Starting about six weeks ago, on Thursday mornings at about 11 o’clock its been salad bar time at Loughborough Public School. Students and parent volunteers from Alan Macdonald’s grade 7 class fill the small salad bar with ice, as the students from a food class from Sydenham High School arrive, along with some other grade 7 students, with a rack full of bowls of food.

Last week (May 25) there were bowls full of mixed greens, grape tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, and diced chicken. The salad bar, located in the middle of the foyer, was quickly filled and students and staff from throughout the school began to arrive, metal camping type plates in hand, to get their Thursday lunch. About 100 people have signed up for Thursday lunches at $4 a week, and they purchased the metal lunch containers at cost as part of the program. They heap the food on the plates, as grade 7 students and parent volunteers make sure they aren’t skipping out on their greens. The food varies from week to week based on what is available and which items are proving to be the most popular.

It looks like a healthy alternative to the old standbys of hot dog and pizza day, which provide parents with a day off from preparing lunches but doesn’t exactly jive with messages about healthy eating and exercise that are promoted by the Ministry of Education and local school boards.

But this lunch program is a lot more than that. With a two year, $20,000 grant from the Farm to School program, which is a division of farmtocafeteriacanada.ca, the Thursday lunch program is one piece of an integrated puzzle that Macdonald, along with gardener and writer Janette Hasse, Sydenham High School, and Southern Frontenac Community Services, have been building over several years.

The grant is being used to set up the program, which involves growing food at the school in raised beds  located just outside of the classroom, sourcing all the food that is not being grown as part of the program locally (through Wendy’s Mobile Market and other sources) preparing food at Sydenham High School, dealing with waste through composting, and much more.

The idea is to capture the entire chain of food production to food waste, from soil preparation and seeding, to preparing fresh produce, learning about how animals are raised for meat, and on and on.

“We think that once this program is fully up and running we will be able to feed everyone in the school who wants to participate, with no waste and all food grown and prepared by our students or local farmers,” said Macdonald.

And the program is being designed for sustainability.

“The grant is helping us get started. It enabled us to purchase the salad bar, build raised beds and create a model for the project, but this project is meant to become a permanent part of life at the school, and will be expected to be self financing,” Macdonald said.

Macdonald’s classes have been involved since 2014 in a greenhouse garden project at the nearby Grace Centre in conjunction with a project run by Janette Hasse, which provides food to augment the offerings of the South Fronenac Food bank, and he also had a personal interest in gardening, and all of the science that goes along with it.

The Farm to School program provides an opportunity to make a difference for students at both schools. Madonald has been using food production, including the science of soil development through composting and other means, growing Shiitake mushrooms, raising ducks, etc as a way of developing what he calls ‘food literacy’ among his own students and the entire school.

“It also fits in with the agriculture that is developing in the region, new market garden businesses are springing up all the time, and this puts the school in contact with all of those businesses,” he said.

And the students in his class, as well as parent volunteers, are learning each week about the kinds of foods people will eat if they are exposed to them.

It’s still a struggle to convince some of the students that the mixed greens, which include beet greens, Arugula, along with differentvarieties of lettuce, are as tasty as iceberg lettuce. There is no such problem, however,  with sweet grape tomatoes and crisp cucumbers, as they found out on Thursday.

With the kindergarten kids still to come, the tomatoes were all gone, and at least one very young salad bar enthusiast was sent back to his class for a few minutes while more tomatoes and cucumbers were found and put out.

When the salad bar was fully stocked, back came the kindergarten kids, led by the one who had been sent back to his class.

As he was filling his plate, he grabbed a couple of tomatoes with his hands while no one was looking and bit into them.

He smiled when the sweet juice filled his mouth and chewed away while spooning chicken onto his plate.

Phase One of the new Playground at Ken Garrett Park in Inverary is  installed and being used! The cost was over $36,000 and it is paid in full by local residents after a campaign was organised by the local group, Inverary Youth Activities, inc.

A celebration to is set for June 10  at 11:30 am in the Park. There will be hot dogs, drinks and cake to share with all the completion of Phase One is celebrated and the focus shifts to the kickoff of Phase Two.
“Drop In, We would love to see you there,” said  Judy Borovskis, the playground chair for Inverary Youth Activities. “See what we have accomplished and learn about our “wish list” for the coming year!”

Second guessing our internal clocks is not unusual. When clocks spring forward or fall back to accommodate Daylight Savings Time or Standard Time, that shadow of doubt about time can appear especially long. Arranging to Skype with my daughter who lives in a time zone six hours ahead of my own causes me to regularly consider what ‘now’ means to each of us.

To a young child, time is even more elusive. Some adults envy children’s ability to live in the moment, but young children struggle to make sense of ideas such as future and past. Children need concrete ways to understand these abstract concepts.

Have you ever explained time to a young child in your life by saying something like “Only four more sleeps until your birthday!”? If you have, consider yourself brilliant. Using children’s repeated daily experiences helps them recognize their internal predictable patterns of alertness and fatigue, as well as the external patterns of time they can see, hear, feel, and smell. Visually, daylight dims to darkness; the sun gives way to moon and stars. The sounds of birds, insects, wind, as well as household activities typically change between day and night too. Even the feel of heat and moisture on skin typically alters between day and night. Children experience the patterns of seasons through their five senses too and come to understand that spring, summer, autumn, and winter never vary from their cyclical course.

Time is mathematical. We measure it and assign it numerical values and explain its quantity with mathematical vocabulary such as seconds, decades, or millenniums. Yet it is our understanding of time as patterns that underpins why we track age, why we talk about the minutes or hours it takes to ride the bus to school, or why we interpret the numbers displayed on clocks in the morning to know if it’s time to ‘rise and shine.’

Books and stories involving concepts of time strengthen children’s developing understanding of time too. The Ontario Ministry of Education’s Kindergarten Program encourages educators to use books to help children clarify and solidify their understanding of math. “Reading books aloud and in shared reading context provides real links between literature and mathematical ideas, since some stories use mathematical terminology… or illustrations of mathematical concepts. Reading can also give children a sense of how mathematics is connected with other aspects of life...” (The Kindergarten Program, p. 82)

Children as young as toddlers learn about time through playful books such as “Hey! Wake Up!” and “Pajama Time!” by Sandra Boynton.

Preschoolers learn about patterns of the moon as it waxes and wanes each night through the gentle, well-crafted story of “Papa Please Get the Moon for Me?” by Eric Carle. Children learn about minutes through Jill Murphy’s book entitled “Five Minutes Peace”. In this story Mrs. Large, a mother elephant, seeks five minutes of solitude. She succeeds at finding 3 minutes and 45 seconds for rest and renewal.

Older preschoolers and primary school age children discover more scientific explanations of time through books that clearly link the measurements of time with patterns in nature. Non-fiction books such as “Sun Up, Sun Down: The Story of Day and Night” by Jacqui Bailey, “Sunshine Makes the Seasons” by Franklyn M. Branley, and “The Reasons for Seasons” by Gail Gibbons are just a few titles with this focus.

Time and its observable patterns are part of every child’s life. As we talk and read together we can help children understand how; when we take the time.

Susan Ramsay is the Early Literacy Specialist for Hastings, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington. You can contact her at 613-354-6318 (ext 32)  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Recently, the students in the School to Community Program at Granite Ridge Education Centre were selected to attend the Special Olympics Provincial Championship to be held on June 12th – 14th, 2017 in Niagara Falls. The students competed in a qualifying soccer tournament back in February where based on the results from that tournament the team was selected from over 100 other Ontario Soccer teams to complete against 12 teams at the Provincials.

We are so proud of our athletes for the dedication and hard work they have put in to training for this upcoming championship. The two-day tournament hosts over 800 athletes, coaches and staff from across Ontario competing in basketball, bocce, soccer, track & field and floor hockey.

We hope our athletes enjoy this wonderful opportunity in Niagara Falls and come away from the tournament with new friendships and memories that will last a lifetime.

Each year the Limestone District school Board gathers thousands of students together for a dance party known as the Celebration of Dance. This large gathering of students (which was held at Old Fort Henry again this year) provides an opportunity to celebrate movement and expression through dance.

"Celebration of Dance helps students to increase their levels of physical activity while having a lot of fun," said Lara Paterson, a physical activity specialist with KFLA Public Health and the Limestone District School Board, in a statement.
All LDSB elementary schools are invited to apply to have a dance team lead one of the dances each year.

This year, Land O' Lakes Public School was lucky enough to be chosen to enter a team and choreograph a routine. Nine students worked diligently in the fall to learn their dance. They were videotaped and added to a YouTube link (along with the rest of the dance teams who were chosen from other schools). All schools participating have used these YouTube videos to teach the selected dances to the rest of the students in preparation for the big day. The students at Land O' Lakes Public School have been practicing their dances for the past several weeks and the school was  an empty place on Tuesday, May 9th, as almost the entire student population traveled by bus to Old Fort Henry to participate in this year's Celebration of Dance!

In a well-planned departure from school routine, four Loughborough Public School grades 1-3 classes, their teachers and a variety of parents and community volunteers spent two weeks in Frontenac Park, participating in a “classroom without walls”. The children were divided into two groups, a week apiece, so the whole adventure covered the last of April and the first of May.

Each day followed a theme: people and the land, plants, geology, animals, and reflection on what they were learning. Park Manager Ben Chabot welcomed them to the park, and gave a tour of the facilities. Park ‘Friend’ Jerome McDuff showed and explained the remnants of earlier settlement that remain in the park. The children were given artifacts such as seed planters, kitchen gadgets, muskeg horseshoes and milk pails, to examine, sketch and describe in their journals and guess their use.

Wilma Kenny told stories and showed pictures of roadbuilding crews, modes of travel, schoolhouses and daily life activities of the settlers. Dale Kristensen talked about the botany of the park, and plant adaption to a variety of environments from rocky ridge to swamp. Heather and John Jamieson, both geologists, led a hike to a mica mine, and used a cake with icing to illustrate the layering of limestone over granite. A highlight of Sharry Martin’s description of animal adaptation was the chance to dissect owl pellets. Ed Fletcher and (the other) Heather Jamieson were on hand throughout to take pictures and help explain the artifacts, many of which were on loan from Darryl Silver’s antique shop.

Games, hikes, storybooks, picture-making and quiet times for reflection rounded out the busy days.

Teachers Sharon Isbell, Cara Blais, Andrea Woogh and Debra McMurray deserve much credit for the enormous amount of preparation, planning and effort that made the adventure such a success. Somehow, after all the excitement, work, rain and blackflies, they still had the energy to host a celebratory TGIF for the community volunteers at the end of everything. And, the teachers said, it was not the end at all: the children have carried many ideas, memories and questions back into the classroom where their adventures in learning continue.

Launched in 2005 by The Coalition for Music Education, Music Monday is the world’s largest single event dedicated to raising awareness for music education. Each year on the first Monday in May, hundreds of thousands of students, educators, and music makers participate in a simultaneous nationwide concert performance of an original song written by a Canadian artist. This year's song, entitled Sing It Together was written by Marc Jordan and Ian Thomas.

On Monday, May 1st, the Land O' Lakes Public School Glee Club, directed by Kathy Bateman was once again invited to participate in the national showcase concert held in Ottawa at the NAC. This is the second time that the LOLPS Glee Club has participated in this national showcase concert. The last time Kathy took a group to Ottawa was in 2014 when her students performed the song, Is Somebody Singing cowritten by Ed Robertson (of Barenaked Ladies fame) and Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield.

This year's experience was one that the 28 Glee Club members who span grades 1 through 8 won't soon forget. They sang their hearts out along with hundreds of other students in a massed choir. Their performance can be watched online. Go to www.musicmonday.ca to check it out!

Shannon Delyea and Emma Fuller travelled to Toronto on May 1st to compete in the Provincial Skills Competition as members of Team Limestone.  Delyea competed in the Photography contest, where she presented one printed photograph, a digital portfolio of twenty photographs, and photographed and edited twenty polished images of all of the competitions happening at the Toronto Congress Centre.  “It was a great experience and I recommend the Skills Competition to everyone.  It was an excellent challenge,” Delyea said.

Emma Fuller competed in the Graphic Design Studio Production event, for a second year, where she designed a menu, a logo and a triangular shaped box using Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator the day of the competition.  “The Ontario Skills Competition has been a great learning experience and it has taught me a lot of valuable skills.  I recommend that students give this competition a try!” said Fuller.

Congratulations to these talented students!

While trying to decide what to do with a number of toys she hadn’t used in years, Girl Guide Meghann McKinstry got an inspiration — could they be donated to a thrift store? Or, what if they collected toys from other guides as well as the community, organized a sale and gave the proceeds to the Food Bank.

McKinstry ran the idea past her mother, Guider Joanne, who ran it by Guide Leader Kim Deline.

It turns out that sort of fundraising isn’t really within the purview of the Girl Guides but seeing that it was Earth Day, and the idea of recycling toys fit in and the Food Bank always needs funds and it was spring cookie season  . . .

“We call ourselves Friends of Guiding,” Joanne McKinstry said. “We organized, well Kim did most of it, she’s amazing, and collected donations and the Grace Centre graciously donated space.

“And here we are. The donations are still coming in and you might be amazed that some of the toys for (re)sale are brand new.

“One gentleman even brought in a a brand new radio-controlled car and said he just wanted to contribute.”

Before they knew it, they had the first Earth Day used toy sale, complete with coffee and hot dogs for sale by the Friends of the Food Bank and a booth for the Guides to sell their cookies.

(By the way, for the uninitiated, there is no universal Cookie Day. Local troops are free to set their own spring and fall dates to sell cookies. In the spring, chocolate and vanilla cookies are for sale and in the fall, it’s chocolate mint.)

“It was slow at first,” McKinstry said. “The cloudy weather was likely to blame but it’s really picked up.

“One lady, who runs a day care, came in and emptied the Lego table

“We gave her a deal.”

McKinstry said even though it was her daughter’s initial idea, it was really Deline that made the whole thing work.

“Kim was here well into the night doing food prep and every other little thing that came up,” McKinstry said.

“I thought this was a great idea to promote community service,” Deline said. “And to celebrate Earth Day  . . . and to sell cookies.”

The Cardinal Cafe in Sharbot Lake has a new product this week with a twist — a raspberry twist to be exact.

At first glance, Caden’s Ultimate Raspberry Twist looks like a tasty square, which it is. But how it came to be is a bit of a story in itself.

Cardinal owner Rob Moore is known for his innovative concoctions but in this case he had some help from the Lakers and senior food and nutrition programs at GREC. Moore has had a relationship with the Lakers program in the past and so when students were studying how to promote fruits, Moore came to give a talk. The next thing you know, they’d come up with a bit of a contest, with Moore offering to feature the winner’s creation in his Cafe.

Part of the Lakers program’s mandate is to get students involved in the community. You might know them from their work with the Food Bank.

“He came to our class to talk about fruits and deserts and then each person had to come up with a recipe,” said Summer Kennedy. “Rob then judged them.”

The result was Caden’s Ultimate Raspberry Twist, which is on sale this week at the Cafe for $3 a square.

‘Caden’ in this case is Grade 12 Caden Stephenson, a budding pastry chef who’s looking at St. Lawrence College next year.

“I found the original recipe on the Internet,” Stephenson said. “It took two or three tries to get it to look right.

“It’s raspberries, lemon zest, sugar, flour, salt and lemon juice.”

It was something of a labour of love for Stephenson.

“I love cooking and baking,” he said. “I can do it all day.”

Moore said judging the competition was a difficult job.

“There were a lot of delicious creations,” he said. “But part of the criteria was how it would work as a marketable item.”

He liked the raspberry twist and saw its potential.

“It has a unique texture and a very vibrant flavour,” Moore said. “And we didn’t have anything like it.

“I modified the base into a short-bread and came up with a lemon-raspberry curd topping.”

“Rob’s changes are awesome,” said Stephenson.

Moore said the squares will be for sale all this week and if all goes well “I might keep them.”