Jack McLaughlin, 11, who has diabetes, needs physical-education class every morning instead of the usual two days in every six. Credit: Clem Murray, Philadelphia Inquirer / MCT
Jack Laughlin will start middle school every day with gym class.
What might be a nightmare for other middle schoolers is a dream come true for the 11-year-old Exton, Pa., student and his family. Jack has diabetes and as we reported earlier, he and his parents, David and Cathy Laughlin, argued he needed daily gym classes to recover from his post-breakfast sugar high.
Students at Lionville Middle School usually get gym classes two out of every six days. They spend the rest of their mornings in music and reading skills classes.
School officials initially said there was no compelling medical evidence to rearrange the schedule for Jack and he could get the exercise he needs through a school walking club and intramural athletics.
Jack McLaughlin, 11, who has diabetes, needs gym class every morning to stay healthy, his parents say. Credit: Clem Murray, Philadelphia Inquirer / MCT
Gym classes rotate with music and reading-skills classes. School authorities tell the Philadelphia Inquirerthat the McLaughlins have been offered exercise options for Jack that don't cut into those other classes.
A middle-school math teacher is in the hot seat for including an image of a toothless black man on a homework sheet, and at least one parent is calling the illustration racist.
"I couldn't understand what I was looking at," says the woman, whose identity was not revealed by the newspaper. The work sheet, titled "Solving Equations using Multiplication and Division!," featured a photo of a black man in a straw hat and a shirt and suspenders, his mostly toothless mouth agape. Underneath the picture is the grammatically incorrect phrase, "NO WAI!!!"
Will Phillips doesn't believe that describes America for its gay and lesbian citizens. He's a 10-year-old at West Fork Elementary School in Arkansas, about three hours east of Oklahoma City. Given his beliefs, he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, specifically because that one phrase, "liberty and justice for all," he says, does not truly apply to all.
That did not go over well with the substitute teacher in his fifth-grade classroom.
The Arkansas Times reports that he started refusing to say the pledge Mon., Oct. 5. By Thursday, the substitute was steamed. She told Will she knew his mother and grandmother and they would want him to recite the pledge.
Will told the Times the substitute got more and more upset. She raised her voice. By this point, Will told the newspaper, he started losing his cool too, adding: "After a few minutes, I said, 'With all due respect ma'am, go jump off a bridge.'"
Would your child refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? Credit: Getty Images
"Blue's Clues" was a popular, long-running children's television show on Nickelodeon. The show, which aired from 1996 to 2006, featured Blue, an animated dog who interacted with a human host .
"Blue's Clues" was originally hosted by Steve Burns, who left the show in 2002. He was replaced by Donovan Patton, who hosted the show until its 2006 cancellation. In 2004, a spin-off of "Blue's Room" began airing on Nickelodeon.
Each episode of "Blue's Clues" was formatted the same way. The host presented a puzzle for the audience to solve. Blue helped the audience solve the puzzle by leaving three paw print clues. Between the discovery of each clue, the host would lead the audience in games related to that episode's puzzle. At the end of each episode, the hostwould sit in his "thinking chair" to discuss the clues and help the audience solve the puzzle.
Despite the fact that no new "Blue's Clues" episodes are being filmed, DVDs of the series are still popular with preschoolers, young children and parents.
If you're looking for more information on the best TV shows and movies for kids, check out ParentDish's entertainment section.
The Montessori educational philosophy is based on the idea that children develop and think differently than adults. At the core of the Montessori method is the belief that if children are allowed to direct their own learning, they will develop better. Using a child-centered, alternative-education method, a Montessori preschool allows children to gain knowledge from discovery and direct their own learning by choosing from a variety of activities in a well-stocked and easily accessible classroom. The Montessori method holds that hands-on experimentation is vital to learning and, as such, educational materials in a Montessori preschool are specific to the method.
Montessori preschools shun traditional methods of marking progress, such as testing and grades. Instead, a child's progress in a Montessori preschool is evaluated by observations in the classroom and examination of the products of the work. These observations and examinations are done in an unobtrusive way so that the child is unaware that he or she is being evaluated.
Instead of report cards, parents of children in Montessori preschools are presented with the teacher's observations, a list of skills and activities and sometimes a written narrative emphasizing the child's strengths, weaknesses and improvements.
While it is believed that the Montessori method will work with any child, parents must consider their own values, beliefs and expectations when deciding to enroll their child in a Montessori preschool. A parent educated in a traditional classroom must be willing to learn alongside their child and provide a home environment that is in harmony with the Montessori method.
Moms are less likely than dads to have a financial plan for their children's college educations. Credit: AMagill, Flickr
They say a mother's work is never done, but one survey says mothers are falling down on the job of saving for the kids' college.
A new poll found while mothers push kids harder than dads to succeed in school and get into college, they're not as involved in planning how to pay for it.
Vicki Myron has published another children's book about Dewey, the kitten she rescued from her library's drop box. Credit: Hachette Book Group, USA
He grew up entertaining the children who tromped into an Iowa library for story hour, so it was only a matter of time before this furry friend, aptly named Dewey Readmore Books, starred in his own children's books.
In fact "Dewey: There's a Cat in the Library" is the follow up to Vicki Myron's best-selling memoir "Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World," which is set to be made into a movie by New Line Cinema. Meryl Streep has signed on to play Myron, but the former librarian, who discovered Dewey as a kitten abandoned in the Spencer, Iowa library drop box on a chilly winter morning in the 1980s, isn't done telling this feline's tale.
Samantha Parkington, an orphan from the Edwardian Era who lives with her grandmother, Pioneer-Era Kirsten Larson and Molly McIntire, who was a young girl in World War Two, debuted in 1986. Along with period outfits and accessories, a six-book series could be purchased with each doll. These books tell the dolls' stories from the perspective of a nine-year-old girl living in that historical period. Both the dolls and books became very popular.
In 1991, Felicity Merriman from the Revolutionary War period was introduced. Later in the 1990's, Addy Walker, a slave from the Civil War Era, and Josefina Montoya, who reflects the history of New Mexico under Mexican Rule, joined the fold. In 1998, Rowland sold her company to Mattel for $700 million. The American Girl books have inspired four movies, including Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which opened in theaters in 2008 and was based on a doll who lived during the Great Depression.
How bad is it to get stuck at work and miss your child's big event? Credit: jupiterimages
Back-to-school night just passed and some mom friends were talking about how special these nights are... and how awful it is if a parent has to miss it. But sometimes missing a big event really, truly, can't be avoided. So if a parent just can't make it to the play, or choir recital or open school night... how bad?
To find out, I called my friend and Mommy Advisor Rosanne Tobey, director of Calm and Sense Therapy, a counseling service, for her take on the situation.
"This is a tough one," she started. "How a parent handles it depends on how big a moment it is for the child. If it's a really big moment, like the first day of kindergarten, of course it's going to feel worse for the child."
But for other important events, like a school play that a parent just can't make it to, it's still not ideal to miss them, but there may be ways you can mitigate the damage, Tobey said.
"For instance, I know a mom who just had surgery and couldn't go to back-to-school night..."
A group of high-powered New York mothers banded together to create a new school for gifted students at a time when seats for academically-advanced kids are few and far between in the city's public schools.
The Speyer Legacy School opened this fall in rented space and currently has 26 students in grades K-2, according to The New York Times. The founder-moms include Kelly Posner Gerstenhauber, a professor at Columbia University, and Malena Belafonte, daughter-in-law of singer Harry Belafonte.
The move comes at a time when New York's best public schools for gifted kids are struggling to offer enough space. Last year, according to The Times, 14,822 4-year-olds tested for admission to the city's gifted kindergarten programs, an increase of more than 2,000 over the previous year. However, the number of spaces available -- 395 -- is nowhere near enough for the 4,576 kids who qualified.
The Walt Disney Company is offering up refunds to parents who bought the popular Baby Einstein videos and the move may be an admission that the products did not help boost babies' intelligence, as the company once claimed.
Disney is offering a refund of up to $15.99 for four "Baby Einstein" DVDs per household if the items were purchased between June 5, 2004 and Sept. 5, 2009, The New York Times reported. The move may be a response to the threat of a class-action lawsuit for unfair and deceptive marketing practices.
According to the Times, a letter from the lawyers threatening the suit states that: "The Walt Disney Company's entire Baby Einstein marketing regime is based on express and implied claims that their videos are educational and beneficial for early childhood development." The letter also states that the claims are "false because research shows that television viewing is potentially harmful for very young children."
Ceara Sturgis, 17, posed for her high school portrait in a tux and now the school won't include her photo in the yearbook. Credit: WLBT TV / AP
Ceara Sturgis, 17, just wanted to be comfortable, so the gay teen donned a tux for her traditional senior portrait -- the portrait her school district has now said they won't print in the school yearbook.
Sturgis' mom, Vanessa Rodriguez, told the Clarion-Ledger that she was told her daughter's picture will not appear in the yearbook because of her choice of clothing. Considering the yearbook is for the kids -- rather than the school -- Rodriguez said she can't understand why her daughter can't wear what she wants.
First introduced in 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill last week to create Harvey Milk Day in honor of the first openly gay person to be elected to a high office of a major American city.
According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper from Milk's adopted hometown, he's just the second California citizen to be awarded such an honor. Milk served as the city's Supervisor.
Last year's movie that won Sean Penn an Academy Award for his portrayal of Milk had increased the pressure on Sacramento to get the bill passed, and gay rights groups have spent the days since Schwarzenegger brandished his pen celebrating.
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