What are the situations when parents start annoying teachers?

I am a parent plus teacher and I can judge the situation when parents are not co-operative and make situation annoying for teachers. Parents can help teacheres following the rules and regulation established by the school authorities, as most of the conflicts happen because parents don't care about following it.

These are situations when parents start annoying teachers and they wished parents wouldn't do:
Bring their kids to school late
"When a child is late every day by more than 15 minutes, it takes them out of the routine and ritual of the morning," says Otis Kriegel, a veteran New York City teacher and founder of theK5.com, a website that provides tips for parents of elementary-school-age kids.
"If a child is struggling in class, either academically or emotionally, this is more detrimental to their success."
It's also not OK for kids to miss important school days — state tests, curriculum-related field trips and the like, Kriegel says. Also, please get your child back to school when classes resume after vacation (if you have to miss a day, he says, miss the last day before break).
Fail to stay on top of homework and class communications
Katje Lehrman, a kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles, urges parents to check their kids' backpacks every day. "Children often use their backpacks the way homeless people use shopping carts," she says. Chances are very good they contain notices, incomplete homework, toys that should stay at home, and other things. I've even found fruit decomposing in a backpack when it started to leak in the closet.
Have a 'Goldilocks' problem with homework — be too much or too little involved
Phillip Done, a teacher and the author of "Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind," says homework that's full of mistakes is OK. "If you do it for them and it comes back perfect, the teacher doesn't know what to work on," he says. "Better full of mistakes than perfect."
Just as you don't want to do your kid's homework, make sure you also encourage and monitor it, says Candice Broom, who's both a parent and a substitute teacher at an international school in Laos. And please, don't ask a teacher to assign more homework. That's just weird (and yes, parents do it).
Expect the teacher to do more than teach
Teachers are responsible for a lot of students. They are not responsible for, say, your child's jacket. "I often have parents e-mail or call and ask me to go to the lost and found to find their child's clothing," says Courtney Graham, a San Francisco-area teacher. "I even had a parent leave a message one morning right after school started to ask me to check to be sure her child's shoes weren't too tight, and if they were, to go down to the lost and found and find him a bigger pair to 'borrow.'"
Abuse e-mail or phone calls
Phillip Done knows a teacher who received more than 200 e-mails from a parent. Other teachers talk about receiving updates on, say, how many pieces of toast Elmer ate in the morning, and his resulting energy level — that sort of thing. E-mail is for letting the teacher know your child has a doctor's appointment, or that his lunch is in the office, Done says. If you want to talk about concerns you have with your child, make an appointment instead. (And yes, you can use e-mail for that.) Also, new technologies like Facebook are fun, but please don't "friend" the teacher.
* At our school we teachers offer a consult timing at late evening to discuss learning related matters but it is a very common practice that many parents call us just to know if tomorrow shool is closed or not? (They often don't check the diaries, notices or holiday routines)
Hijack the morning or afternoon
Teachers don't have free time right before and after school. They're readying the classroom, planning lessons and doing other vital things. That's not a good time to chat with a teacher about anything. If you need a meeting, or want to talk about something, arrange an appointment.
Behave badly at birthdays
Though most parents know not to celebrate their own birthdays in school, sometimes they throw parties for their kids that are disruptive. Julie Rebboah, a former teacher and president of Lightning Bug Learning, wishes parents wouldn't send cakes that need cutting, or jugs of juice that need to be poured. Presents and balloons are for the party at home. "And please don't be mad at me when we can't have a full birthday party at school," she says. "My job is to teach, and the kids are at school to learn."
Wait until the last minute to ask for assistance
If your child needs individual tutoring before a test, or has an academic problem that needs to be solved, don't wait until the last minute. Dr. Richard E. Bavaria, Sylvan Learning's senior vice president for education outreach, cringes when he sees that happen. "Any time adults wait to alleviate an academic problem, the child is ill-served," he says. "When you suspect a child is having a problem, get help right away before the child's learning and confidence are affected."
Believe the worst about a teacher or school
In his 40 years as an educator, Bavaria has heard his share of crazy rumors — that there's a suspension quota a principal has to fill, or the biology teacher makes kids dissect live frogs. He and other teachers urge parents to assume good intentions on the part of the school.
Forget who the teacher is serving
Some parents devour the teacher's time and energy not because their student is in need, but because the parents feel in need of TLC. As warm and wonderful as many teachers are, they are not a parent's support system.
Putting yourself in teacher's shoes would bring solution to these annoying situations.
Fortunately, most parents are considerate and understand that teachers are juggling a lot, several teachers told me. In case you've been accidentally annoying, don't fret. You can make up for it.
 
Sources (with the courtesy of): By 'Martha Brockenbrough'-10 Things Parents Do to Annoy Teachers -MSN 's 'Moms Home Room'

A nutrition and health blog from a padriatric nutrition mom -Beyong Parent'

During writing review for 'preschooler mom' I came across another nice blog 'Beyond Parent' which is from a registered Dietitian and Certified Lactation Counselor. Debra has got a Master's Degree in Public Health. Her nutrition specialties include perinatal nutrition, pediatric nutrition, breastfeeding, and food allergies.



'Beyond Parents' is a parent blog dealing in nutrition and health of children.

'The goal of Beyond Prenatals is to encourage and empower women to learn more about nutrition during preconception, pregnancy, and early childhood...and to go "beyond" prenatal vitamins in striving to create healthy families.'

As the blogger is herself a padiatric nutrition specialists it is obvious that you may get useful tips and suggestions regarding child and kid's food, health etc.
It seems that she is also a working and busy mom, so there are not frequent articles at the blog but the advice and useful information you can get from the blog is worth to check.

You can also follow her at 'twitter' or get subscription of the blog to get updated post news.

A blog for mothers of preschoolers with tips and resources

I love to share the resources I find during my browsing the net. It is a pleasure for me to discover good stuff, good blogs with useful tips, and resources. Being an educator at a primary school and dealing with reception stage children (4 years to 5 year old), I am in need of more ideas and tips to adopt for my own classroom. I prefer to bookmark blogs which are created with personal touch and experience. 'Preschool mama' is one of those blogs which I have subscribed to get updates of next articles.

'Preschool mama'  is a wonderful blog sharing resources for mothers of preschoolers. The blog is created by a former Montessori preschool teacher and mother of a kid.

What you can find at the blog?

• Blog has a lot of stuff to help you give your child an edge, enhance his learning and reading skills, and boost self esteem.
• You can find resources, easy tips and how tos for fun activities and crafts projects. 
• Get advice on dealing with common preschooler health and nutrition issues.
• Simple and easy ideas for arts and crafts that combine creativity with a great bonding experience for you and your child.
• Resources to help with potty training and bed wetting issues, ways to enhance socials skills and encourage independent thinking, and a lot more.

The blogger says:
'You’ll find all the stuff that’s worked for me, the well meaning tips that didn’t, and the tricks I wish I’d known when I was raising my son.
You’ll also find advice, inspiration and motivation for you, the PreSchool Mama, without who this blog wouldn’t exist.'

Start seaching the sites from 'Best of preschool mama' page where you can find posts covering all the topics essentail for the skill or persoanlity development of your child.

Note: Unfortunately blog is not being updated since two years, but still there is good stuff at the blog.

How we can successfully recycle at school?

How can we recycle and save our money, resources and environment?
Teachers can teach their children to reduce resource consumption, reuse where it is possible and utimate result is that there is less wastage and rubbish. We can learn to recycle objects near and around our classroom, and school.

 

Recycling is only one of the things we can do about waste. It is about the 3Rs -

1. reduce resource consumption
2. maximise resource reuse
3. increase the percentage of waste they recycle

How we can successfully recycle at school:

 

Reduce

• Rather than asking pupils to start a new page for each piece of work, get them to rule off below previous work and continue on the same page.
• Develop strategies that encourage your children not to throw written work away as soon as they make a mistake.
• Cut the amount of paper used by your school through greater use of I.C.T., both in lessons and for administration.
• Cut down on photocopying. Ask yourself whether it is the best way of presenting the information to your class. Would using Powerpoint or an OHP be better? If you do need to photocopy, do it double-sided whenever practical.
• Is it necessary to print everything that's done in the I.C.T. room out onto paper? And if so, could it be printed double sided?
• When sending home letters, combine information into one letter rather than sending three separate letters. Ensure that families only get sent one copy and consider whether it is feasible to send information by other means e.g. e-mail.
• About one fifth by weight of most schools' waste consists of food. If your school has a lot of food waste, could this be because pupils are being given portions that are too big or that they are being given things that they don't want to eat?
• Talk to the people who do the catering for your school about buying food with less packaging on.
• Aim towards 'waste-free lunches' for those who bring a packed lunch. Encourage children not to bring more food than they can eat and to use reusable bottles and flasks for drinks instead of individual cartons or cans. They could also be asked to use reusable airtight containers for snacks and packed lunches instead of disposable wrappers.
• Give careful thought to what is sold in your school tuck shop, both in terms of healthy eating and the amount of waste produced. Reduce the number of crisp packets in your school bin by having crisp-free days and generally limiting the number of packets eaten per child, promoting fruit as a healthier alternative.
• For parties at Christmas and the end of term, use washable plates and cups instead of disposable ones made from paper and plastic.
• Save money by sharing infrequently used resources with other nearby schools.

Reuse

• Always use both sides of a piece of paper, before you recycle it or throw it away. Make sure that every classroom has a 'scrap' paper tray and put paper that has only been used on one side into this, rather than putting it straight in the bin or sending it off for recycling. The paper can then be used for 'rough work' or at wet playtimes. Another good place for one of these scrap trays is by the photocopier!
• Reuse items of waste in art work, and use plastic pots for growing seeds, etc. Reuse old paper which cannot be written on any more to make papier mache models or your own recycled paper.
• Provide children with reusable 'sports bottles' that can be cleaned out and refilled every day.
• Ask your office staff to reuse envelopes by sticking a label over the old address. This will save money as well as reduce the number of envelopes thrown away.
• Collect in photocopied worksheets and store them so that they can be used again in subsequent years. This will save you work too!
• Hold a bring and buy sale to raise money for your school to which people can bring old clothes, toys or books for someone else to buy and reuse.
• Request that teachers reuse paper when changing classroom displays
• Make use of rechargeable batteries and refillable print cartridges.
• More than 80 scrapstores exist throughout the UK to take in scrap materials to be used in work with children. Join your local scrapstore and persuade your 'after school club' to do the same.
• Don't just throw old school furniture in a skip. Find out if anyone else can make use of it first. Many projects exist to pass unwanted furniture to voluntary groups and people in need and there are also similar schemes for computers.
• Give old tools from the school workshops to Tools for Self Reliance who can refurbish these before sending them on to developing countries.

Recycle

• Not surprisingly, the main material thrown away by schools is paper, which makes up at least quarter of their waste. Contact the recycling officer at your local council and ask them to provide your school with a paper recycling bin or equivalent. Then, set up a system of paper collection from each classroom which can be taken to the main recycling bin at the end of each day or week. Also ask them if they are running a Yellow Woods Challenge so that you can recycle Yellow Pages directories.
• Set up a composting scheme or a worm composter for food & green waste, including all the staff's tea bags and fruit scraps. Again your local council's recycling officer may be able to help here. In some cases, compost bins can be provided to schools free of charge.
• If your school has a drinks vending machine, put a bin next to it to collect up old cans for recycling. You can even join schemes which will enable you to make money from these for your school. For more information on these, see 'What your school can do about waste' on the Waste on the Web page of this site.
• Cardboard milk cartons can also be recycled. Wash them out after use and store them for collection.
• Encourage your school to buy and use recycled paper and other recycled products. Doing so may mean that in the short term you pay higher prices for some goods but in the long term it will increase demand and lower prices. A number of websites containing information about recycled products are listed on the Waste on the Web page of this site.
• So remember to reduce, reuse and recycle your waste. It is much better to reduce waste in the first place as then there is less to deal with. Reusing things is the second best option as it saves you buying new things. After you have reduced and reused as much as you can, recycle.

The last thing that should cross your mind is to throw it in the bin!

 

Useful links:

 

* 'Online resources for recycling'

 

* 'Recycle Zone' a site for schools, children and teachers to help them learn about recycling. It is part of Waste Watch website, located at : www.wastewatch.org.uk

Which is best age to buy your child a cell phone?

My son is now 11 plus and sometimes he asks me to buy a cell phone. But I think that parents should be careful about providing this facility to their children. I will buy him a phone for safety reasons,  just to reach him anytime.
Recently I read a very useful article at 'NY times' about 'When to Buy Your Child a Cellphone' which is full of advice from experts. I am writing only experts of this post, but if you want to read full post, check the source link at the bottom of the post.

There is no age that suits all children, developmental psychologists and child safety experts say. It depends on the child’s maturity level and need for the phone, and the ability to be responsible for the device — for example, keeping it charged, keeping it on and not losing it. Instead of giving in to the claim that “everyone else has one,” parents should ask why the child needs one, how it will be used and how well the child handles distraction and responsibility.

“You need to figure out, are your kids capable of following your rules?” about using the phone, said Parry Aftab, executive director of the child advocacy group Wired Safety.
Ruth Peters, a child psychologist in Clearwater, Fla., said most children were not ready for their own phones until age 11 to 14, when they were in middle school. Often, that is when they begin traveling alone to and from school, or to after-school activities, and may need to call a parent to change activities at the last minute or coordinate rides.

“Most parents want to give a cellphone to keep them safe, but that ignores the great majority of uses that kids are using cellphones for,” said James P. Steyer, the chief executive of the nonprofit group Common Sense Media, which rates children’s media. He said that with those added features can come addictive behavior, cyberbullying, “sexting” (sending nude photos by text message), cheating in class and, for older teenagers, distracted driving.
Dr. Peters suggested that parents avoid buying children younger than 13 a phone with a camera and Internet access. “If they don’t have access to it, it’s just cleaner,” she said.

For children, it is all about social life and wanting to impress peers. The Pew study found that half of 12- to 17-year-olds sent 50 text messages a day and texted their friends more than they talked to them on the phone or even face to face.

Patricia Greenfield, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in children’s use of digital media, cautioned that at younger ages, parents might miss out on what was going on with their children because of a cellphone.
“Kids want the phone so that they can have private communication with their peers,” she said. “You should wait as long as possible, to maintain parent-child communication.”

Source: When to Buy Your Child a Cellphone

Learn the basics of calligraphy online with free tutorials

Calligraphy is generally recognized as the Art of Beautiful Writing. It is also called typography. You can easily learn calligraphy with some practice at home while getting online help. There are many sites which offer free tutorials to start learning calligraphy. You can start learning with simple writing instruments or tools and paper.

You can also buy calligraphy bools and tools, stationary to start this fascinating hobby. It can be catagorized as an art form involving a lot of creativity. The more creative you are and enthusiastic about colour, shapes, designs you can be a good calligrapher with some practice.

There are many different ways of writing the letters of the alphabet.
In Typography these various representations are referred to as Fonts, in Calligraphy the various styles are referred to as Hands.


The primary tools used by Calligraphers to write are pens and brushes, pens and brushes can be either pointed or flat (broad).


Generally Calligraphy refers to a style of writing in which the width of various parts of a letter varies.


In the case of pointed pens or brushes these variations in thickness are provided by variations in pressure of the pen or brush on the paper.


With flat, or as they are usually referred to broad, pens or brushes, the variations are given by the variation of the angle at which the pen is held relative to the direction of the stroke.


Useful links and resources:


* 'Calligraphy online lessons'
Note: Lessons are not complete as you are asked to buy cd for the detailed lessons or course. But still the information at few pages are enough to start learning calligraphy.


* 'Learn Calligraphy.co.uk' is the best place to start learning Calligraphy. Includes the basics, calligraphy alphabet, calligraphy history, how to begin, etc. Very useful.


* Learn How to Draw Beautiful Lettering - offers online basic Calligraphy lesson to get started.


* Decorative Calligraphy - Many great articles for learning about calligraphy, the different styles, and how to get started.


* 'Studio arts' offers basic three part lesson helping you learn how to start learning this fun and art form of writing.

Tips to buy safe and healthy lunch box for kids

Every mom wants to provide healthy and safe food for school going kids, but we sometimes ignore to check the material we use for packing lunch to tiffin. Parents should carefully select the food grade lunch boxes for their kids.

If you want to make sure that the healthy lunch that you pack for your child stays healthy and nutritious, you can avoid common contaminants and costly throw-aways by choosing the right lunch box solutions.

These tips are helpful to choose safe product for your kid's health and select lunch box made of harmless material which is healthier for regular use.

Cotton, bamboo spork, stainless steel, cloth are safe products for lunch boxes.

Metal or cloth is better than plastic:
Many plastic lunch boxes are made of PVC, which can contain contaminants such as lead, or leach chemicals like phthalates and BPA. If plastic is your best option, look for lunch boxes that are phthalate and BPA-free.

Wrap without plastic wrap or plastic baggies: Some plastic wrap and baggies are made with toxic chemical phthalates. Re-useable containers are a better choice; or you can choose butcher paper and bags such as GLAD brand made with polyethelyne.

Pack it yourself:
Packaging for greasy foods like microwave popcorn and french fries may be treated with PFCs, a non-stick coating linked to health disorders. Canned food and soda may also leach the chemical BPA. Choosing fresh or bulk food to package yourself is a healthier alternative.


Pack a No-Waste Lunch Box: The idea of lunch brought to and from school in a paper or plastic bag seems old fashion, but the use of an actual lunch box or reusable sack makes your eco-friendly options all the easier.


And finally, pack your food and drink in reusable containers. Just think of all the money you'd save per child per school year if you packed just two snacks and a drink in reusable containers.

Plastic Free Snacks and Sandwiches:
It's also great to stop using all those plastic zip bags and try reusable snack bags. These bags are handmade and come in some pretty fabrics. They're simple to wash and keep food fresh all day.
 

How to teach drawing to kids with simple shapes?

Teaching drawing to kids is fun as kids are very enthusiastic in learning and creativity process which is the main process in learning art/drawing. Teachers or parents can make this learning process easier and fun by applying some simple techniques.

Basic geomatrical shapes like circle, square, triangle, and rectangle are easy steps for the creation of simple pictures. Step by step instructions make it easy for kids to create pictures with simple shapes.

This techniques can be applied to teach drawing easier to preschoolers, home schoolers, kinder garteners etc. I start teaching drawing to my nursery class with very simple steps. Kids are promoted to  nursery after 'play' class (which is called reception year in some countries) they learn to draw circle, square, triangle and rectangle in their first year in school.

Most of the children are comfortable with circle which is very easy to draw. I first ask them to draw a circle, then add more circles or few strokes and then ask what is this object? Usually kids are very excited to see transformation of simple circle into cat, flower, clock etc.

Pictire at the left side shows the process of teaching duck with oval shape and curve lines.

- You can make house, train, etc with square shape
- Trianle can be transformed into flag, tree, star, etc
- Rectangle shape: van, truck, train etc


Ask the kids if they can think of any other objects with these shapes?
You would be surprised with the ideas coming from your class children. Encourage them to draw their own pictures.

Useful links:


* How to Teach Kindergarten Drawing


* 'Morning Earth.org' have a very useful post 'Drawing in the Classroom, by Marcia MacEachron.
Link: Basic Drawing in the Classroom