Raising Seedlings in the Cold

When the winter blues hit we crave several food items, fresh bread with nutella, chocolate, and cheesecake. All horribly bad for you but items that can make any bad day melt away, and a 10 degree day not seem so cold. Below is the recipe I pieced together to combine our winter blues favorites to design Nutella Cheesecake Brownies. If you have to ask the calorie content, you should just go back to your Facebook stalking now. Nutella Cheesecake Brownies Preheat your oven to 350. Ingredients: For the Brownies: 4 eggs 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup butter (softened) 3/4 cocoa powder 1/2 cup Nutella 1/3 cup flour For the Cheesecake Layer: 8 oz. cream cheese softened (2 minutes in the microwave) 1/2 cup sugar 2 eggs hazelnut or vanilla extract (optional) Cream the softened butter and sugar. Beat in the Nutella. Next, beat in one egg at a time. Stir in with spatula the cocoa powder and flour. In a different bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, sugar, and eggs. You could add hazelnut or vanil...

This Thursday I (Kelly) became very aware of the necessity of scaffolding outside the classroom. For those of you who are not teachers here is a short definition of scaffolding from Education.com Scaffolding has been defined by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) as an “adult controlling those elements of the task that are essentially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence.” The notion of scaffolding has been linked to the work of Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934). However, Vygotsky never used the term scaffolding (Stone, 1998), but emphasized the role of social interaction as being crucial to cognitive development, so that learning first occurs at the social or interindividual level. Thus, when a child (or a novice) learns with an adult or a more capable peer, the learning occurs within the child's zone of proximal development (ZPD). ZPD is defined as the “...

The name we chose for this site has a triple meaning. It represents our efforts to foster organic plants on the frozen tundra of northern Illinois, our minds, and our attempts to raise thoughtful and kind children. Both take a lot of effort, TLC, construction, and discipline, but we believe, as any parent, philosopher, and farmer, that in the end our efforts will be returned to us 10-100 fold. Right now I (Kelly) am working on speech skills with TJ, and a couple of JCO classes to get an additional endorsement for my teacher certification. My goal for TJ is to add two new words to his vocabulary once a week. We keep trying. Reading, signing, and labeling give us the best results currently. Any suggestions? I may try a strategy like the one above for words he should know by the time he is two. (found it on pinterest, love that site!) JCO is another story. I will keep you updated on my sociological and political musings as my Contemporary Social Problems and State and Local Government cla...