Chizuko Nishimata, a member of the “Can Do” Street production team, recently interviewed a second grade teacher in her native Japan. The purpose of the interview was to explore how Japanese teachers help their students to make good choices. Chizuko shares her findings in the following post.

In Elementary schools in Japan, there is a subject called “Dotoku”, which means “Moral” This class is usually held once a week. It teaches children very similar lessons to what “Can Do Street” offers. There are many educational TV shows and books for young children that are used as instructional materials.

During my interview with the teacher, she shared how she teaches this subject to her 2^nd grade class. She said, “I always ask the children questions after I present the lesson and get their answers before I share with them what are considered to be the right choices. Many times, children are very clever and often have the right answers. They come up with the right decisions by themselves.”

One time, when the teacher was using illustrations of two children fighting over snacks, there weren’t any words with the illustrations. So, she asked the students to make up a story about what was going on in the illustrations. She then asked each child to share what the message was in his or her story. She got lots of good feedback for continuing her lesson!

As I was ending the interview, I asked what she thought parents and teachers need always to remember about teaching life lessons. She answered, “The important life lessons need to be told repeatedly.  Even though children don’t seem to be paying attention, they are listening. Also, children watch us, their parents and teachers, very closely. We adults need to show them, by our actions, how to make good choices.”

Hemi Weingarten is a father of three who became interested in buying and preparing healthy food for his family when his children were just babies. As he tells it,” There are so many products. so many health claims, nutrients, and ingredients. So many promises by manufacturers. Despite the fact that I am a high tech exec with a graduate degree under my belt, I nonetheless found it difficult to make rational, information-based decisions for a task as simple as putting groceries into my shopping cart. During my trips to the grocery store I would be asking myself questions such as:

• Do my kids really need to drink juice?

• How much sugar is too much in a breakfast cereal?

• What are nitrates? Should we avoid all food colorings?

• Is just a tiny bit of trans fat OK?

• What about those yogurts especially designed for young children?

So, I decided to do something about it. I began to educate myself by  reading books and web articles about food systems, nutrition, and food preparation. At some point I decided that I need to share this information with other people, so that they too will be able to make better choices.That is when  Fooducate was born. Fooducate is a personal grocery advisor helping people choose the best food for their families.”

In the Fooducate Blog you’ll find tips and tricks to help make you a better shopper of nutritious food. Topics include nutrition fact labels, hard to pronounce ingredient names, “health claims”, and other marketing tricks to watch out for at the supermarket.

Mr. Wiengarten gives the following assurances, ” Fooducate has no relationship with the food, drug, diet or supplement industries. Nor does Fooducate sell, peddle, distribute or otherwise offer magic pills, secret celebrity diets, and/or exotic supplements.”

To visit Fooducate and learn more about this personal grocery advisor go to www.fooducate.com

To read the Fooducate Blog go to www.fooducate.com/blog/

Raquel, as chef and owner of A Pinch of Salt in NYC, offers hands-on cooking instruction to adults and children. She believes in teaching children how to eat healthy. This past summer she volunteered at PS 11, in NYC, teaching a group of 3rd graders how to prepare meals using the crops they sold at their very own farmer’s market. Students worked side by side with Chef Raquel making such things as vegetable crostinis and  Greek salads and enjoyed eating their creations.

She is now participating in a project to revamp school “food” to real cooked foods, as a part of Wellness in the Schools (WITS), which operates the Cook for Kids program in New York City public school kitchens and classrooms, serving 6,500 children. Under the leadership of Chef Bill Telepan, WITS sends culinary school graduates into public school kitchens to prepare fresh meals from scratch and to educate families about the importance of eating whole, unprocessed food.

As a WITS in Residence, Chef Raquel signed on to train public school cafeteria workers to return to slow cooking. The project involves her staying at a school for a year to insure that the the cafeteria staff will feel comfortable continuing the new menus after she leaves. (more…)

If there is a lull in the conversation, or the dinner isn’t quite ready on time; pull out these questions and see who is up on Thanksgiving trivia!

What State produces the most turkeys? Minnesota,  according to the U.S. Census Bureau, with a total of 45.5 million in 2009.

What other states are major producers of the estimated 2750 million birds that were raised in the U.S. this year? They are North Carolina, Missouri, Virginia and California

About how many turkeys are eaten on Thanksgiving? According to The National Turkey Federation about 46 million turkeys, one fifth of the annual total of 235 million eaten  in the US  in 2007, were eaten at Thanksgiving.

What percentage of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day? The National Turkey Federation, conducted a survey and found that nearly 88 percent of Americans said they eat turkey at Thanksgiving.

What is the average weight of a turkey bought for Thanksgiving ? 15 pounds!

What states produce the most cranberries ? Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Oregon

How many cranberries were produced in 2009 ? 709 million pounds

What states produce the most pumpkins? Illinois, New York, California and Pennslyvania

What states produce the most sweet potatoes? North Carolina, California and Mississippi

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our guest post is about  a teacher who developed a very tech savvy, yet practical way of helping children with their reading.

The Skyping Reading Tutor? Who ever heard of a Skyping Reading Tutor. Well, now that the Internet continues to develop, this innovate teacher is able to teach children to read with Skype. She does all of her assessments online, finds out what skills are strong, what skills need to be developed, and creates a personalized curriculum for each student. She is finding that the struggling readers of today love learning how to read with her online.

Typically, students who cannot read well do not spend a lot of time on the computer. This gives them an opportunity to be on the computer, see their teacher, and be guided to increase their reading level.

The Skyping Reading Tutor has found that students are excited to learn via Skype being that they are in the comfort their own home where they feel safe. She finds that her students take risks and tell her things that they may be embarrassed to say during class time where the other students can judge what they are saying.

The Skyping Reading Tutor also volunteers in classrooms reading books to kids all over the world via Skype. Her passion is to motivate all children to read. She inspires kids to read by sharing the best books out there for them. She also works with teachers to find out what books would be best to share with each of the classes and schedules a 15 minute Skype session with them. Then she shares her experience of reading to kids online on her blog at http://skypingreadingtutor.wordpress.com.

She has a ton of favorite experiences with skyping in the classroom, but the one that stands out to her the most is the classroom that was learning their spelling words to buy a goat for children in Africa. The Skyping Reading Tutor read Beatrice’s Goat, which is a true story about how a goat changed one families life and helped a young girl raise enough money to go to school. The children in this class had earned $10 so far and it was their goal to earn enough money to buy 2 goats. The cost of one goat is $120. These children were passionate and motivated. The teacher was unable to find the book Beatrice’s Goat and the Skyping Reading Tutor was able to share it with them via Skype’s share screen feature. The experience increased their desires to raise the money.

So who is this Skyping Reading Tutor? Her name is Joanne Kaminski and she has taught in the public school system for over 10 years. She taught 3rdand 4th grade in the inner city where 75% of her students struggled with reading. She became a reading coordinator for her school and went back for her Master’s degree as a Reading Specialist. She has created her own business to tutor children online called Bright IDEA Reading Tutoring and has students all over the United States. To find out more information you can check her out at http://www.wix.com/jbkaminski/tutoring.

Be sure to visit the “Can Do” Kids blog and see Joanne reading a poem she wrote to her daughter’s class via Skype at www.candostreet.com/blog-kids/