Teach them wisely…teach them for life

Probably one of the first basic skills taught to young children are the A,B.Cs. However, did you know that teaching the A,B,Cs may very well save a child life later in life? These A,B,Cs are acronyms for three lessons that are easy to follow and even easier to learn!
A= Avoid the Sun at peak hours
B= Block the sun’s rays
C= Cover up

As an educational advocate for preventing skin cancer in children and teens through education, I promote sun safety through www.sunsafely.org, a comprehensive resource and information site.

Skin cancer around the world has reached an epidemic level, however, even though there is information available that we can help our children make good choices, it is rarely part of the school curriculum and if it is, it is often mentioned as an aside tucked away in a unit in science, health, or P.E. Yet, every day we take our children out to play and expose them to a dose of carcinogen, the sun’s ultra-violet rays. If this sounds extreme it is not. Schools in Australia have learned their A, B, Cs. In the “land down under” they have one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, and as a result have implemented a program whereby hats are required when they play outside.

The sun is essential for sustaining life, and it does provide us with Vitamin D; however by providing our children with sun safely habits and behaviors, the statistic of one in five people will develop skin cancer, may go down.

Fact: Summer is not the only time to protect skin. Sun safety is for every season.
Fact: Just a few serious sunburns can increase a child’s risk of skin cancer later in life.
Fact: Skin needs protection from the sun’s ultraviolet rays even on a cloudy day.
Fact: You can have fun in the sun with smart sun sense!
Plan a bright future and Sun Safely! It’s as easy as counting to 5!

1. RUB IT ON -Apply sunscreen that is SPF 30 or higher -Reapply every 30 minutes when you are outdoors
2. COVER UP- Protect your skin by wearing shirts and pants that cover the arms and legs.
3. LIMIT SUN – From 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. is the best time to seek shade
4. GRAB SHADES -Sunglasses protect the tender skin around the eyes and reduce the risk of developing cataracts. Wear wraparound lenses that block 100% of both UVA and UVB rays.
5. GET A HAT – Brims should be at least 3 inches the way around your head to protect ears, neck, and the sides of the face
   
6. For more information on prevention ideas directed to schools, educators, parents, children, and teens then click on to www.sunsafely.org .

Reading is power…

A growing child needs a variety of foods to be strong and healthy; but they also require a varied reading diet to stimulate lifelong reading. A daily well- balanced reading diet may be designed using a menu with at least one serving of:

Fruits & Vegetables – Poetry

Soup – Current Events

Fish – Science/Nature

Meat – Biography/History

Dessert – Fiction

Milk – Sports/Hobbies

After-dinner mint – Comics

But what happens when reading does not go down as well as intended? Allow reading deficits to go on for too long and they can manifest into more than a dislike for reading. Not all readers are created equal but like the saying by Maimonides: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The analogy is that offering reading strategies help readers become better readers.

So, if you want to help someone make sense of the world, give the gift of reading.

Political abnormalities, or are they?

The appearance of abnormality in our political climate is daunting to many. However, if one were to observe the phenomena through the lens of the statistical world, it would be simply considered the consequences of an outlier. Which brings me to wonder if the founding fathers brought into account statistics when writing the Constitution.

The basic definition of an outlier is an extreme value that does not follow the norm or the pattern of the majority of our data. Here we need to think of the voting population in terms of data. But what do we do when in politics an outlier rises to the top? What happens when an individual appears to be out of sync with the norm, when an outlier skews everything we are used to? Should we be surprised, or should we look at the human population as a lesson in statistics? The mean (the average in statistics) is non-resistant. That means it’s affected by outliers. More specifically, the mean will want to move towards the outlier. In statistical math, there are several ways to deal with an outlier, remove it or replace the value with one of less extreme. So, taking all this account, we can’t take our current situation as an anomaly.

Eventually, an outlier had to show up.

Change it up…

Wanted to share with you an ad for my title on reading devices; always like to hear what others think. After-all…that’s what makes horse racing…..

Poppies and other reminders

How long does it take a moment to become a memory? Perhaps the amount of time it takes for us to realize that it has passed and the only way to recapture it is to store it away for later. But there are some memories that should not be stored too snuggly, too hidden away in the convenience of “not my problem.” And when things that we tend to relegate far from ease, the time rolls around where we are nudged with the thoughts and reminders of those who are gone, but never to be forgotten.

So it is with Memorial Day, a time where our nation commemorates the lives of men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. Words often do not give justice to the thanks and gratitude we feel and wish to offer these great women and men of the armed forces.  As we enter into reflection, a characteristic that comes into our minds is Heroism; a word that we can define with both commonalities and personal experiences; rediscovered when we unite together or rekindled within our own private solitude.

There’s a new paperback in town!

Bookish coffee lover!