October 2015
Through golden noons and purple eves, and shadows cool and tender,
From scenes of tranquil happiness and dreams of deep delight,
October like a princess in her oriental splendor
Comes down the valley singing with her retinue of light.
–Katharine Brownlee Sherwood, American poet (1841–1914)
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Breast Cancer Awareness
A bird note sounding here and there,
A bloom, where leaves are brown and sober,
Warm noons, and nights with frosty air,
And loaded wagons say, October.
–Thomas Stephens Collier (1842–93)
Prayer of the Month
Let me be quiet now, and kneel,
Who never knelt before,
Here, where the leaves paint patterns light
On a leaf strewn forest floor;
For I, who sought no God at all
In sea or earth or air,
Baptized by beauty, now look up
To see God everywhere.
(Ellen Gilbert)
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Seasonal
Columbus Day
All Things Work for Good: Romans 8:28-30
Columbus would be no more than a tiny footnote to history except that he made two enormous miscalculations that exactly counterbalanced each other. In preparing plans for a trip to Asia, Columbus' arithmetic was faulty, and he severely miscalculated the circumference of the earth. His calculations indicated that the earth was much smaller than it actually is, and that a sailing ship could carry enough provisions to sail westward from Europe to Asia.
More What Can Christopher Columbus Teach Us Today? includes information about Columbus' miscalculations. dreamthisday.com
Columbus Day is a federal holiday celebrated on the second Monday in October. The day commemorates October 12, 1492, when Italian navigator Christopher Columbus landed in the New World. The holiday was first proclaimed in 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- Henry David Thoreau
While Christopher Columbus is, and was, a man of very mixed reputation, we know of Christopher Columbus today, 500 years after he lived, because he had a Dream, Charted a Course, and Boldly Set Sail.
Like Columbus, we have Dreams that run through our head like full color movies, pleading with us to take action.
Like Columbus, we have many people telling us that our dreams are "crazy," and we should settle for less.
Like Columbus we are unable to anticipate what the future will bring, and what the consequences of taking action on our Dreams might be.
Will we, like Columbus, chart the best course we are able, given the information we have access to at the time, and set sail? Or will we trash our Dreams into the box labeled "fantasy discard pile," and return to doing what others expect of us?
Stand tall, breathe deep, and Choose today to chart the course that will transform your Dream into reality.
[the above is taken from Regaining Your Happiness in Seven Weeks: a Training Program]
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St David’s Day
This day commemorates the patron saint of Wales, St.
David, who was born in the sixth century at Henfynw, Cardigan. This holiday in Wales celebrates the Welsh victory over the Saxons in 640. Legend has it that the clever Welsh farmers pinned leeks to their coats so they could recognize one another in the melee; the Saxons killed many of their own kind, not having such a sign to tell friend from foe. Today, St. David’s symbol is the leek. In honor of St. David, plant a bulb of aromatic leek as soon as the ground can be worked. An old adage suggests eating leeks all month to keep the doctor away all year. Old Farmer’s Almanac
ALL HALLOWS’ EVE
Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve), October 31, was Samhain (which is pronounced SAH-win) for the ancient Celts—the death night of the old year. Samhain is Gaelic for “summer’s end,” a day to bid good-bye to warmth and light as day length shortens.
Druids (priests) lit huge bonfires, while people dressed as demons and witches paraded noisily through the streets to frighten off the roving souls believed to be seeking new homes for the new year.
In later years, the Irish used hollowed-out, candlelit turnips, carved with a scary face, to ward off the spirits. When Irish immigrants in the 1840s found few turnips in the United States, they used the more plentiful pumpkins instead.Old Farmer’s Almanac
Halloweenis celebrated on October 31. On Halloween, American children dress up in funny or scary costumes and go "trick or treating" by knocking on doors in their neighborhood. The neighbors are expected to respond by giving them small gifts of candy.
A Look back in History
Severe drought and dust storms exacerbated the Great Depression because it dried out farmlands and forced families to leave their farms. On May 9, 1934, a dust storm carried an estimated 350 million tons of dirt 2,000 miles eastward and dumped four million tons of prairie dirt in Chicago. The drought and dust killed tens of thousands of animals. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
Picture of the Month
Carbs are not bad!!!
Food and Health
Milk
Milk Matters
Public health education campaign to promote calcium consumption among tweens and teens, especially during the ages of 11 to 15, a time of critical bone growth.
Campaign Materials|NICHD Website
Teachers
Teachers play a vital role in helping middle school & high school students understand why they need calcium now.
Calcium is essential to healthy bone development, especially for tweens (ages
9 to 12) and teens.
Unfortunately, most young people are not getting enough calcium. In fact, fewer than one in 10 girls and only one in four boys ages 9 to 13 are at or above his or her adequate intake of calcium.
As a teacher, you play an important role in helping tweens and teens understand the importance of getting the calcium they need. To help teach your students about the role of calcium in nutrition and bone health, Milk Matters offers free, easy-to-use lesson resources. These activities combine hands-on classroom lessons with take-home assignments, classroom discussion, and more. All classroom activities correlate with National Health Education Standards, Second Edition.*
* National Health Education Standards, Pre-K-12, Second Edition. American Cancer Society. 2007.
To download any of the classroom activities or supplemental materials, please select a link below.
Classroom Activities
Calcium Collector (PDF - 181 KB) (for ages 11 to 13)
Students learn the benefits of calcium and which foods have it, then play a game in which they try to achieve 1,300 calcium points.
Smart Snack Cookbook (PDF - 188 KB) (for ages 11 to 13)
Students create their own healthy snack recipes and then make calcium-rich smoothies.
Great Calcium Challenge (PDF - 481 KB) (for ages 14 to 15)
Students learn how to read nutrition labels, then calculate and track their calcium intake.
Supplemental Classroom Materials
Kids are heading back to school and already busy family schedules are likely to get even busier! Don't let healthy eating get placed on the sidelines at this hectic time of the year. Eating at home more often is a key habit to practice for healthier eating and making sure kids get the nutrition they need.
New! Take-Home Materials for Parents (PDF - 231 KB)
These materials, which students can bring home to parents, reinforce the lesson concepts about calcium and bone health that the students learn in the classroom.
Lactose Intolerance Discussion Guide (PDF - 115 KB) (for ages 11 to 13)
This guide and handout address lactose intolerance and how to minimize its symptoms while still getting enough calcium.
More
Choose nuts as a snack, on salads, or in main dishes. Add walnuts or pecans to a green salad.
Red=fruit, brown Grain, blue=dairy, green=veggies, purple=protein
Contact Us
Mental Health Tip of the Month
As Days Shorten in Fall/Winter, Moods Darken for Some
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is distinguished by the onset of depression during the winter months, when there is less natural sunlight. This depression generally lifts during spring and summer. SAD may be effectively treated with light therapy, but nearly half of those with SAD do not respond to light therapy alone. Antidepressant medication and counseling can reduce SAD symptoms, either alone or in combination with light therapy. In addition, melatonin supplements offer promise, according to a research report through the Seasonal Affective Disorder Renée Miller Credo
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In or Out of the Classroom
- Note: Each resource is labeled with a level and subject area to make it easier to use.
Levels: E: Elementary; M: Middle;H: High; G: General, all levels; SN: Special Needs; T: Teachers
Subject Areas: LA: Language Arts, English, Reading, Writing; M: Math; S: Science; Health; SS: Social Studies, Current Events; FA: Fine Arts; Music, Art, Drama; FL: Foreign Language; PE: Physical Ed; C: Career; A: All
WordWriter Halloween Activities - We've designed some free, downloadable resources to use with our new tool WordWriter, for you and your students to have a creative (and chilling!) October. (L:E; SA:LA)
Interactive Historical ThinkingPoster – “Teaching history involves showing students how to use clues from primary and secondary sources to ask and answer good questions.Primary sources give us many clues about the past. They are the evidence—such as letters, newspapers, drawings, photographs, tools, or clothes—from the time period under investigation.Secondary sources are written by historians who use available materials to interpret the past. They provide analysis, summary of historic moments, and change over time.Use this poster with your elementary students to help them learn how to be history detectives.” (L:E; SA:SS)
Fakebook -“’Fakebook’ allows teachers and students to create imaginary profile pages for study purposes.” (L:G; SA:A)
Sound Uncovered – free iPad app; “Explore the surprising side of sound with Sound Uncovered, an interactive book featuring auditory illusions, acoustic phenomena, and other things that go bump, beep, boom, and vroom. From the makers of Color Uncovered—the Exploratorium—this app puts you at the center of the experiment: Hear with your eyes, see with your ears, make and modify recordings, test your hearing, and more. How do you make a saxophone growl? Are there secret messages in music played backward? Why does the sound of gum chewing drive some people mad? Listen up and find answers to these questions and more as you take an auditory trip to the place where sound gets truly interesting: the space between your ears.” (L:; SA:)
Alphabet Organizer– “Engage students and build phonemic awareness by using Alphabet Organizer in the classroom. Students create an alphabet book or alphabet chart with words for each letter of the alphabet. Or choose just one word per letter and upload an image to help early readers make a visual connection between the word and the beginning letter. Alphabet Organizer features our worksaver so that students can save a draft of their unfinished work or share their final work via e-mail.” (L:E; SA:LA)
Halloween Web Hunt – “Discover the history of Halloween traditions and learn about mummy burials, vampire bats, and other frightful facts.” (L:E,M; SA:SS)
The Halloween Tooth: A Max's Math Adventure – “In “The Tooth” (grades K–2), a learning activity from Scholastic’s Max’s Math Adventures series, students first read a fun, rhyming poem (with audio) about Halloween candy. Next, they must complete this activity page by making a pattern of candy objects.
Finally, students can complete four Extra Challenges of varying difficulty levels: two challenges about making patterns, one about counting, and one about probability.” (L:E; SA:M)
Interactive Body
Organs Game
Plumb together your organs in the 3D jigsaw puzzle. This challenge requires Flash 5 and takes 5-10 minutes. BBC
Kids Health and Safety
Back-To-School Tips for Healthy Teeth08/23/2015 09:00 AM EDT
Dental hygiene, good diet and regular checkups make for pearly whites, expert says
Source: HealthDay
Related MedlinePlus Pages: Child Dental Health, School Health
It's important to ride safely, check out our bicycle basics. And More
Neil Izenberg, MD
Editor-in-Chief/Founder
Finding the Right Bike
As kids grow, there are a variety of options for bicycling, from trailers to child seats to independent riding. With a bike that's safe and fits well, kids can learn to love cycling!
Bike Safety
Bike riding is a great way to get exercise and fresh air and share time as a family. But there's an important factor that you need to consider - safety.
Teaching Kids Not to Bully
It can be a shock to parents to hear that their child has bullied another. Whether bullying is physical or verbal, if it's not stopped it can lead to more aggressive antisocial behavior - and interfere with a child's success in school and ability to form and sustain friendships.
Kids & Teens Talk About Life
In this video series, kids & teens talk about their experiences with bullying, stress, family life, managing health problems, staying fit, eating right -- and what it means to be in love.
Safety Tips: Baseball
Baseball is by no means a dangerous sport. But it can present a very real risk of injuries from things like wild pitches, batted balls, and collisions in the field. These safety tips can help keep your kids safe on the diamond.
"Brain Breaks" on Twitter
Do your kids get brain breaks in class? Brain breaks are brief movement activities that give kids shortmental breaks from classroom instruction to help re-engage and re-focus them. They're just one way that physical activity can be brought to schoolsand improve children's health and learning . Please join @KidsHealth Monday,April 27,for our upcoming Twitter chat on the role of physical fitness in schools- to participate, follow the hashtag #khchatat 8 p.m. ET . Follow the conversation live at . KidsHealth will lead a panel of experts from Kids.gov, Girlshealth.gov, GoNoodle, Playworks, SPARK Programs, and SHAPE America.
Kids Health
A Safe and Spooktacular Halloween
Are you already planning for Halloween? To ensure a trick-free treat for your kids, follow these simple safety tips.
Story of the Month
Jean Vanier is the founder of L’Arche, an international network of communities for people with and without disabilities. He tells a story about a person with a disability — we’ll call him Pierre. Pierre needed to see a cardiologist. After the appointment, Jean asked Pierre, “How did the doctor visit go?”
“Fine,” Pierre said, “The doctor looked at my heart.”
“And what did he find?” Jean asked.
“Well, Jesus of course!” Pierre responded.
“And what was Jesus doing there?” Jean asked.
“He rests,” Pierre said.
Personal Health Note
Respiratory health
With Legionnaires in the news it is a good time to remind people the importance of cleaning cool air or hot, humidifiers. That is how my dad ended up with Legionnairs…He neglected to clean the cool air humidifier
(Legionnaires' disease is a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria. You usually get it by breathing in mist from water that contains the bacteria. The mist may come from hot tubs, showers, or air-conditioning units for large buildings. The bacteria don't spread from person to person)
MedlinePlus
Senior Health
Grief Can Weigh on Immune System in Older Folks, Study Says
09/18/2014 05:00 PM EDT
Those who are bereaved may be more likely to develop infections, researchers suggest
Source: HealthDay
Related MedlinePlus Pages: Bereavement, Hormones, Immune System and Disorders
Thought of the Month
"I am a hole in a flute that the Christ's breath moves through." --Hafiz
"The good news is you can change and strive to become the best version of yourself. No matter what you have done in the past I believe in second chances. I believe in a growth mindset. I believe forgiveness is the ultimate weight loss. I believe people can change for the better. I believe you can start right now.
There are perfect messages but not perfect people. Our goal should be to live the message as much and as often as possible. When we fall short let's admit it, learn from it and get better because of it."
John Gordon
God-Given Tool
Touch gives life