Great stuff!

* Baby babble is key!

* How much iphone for preschoolers?

* TRULY inspiring educational TEDtalk

* Baby fitness?

hello

News round up

Some (most?) adults need a PreK refresher on how and why we wash our hands!

Taking seriously children who have anxiety and miss much school from refusing.

Much-overdue news roundup!

Amazing eye-tracking studies suggest that infants know a lot about the world, are very capable of acting on what they've seen.

Important study about how poverty and depression among mothers (which really affects children?)

How much safety, how much freedom to give kids?

The hilarity of The Onion speaks about children and the media :).

More spots for PreKers = great!

Sounds like college staff have to be like PreK teachers--dealing with the same 1 day blues!

A world without children?

AMAZING

Podcast/news radio report about France's preschools. Lovely story! I want to have my students sleep in little beds!

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones (be still, my blogging heart) is the best in liberal thought/coverage of the DC political scene. Naturally, he's plugging PreK here :)

I'm sure every single person on the face of the planet has read the Kindergarten article...however, read it again. It's lovely and true. Check it out here.

We know preschool changes the brain. Now the readers of the pop science Wired do too--yeah!

Multimedia presentations from the Early Ed Watch...check out this podcast and this video (bit hard to see).

Kids are always being accused of being spoiled by silly parents. These are old accusations, the article proves...and silly. I am guilty of sometimes using the "kids these days" argument--consider this an apology.

June news round up - must reads!

* Did the Anti-Vaccine Movement Help Create Whooping Cough Epidemic? (Mother Jones). Note: there is not a proven link between these two, but rather than interesting point of discussion. Read more here.

* How can we turn around schools? What can money do? Can you replicate? (NYTimes) Check it out!

* Should kids have best friends? How to build teamwork, not cliques? Read here and then discuss.

* A really important article about how the system works to serve or not serve the most disabled students.

* Marketed to kids, but really for the sad parents. Toy Story 3 discourse!

FDA says to limit BPA intake

Click here for a video--and send it to someone else.

Must-reads!

* This is a much-talked about article about "The Moral Life of Babies" from the Yale infant cognition center--make sure to watch the video, too!

* Fairness of charter funding in DC? Read on.

* Top ten choking hazards? All parents and teachers should be aware! Read more here.

* Great discussion of the affects of day care on children, listen here.

* More here about autism discussion:

Autism Associated With Infertility Drugs

Mothers of those with autism have always wondered whether they could have done something to prevent their child from getting the disorder. Is it something they did? Oprah-backed Jenny McCarthy made a second career of sorts by claiming that vaccines were the culprit. (She has since dialed back her accusations.) New research has found something else is to blame entirely. Autism is nearly twice as common among the children of women who were treated with infertility drugs, a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health found. Presented on Wednesday at the International Meeting for Autism Research, the study showed that the longer women were treated by Clomid and similar drugs, the more likely it was that their child would be autistic. The study included nearly 4,000 women. "Preterm delivery, low birth rate, twinning and maternal age are all associated with infertility treatment and they are all associated with the risk of autism," Lisa Croen, senior research scientist with Kaiser Permanente and director of its Autism Research Program, told Time. "We need to understand how to tease these factors apart." A second, smaller, study presented on Wednesday found an association between in vitro fertilization and autism. More than 10 percent of autistic children that the second study looked at were the result of in vitro fertilization, whereas only between 3 percent and 4 percent of children in the general population are the product of IVF.

the latest and greatest

Interesting article about auditory processing disorder and how it might affect children.

Updates

* I love this article about how young children can lead an examined life.

* Finland's schools have been getting lots of amazing press lately, like this article.

Must-read....

news round-up.

I'm sending this article to my families, to remind them that no one is perfect, but what we do matters. Read it here.

Healthy, safe lunches!! More of it!

Latest and Greatest News Roundup

- More discourse on recess (or lack thereof). I really understand why with precious recess time slipping away, schools are seeking to give more structure to students' physical movement. But with a total loss of unstructured time, what are the risks for today's students? Read the original article here and then some of the discussion here.

- All-new Shel Silverstein Poetry Collection is coming in 2011! He apparently wrote many, many more poems he edited out of his collections....get excited! Read about it here.

- Junk science or exciting, innovative help for kids? I'm unsure, check it out for yourself.

- This AMAZING radiolab story is a must--listen here. It's all about how children (very young infants, actually) think in logarithms. In other words, humans innately recognize more (the basis of logarithms.) Babies can tell the difference between 1 and 2, 8 and 16. Of course, 7 and 8--the difference there is fuzzier. Fascinating stuff about how our brains --and very young children's--is actually wired for math.

- The Daily Show does it better than anyone else--watch more about how the Texas curriculum committee is going to affect American education.

Great stuff...

Check out this Radiolab report on how young children think in logarithms--check it out here!

This Atlanta Journal-Constitution blog post advocates for eliminating the senior year of high school and instead putting the money into early childhood. I am not sure about the throwing 17-year-olds into the world, but huge vote of confidence for us!

Charter school arguments in NYC here.

This article gives teachers like me nightmares. Glad all is safe and sound.

Framing Childhood

I am not a parent, but I related to the obsessive collection of photography as the parents in this article. My co-teacher and I love our photos! Check out the article here.

Colbert Report

You MUST check out this Colbert Report clip. Starting at 2:30, he's discussing how people are claiming global warming can't be real because of the record snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic. Yes, he says, this is based on "observational research. Whatever just happened is the only that is happening, just ask and peek-a-boo-ologist," flashing to a picture of a cute infant. Ah, good child development in pop culture.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
We're Off to See the Blizzard
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Pediatrician perspective on helping parents

This is a great article--I've just been chatting with two future pediatricians about this very topic. Pediatricians are very much on the front line of helping parents decide if their child is meeting essential early milestones. Early intervention is key--I hope all parents and pediatricians see this article.

Applauding Michelle's 'moves'

I was excited to see Michelle Obama's announcement about her "Let's Move" campaign against childhood obesity. Huge problem, so important. Read more from the Post's excellent Robin Givhan HERE. Read the (crazy) naysayers here.

News round up in the snow

Toothbrushing in early childhood

Read the NYTimes article here. I found the tone of the article annoying (gee, golly, my child/classroom is afflicted by the government by encouraging good oral hygiene) but the message exciting. I was thrilled to here that Massachusetts (which, let's face it, I'm not happy with right now) is taking a leadership role in requiring toothbrushing in early care centers, preschools and PreK. I thought the article didn't emphasize the horrifying stat that 1 in 4 Mass. kindergarteners has dental disease. When I was in Head Start, we brushed teeth everyday and while it might have been logistically not my favorite activity, my students LOVED it.

I've considered tooth brushing at my school now, but the day seems so rushed. I feel inspired to order us a toothbrushing kit for next school year. In a parent teacher conference this year, I've had several depressing conversations trying to convince parents that actually baby teeth do matter to the health of their future adult teeth, and that pulling out bad teeth isn't the only solutions dentists can offer (to a parent who is afraid). I can do something in my classroom....and let's be real, I'm sure my dentist would be happier, too, if I was brushing an additional time during the school day.

Play, then Eat; Shift May Bring Gains at School

I loved this article. I always love when simple, common sense policy seems to be spreading in American public schools. It's easy to feel defeat....but take that, obesity epidemic, take that no-recess principals! The norm: lunch, then recess. The solution: recess, then lunch. Kids eat healthier, lose less instruction time, feel better about themselves, etc. In my classroom we go outside (or gross motor play inside) directly before eating--I also find my kids work up more of an appetite for trying new foods!

Disappointing words from Rhee

I feel disappointed by Michelle Rhee, the DC school chancellor's words (read more here). Rhee's become the educational reform movement's main girl and the source of hope for many. I'd like to be confident in her leadership, I'd like to know what she says means something for children. This article points to some disappointing accusations she's making against the fired teachers. I'd like to believe that this is the case--many fired teachers needed to be pushed out. However, I know of several teachers who were the exact opposite--excited, motivated, working hard. She would be better served by throwing excuses around and working to motivate the teachers currently in place.

Scary data about technology and kids

I found this article to be accurate and frightening. Check it out for yourself here. The article points to what else is loosing out--free play, exercise, reading, imaginative scenarios and play with siblings, neighbors and parents. Here are some recent quotes from some of my students while journaling: "This is a movie about chipmunks. This is the boy chipmunk, he loves one of the boy chipmunks." "This is the movie the Princess and The Frog, the princess kisses the frog and then there are two frogs" "This is showing how many lives I have because I keep getting killed" (refering to a video game) "This town isn't big enough for the both of us" (to other student!) "This is my light saber" (using a fork). I don't find any of this particularly distressing--they can use their imaginations, they can retell stories. What is scary is these are the richest and most frequent forms of communication--with their peers, with their drawing, with their imagination.

What can we as educators do to better address the use of technology with families? How can we provide very real alternatives to busy parents? What are legitimate competitors to interested children?

Hilarious article

* Hilarious, must-read article: The Onion never lets you down. Here, academics debate whether the relationship between a horse and caterpillar was exploited for a children's book. Read it here.

Eating snacks?

* The obsession with snack time? Read the NYTimes article here where the author argues that adults are far to co-dependent and obsessed with ensuring children have constant snacks available for possibly hungry children. I loved this article, because parents are often horrified to find we don't serve snack during our school day. Several other classrooms do a handful of goldfish, for instance. We serve breakfast (which for children who eat breakfast at home, is a snack) between 9:00-9:30 and eat lunch at 12:30. We have a busy morning, no activities we would want to cut short for our children--morning meeting, hour of centers, story, outdoor, bathroom twice. In the afternoon, our students either go to aftercare, where they get a snack or home, where they could get a snack. We find our students eat more of their lunch and learn to try different foods at breakfast snack. We don't mean to deny anyone--we don't want our children do truly be hungry! We find the complaint time is in the 30 minutes before lunch when we are walking back from the playground to wash hands and eat--sort of a good time to be hungry! We find our students adjust in a few weeks (just as they do to being away from home, bathroom schedule, etc).

Support Donorschoose.org!

I have been lucky enough to have several projects funded on donorschoose.org. If you haven't ever gone on, try it--you can find any classroom you like? Hhm, "East Coast city" "Prek" "charter" = look, you could have given money to me! What do you want to give? A rug? Books? FIND IT ALL HERE.

New Year's must-read article roundup

1. This is an amazing, while hard-to-read, article. Check it out here. This really tracks the case of child abuse in American courts--this child's case was actually first taken up by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (!) Really important and interesting development in the history of child abuse prevention and prosecution in America.

2. This article opens a discussion I'm not really interested in having. The author does a great job of laying out the reasons for government funding of child care: women are more likely to work and it will actually help make the US more competitive with other countries.

3. Newberry Medal award winner (chapter book, a bit outside my field)....read more here.

4.