now open across the country. Maria Montessori started her revolution among Italy's pauper children, so it makes sense that her method is effective without the head start of affluence. The biggest problem for American Montessori education at the moment may be about identification. Any school can call itself a Montessori school, which doesn't bode well for quality control. The real test of a school's worth is probably teacher training. Through various colleges and universities, the  Association Montessori Internationale offers full-time, nine-month courses for college graduates that are the hallmark of Montessori-ness. Simon's teacher says the one she went to was much harder than her college coursework.

The Montessori culture smacks faintly of indoctrination. But maybe it's that intensity, as well as Maria Montessori's basic wisdom that kids can teach themselves if they're operating within a sturdy framework, which accounts for the continuing appeal of her schools. Other alternative education movements imported from Europe are similarly self-assured. The Waldorf method, founded by Austrian scientist Rudolf Steiner in 1919, stresses uninterrupted imaginary play (take that, Maria), bans TV, and keeps students with the same teacher for seven years. The Reggio Emilia schools, a product of Italy post-World War II, stress long-term projects and an environment filled with beauty. The ardent adherents of each method keep it alive by keeping the faith. So, thanks, from the rest of us hangers-on. And see you in high school.

School 2.0

If you missed hearing Dr. Steven Hughes this past week, you are still in luck.

On March 5, 2012, he spoke with Kris Boyd on NPR.  Here is the link to their conversation:  http://www.kera.org/2012/03/05/11598/

Enjoy!

5 Things to Always Recycle

5 Things You Should Always Recycle

Chances are you're already recycling the cans, bottles, and paper that gets picked up at the curb, but what about all that other stuff that's lurking in your drawers or closets - like outdated gadgets and dead batteries - that you're not sure how to recycle? The following household items are especially important to donate or recycle because they contain materials that can contaminate the environment if they wind up in landfills or that can easily be reclaimed for use in new products. Here are some convenient ways to keep them out of the trash:

 According to the EPA, recycling just one computer CPU and one monitor is equivalent to preventing 1.35 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from being released and recycling one television prevents four to eight pounds of lead from being added to the waste stream. 

1. Electronics: All Office Depot, Staples, and Best Buy stores accept larger electronics like desktop computers for recycling for a small fee (usually $10) and smaller ones like cell phones and PDAs for free. Goodwill stores accept used computer equipment (some locations also accept televisions) for free.
   
   And you can earn RecycleBank Points by recycling MP3 players/iPods, laptops, and cell phones through our partners at Collective Good, FlipSwap, and Gazelle.
   
   Why: You'll keep toxic materials like lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and brominated flame retardants out of landfills. And useful materials will be recovered, saving energy and resources.


2. Rechargeable batteries: From cordless phones and power tools, digital cameras, and other gizmos - these can be recycled for free at 30,000 drop-off points nationwide, including retailers such as Home Depot, Lowe's, RadioShack, Sears, and Target. Enter your zip code at Call2Recycle to find one near you.
   
   Unfortunately, it's more difficult to find places to recycle alkaline (or single-use) batteries. Try Earth911 to find drop off locations or order a box (for $34.50, including prepaid shipping) from Battery Solutions and send them up to 12 pounds of alkaline and/or rechargeable batteries for recycling.
   
   Why: Like many electronics, batteries contain heavy metals and other chemicals best kept out of the waste stream. Plus, recyclers reclaim metals from them that are used to make, for example, new batteries and steel.


3. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs, but they contain a small amount of mercury and shouldn't be thrown in the trash. Take them to any Ikea or Home Depot store for recycling or go to Lamp Recycle to find other drop off locations near you.
   
   Why: CFLs in landfills can break and release mercury, a neurotoxin, into the environment.



4. Plastic Bags: Even if you've switched to reusable bags for your shopping, you probably have a bunch of these stored in your home. Luckily, lots of retailers like Wal-Mart, Safeway, Albertsons, Wegmans, Krogers, and Giant now have bins where you can recycle plastic grocery bags (and newspaper, drycleaning, bread, and sealable food storage bags). To find a drop off location near you, go to Plastic Bag Recycling or Earth911.
   
   Why: They're made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and when thrown away they take a very long time to decompose. Recyclers will turn them into new products like plastic lumber.


5. Anything you don't need that could be of great value to others — for instance, you can donate your used prescription glasses to the nonprofit OneSight at any LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sunglass Hut, Target Optical, or Sears Optical location (or go to One Sight for more locations near you). You can also donate unused, unexpired medications including antibiotics, pain relievers, and others by mailing them to the Health Equity Project. The glasses and medications will be distributed to people in need in developing countries.

Keep in mind that you should always recycle hazardous substances like paint, pesticides, propane gas tanks, and motor oil at your town's household hazardous waste collection events or permanent collection center. Go to Earth911or call 1-800-CLEANUP to find collection sites and events.