My current experiment with veganism has made the idea of family dining (with healthy intentionality) a front and center priority and anxiety this winter as I push away the blue box of freeze-dried cheez and learn to love slow-cooking after a long day's work.
But I am happy to share some of my recipes for vegetarian success (the tales of failure will be out in paperback next year).
Quinoa and Roasted Mushrooms
Core 6-8 crimini muchrooms (large, for stuffing, but not portabella size)
Chop stems and lightly saute with 2 minced garlic cloves. Stir in 1 tblsp pesto.
Brush mushroom caps with olive oil, stuff with sauteed stems/garlic. Roast in 375 oven for 45 minutes.
Prepare 1 cup dry quinoa according to box directions for water preparation, but add 2-3 whole garlic cloves to water. Fluff quinoa when finished and stir in 1/2 cup minced fresh basil.
Serve mushrooms over quinoa with steamed green beans. (My kids call this Cherokee rice (in honor of our Blue Holly clan) and clean their plate.
Mango-Pineapple Smoothie
1 cup each frozen pineapple and mango
1 banana
1 cup orange juice
Whir in blender until smooth and thick deliciousness.
(We just call it a milkshake and stop all arguments for ice cream.)
Broccoli Pancakes
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup minced onions (and a little minced garlic)
1 cup broccoli slaw
3 tblsp bread crumbs
Fold in all together and form into 6 small patties. Fry in 1 tsp canola oil over low-medium heat until golden brown each side. Can sprinkle with a little fresh parmesan or serve with marinara sauce on the side.
http://www.chopchopmag.org/recipes
Monday, January 30, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
HSH Parent Volunteering
It's January - midway - through our 12 month Home Sweet Home year. It is amazing the many varied and diverse ways HSH parents have chosen to have a meaningful impact on the Alternatives in Action learning community through their volunteerism.
A short list:
BUILDs
Parent Shares (Read-alouds, Music)
Errands and Purchasing
Event Management
Fundraising
Hiring Panels
Youth Mentors
Youth Trainers
Much gratitude for the hours of thoughtful care and action!
A short list:
BUILDs
Parent Shares (Read-alouds, Music)
Errands and Purchasing
Event Management
Fundraising
Hiring Panels
Youth Mentors
Youth Trainers
Much gratitude for the hours of thoughtful care and action!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Hi my name is Kimberly Esquivel one out of 10 big friends. I'm a Junior from Life Academy health & Bio-science.
I was questioning Ella and Marcus.
- Who was your partner? was he a good partner?
Ella: my partner was Zachary,"he was a good partner".
-did you see seals?how was the weather?
Ella: "yea i did saw seals my dad told me where they were".
Marcus: the weather was cold when you was outside but when you went inside it was very hot.
-what is a ferry boat?
Marcus: "is a boat that takes you to places".
I was questioning Ella and Marcus.
- Who was your partner? was he a good partner?
Ella: my partner was Zachary,"he was a good partner".
-did you see seals?how was the weather?
Ella: "yea i did saw seals my dad told me where they were".
Marcus: the weather was cold when you was outside but when you went inside it was very hot.
-what is a ferry boat?
Marcus: "is a boat that takes you to places".
Field Trip (Boats)
Hi my name is Maribel Sanchez. I'm a Junior at Life Academy. I got to bond with the kids at HSH and i learned a lot about them
On January 10, 2012 Ella and Zachary were interviewed about what they saw on the trip to San Francisco and how they thought it went, they both had different and interesting answers.
Ella
*What is a ferry ?
- "ferry is a boat that splashes"
*What did you see?
-"I was hungry"
*Who was your partner?
Zachary
*Did he help you out?
-"yeah he was nice"
Zachary
*What is a ferry ?
-"a ferry is you ride on something and sit on something and you see sea lions"
*What was your favorite part of the trip?
-"i played i spy on the boat "
On January 10, 2012 Ella and Zachary were interviewed about what they saw on the trip to San Francisco and how they thought it went, they both had different and interesting answers.
Ella
*What is a ferry ?
- "ferry is a boat that splashes"
*What did you see?
-"I was hungry"
*Who was your partner?
Zachary
*Did he help you out?
-"yeah he was nice"
Zachary
*What is a ferry ?
-"a ferry is you ride on something and sit on something and you see sea lions"
*What was your favorite part of the trip?
-"i played i spy on the boat "
Field Trip Notes
Hi my name is Janet Cerna and I am a new big friend for Home Sweet Home. I am a Senior at Life Academy of Health and Bio Science that is located in Oakland.
On Tuesday January 12,2012 the children when to a field trip to San Francisco on a ferry. We asked the children their opinions about the field trip and here is what they had to say.
Q: Who was your partner? And what did you guys do?
A: "Marcus was my partner, We had lots of fun". - Maile
"Maile because she is my best friend". - Marcus
Q:How was the weather while you guys were in the ferry?
A: "It was super cold". -Maile
"Very cold outside very hot inside". -Jack
"Hot".-Roawn
Q:What did you guys watch on your way to San Francisco?
A: I didn't saw anything ask Marcus.- Maile
A lot of people.- Ella
On Tuesday January 12,2012 the children when to a field trip to San Francisco on a ferry. We asked the children their opinions about the field trip and here is what they had to say.
Q: Who was your partner? And what did you guys do?
A: "Marcus was my partner, We had lots of fun". - Maile
"Maile because she is my best friend". - Marcus
Q:How was the weather while you guys were in the ferry?
A: "It was super cold". -Maile
"Very cold outside very hot inside". -Jack
"Hot".-Roawn
Q:What did you guys watch on your way to San Francisco?
A: I didn't saw anything ask Marcus.- Maile
A lot of people.- Ella
Fieldtrip thoughts
Hello there, I'm Jessica Lindoro I'm one of Home Sweet Home's big friends. And I'm an 18 year old senior at Life Academy of Health and Bio Science.
On Tuesday January 10th, 2011 while out on the playground I asked the children a few questions about their field trip on a ferry to San Francisco.
I heard you got on a ferry today, what's that? And how was it?
"The boat takes you places, Like different islands."
-Marcus
"They're for water"
-Ella
"It's all types of colors"
-Matan
-Marcus
"They're for water"
-Ella
"It's all types of colors"
-Matan
Is there anything special or cool you got to see in the water?
"We got to see a sting ray, in the back we saw a sting ray but Maile didn't get to see it."
-Marcus
"I saw kind of a seal, a sea lion!"
-Ella
"We saw a seal on the dock!"
-Matan
How big were the ships? And what are they for?
-Marcus
"I saw kind of a seal, a sea lion!"
-Ella
"We saw a seal on the dock!"
-Matan
How big were the ships? And what are they for?
"Some were small and some were huge, they are for going places"
-Marcus
"Um, It's way bigger than the other things, and a mountain"
-Matan
-Marcus
"Um, It's way bigger than the other things, and a mountain"
-Matan
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Preschool Education
As new parents begin exploring their preschool options, Home Sweet Home receives questions on the angst of the age: Kindergarten Readiness. How do we best articulate our point of view of the Whole Child and our strong belief that play is the essential component in Early Childhood Education to the development of a physically and mentally healthy child who possesses self-initiated inquiry and exploration to construct her own knowledge? Our truth is centered in strong research.
http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/reggiochildren.htm
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Health_brief.pdf
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Kindergarten_8-page_summary.pdf
http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/issues/inschools.html
Parent desire to make strong, positive choices for their children is often preyed upon by expert marketers who seek to capitalize on adult anxieties. This has pushed forward an agenda for testing that has created a surge of big business opportunities (the Educational Testing Service alone has over 50 million dollars in contracts with the State of California) obscured by a national dialogue on accountability that has attacked children, parents and teachers in turn for not doing enough or being smart enough. In essence, we continue to try to fatten the goat by weighing it.
Parents have a right and responsibility to know what and how their children learn. Preschool success is the careful vetting to assure a good fit for the child AND parent with the learning community. New parents - please ask, ask, ASK how Home Sweet Home partners with families to ensure healthy children. Kindergarten Readiness is everything the child experiences every day, in and out of preschool.
(Child Care Exchange Jan 3, 2012)
Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms provides strategies for promoting language and literacy, science, socio-emotional development, math, body competence, creative arts, and visual/spatial development in nature. In demonstrating how literacy can flourish outdoors, the book observes...
"When children are first learning to read, they seem to use all of their visual ability to essentially 'photograph' words, seeing print as a whole. They next begin to understand that words can be broken into parts (letters or graphemes) and that those parts represent spoken sounds (phonemes). As children figure out the process of connecting letters to sounds, experiences in outdoor classrooms can support their understanding of these whole- to-part relationships, which occur in abundance in nature. Experiences in the natural world can also facilitate letter discrimination, which is an important step in developing both reading and writing fluency. Encouraging children to recognize patterns and shapes in nature is an especially effective early reading and writing activity.
It is interesting to note, as Ellen Galinsky does in her book Mind in the Making, that all the world's languages have an amazing regularity in the number of times that intersections (like Ts, Ls and Xs) are present in the shape of letters. Fascinatingly, those shapes with intersections occur at the same rate in natural scenes as they do in written language. So, an activity like taking young children on an outdoors 'shape walk' not only helps them to see patterns in the natural world, it also helps with later letter recognition. Providing natural materials such as twigs and logs (that contain many naturally occurring shapes) is also a great way to help children think about the alphabet."
(Early Childhood Exchange Jan 3 2012)
http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/reggiochildren.htm
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Health_brief.pdf
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Kindergarten_8-page_summary.pdf
http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/issues/inschools.html
Parent desire to make strong, positive choices for their children is often preyed upon by expert marketers who seek to capitalize on adult anxieties. This has pushed forward an agenda for testing that has created a surge of big business opportunities (the Educational Testing Service alone has over 50 million dollars in contracts with the State of California) obscured by a national dialogue on accountability that has attacked children, parents and teachers in turn for not doing enough or being smart enough. In essence, we continue to try to fatten the goat by weighing it.
Parents have a right and responsibility to know what and how their children learn. Preschool success is the careful vetting to assure a good fit for the child AND parent with the learning community. New parents - please ask, ask, ASK how Home Sweet Home partners with families to ensure healthy children. Kindergarten Readiness is everything the child experiences every day, in and out of preschool.
(Child Care Exchange Jan 3, 2012)
Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms provides strategies for promoting language and literacy, science, socio-emotional development, math, body competence, creative arts, and visual/spatial development in nature. In demonstrating how literacy can flourish outdoors, the book observes...
"When children are first learning to read, they seem to use all of their visual ability to essentially 'photograph' words, seeing print as a whole. They next begin to understand that words can be broken into parts (letters or graphemes) and that those parts represent spoken sounds (phonemes). As children figure out the process of connecting letters to sounds, experiences in outdoor classrooms can support their understanding of these whole- to-part relationships, which occur in abundance in nature. Experiences in the natural world can also facilitate letter discrimination, which is an important step in developing both reading and writing fluency. Encouraging children to recognize patterns and shapes in nature is an especially effective early reading and writing activity.
It is interesting to note, as Ellen Galinsky does in her book Mind in the Making, that all the world's languages have an amazing regularity in the number of times that intersections (like Ts, Ls and Xs) are present in the shape of letters. Fascinatingly, those shapes with intersections occur at the same rate in natural scenes as they do in written language. So, an activity like taking young children on an outdoors 'shape walk' not only helps them to see patterns in the natural world, it also helps with later letter recognition. Providing natural materials such as twigs and logs (that contain many naturally occurring shapes) is also a great way to help children think about the alphabet."
(Early Childhood Exchange Jan 3 2012)
Monday, January 2, 2012
Essential Role for Adults to Play
(from Child Care Information Exchange January 2, 2012)
In their updated book The Play's the Thing: Teachers' Roles in Children's Play, Betty Jones and Gretchen Reynolds talk about "Why Teachers Play":
"Some teachers enter play spontaneously for their own pleasure or the children's. They take their cues from the children, and the relationship is one of mutuality. Other teachers intentionally guide play for teaching purposes. Inherent in the role of teacher as player is the risk that the adult will take over, directing play that then ceases to be the children's, or will attract children looking for adult attention.
"When is this risk appropriately taken? We believe it is at the beginnings, when children are still short on ideas for play in the school setting and/or skills for playing with materials and each other. There are several kinds of beginnings, including beginning child care as a young 3-year-old or entering a school culture that is different from one's home culture....
"Teachers of children who come to school unfamiliar with its materials, language, or play scripts may need to enter into play with children to build bridges from home culture to school culture. Children become competent with materials, not through directed practice but through exploratory play. Very young children, learning communication skills in their home language, as well as second and third language learners, become competent with oral language through spontaneous exploration of its sounds and its possibilities for communication. They become competent with scripts of their home, neighborhood, and cultural traditions by playing them."
In their updated book The Play's the Thing: Teachers' Roles in Children's Play, Betty Jones and Gretchen Reynolds talk about "Why Teachers Play":
"Some teachers enter play spontaneously for their own pleasure or the children's. They take their cues from the children, and the relationship is one of mutuality. Other teachers intentionally guide play for teaching purposes. Inherent in the role of teacher as player is the risk that the adult will take over, directing play that then ceases to be the children's, or will attract children looking for adult attention.
"When is this risk appropriately taken? We believe it is at the beginnings, when children are still short on ideas for play in the school setting and/or skills for playing with materials and each other. There are several kinds of beginnings, including beginning child care as a young 3-year-old or entering a school culture that is different from one's home culture....
"Teachers of children who come to school unfamiliar with its materials, language, or play scripts may need to enter into play with children to build bridges from home culture to school culture. Children become competent with materials, not through directed practice but through exploratory play. Very young children, learning communication skills in their home language, as well as second and third language learners, become competent with oral language through spontaneous exploration of its sounds and its possibilities for communication. They become competent with scripts of their home, neighborhood, and cultural traditions by playing them."
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