Preventing the "Summer Slip"

Summertime is a time for relaxation, fun in the sun, and spending time with friends and family. But it is also a time where most children experience an educational setback, often called the "summer slip." Basically, children go from reading, writing, and mathematizing on a daily basis during the school year, to swinging in trees, swimming, and watching TV. While a little brain rest is good, a lot of brain rest is not. In fact, research has shown that students can lose up to 2.6 months of progress over the summer.

Have you ever heard how it takes a teacher approximately six weeks to get her class on the proverbial "same page"? Well, this is in part due to summer slip - the teacher has to review the last few months of the previous school year to prepare children for new concepts, skills, and information.

As a parent, how can you prevent summer slip? Follow these simple guidelines and you'll be helping your kids keep those neurons firing all summer long.

Children should

• read at least 20 minutes a day. Whether they are true readers or not, exposure to high quality literature and informational texts is extremely important. You can partner read (you and your child share the reading), read aloud to your child, or have your child read alone.
• write on a daily basis. Have your children invent stories, write letters to far-away friends and family members, or help you with tasks such as writing recipes on index cards, and creating grocery shopping lists. Workbooks have some educational value too, such as helping kids practice basic skills in novel ways.
• mathematize frequently. Mathematize simply means "do math"! Younger children can help count the utensils needed to set the table, the pairs of socks in a drawer, or make equal shares of strawberries in bowls to enjoy with friends. For older children, there are excellent online math programs that are inexpensive and educational, as well as summer camps that offer enrichment math programs.
  

If you are looking for inexpensive ways to keep your kids connected this summer, check out your local library, museums, and parks . Many libraries offer educational computer programs, free summer workshops, and a plethora of books with fun reading, writing, and math activities. Museums provide context for topics your child may be reading about, such as native peoples, and parks often have camps and activities that are free or charge nominal fees.

Just keep the activities fun and simple and you're bound to have well-prepared kids when school starts at the end of summer.

Happy reading, writing, and mathematizing!

Warning - Your Canned Foods are Toxic!

I'm feeling sick today - not the stay-in-bed, fever kind of sick; rather, it's more the disgusted kind of sick. I just read an enviro blog about some big name companies and their marketing plans to KEEP Bisphenol A (BPA) in our food products. And their efforts to target women - pregnant women specifically.

For all the times I am excited by companies and small businesses out there trying to do the green thing, I am equally appalled by folks who continue to try to trick, exploit, and hurt us, all in the name of money. And lots of it.

This enviro blog by the Environmental Working Group is another reason to make foods at home as much as possible and not buy processed, canned, or premade goods. But we all know that it isn't the 1950s anymore, and we don't typically have one parent home who can cook every meal from scratch. I am grateful for short-cut options, but I don't think that my canned foods should contain synthetic estrogen in it. Do you?

What can we do to let these big companies and the chemical industry know how we feel? Don't buy their products; write about it in our blogs; educate our friends, families, and colleagues, support companies who are BPA-free, and join groups that help to lobby against the chemical industry's use of toxins in food products.

It's Pretty, But It Burns

I hear from moms all the time that the two biggest reasons they buy conventional clothing from large retailers are that the clothing is inexpensive and easily accessible. These are two very valid points, but at what cost to the environment and your health?

I have offered these suggestions to moms who are on the fence about going green with clothing purchases:

• Buy less, and buy quality. Instead of buying 7 pairs of pajamas for your child at a large retailer, could you buy 3 pairs of organic jams that are a little bit big and have your child wear them 2-3 times before washing? Washing 7 pairs of p.j.s each week is not so green either, so you get a two-for-one green deal by purchasing and washing fewer pairs of snugglies.
• Purchase gently used items. For children's everyday clothes, could you purchase gently used items instead of "brand new"? Purchasing gently used items is less expensive than new, so not only are you getting more bang for your buck, but you are also consuming less stuff because the clothing is being reused.
• Give and receive hand-me downs. Free, cute stuff. Who could ask for more? And pay it forward...give your gently used items to shelters and women's homes - they've got kids to clothe too!
• Mend holes and reattach buttons. Are you guilty of buying your child new pants because the old ones have holes in the knees, but are otherwise in good condition? You can either buy iron-on patches for knees, or, get creative and take a pair of pants your child has outgrown and use the material to create knee patches. You really don't have to be able to sew that well, and you don't even need a sewing machine. Okay, hand-stitching will take a bit longer, but it's a skill worth learning anyway.
• Don't give into the buy, buy, buy mentality! Did you ever wonder why trends change every season? Certainly, some creative folks out there enjoy the change in styles, purely from an aesthetic standpoint, but there really is more to it. New styles come out regularly so we all THINK we need to look updated and hip. And that compels us to spend lots of money. Let's get real here - I enjoy fashion just as much as the next woman, but what you wear does NOT define your status or worth. You can look sharp and put-together on a budget and with a green conscience. Really.

If none of these suggestions are compelling to you, I implore you to consider the environmental impact, and that of your health. Can you really afford to keep buying conventional clothing? Check out this very short YouTube video and decide for yourself.

Consumption & Bad Habits

Well, I am more than 10 days late in posting my other 'bad habits,' but my tardiness has been a good thing. In the time since I wrote my original 'stuff' post, I have reflected greatly on how much stuff I have and what kinds of things I consume each week. As a result, I have become much more aware of the 'stuff' in our world and how we have been trained to consume, consume, consume.

I found myself thinking about what I consume - food, drink, water, skin care products, clothing, gasoline, single-serve food containers, water, energy, brown bags...the list could go on and on. And then of course, I asked myself, and over the last few weeks, have answered these questions:

• Where can I stop consuming?
• Where can I cut back on my consumption?
• How can I give back to the earth?
• If I don't consume, will I be putting others out of jobs?
• Can I 'consume resonsibly'?

Ask yourself these questions and you may find that you had never really considered how our world works. We have been trained (or brain washed, depending on your perspective) to think that we have to buy, buy, buy all the time and so now, we don't trust our instincts anymore about how to provide for ourselves and our families, how to be happy, and how to love our earth.

I encourage you to watch The Story of Stuff if you really want to wrap you brain around some new ideas. After watching it, you may even be compelled to ponder how YOU can change your lifestyle and help break the industrial system we are in. It's food for thought!

In the meantime, you may get a good laugh at my struggles with my own 'stuff.' I find that sometimes, a good dose of humor makes light of that which weighs heavy on us, and helps us keep taking one step at a time.

Bad Habit #2 Single use hydrogen peroxide wipes. One of my most favorite cleaning treasures! Now, I may get a few points for using peroxide as a cleaner instead of all those icky, toxic brews out there, and I might get 1 point for purchasing a product with a recyclable container, but subtract a few points for the wipes themselves….can’t recycle those puppies so they go straight to landfill.

Solution: Purchase hydrogen peroxide bottles and use my son’s old t-shirts that I saved as rags to clean countertops, sink basins, and the like.


Bad Habit #3 Rice milk containers. Waxed containers cannot be recycled. This is true for juice boxes, soups, and any other food product that comes in a waxed container. For awhile, it seemed like a better option than plastic, with all the BPA and phthalate stuff out there, but it’s really no better. I did not think I had another option as drinking rice milk in our family is a health requirement for our son (he has two auto-immune disorders), not an act of social activism. I mean, how does a person make rice milk?!

Solution: Buy a rice milk maker! I fell across a soy milk maker advertisement while reading VegNews the other day and got excited. Now, I have yet to do research on the product, and I’m sure there will be some drawbacks such as having plastic parts, and being made in China, to name a few. So, this is an idea in the making, as I don’t know if the rice milk-makers out there are worth their salt. We’ll see!


Bad Habit #4 Magazines. I’m a visually-oriented person who not only is highly affected by aesthetics, but learns through hands-on and visual experiences. It should not surprise you to know that I’m gaga over magazines – Dwell, House Beautiful, Metropolitan Home, Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens – I have subscriptions to them all. And for a tree-hugger, I’m doing a lot of paper hugging these days, which is not helping our poor forests.

Solution: Share a subscription with a friend or two! Okay, now I know that doesn’t help the magazine companies’ bottom lines, and I really do appreciate all the green articles and overall eco-conscious direction that most of those magazines are heading, but trees make oxygen, and I enjoy taking in a nice, toxin-free breath of fresh air – for each breath I take! If I want clean air, I have to be part of the solution, not the problem.


Bad Habit #5 Pre-packaged, gluten-free foods. I’ll give myself a little pat on the back for buying organic vegetables and fruit, and putting them in little canvas bags and my reused brown bags (which I use until they fall apart), but I’m still buying a small amount of gluten-free prepackaged foods for myself and my son, as we are both gluten intolerant.

Solution: Break out the pasta maker, give it a good cleaning from my wheat pasta-making days and look for some gluten-free recipes. Cookies are also easy to bake at home, and I usually do, but other things like rice and sorghum flours come in bags or boxes, so there isn’t much I can do there, unless I decide to become a rice farmer. Ah – no. Tortilla chips are another family favorite and I’m going to get a bag of some kind whether I buy masa or tortillas to make my own chips, or just buy a bag of pre-made chips. Hmmm. Still trying to figure out a really great solution to that bad habit!


Bad Habit #6 Driving across town, twice daily. Well, I’m a bit stuck here. My son’s school is 11 miles from our home, which is a problem for many reasons. I drive about 44 miles a day to complete two round-trips to and from his school. I hadn’t planned it to be this way, really!

Solution: Ride bikes. We tried riding our bikes, but 11 miles is too far for a 5-year old, and certainly not twice a day! (Believe me, we tried it several times!) And 44 miles is a bit far for me, considering I’m already running during the week for exercise! (I’m no Iron Woman…at least not at this point in my life!) We also tried taking public transportation part of the way and riding the bike the remaining way, but alas, Sacramento isn’t too friendly to moms trying to heave a commuter bike with a trailer bike attachment up onto the light rail. And I do mean UP!

My son declared after several failed attempts that he did not feel safe riding the light rail, which was obvious by how he held onto my shorts for dear life. (There were some interesting folks riding the trains, and “interesting” is being kind.) We could try riding the bus. There is a bus stop around the corner from our house. Hmmm. I’ll look into that one.

Carpooling is certainly a great option, but honestly, I only trust a few close friends to drive my little pumpkin around and unfortunately, their kids don’t go to the same school - not even close!

So, the best solution for us has been to combine our shopping trips, which I do anyway. Grocery shopping is always done after school on Monday, and because we buy clothing, knick knacks, and other junk so rarely, we don’t usually have many errands to do.

Next year, my son is going to a different school where we can actually bike the distance! We'll earn a gold star for reducing our carbon footprint, for sure!


Bad Habit #7 Buy things I could make at home. I buy orange juice in a recyclable plastic container each week. We have 3 orange trees. Gasp! What a ridiculous eco-sin! Go ahead; give me a virtual slap on the wrist. My excuse? I’m busy being green in so many other ways that I don’t take the time to pluck the oranges off the tree, cut them in half, juice them, and then store the juice. Blah, blah, blah. I know.

Solution: Make homemade food and drink, like o.j., pasta, and whatever else I buy out of convenience, as part of our Sunday routine. If we choose one day per week in which we make a majority of the foods we’ll need, perhaps it won’t be so daunting? I’ll let you know how this little experiment goes….


Bad Habit #8 Running gear. I LOVE running and the cool duds that go with the activity, but my running gear does NOT come from organic fabrics, and I don’t love that! And most of it is made overseas. Double yuck!

Solution: Find alternative fabrics that do the job for running. Certainly, I can use some things that come from yoga stores. They typically are earth-friendly, but, yoga tops aren't very supportive. So, the search is on for earth-friendly workout gear.


Bad Habit #9 Meat. I don’t eat red meat, but I have dabbled a bit with chicken, turkey, and “the other white meat,” as well as fish/shellfish. Gasp! Sometimes, I horrify myself as I was a vegetarian for 10 years. How did I fall off the wagon, so to speak? Well, since I was diagnosed gluten intolerant, I find it particularly hard to get dense enough foods to eat. I’m hungry all the time! Those whole wheat grains pack a lot of punch in terms of energy – more so than the rice, quinoa, sorghum, and corn that I use as replacer grains. So I started to use animal-based foods for long-term energy needs, especially when running long distances. I know there are vegetarian and vegan runners out there. Time to catch up with them, I think!

Solution: Read Skinny Bitch, by Rory Freedman & Kim Barnounin or pick up any ol’ PETA pamphlet. You’ll never want to eat meat again! I found a PETA pamphlet tucked in a hand-out I got at the Sacramento Earth Day festival and after reading it cover to cover, I was in tears. The “processing” of meat is not a pretty picture by any stretch. This is a touchy subject for many, as it is a moral/ethical, environmental, and health issue, so do the research on your own. For me, I’m following a pescatarian diet for now (fish/shellfish, veggies, fruits, grains, and nuts) and hoping to move more towards veganism. Being a vegan is not only a way of eating; it also reflects a way of thinking and an entire lifestyle. And while I have been cooking more vegan dishes lately, I think it will be a process as I learn more. Another good read to learn about the industrial food cycle is Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma . Don’t buy it…borrow it from a friend or get it on loan from the library. It’s a good read. (He'll be in Sacramento June 10th - his event at the Westminster Presbyterian Church is sold out!)

Bad Habit #10 Eating foods from other countries. No, I don’t mean ethnic dishes (I love ‘em!), I mean the actual foods! I caved the other day and bought “organic” bananas from Ecuador. Is “organic” from Ecuador even possible? I’m highly skeptical about foods from other countries that have organic labels, let alone our own country if they don’t have anything beyond the USDA organic labeling. (Certified Oregon Tilth is more rigorous, I hear.) Worse, I’m contributing to our gigantic carbon footprint by supporting companies that ship foods all over the world.

Solution: Eat locally, think globally! I heard that recently and I love the mantra. So, I should be able to do without my beloved bananas, right? It can be difficult when you find a delicious recipe you want to try. Ever notice that at certain times of the year certain foods are REALLY expensive? That’s because they are out of season, and are being grown, processed, and then shipped to the US. Now eating conventional foods grown in the US does NOT get you off the hook. Conventional foods are grown with pesticides (read: toxic chemicals) and then waxed so that they shine brighter than the Chrysler Building. (Also, they are “overprocessed.” Case in point – when I lived in San Diego, the foods that were grown in the valley were picked in Southern California, shipped up to Northern California to be processd, and then shipped BACK DOWN to Southern California stores.) Stop the insanity and eat only what is in season! Want to learn how? Read Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle . It’s food for thought about how we can break the industrial food cycle. Beware – she does eat meat and dairy, so if you are über-vegan, it’s not the book for you.


Bonus Bad Habit! Buying conventional clothing. Generally, I’ve got two major criteria when purchasing clothing: it should be (1) organic and (2) made in the USA. This is virtually an impossible task, which is why I started our in-house children’s clothing line, Cricket and Whiskers, which is BOTH organic and made in the USA! Anyhow, it is easy to find organic yoga wear and tee shirts – heck, I’ve even found organic unders, but affordable organic women’s clothing doesn’t exist! There are some fabulous designers out there who have organic lines, but gosh, they practically rob you at the till! Okay, it is true that manufacturing organic goods costs at least 30% more than conventional, but really, a $75.00 tee shirt? That is unconscionable to me.

Solution: I’ve got four options that I see –
1. Buy gently used. There are some amazing shops out there now-a-days that offer high-end clothes for super cheap. They have been loved a little before making their way to the sassy second-hand stores. The down side is that we are supporting some other sister’s really bad habit.
2. Trade with friends. Set a date with your gal pals for a clothing swap. Each girlfriend brings to the soiree garments that (a) she hates, (b) don’t fit, or (c) she hates because they don’t fit anymore. As you drink a glass of organic wine, you try on different articles of clothing and ultimately leave with something new-to-you, super cute, and free!
3. Buy organic items on sale. Many designers have close out sales at the end of a season and the blouse you’ve been eyeing for months will suddenly cost 50% less than it did when you looked at it a few months ago.
4. Buy less, but buy organic. Okay, so how many pairs of jeans does a girl REALLY need. I don’t have any scientific data on this, but I think a girl can live happily with 3 well-fitting pairs: a casual jean, a dressier jean, and a rockin’ pair that makes you feel like a movie star. So, instead of having 7 pairs of conventional jeans that cost $30-50 bucks each (for a grand total of $210-$350) at your local discount retailer, buy 3 pairs at around $150 each and wear them forever – you don’t have to be THAT up with the trends. Really, Mother Earth won’t care what you look like, and while you certainly can take them with you, earth worms and nematodes won’t be holding any fashion shows six-feet under.


Feeling inspired to make some changes? I'd love to hear about YOUR bad habits and suggested solutions. We can all learn from each other how to break free from the 'stuff' cycle!