Hot!

Posted by msLaura at 12:03 AM | Permalink | | Comments (0)

Imagine if the US had TWELVE public radio stations covering everything from news to politics to culture, with a full range of music, from pop to classical, and didn't have to cram everything into NPR.

And imagine that all 12 would be available throughout the country, (no matter where you were, even out in the most rural areas!) and imagine that they didn't constantly have to interrupt the broadcast to beg for money.

Yeah, Radio France is pretty cool. http://www.radiofrance.fr/

It's good for practicing my French comprehension (which is rusty), but listening to the level of discourse (smart! unabashedly intellectual! no pandering to the base redneck mob!), the rich cultural offerings presented for the listener's appreciation and enjoyment (music, history, cuisine), and the real *international* news that we never hear about here in the US... I feel like i"m living in an impoverished second-tier country.

Instead we get multiple flavors of HBO, which cost close to $100 a month per household, and although some are good, in general it's a ripoff. We pay much, much more and get much less.

NPR is good, I mean, I'm completely grateful for it, but it would be really cool if *everyone* could get their programs on their radio stations for free, and could get it full-time, not just for a few hours a day because that's all the local alternative radio station could afford to buy.

Posted by msLaura at 09:57 AM | Permalink | | Comments (0)

This is the first of three science lessons on trees that I've prepared for the Kindergarten-1st grade science enrichment at Discovery Charter School. They do learning around themes, and TREES are the theme for fall. So be it. There is plenty of scientific learning to be done around trees. And since I got my B.S. (that's a Bachelor of Science degree, not Bull Shit) in Ecology with a Botany focus, and almost got my Masters in a similar area, yo...I got mad science skillz, y'all. Also, my student job for several years in a row at SFSU was setting up the General Biology labs each week with live and dead plants and animals, fungi, insects, body parts in jars, wall charts, printed materials, underlined textbooks, all kinds of crazy stuff. I loved that job. I also got to collect, organize and curate all those hundreds of curious things. Wonderful. Cute little cross-eyed planarians!

I'm putting up my lesson plan and materials because it might be useful to other people in a similar situation, and homeschoolers might want to use some or all of the lesson plan and materials with their kids. I'm teaching K/1 students, but I found that we only got to about 30% of the material in class. Kids were too squirrelly in the large group, we didn't have all the parent helpers we were supposed to have, and I overprepared as usual.

I think you could easily use this in a grade 2 or 3 setting, or even higher. I tried to focus on broad concepts. What is science? What is a tree? How do we get from trees? Then the class starts to explore leaves using some basic scientific skills: detailed observation, simple identification of species from leaf and seed specimens, leaf rubbings and drawings, descriptive terminology to describe kinds of leaves and parts of a leaf. Frankly, most adults don't know all this stuff. Anyone can do it and learn something about trees. Do *you* know all the parts of a leaf? Hmmm?

So first, the overall Lesson Plan. I think the best way to present this session is to simply hyperlink from the lesson plan. It's the core. From here you can access everything else.

------------------------------------------------
TREE UNIT: SESSION 1

Welcome to Science Enrichment! Who knows what science is?

· Science is observing the world around you...animals, plants, birds, insects, rocks, clouds, bacteria, water droplets, even outer space… and asking questions about these things and how they work.

· Now make a guess (hypothesis) at a possible answer to your question, and design an experiment to test if that answer could be right or not. Then see what results you get. That is called the scientific method.

· An example: you observe that your dog wags his tail a lot. You think that a wagging tail means that your dog is happy. So you write down what is going on every time you see your dog wagging his tail. He gets food, you pet him, you throw a ball for him, someone he loves comes home, he’s getting ready to go for a walk, he meets another dog that he likes to play with…you notice that there is a pattern…these are all happy events for your dog! If you yell at your dog or punish him, does his tail wag? No. Out of 10 times that your dog wagged his tail, all ten of those waggings took place during a happy event. None happened during a sad event. There is strong evidence that your dog wags his tail when he is happy.

Do you like to find out how things work? Great. Today we are going to start learning about trees. Trees are one kind of plant. Who can tell me what a plant is?

· A plant is a living organism that gathers water and nutrients from the soil, and makes food in its leaves using energy from the sun.

Can an animal make food from the sun?
· No, animals cannot make their own food. Animals use plants or other animals for their food. Only PLANTS can make food from the sun.

There are many different kinds of plants...grasses, vines, bushes, ferns, mosses, green algae but today we are going to talk about trees. Who knows what a tree is? How is a tree different from other plants?

· A tree is the largest of all plants, and it is different from other plants in several ways:
· Most trees grow at least 15-20 feet tall. That is about twice as high as our classroom ceiling. So trees are TALL.
· Trees have a woody stem that is called a trunk, that grows at least 3-4 inches thick and can stand up by itself. So trees also have thick, hard TRUNKS.

Now that we know what a tree is, who can tell me some things that we get from trees?

(I bought a fabulous Understanding Trees - 4 Poster Set from Nature-Watch. They rock.)

· Shade. Where do you like to sit on a hot day?
· Clean air. Trees remove icky stuff from the air and create oxygen, which is what WE breathe.
· Homes for animals. What animals live in or around trees? Birds, squirrels, bugs, mice.
· Food for animals AND humans. Bark, nuts, leaves, seeds and fruit! Can you name a fruit that grows on trees?
· Wood. Can you find something in the classroom made of wood?
· Paper. We all use a lot of paper, don't we? Paper is made of wood that is ground up very, very small, mixed with water, and then spread thinly on a mesh screen. When it dries, we get a sheet of paper! About 10 MILLION trees are cut down to make paper every day.
· Rain! Trees create moisture in the air by pulling water up from the ground and putting it into the air through tiny holes in their leaves. When there is more moisture in the air, clouds can form and rain can fall. So trees help make rain!
· Medicine: too many to list! Aspirin (willow trees), taxol (yew trees), etc.

First we're going to BE a tree, and then we're going to SEE a tree. Everybody stand up, we're going to act out the parts of a tree so that we can remember them.

(to tune of “London Bridge is falling down”)
“Leaves (fingers raised and wiggling), branches (arms straight out forward),
trunk (touch belly with hands) and roots (touch legs/feet)
trunk and roots,
trunk and roots,
leaves, branches, trunk and roots,
those are the parts of a tree!”

And now to SEE a tree!
Take class around the school to see the trees around it.
· Have them name the parts they just acted out. What roots can they see?
· Note differences between conifer and broadleaf trees.
· Have each student collect a leaf or two to bring back to class if they like.

CENTER ACTIVITIES
1. Describe Your Leaf!
Each student needs a leaf from outside or from the leaf collection. Writers can optionally have a paper and pencil to write down their description words

Use these documents:
Describe Your Leaf - Instructions
Describe Your Leaf Activity Sheet

Have each student carefully examine his/her leaf and then describe it using some of the terms listed on the activity sheet for this center. Does it have needles or broad leaves? Alternate or opposite leaves? Read the list of description words to the students to help them describe their leaves. You can do each leaf as a group exercise and get input from everyone if you like. Is there consensus on the answers?

2. Worksheets
Need pencils, pens, crayons, scissors.
Worksheet Instructions
Rodney the Root Says...
Is It a Tree?
Explore Tree Shapes

3. Leaf Rubbings
Need white paper and crayons with paper peeled off, leaves of the student's choice. Can they point out the parts of a leaf on their rubbings?
Instructions
Leaf Anatomy Diagram

4. Identify the Tree
Match 6 specimens of local tree leaves, seeds and bark to the photos and descriptions and see if you can identify them. Careful, each tree is paired with a tricky look-alike. Pay attention to little differences.

Redwood vs. Incense Cedar
Sycamore vs. Sweet Gum
Live Oak vs. Valley Oak

For this activity, you have to actually go out and collect some plant material. I chose 6 readily available trees in my area that I thought were interesting, three lookalike pairs of species to make it a little tricky. Probably ONE lookalike pair would have been fine for K/1. Three pairs were overkill. Oh well. They're pretty obvious to tell apart if you look at them closely, but at first glance they look similar and could be confused.

My advice is to ID *any* tree with the help of a local tree guidebook. Walk around your neighborhood and clip off some sample leaves from whatever you can find. Or get material from a tree that someone can identify for you, then Google information about it. Make a copy of the tree guide page or relevant Googled info/photo and see if kids can pick out the right tree from the leaves and materials.

Older kids can gather leaves from common trees and then use a tree key to try to identify what they found. It's very exciting. Once you identify a tree and look carefully at its leaves, seeds, etc., you don't forget it. You suddenly notice that tree EVERYWHERE! It becomes like an old friend. Super cool and kids DIG it. Naming the living organisms in your natural environment is an valuable skill, one that is being quickly lost in the modern world.

Extra time? Extra credit?
Play “Go Rake” with the Leaf Cards, or other Leaf Games.

Fun Interactive Online Exercise
Trees are Terrific! Travels with Pierre

Posted by msLaura at 09:13 PM | Permalink | | Comments (1)

I'm trying to use less energy, for a lot of reasons. To save money, to keep our carbon footprint minimal, etc. Lately I've been reading up on line drying of clothes...the average US household spends 6% of the total energy bill on running the clothes dryer. Plus, our clothing has been getting shrunk by the excessive heat of our dryer. Fits fine when I buy it, after I dry it a few times, it's tiny. Even our fleece clothing shrinks up, sweatpants turn into high waters! If I turn the heat down, then it doesn't dry all the way.

I bought one of these expandable accordion-style drying racks many years ago for drying delicates in my tiny San Francisco apartment. It has been sitting in my laundry room folded up on a shelf (it folds down flat, which is great) until a few weeks ago when I read how most Japanese apartment dwellers air-dry their clothing using these same racks, hardly anyone uses gas/electric dryers. That article reminded me that I had a rack like this, so I resolved to start using it for at least every other load of laundry. Took it down, dusted it off, and put it to work.

Turns out, it's great! I usually do a load of laundry around dinnertime, hang it up in about 5 minutes, and it's dry by morning. Our clothes don't get as much wear and tear, and our utility bill has gone down by about 10%.

The only disadvantage is that some fabrics (usually heavy cotton) come out a bit crispy, but I have figured out that I can hang them on the rack until they are almost dry, then I throw them in the dryer for the last few minutes of drying time. And even if they are crispy, usually they soften up within a few minutes of wearing.

I was also surprised to find that outdoor drying on a line (which is what I thought of when I thought of air drying your clothes) is not optimal. Dirt, dust, bird poop, tree sap, leaves, etc. can dirty your clothes. It's better to dry them inside and keep them clean. Saves a lot of hauling of wet clothes too.

Another added benefit to drying inside, especially in winter, is that it will humidify your air and make it easier to breathe. Pretty cool!

I just found this URL (http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing) with every possible type of air drying device for clothing on it, plus resources for where to buy. Astounding. There are some really cool gadgets on there. They knock my accordion rack, but eh...considering that I already have it and use it and like it OK, I'll keep it. It's true that it's difficult to dry sheets on it. Maybe someday I'll make an investment in one of the other racks. Europe has all the killer technology, of course.

Posted by msLaura at 04:50 PM | Permalink | | Comments (1)

This is by far the most intensive gardening effort I have ever made. Trying to do it right this season finally (now that I no longer have tiny clinging babies to deal with) and actually sustain us through the winter from the garden. Cause hey...in California, we can do that!

I just tore out some annoying large woody bushes in my garden plot (and one 8 foot mystery tree with 3-4 inch long deadly thorns that was supposedly Meyer lemon, but grew into something else) that were taking up a big chunk of room right in the sun, so now I'm preparing the ground, digging it up, mixing in iron and blood meal and fish emulsion and compost. Large amounts of manual labor, but once it's done, it's done until next year.

OK, here's my list of seeds that I started last night with the kids...
* Copenhagen Market Cabbage
* Early Dividend Hybrid Broccoli
* Long Harvest Broccoli
* Kohlrabi - Crispy Colors Duo
* Snowball Cauliflower
* Ruby Queen beets
* Purple Top White Globe Turnips
* Kind Midas Long Sweet Carrots
* Baby Leaf Spinach - Catalina
* Lacinato Kale
* Oriental Giant Japanese Spinach
* Gala Mache Salad
* Endive/ Escarole/ Radicchio Mix
* Amsterdam Seasoning Celery (no stalks, just flavorful leaves)
* Slow-bolt Cilantro

If you are thinking of starting a garden in pots, or on a small-scale plot, I would personally start with a salad mix of some sort and Bright Lights Swiss Chard. Maybe throw in some carrots, for a planter garden.

My Swiss Chard from last year re-seeded itself and grew profusely in my garden, in the shade, with no/little additional water, ALL WINTER LONG. Then, when it got hot in later spring, it started to go downhill again (it likes cool to cold weather, like almost all of the above crops). It bolted, re-seeded, I trimmed it back to the ground, and now it has resprouted with vigor in the cooler weather.

Plus, Swiss Chard is DELICIOUS. Easy and delicious and grows profusely. A big winner in the beginning garden.

Broccoli is really fun to grow, watching the flower heads form. I planted it late this spring and it was too hot for it. Right now is a good time to plant, nice and cool.

I'm definitely no expert, I just try to improve and expand on what I did last time around, so over the years I'm getting there, but it certainly hasn't happened all at once! Hopefully I'll be a wise gardener by the time I'm a middle-aged lady and have time to putter around out there.

There is nothing better than going out to the garden to gather food for your meal, and not having to go to the store. So convenient! Also, storing food in the ground or on the plant, instead of in the fridge. EASY.

Posted by msLaura at 08:57 AM | Permalink | | Comments (0)

The weather was very hot, humid and still yesterday afternoon, so while Adrian napped, Julian and I laid on his bed and played UNO under the ceiling fan. Reminded me of playing Hearts with my family in Florida on the patio when I was a girl. Endless games of backgammon with my mom in between dips in the pool. Playing Skip-Bo and UNO with my grandmother in her kitchen while we drank tea.

We played one practice hand, and then Julian wanted to keep score. I was all for it at first (you know, math teaching opportunity and all), but then he started crushing me.

So then I stopped hinting that he should say "Uno" when he only had one card left and I just started calling him on it and making him take two cards. No more Ms. Nice Mommy, I busted out all my UNO skills. And he still whipped me! Darn 5 year olds. The game is FOR AGE SEVEN AND UP, you aren't even supposed to be playing, much less BEATING YOUR MOTHER, OK?

Around dinnertime Julian started complaining that his eyes hurt. Half an hour later, he felt cold (despite the rest of us feeling hot and sweaty). Uh oh. Gave him a hot bath and put him to bed.

Woke up crying and hysterical an hour later, BURNING with fever, his whole body hurting...eyes, head, legs. Gave him some kids' Motrin and held a cold cloth on my forehead while he sat on my lap and cried. :-(

Dan had the bright idea to play Connect Four with him as a distraction while we waited for the Motrin to kick in. Perfect! He perked right up and sat down to play with Daddy, forgot all about feeling lousy.... Read More

Dan beat him once, then Julian beat him twice in a row. My turn! I beat him the first time, then he beat me the second time with a total surprise move. Dang, I thought I was pretty good at games, but my kid is something else. Huh.

Cuddled him to sleep as his fever subsided, and this morning he seems fine. Fingers crossed! Nothing worse than a sick child.

Posted by msLaura at 09:39 AM | Permalink | | Comments (1)

I've been reading "The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" by Marcella Hazan. I'd love to do a "Julie and Julia" type project where I cook my way through it, but alas, I probably won't. Not in the next few years anyway. Just no time. Plus I can't imagine giving up tacos, which are my current obsession.

Maybe I can cook my way through it with one recipe a week, or something manageable like that. I'm sure Dan would be thrilled.

I have this loose meal schedule right now:
MONDAY: Homemade pizza
TUESDAY: Tacos
WEDNESDAY: Pasta or noodles
THURSDAY: Crockpot
FRIDAY: Grass-fed beef burgers, homemade fries and salad
SATURDAY: Quiche or Pot Pie
SUNDAY: Roast Chicken and salad

Maybe every Wednesday I'll do a Marcella Hazan menu? Hmmmm, not a bad idea.

Just read this in the pasta section and loved it:

Do not be tempted by one of those awful devices that masticate eggs and flour at one end and extrude a choice of pasta shapes through another end. What emerges is a mucilaginous and totally contemptible product, and moreover, the contraption is an infuriating nuisance to clean.

And no, English is not even her first language. But she does have a Ph.D. in Biology and Natural Sciences. Marcella is FIERCE and fabulous in her geekiness about how these foods should be just so. A little later on, she calls black pasta colored with squid ink "deplorable".

OK, off to make lasagna with some of the fresh goat cheese ricotta that I bought at Harley Farms last week. No, not making a Marcella recipe. This lasagna is not as authentically Italian, and I'm not even making my own fresh lasagna noodles for it (the horror!) but it's still delicious.

Posted by msLaura at 04:02 PM | Permalink | | Comments (0)

Well, I'm back.

That was rather embarrassing...I got a new laptop and desktop and didn't transfer the link to my blog editor, so I just now dug it off my old laptop and bookmarked it on my new computers.

I've been neglecting this poor blog for some time now. Twitter and Facebook have taken its place, for the most part. But I miss blogging. I miss being able to type out what I really want to say without being cut off after 140 characters. Even on Facebook the length of an allowable comment is ridiculously short.

But the nice thing about Facebook and Twitter is that people actually *read* what I write there, so the discussions are much more interesting. I actually get comments, sometimes quite a lot, and of course, being able to comment on other people's postings is great too. Here I'm a voice in the wilderness. No one ever comments, and it's just me talking. Pretty lonely.

However, one thing that I realized is that everything I write on Twitter and Facebook disappears into a black hole after a certain length of time. I was trying to go back to a conversation that I had with a friend on Facebook just a few months ago, and it was GONE. I went back as far as I could, and then I was told, "You don't have any older posts".

Who knew? I was thinking that I could look back on my archive of Facebook posts and use that as a journal of sorts as time went on. But nope, I've been writing into the wind. It's not searchable, it disappears...what a drag.

When I went camping recently I kept having "status" moments. Nowhere near a computer, no cell reception, and yet every few hours something would trigger a "status message" in my brain. I'd form a little 140 character message describing some interesting little event or emotion, without even trying! Pretty weird.

It kept happening, so I did an experiment. I took out a notebook and wrote down my "status messages" as they popped into my head. Well what do you know, it was pretty cool going old-school and writing down posts on paper. But the words lay dead in my book. No comments, no conversation. It was nice not being limited to a certain number of characters, but I was pondering whether there was any value in my writing, since I was the only one who would ever see it. If a tree falls in the forest...

Posted by msLaura at 03:47 PM | Permalink | | Comments (2)

You can find the photo set in chronological order here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mslaura/sets/72157617705686612/

Click on the first photo in the series (at top left) and then click through the series by clicking the thumbnail shown to the right of each individual photo. That will take you to the next photo, and so on...

I'll post highlights from the trip here in the near future, but wanted to get the set up for those of you who requested it.

Posted by msLaura at 04:54 PM | Permalink | | Comments (0)

Time to get in shape after the long winter. Cold/flu season and lots of rain has wiped out my exercise routine. I feel sluggish, stiff & I'm 15 pounds over my pre-kid weight.

I need to get back on the Mummy Tummy routine. I need to start getting daily cardio. Time to start hiking 2x/week, swimming, yoga, biking, weights... all the things I like to do and need to do. Cannot fall victim to the insidious creep of a sedentary habit.

Two little kids are definitely a challenge to performing exercise on a regular basis. Sometimes even just going for a walk around the block can be a hassle. But I'll have to figure it out somehow. I can swim and do yoga on the weekends when Dan is home to take over parenting duties. It's fitting an hour of exercise into the day during the week that's a challenge. I already have every waking moment jam-packed full of work and kids and household chores. But this has to be fit in somewhere. I don't want it to get away from me. It has to be built into my schedule.

Also need to do better meal planning, and more food prep so I have snack options ready. Smaller portions for meals too. I wish that I could go vegetarian for a while, but Dan isn't into that. I guess I could do plant-based meals for me and cook a separate piece of meat for him and the kids.

This is all going to take a lot of planning and effort. Well, I guess I can take it day-by-day at first, just eat less and do some kind of exercise for an hour a day. Then slowly build on that.

Today I'm taking the kids and going for an hour bike ride, about 10 miles. Some hills, which are a real workout with 75 pounds of kids on back. I don't know what we're going to do tomorrow. Hike?

Time to rally my friends to join me too. It's always more effective if you have a date, with someone else expecting you to show up. So, are you ready to bike, hike, walk or ???? I'll join you for just about anything but running.

Posted by msLaura at 03:21 PM | Permalink | | Comments (0)