The Sun-News

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----PO BOX 5588, Santa Fe, NM 87502-5588------(505-745-0589)-----www.TheSun-News.com
	July, 2004 Vol.5. NO.7...........................................................Pages 8 and 9 Summer Holidays and Your Child Summer holidays are just that – holidays. However, there are important lessons your child needs to catch up on that are best learned in the holidays. 1. Life’s virtues—The reality of children learning is that the depth of a child’s moral understanding determines the height of their academic, emotional, and social growth. Your job as parent is to pass on to your child the rules of life that you have discovered. Here are some ideas. The dinner table remains the social, emotional and intellectual hub of family life. It is a time when children and adults sit and talk together. It is a time when you tell funny stories and pass on family values, stories of success and failure. We use stories to tell about ourselves, our family, and our friends. This is where we form our identity. Use this time to really listen and develop holiday activities that strengthen and extend this hub. Invite grandparents or your children’s favorite adult, read an article from a magazine, plan a project or vacation, take out family photographs and talk about why different people are so important in your life. 2. Responsibility—Responsibility breaks nicely into two words: response-ability. Perhaps not correct etymology, but nevertheless is another lesson for parents to teach in the holidays – the ability to respond. This key life skill is essential for life in the classroom. Here are some ideas. Children learn their ability to respond by being aware of how things work. Help children to understand how a home works. They then learn to respond appropriately to each person’s role. This can lead into discussion of roles of people in society, career choices, visits to the office, or cultural events. The ability to respond appropriately depends on the ability to think. Listen to how your child is thinking and begin a dialogue where they are. 3. Imagination—According to Margaret Meek Spenser, keynote speaker at the recent World Congress on Reading, “… imagination is at the heart of children learning to read.” When we “read” the information around us – expressions on peoples’ faces, the clouds and potential for rain, the money markets, as well as text, we bring to this information our creative intelligence, our imagination, our ability to “see” what our universe is telling us. Children live in a world of the imagination. The imagination allows us to see a world beyond ourselves and bring into view what is possible. Imagination is what holidays are about. Circle any imaginative activities offered during the holidays with a red pen. Enter into that world and play with your child. Invent new situations, compose a new song together while riding in the car, attend a drama class, watch a play, tell stories, and take them to storytellers. Without an imagination no amount of skills proficiency will give your child’s life meaning and direction. The imagination has been called the window of the soul. It is the light towards which your child will grow while sitting in school next academic year. Finn Clark-Brown is the principal of Innésence School in Nambé. He is a recipient of a fellowship based at Oxford University on spirituality in education and is completing a doctoral thesis in education on the same topic. He may be contacted at innesence@msn.com or (505) 455-0004. Local Students Research Florida Wetlands Mangrove trees, sea fans, conch shells, alligators, tropical fish, coconut palms, pelicans....these are just a few of the plants and animals the students at Camino de Paz Middle School saw in their natural habitat. The students recently completed an ecology research expedition to south Florida where they studied the Everglades, coral reefs and the social issues surrounding them. The trip was designed to show the New Mexican teens an environment very different from the one in which they live their day-to-day lives. After volunteering to clear brush at Everglades National Park, they took a 15 mile bike ride through the Everglades where they came within feet of alligators, fish, turtles, birds and encountered the famous sawgrass prairies. At Biscayne National Park they accompanied park rangers to read and record data from water monitoring capsules placed in various locations around Biscayne Bay. They also learned to distinguish among five different types of palm trees. The trip included paddling canoes through the Everglades and a visit to the Dolphin Research Center to learn about dolphins, up close and personal. “You really learn about a place when you can actually see it and experience it instead of just reading about it,” remarked Ashley Moens, one of the students. A new and different experience for most of the students was snorkeling in the crystal-clear water near Key Largo. An amazing and colorful variety of fish, coral, sponges and even a nurse shark delighted the students. Most of them agreed that the highlight of the trip was a day at the beach in Bahia Honda Key, where they swam, body surfed and collected shells in the warm, shallow waters. Prior to the trip, the students researched this gigantic watershed including its plants, animals, water flow and quality and the impact humans have had there. They kept journals to record their experiences and gather information acquired from park rangers, guides and visitor center exhibits. Upon returning, the group did a study comparing the upper Rio Grande watershed with that of south Florida. Although many of the differences are obvious, such as rainfall, terrain and vegetation, “many of the similarities between the two watersheds are centered around water rights, water pollution, and population growth,” commented Joshua Chavez, a ninth grade student. Ecological studies are part of the school’s daily curriculum, both on the ten-acre campus/organic farm and in a variety of off-campus excursions. The students earned a portion of the cost of the trip through the sale of eggs from the chickens they raise at the school. This trip was one in a series of study-visits the school makes annually. Past trips have been to Bosque del Apache, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Crow Canyon Archeological Center in Cortez, Colorado. For more information contact Camino de Paz School at 505-747-9717. Advertising Deadline for the August, 2004 issue is July 21, 20034 For More Information call (505) 471-5177	Inside This Issue Book Reviews .............. 15 El Camino Real Scenic Byway Awarded Grant.........4 Final Word on Nutrition & Health ..................4 How To Stretch Your Organic Food Dollar 6 Just Ducky ...................13 Letters to the Editor..... 10 Local Students Research Florida Wetlands...... 9 Lesson to be Learned ... 13 Marriage ..................... 11 Movie Making in N&I... 11 North Central NM Events .................... 3 Organics Delivered to Your Door .............. 12 Scrambled Eggs .......... 4 SFCC Offers Digital Filmmaking Intensive .................1 SOLARWALL Helps Manage Heating Costs ......................1 Summer Holdiays and Your Child ........... 8 Texas Farmer............ 15 The Answer Is .......... 11 Thirsty Ear Festival Is On Hiatus in 2004..................... 7 Truths ..................... 5 Vietnamese See Parallel Between Vietnam & Iraq ................. 6 Weird News ..............14 Where to find The Sun-News ........... 2 Who Done It ........... 2