This week on the web....

As I write it's Saturday Morning and the boys have gone to Lego Club at the library with Les. I had 14.5 hours sleep... in my clothes... and I feel like a truck hit my brain. So a quiet hour or so of internet reading and fruit and fat laden smoothie seems like a good option. Here's what I'm reading....

The littles would love Teacher Tom's Pallet swing! We may just have to rig one up. We are investing a lot of money into one of these and they are going to love it- we are lucky to be having it made by the President of our Hockey club who is a master craftsman when it comes to wood... we'll have it paid off and he'll have it built in time for Tama's Birthday. I'm super excited!!

I've got a lot of love for Teacher Tom this week... This post Don't aim for success made me grumpy with Merenia's music teacher all over again. Just to set the scene we're talking about a girl who is attempting to set up a small band in her bedroom: Ukelele, Keyboard, Guitar, Violin (and she keeps nagging me for the bloody recorder). She dropped music from her timetable at school this year and I put that squarely on the shoulders of her Guitar teacher- he did not inspire at all. And at times made demands way beyond his scope as a teacher and put Merenia in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to either defy him or piss off her English teacher... rock and a hard place if ever there was. He had on his hands a passionate student... and he squashed the passion- and messed with her opportunities. (Yes I did talk to the school about it).

Teacher Tom's post 'Projects' was the best of what play- based learning was about. I wish I could shove it down the throats of those in the decision making seats of power in Western Australia- and the vast majority of parents as well... It's not JUST play you thick pricks it's essential and it's wonderful and you are breaking children when you take it away from them.  I loved this quote....

"If education is about children preparing for the day when they will assume adult roles in society, then this is the best preparation imaginable. This, projects with the other people, is pretty much what most of us do with our time on the planet when we're not engaged in the drudgery of our rote chores or dreaming of escaping them. So much of what passes for school in our society is designed, intentionally or not, to prepare children for the worst of adulthood -- the repetitive, mundane tasks of life -- when it is the projects with other people that really make life worthy of its name."

Parenting grace was my favourite Glennon post this week. This part made me cry...

"And I said, “What are you doing?” And Chase said, “My homework for photography class is to take one picture that represents my family. This is it – with all the apologizing and hugging and crying and forgiving. This is us.”"

 My job for yesterday was to try and perfect the perfect Bullet Proof Coffee- I didn't get there I kept dozing off on the couch waiting for the plumber, who was coming in the morning, so I could go to the supermarket for ingredients. The same plumber who parked in my driveway at 1:06pm and sat and ate his lunch for 10 minutes before coming to my door and then taking almost an hour to fix the hot tap. So that by the time he was done I just needed to get ready for Kindy pick-up.

And why would I want a fat filled coffee... because I need to kick the sugar filled ones so I can eat low-carb because... well this.

I came across the Milkwood website this week while reading about beehives- it's pretty cool! It's Australian based which is a bonus and the gardening section is huge... something I need! And this one about using stale bread because we're lucky to get an over supply of bread from our old neighbours!

Loved this story from Ali Edwards about Simon and, perhaps, his Patronus.

Rabia Choudry of Serial Fame shared this article this week which I enjoyed. I have learned so much from having Rabia in my Facebook feed and very little of it is the idea that we should most likely Free Adnan.

"Motherwhelmed. Wanting to feel more love than hate. More joy than hurt. More health than sickness. More peace then struggle. More better than worse. More right then wrong."

This article on Brazil's new food guidelines is interesting- not just from an eating perspective but from an industry and politics perspective. This quote highlighted something I learnt this week that I hadn't really thought about before....

"The reason nutrition is so acrimonious and confusing is that it’s preposterously hard to study. To get solid data, you need to focus on one thing at a time: Do a randomized controlled study on what happens when you increase one particular type of fat in diets. But these precise studies are often not applicable to the grand and complicated mess of human health. The effect of a nutrient may depend on the other molecules in the meal, on the time of day you eat it, on your genetics, on your lifestyle, on your gut bacteria, on your age..."

The week I also discovered The Badass Teachers Association: for every teacher who refuses to take the blame for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality through education alone. They have some pretty cool stuff on Youtube. One of the more stunning facts I learned was that America has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the world prison population. The BATS argue that these prisoners are made in part by poor school policy. Studies have shown that pre-schoolers in academic programmes vs. play based programmes have higher rates of imprisonment down the track... that's where it starts and then it just gets worse as you go on.

This little gem was in our school newsletter this week:

"A focus for staff this year is Student Resilience. Increasingly, teachers across Australia are noting a growing number of students who struggle to cope with many aspects of everyday life. This lack of resilience shows up at school in a variety of ways but unfortunately it leaves some students unable to focus on learning to the level required to reach their full potential.
The experts tell us that resilience is the ‘capacity to withstand stress and catastrophe’, however, when the everyday bumps of life impact significantly on us we demonstrate a lack of resilience.
In the course of this year staff will be incorporating resilience building activities into the curriculum and we will share strategies for parents so that you can also support your child."

 I'd argue that a LOT of resilience is built in Kindergarten and Pre-primary when children are allowed to play 99% of the time... perhaps this is yet another problem that is in part being created by Australian schools themselves? And then there's the fact that schools are the 'everyday life' of most children... perhaps we should change the schools to meet the children's needs not the kids who are struggling to cope with the schools?  Not to mention policies by government aimed at getting mothers into the workforce and children into daycare. Arrrggghhh.

Well there's still a lot of tabs open in my browser but I think I may have to leave that reading for next week so I'll end with this which is funny and very cool....