Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Vicksburg Post
B3
My (homework) space
Creating a private place for concentration matters By The Associated Press Kids might want to do their homework at the kitchen table with a sea of activity surrounding them. But experts say they shouldn’t. “Build a space dedicated to homework and eliminate distractions,” advises Douglas C. Merril, a former Google spokesman and author of the new “Getting Organized in the Google Era” (Broadway Books). According to Merril, everyone thinks they can multitask, but our brains just aren’t cut out for it. In her new book, “Right-Sizing Your Home” (Northwest Arm Press, 2010), consultant Gale Steves agrees. She writes, “Although kids gravitate to the kitchen or family room — where parents can keep a watchful eye on them — ultimately having a workspace of their own is important.” And Maxwell GillinghamRyan, founder of the design blog Apartmenttherapy.com, taught school in New York City before he became an interior designer. Each year he would visit students’ homes, and here’s what he observed: “Invariably, the children who did best in school came from homes that were calm, wellorganized and attractive,” he says. “A child’s homework space should be as simple and practical as possible,” he believes. “Children need a private, separate environment where they can concentrate and get through their work.” While homework space must be functional and well organized, it also should be somewhere the child wants to spend time. “Get your child involved in the design,” advises Susanna Salk, interior designer and contributor to the “Today” show. “Have them look at pictures and say what they like.” Salk’s book, “Room for Children: Stylish Spaces for Sleep and Play” (Rizzoli, 2010), compiles pictures of children’s rooms decorated by well-known designers. She
A desk that design web blogger Maxwell GillinghamRyan bought at an antique shop and refurbished for his daughter
The associated press
A desk and hutch from Lea Furniture’s Freetime Collection believes that a child’s workspace should have an inspirational element, and suggests checking out the wall art available on Art.com, where you can find murals that are easy to move, are stain-resistant, and can transform even a tiny homework space with a beautiful landscape or world map.
Most children are inspired by having something like what their parents use, GillinghamRyan suggests. “My daughter likes to have something that my wife or I have on our own desks. Consider giving your child a pen, lamp, stapler or mouse pad like your own.” When selecting furnishings
for homework space, keep in mind that your little girl or boy is going to get bigger and older. “Don’t just look at kids’ stuff,” Salk says. Consider good adult task lighting, and keep in mind that a nice wooden table can serve as a good desk. Gilling-
ham-Ryan favors desks made from wood. “Natural materials help a child to feel grounded,” he says. He believes there is a healthier energy from natural materials and fewer propensities for a child to write on them. He recommends the adjustable wood desks available from North-woods in Ontario, Canada. He also suggests avoiding fluorescent lighting, selecting instead halogen or incandescent light. Stock up on containers, trays and baskets. “If their homework space is well-organized, children are more likely to keep it that way,” Salk says. The Container Store has a large selection of such accessories in many sizes and styles. But don’t overdo storage or your child will wind up hoarding a lot of stuff that could be thrown out. “Storage always wants to be full, and anything you can’t see has a tendency to live there forever,” Gillingham-
Ryan warns. Use baskets and open containers so you can see what’s there and encourage your kids to keep editing things out. Fortunately, you do not need a large space to create a good homework area. If space is limited, Steves suggests placing a desk under the top bunk instead of another bed, and creating storage with a small file caddy on wheels. She also suggests thinking vertically when space is limited. A hutch or shelves above a desk provide storage as well as space to display children’s work. You can affordably put up some shelves using a system like the Elfa storage system, available at the Container Store. No matter how appealing and private the homework space may be, encourage your child to take a break. “The human brain can only focus on any one thing for about an hour. It is more effective to take a break and come back to homework,” Merrill advises.
Just because it’s in a brown bag doesn’t always mean it’s healthy By Ginna Parsons The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal TUPELO — When it comes to the lunches our children are eating at school, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is school cafeterias across Mississippi have worked hard in the past couple of years to rid menus of excessive fat, sugar and calories. Soon, they’ll begin to incorporate whole grains and lowsodium items into cafeteria fare. The bad news is parents aren’t doing a very good job at home of packing healthy lunches for the kids who like to brown-bag it. They also aren’t setting good examples at the dinner table. “Last fall, I was a teacher’s assistant in a kindergarten class, so I saw sack lunches versus cafeteria lunches,” said Brenda Massey, director
The bad news is parents aren’t doing a very good job at home of packing healthy lunches for the kids who like to brown-bag it. They also aren’t setting good examples at the dinner table. ‘Last fall, I was a teacher’s assistant in a kindergarten class, so I saw sack lunches versus cafeteria lunches,’ said Brenda Massey, director of food services for the Booneville School District. ‘You’d be amazed at the sack lunches full of sugar. I’m talking really unhealthy stuff.’ of food services for the Booneville School District. “You’d be amazed at the sack lunches full of sugar. I’m talking really unhealthy stuff.” Often, parents think that because a food carries a label with the word “fruit” on it, it’s something good, said Leanne Davis, a registered dietitian at the North Mississippi Medical Center’s Wellness Center. “Fruit chews, Fruit Roll-Ups, Strawberry Pop-Tarts, CapriSun Fruit Drinks, sweetened applesauce — these are not real fruits,” said Davis. “If it doesn’t say 100 percent fruit juice or if it has added sugar,
it doesn’t count.” So what’s a parent to do? “Think about the Food Guide Pyramid,” said Davis. “Look at that pyramid and see what you could put in that lunch box. Could you get a whole grain, a piece of fruit, a veggie, some protein and a little bit of fat? When I’m building a lunch box, I’m trying to think color, variety and texture.” For instance, you might put a tablespoon of peanut butter on a whole wheat tortilla, top it with a sliced banana and roll it up. Put a small bag of pretzels with that and buy a carton of milk in the cafeteria
2002. Undergraduate courses are available in education and psychology; general studies; business administration; and advanced technologies and computer net-
working. Graduate courses are offered in education and psychology, for a master’s in teaching. Online classes are also available.
nurse, cafeteria manager and volunteer parents. Some councils organize annual health fairs to provide information, sometimes weight and body-fat measurements
and fun activities, too. “These are directed at the parents, too,” Oakes said, stressing that good nutrition and healthy activity levels need to start at home.
Alcorn Continued from Page B1. In Natchez, students may pursue nursing and master’s of business administration degrees. Alcorn classes have been offered in Vicksburg since
and you’re good to go. For the non-meat eater, you could pack 2 percent cheese cubes, grapes, pretzels, a granola bar and a bottle of water. Or how about a salad made with spring greens, grilled chicken, black beans, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots? “Make it as colorful as you can,” she said. “Put the dressing on the side and add a piece of fruit to round it out.” Davis warned parents not to cram too much food into younger children’s sack lunches. “A second-grader only needs half of a sandwich,” she said. “He only needs one or two ounces of sliced turkey, a half-slice of cheese, a half-cup of fruit and maybe a couple of carrots. You don’t want to overwhelm the little ones, but you do want to make sure the older ones have enough.” For older students and especially athletes, tucking an
extra piece of fruit or a granola bar in the lunch box for an afternoon snack is also a good idea, Davis said. What about those parents who don’t have the time, energy or desire to pack school lunches? That’s where the school cafeteria comes in. “We have worked so hard to find innovative ways to prepare meals so that students can still have their favorite foods, but also make healthy choices,” said Lynne Rogers, director of food service for the Tupelo public schools. “My motto is, ‘All foods can fit,”’ she said. “If a child wants to select french fries, he should be able to put a meal together that incorporates french fries.” By the way, those french fries are baked, as are potato rounds, steak fingers and fried chicken. “I think parents need to know what we’re doing, how we’re preparing our foods and the ingredients we’re using,” she said. So, if that student chooses those french fries, maybe he could pick up the grilled chicken sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce on a whole grain bun to go with them instead of the taco supreme. If he adds a fresh fruit cup
and a carton of milk, he’s got a healthy meal. Each lunch meal offered in the cafeteria has five components: milk, meat, fruit, vegetables and bread. Every day, students are given a choice of 1 percent plain milk or 0.5 percent flavored milk; two meat choices; two fruit choices; two vegetable choices; and one or two bread choices. The student may choose as many as five components, but must have a minimum of three. “Servers encourage them to have all five,” Rogers said. “But it’s not the same as counting the number of items on a tray. For instance, pizza is a meat and a bread. So a student could choose pizza and a carton of milk and be compliant. But we’d rather them go back and see if they could pick one or two more items they might like.” Massey said one reason students tend to make less than desirable choices in the cafeteria is because they’re not learning to eat healthfully at home. “Normally, the children won’t pick up a whole wheat roll or a whole grain roll because that’s not what they’re used to,” she said. “They’ve got to learn that at home or at least be guided that way.”
Oakes and Hanks said there’s a greater emphasis on PE now, especially in the younger grades. “Forty years ago we didn’t need PE in the elementary
schools,” Hanks said. “Kids weren’t sitting at home playing video games and watching TV, and they were eating home-cooked meals and not going to fast-food restau-
rants. They were going outside, playing ball and running around. Now it’s needed because things have changed so much.”
VWSD Continued from Page B1. 20 percent. The Mississippi Healthy Students Act of 2007 requires schools to appoint health councils, made up of members such as the school