Here’s hoping your students will have recess this year. Maybe even recesses! I think brain breaks are a super idea, however should brain breaks replace outdoor recess? My vote is no, they should not. Brain breaks are fun and active, however most are structured. Recess allows for unstructured play time which encourages creativity and fosters…
Think back to your elementary school years. How many recesses did you have? I seem to remember that we had three; one in the morning, a lunch recess, and one in the afternoon. I always made a beeline for the swings. I loved (and still love) the swings. We all know that frequent recesses are…
I always believed I had my parents to thank for my nearsightedness, and I probably do. Myopia, or nearsightedness, definitely runs in families. But there’s more to this eye condition than genetics. Here’s a bit of research that I find to be, well, eye opening! Three years ago, Chinese researchers recruited 12 primary schools to…
I remember recess during my elementary years fondly. There was plenty of equipment to play on, and there were a few diehard rules. Don’t walk up the slide. Don’t get off the teeter-totters when someone else is on the other end. Stay out of the school forest. Many schools have tougher rules today—rules that restrict…
We were not always the smartest kids on the bus. I’m thinking back to 1975 here. Still, I don’t think that changes the fact that we were foolish to think a pile of leaves stretched across the road was enough to prevent the school bus from getting to our stop. We tried, but the leaves…
This may be the last place on the Internet to get around to mentioning the amazing feat that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) pulled off in landing Curiosity on Mars. JPL engineers have become celebrities. Ridiculously amazing and stupendously glorious photos have been beamed back from the red planet by Curiosity. A tricky, nail-biter of…
It’s the end of my family’s first school year in North Carolina. My oldest son starts his EOG (End-of-Grade) testing tomorrow. He has yet to show any signs of stress about it like he did when he took his first MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) tests back in Massachusetts. In fact, when we left Massachusetts…