February 4, 2015 by suzannesmom
Everything old is new again. Here’s a story about a type of teaching that is coming back in vogue.
Peter Balonon-Rosen writes for WBUR radio, “Closing the gap between the achievements of low-income students and their peers is such a formidable challenge that some experts say it cannot be done without eliminating poverty itself. By the time children enter kindergarten, there is already a significant skills gap across socioeconomic lines that manifests in an income achievement gap that has widened dramatically over the past 25 years.
“In Revere [MA], a high-poverty school district, school officials have turned internally to raise outcomes for kids in poverty. Their notion is that school success can begin with a successful teaching model.
“ ‘What is this?’ kindergartner Thea Scata asks. She taps the picture of a rabbit with a wooden pointer and looks to the three other girls seated at her table.
“The group of four kindergartners at Revere’s A.C. Whelan Elementary School is learning about the letter ‘R’ — writing its shape and reviewing words that begin with the letter.
“ ‘Bunny!’ replies Bryanna Mccarthy.
“ ‘No, what’s the first sound? “R”— rabbit,’ Scata says to the group. …
“Whelan is one of 43 public elementary schools in the state that Bay State Reading Institute (BSRI), a Holliston-based education nonprofit organization, partners with to implement this teaching model into Massachusetts schools.”
Said “Kimberlee Clark, a first grade teacher at Whelan, ‘I’m really able to target those that need to be challenged and go above and beyond and I’m able to work with those students that need the extra support to get onto grade level.’ …
“Core to BSRI’s approach is independent student learning. As teachers work closely with small groups of students, the other students are expected to work by themselves on separate tasks.
“ ‘Students then own a piece of the learning,’ said Ed Moscovitch, chairman and co-founder of BSRI. ‘They learn how to learn from an independent perspective.’
“ ‘When they’re working together it’s not so much that students are teaching students, but they’re discovering and coming to the knowledge together,’ said Lenore Diliegro, a fifth grade teacher at Whelan.” More here.
Photo: Peter Balonon-Rosen/WBUR
Thea Scata, left, leads a group of kindergarten peers at A.C. Whelan Elementary School in Revere.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bay State Reading Institute, BSRI, Ed Moscovitch, education, holliston, Kimberlee Clark, kindergarten, low-income, Peter Balonon-Rosen, poor, postaday, poverty, preschool, revere, skills gap, small group learning, socioeconomic, teaching, whelan | Leave a Comment »
February 3, 2015 by suzannesmom
Asakiyume and Mary Ann have been keeping me updated on book sculptures that materialize anonymously.
This latest news, however, refers to named book artists and came by way of the Ferguson, Missouri, library, which retweeted it from something called the Ouch Club, which linked to a story at SomeDaily. (Don’t you love how one thing leads to another in social media?)
SomeDaily writes, “Old and heavy books always seem like a mysterious and infinite well of wisdom and imagination for me. That moment, when you pick up an old book from a shelf and wipe away thick layer of dust from it‘s cover, is full of magic. However, book is so much more than pages full of words.
“I’ve always thought that it would be wonderful to give old books a second life. Some artists make it happen by turning old books, dictionaries and encyclopedias into admirable sculptures.”
There are photos of 20 book sculptures at SomeDaily, here, each one as extraordinary as the one below. (If you know who writes SomeDaily, please let me know so I can give credit.)
Art: David Kracov/Galerie Beauchamp
“The Book of Life”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged book art, david kracov, ferguson library, gallery beauchamp, ouch club, postaday, somedaily | Leave a Comment »
February 2, 2015 by suzannesmom
I’m running out of things to say about snowstorms. Today was the third day in one week that we were told to work at home.
Asakiyume was doing a project for us and went to her Post Office on foot to mail it back, walking in the street because the sidewalks weren’t clear. She said it was good, though, as she got to see two igloos and some kids playing in the snow.
I walked as far as my own Post Office for the exercise — a little too much exercise as I tried to stay out of the way of snowplows. A few folks out on cross-country skis probably shouldn’t have been, although I confess that my husband and I did that in a past snowstorm.
I kept thinking about the blizzard when I was in nursery school and it was my mother’s turn to do the carpool. Her car broke down, and there she was with a bunch of 4-year-olds on the side of the road wondering what to do. She flagged down the dry-cleaner delivery man and talked him into letting us ride in back among the coats and suits and hangers while he did his rounds. No doubt it was against all sorts of company insurance regulations and child-safety laws, but somehow we all made it.
In my town center today only the bookshop and a cafe were open. On Thoreau Street, the gas station, Cumberland Farms, a liquor store, and Dunkin Donuts were functioning reliably as ever.
I was winded from climbing over snow banks when I got home. I decided to make hot cider. Later in the afternoon, I decided to make hot cocoa.
Then I went out and lit the ice lantern.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blizzard, postaday, snow, snowplow, storm | 4 Comments »
February 1, 2015 by suzannesmom
Last year my Wisconsin brother told me how he makes ice lanterns. (See post.) I really wanted to try my hand at this, but my first two attempts failed. Finally, yesterday, after 52 hours in the cold, my balloon produced a successful lantern. Psyched!
Among today’s other pictures is the Japanese Maple at my workplace, glorious in every season. The reflection photo was taken at Fort Point Channel in Boston. That ice is made of saltwater. If you live inland, you may not know that for saltwater to freeze, it has to be extra cold for an extra long time.
The construction scene is from the nearby Seaport area, which as everybody knows, is being recklessly overbuilt, given that it’s low-lying area exposed to hurricanes.
The gingerbread houses were at the Boston Society of Architects and featured Boston buildings, including the state house with its gold dome. The giant geometric snowballs in Dewey Square are courtesy of New American Public Art, about which, more anon.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged boston, fort point channel, gingerbread house, hurricane, ice lantern, japanese maple, New American Public Art, oston Society of Architects, photo, photograph, postaday, seaport, state house | 2 Comments »
January 31, 2015 by suzannesmom
Every Christmas my Wisconsin sister-in-law makes turtles. These are tasty treats consisting of pecans, caramel, and chocolate. When Suzanne and John were small, they looked forward to the package of turtles that arrived every year at our house. Now that they have their own houses and their own children, they are so grateful that their aunt seems willing to add to her annual workload by sending turtles to their houses — and the houses of all her nieces and nephews — as well as the past recipients, her siblings, her mother, and her in-laws.
Every once in a while, she ponders whether she should keep making them. She wonders if people still like them (!). That is, until last year’s Great Turtle Caper.
That was the year that several nieces and nephews whispered among themselves, “Did you get the feeling that the turtle packages had been tampered with this year?” The whispers gradually built to a roar, and my brother Bo was called in to investigate, a supposedly impartial observer. A quorum of family members happening to be together, he turned his gimlet eye upon them. We need to get to the bottom of this, he said, amid much irreverent laughter.
Could a bent postman have gotten wind of the Wisconsin turtles’ fame and decided to taste one, then two, then three? (They’re a little addictive.) Could someone have filched a few before the packages went to the post office? A very small child perhaps?
The pressure grew. Suddenly, the true culprit confessed. I won’t name him other than to say it was a grown man, a close relative of the candy maker. Exposed and contrite, he vowed in the presence of witnesses never again to take unfair advantage of his access and deprive his cousins.
That is how Aunt Deb learned that her turtles are still in demand. And in case the rabid fan base isn’t enough to convince her of the high value the family places on her turtles, John snapped a photo in local market to convey what turtles would cost us if we were forced to buy them.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged candy, caramel, chocolate turtles, pecan, postaday | 10 Comments »
January 30, 2015 by suzannesmom
It’s hard to read about the deprivations of refugees, especially the children and especially in winter. That’s why I appreciate hearing about any kindness extended to them. National Public Radio recently had a story on the kindness of Clowns without Borders.
Laura Secorun-Palet writes, “On a cold November morning, 300 children gather in a soccer field in Zaatari, a Jordanian village next to the country’s largest refugee camp. …
“Today the children are not lining up to collect food coupons or clothes from NGOs: They are here to watch the clowns.
“On the ‘stage’ — a space in front of a velvet curtain covering the goal — a tall, blond woman performs a handstand while doing the splits, while two other performers run around clapping and making funny faces. As the upside-down woman pretends to fall, the children burst into laughter.
“The performers are circus artists from Sweden …
“Clowns Without Borders is a global network of nonprofit organizations that, for the past 20 years, has been spreading laughter in the world’s saddest places. The group’s most recent annual report says more than 385 artists performed 1,164 shows for its chapters in 2012 in 38 countries, both in the developing world and for refugees and other disadvantaged children in Western countries.
” ‘It’s very important to give kids a chance to be kids again,’ explains Lilja Fredriksson, one of the Swedish performers.” More here.
Another way to help refugees is through the wonderful Minneapolis-based nonprofit American Refugee Committee.
Photo: Bilal Hussein/AP
Lebanese clown Sabine Choucair, a member of “Clowns Without Borders,” performs for children in June at a Syrian refugee camp in the eastern town of Chtoura, Lebanon.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged American Refugee Committee, arc, Bilal Hussein, camps, children, Chtoura, clown, clowns without borders, Laura Secorun-Palet, lebanese, lebanon, Lilja Fredriksson, minneapolis, nonprofit, postaday, refugee, sabine choucair, swedish, syrian | 2 Comments »
January 29, 2015 by suzannesmom
I do like stories about people who love their work so much that they never want to stop.
Perhaps it helps to have a talent like muralist Eric Bransby, who got to study with one of my favorite artists, Thomas Hart Benton. (Suzanne says I have a personal aesthetic, which is a polite way of saying I’m crazy about anything wavy, like Benton’s energetic American landscapes.)
Chloe Veltman writes at National Public Radio, “Eric Bransby is one of the last living links to the great age of American mural painting. He studied with one of this country’s most famous muralists — Thomas Hart Benton — and went on to create his own murals in prominent buildings across the west. The artist is now 98 and still painting.
“At his Colorado Springs studio, Bransby attacks a drawing with tight, sharp strokes, a pastel pencil grasped between gnarled fingers. His studio is unheated, but he doesn’t seem to notice the cold. He’s completely engrossed in the image taking shape on his easel. It’s a study for a new mural that he hopes to install at nearby Colorado College. He says he draws between two and eight hours every day.
” ‘Drawing has been a continuous thing for me, like exercises for a musician,’ he says. ‘It’s refreshing. I draw better. I paint better.’ …
“His parents didn’t encourage his artistic pursuits. It was during the Depression, and when he demanded that he get sent to art school, he remembers his parents said: ‘Well, he’ll do one year and he’ll come back so discouraged that we’ll make something else out of him.’
” ‘But that didn’t happen,’ Bransby says. ‘I found heaven.’ ” Read more here.
Photo: Nathaniel Minor/Colorado Public Radio
Eric Bransby, pictured above in his home in Colorado Springs, is still creating art at 98. “I try to make each mural a project that will somehow expand my abilities a little bit more,” he says.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 98, art, artist, chloe veltman, college, colorado, eric bransby, mural, muralist, nathaniel minor, npr, postaday, thomas hart benton | Leave a Comment »
January 28, 2015 by suzannesmom
Now, here’s an idea. You’ve heard of Uber-type services that you contact when you need a ride and that charge on the basis of demand?
Well, according to Patrick Clark at Bloomberg, the time may have arrived for calling a snowplow just when you need a snowplow.
“With a blizzard gathering over the ocean,” he reports, “J and R Lawn and Landscape decided to send part of its snowplow fleet on a 300-mile drive. The landscaping company operates 20 snowplows in and around Cicero, N.Y. A tech startup called Plows and Mowz—sort of an Uber for snowplows—had promised there would be lucrative work in Boston. ‘It only snows where it snows,’ says Ted Hoffman, who handles sales and marketing for J and R. His small company was willing to bet four plows, eight workers, and money for gas and hotel rooms on a faraway post-blizzard boom. …
“Plowz and Mowz caters to homeowners who don’t pay for a regular service but want occasional help clearing a driveway. To meet customer demand, the startup uses software to assign new jobs to drivers who are already planning to be in the area. …
“Plowz isn’t the only entrepreneur with a vision for the future of snow removal. ‘On-demand is cute, but it’s not snowplowing,’ says Yeh Diab, co-founder of Boston-based PlowMe, a second startup trying to using technology to improve an age-old business. The snowplow, as he sees it, is less like a taxi (seeking customers, wherever they might be) and more like a bus (serving customers along a set path). …
“Plow drivers needed to improve their efficiency with regular customers along set routes, he determined, while an on-demand system offered a succession of one-time customers. PlowMe is designed to be a route-management tool and a marketplace in which drivers can trade or sell parts of their routes to others.”
My grandchildren know that in Geopolis, a really big snow calls for bringing out the supremely competent, cool, and collected truck called Katy (see Virginia Lee Burton’s classic Katy and the Big Snow), but if you don’t live in Geopolis, other options do exist.
Lots more snowplowing angles here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blizzard, bloomberg, boston, cicero, demand, J and R lawn and Landscape, patrick clark, plowMe, Plows and Mowz, postaday, snow, snowplow, startup, storm, ted hoffman, uber, Yeh Diab | 2 Comments »
January 27, 2015 by suzannesmom
Always recognizing that people in Finland, Minnesota, and Buffalo, New York, deal with this sort of thing all the time, I’m going to give it as my opinion that the storm of January 27, 2015, in New England was a pretty big storm. We were told to work at home for two days.
I went out at lunch to see what I could see. I saw one truck and one stand-up snowplow, a few workers trying to clear the commuter rail platform, three walkers, and one neighbor.
The trees and bushes in the yard were bent over. The car’s window wipers were reaching out for help. My husband had shoveled the front walk, but the gate was blocked by a snow bank. A mailbox was barely visible. My neighbor was hard at work with a shovel.
The picture that intrigues me the most, given that I take the train to work, is the picture of the buried train track. I don’t see how a train can get through there. And where will the commuters park? I can walk from my house. Not everyone has it that easy.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2015, concord, massachusetts, new england, postaday, snow | 1 Comment »
January 27, 2015 by suzannesmom
I got an unusual number of hits from readers this morning. I never know why. Is it because we are having a big snow in New England?
Let me give you a couple preliminary snow pics just in case. I hope to do a regular post this evening.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blizzard, concord, new england, photo, photograph, postaday, snow, storm | 8 Comments »
January 26, 2015 by suzannesmom
Photo: Milla Kontkanen
Lynley Beckbridge — whose tweets I have been following since a Harvard conference on aging and design — recently tweeted this BBC story about baby boxes in Finland.
Helena Lee writes, “It’s a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it’s designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background they’re from, an equal start in life. The maternity package — a gift from the government — is available to all expectant mothers.
“It contains bodysuits, a sleeping bag, outdoor gear, bathing products for the baby, as well as nappies, bedding and a small mattress. With the mattress in the bottom, the box becomes a baby’s first bed. Many children, from all social backgrounds, have their first naps within the safety of the box’s four cardboard walls. …
“At 75 years old, the box is now an established part of the Finnish rite of passage towards motherhood, uniting generations of women.
“Reija Klemetti, a 49-year-old from Helsinki, remembers going to the post office to collect a box for one of her six children. …
“Her mother-in-law, aged 78, relied heavily on the box when she had the first of her four children in the 60s. At that point she had little idea what she would need, but it was all provided.
“More recently, Klemetti’s daughter Solja, aged 23, shared the sense of excitement that her mother had once experienced. …
” ‘There was a recent report saying that Finnish mums are the happiest in the world, and the box was one thing that came to my mind. We are very well taken care of,’ says [Titta Vayrynen, a 35-year-old mother with two young boys].
More here. And be sure to see this related story on customs in Nordic countries, “The babies who nap in sub-zero temperatures.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged babies, cardboard box, eija Klemetti, finland, finn, finnish, Helena Lee, Lynley Beckbridge, Milla Kontkanen, postaday, Titta Vayrynen | Leave a Comment »
January 25, 2015 by suzannesmom
On Saturday, I made Valentines with the two-year-old grandchildren (two families). It’s so pleasant. “Relaxing,” adds Suzanne.
A couple weeks ago, I learned about something a little more advanced that we can try making — paper-strip hearts to hang in a window or on a tree or anywhere.
I saw a few of these ornaments in the window of the 5 and 10, and I said to myself, “Cool! I can do that!”
I looked at the samples very carefully. But when I got home and tried to replicate what I had seen, the heart came out as a bubble.
Naturally, I turned to the Internet, and Sugar Bee Crafts came to my rescue. The secret is the second staple. I thought Mandy Beyeler did a fine job of photographing exactly where you have to put that staple. And she even pulled it off with two preschoolers helping. Check her tutorial here for the details. And look at the pictures. Mandy’s hearts are much fancier than mine.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cards, hearts, mandy beyeler, ornament, photograph, postaday, sugar bee crafts, valentines | 4 Comments »
January 24, 2015 by suzannesmom
KerryCan is a frequent commenter on Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog and, as I keep learning, a woman of varied talents. She has been a college English professor, she blogs regularly, and she pursues numerous traditional crafts in a deep way
But what you need to know now is that she make chocolates and sells them at Etsy in time for Valentine’s Day.
Here’s what KerryCan says on her blog about a day in the life of a chocolatier, “I don’t make candy to make a living. I make candy because I like to make candy, just as I like to quilt and I like to weave. But, unlike quilting and weaving, candy piles up fast and that can cause its own dilemmas. I sell candy so I can justify making more, to experiment and try new things, without having to eat it all myself. …
“Almost every candy I make is a multi-stage process so, when I’m making a lot of candies, my days will be organized around the steps. Some days will be focused on making the ‘innards,’ as I think of them, and other days will focus on enrobing, or dipping, the candy innards in chocolate. When I make the innards, I work in small batches, and usually produce 50 to 200 candies at a time. …
“Making any of the innards depends on paying careful attention to temperature, so using a candy thermometer is essential. And, since I’ve never met a candy thermometer that I felt I could really, really trust, I also use the old tried-and-true cold-water test. …
“Once the candy is cooked and has cooled, I have to cut it. … The next step is the critical one that makes me a chocolatier—tempering chocolate. … Anyone who wants to make really good candy learns to temper chocolate. … Tempering chocolate means melting quality, real chocolate and then cooling it in a controlled way to bring about a transformation of the chocolate. …
“I spend a lot of time tempering chocolate by hand. I may temper 3 pounds at a time. I melt the chocolate to specific temperatures, depending on whether it’s dark, milk, or white chocolate, and then bring those temperatures down again. It takes about 30 minutes of constant stirring to temper chocolate, and it can’t be rushed.” More here.
I think you could learn to make chocolate yourself just from KerryCan’s one post. She concludes, “I weigh out the candies, then I put them in little candy paper cups. I arrange them in the glossy white box and make sure they look pretty. I label the box. I seal the box with my little ‘KerryCan’ sticker. I move on to the next box. The boxes pile up in a most satisfying way.”
The chocolates and other candies may be found at Etsy, here.
Photo: KerryCan
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged arts & crafts, candy, candy making, chocolate, etsy, kerrycan, postaday, thermometer | 4 Comments »
January 23, 2015 by suzannesmom
Years ago, there was a nose-warmer knitting fad at Bryn Mawr College (even before my time, so you can imagine). Students knitted nose warmers for themselves, their relatives, their friends. They put nose warmers on statues of goddesses around the campus.
The one my mother bought me at a fund-raiser looked silly, and the fad died out.
Now medical science could bring the nose warmer back.
Adam Wernick writes at Public Radio International, “As it turns out, your immune system turns sluggish in the cold, and the cold virus grows better in the slightly chillier environment of your nose than at the body’s normal core temperature. That’s the conclusion of a mouse study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“ ‘The optimal temperature for the cold virus to replicate is around 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 degrees Fahrenheit), which is found in the nose of most people living in normal conditions,’ says Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunology at Yale University and one of the authors on the paper.
“As temperatures drop outside, humans breathe in colder air that chills their upper airways just enough to allow cold viruses to flourish, says Ellen Foxman, Iwasaki’s colleague. The recent study suggests that if you can keep your nose warmer, the virus won’t replicate as easily.”
Ah-HA!
Read all about it here,. The story was based on a PRI Science Friday interview with Ira Flatow.
Photo: Aunty Marty Made It (on Etsy)
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged adam wernick, Akiko Iwasaki, Aunty Marty Made It, bryn mawr college, catch a cold, ellen foxman, etsy, immunology, ira flatow, knitting, mouse study, National Academy of Sciences, nose warmer, postaday, science friday, Yale University | Leave a Comment »
January 22, 2015 by suzannesmom
My friend Bob says there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. So I headed out at lunch yesterday all bundled up to take some pictures.
The following is to be sung to the tune of “When You Walk through a Storm.”
When you walk in the cold
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid
You will freeze.
At the end of your walk
There’s a golden …
I think I’m stuck. Maybe songwriter Will McM will dig me out.
While I’m on the subject, here’s a 1980s attempt at a song about cold, to be sung to the tune of “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.” Suzanne’s elementary school music teacher actually used it in class.
What is the reason
That we’re all freezin’
And the birdbath is filled with ice?
Why does my Omni
Go sideways down the street?
Why do my children wear
Baggies on their feet?
What normal fellow
Whose brains aren’t Jello
Would keep fighting this cold war?
What is the reason
That we’re all freezin’
And what did we move here for?
Believe it or not, I kind of like the cold. And I love getting out and taking pictures. Yesterday I noticed a yellow Fort Point Arts sign on an old chain link fence. Then I noticed the butterflies.
Read about Claudia Ravaschiere and Mike Moss’s installation, Flutter, here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, butterflies, Claudia Ravaschiere, flutter, fort point, mike moss, photo, photograph, pictures, postaday, songwriter | 2 Comments »
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