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eating breakfast in the morning helps you get through your day better and helps your brain when just waking up

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1. It may protect your heart

In a recent study that involved almost 27,000 men, researchers found that those who didn't eat a morning meal were 27 percent more likely to develop heart disease than those who did. "Our research indicates that people who skip breakfast gain weight, which can lead to diabetes as well as high cholesterol and blood pressure -all of which can raise your risk of heart disease," Rimm notes. The reason isn't entirely known, but he says that breakfast skippers tend to overeat at other meals and snack excessively throughout the day.

2. It might lower your risk of type 2 diabetes

A morning meal may help you avoid fluctuating glucose levels, which can lead to diabetes. A study of almost 30,000 men found that not eating breakfast raised the risk by 21 percent, even after taking into account their body mass, what they ate, and other factors. In a study of women, those under age 65 who skipped breakfast even just a few times per week were 28 percent more likely to develop diabetes than women who ate it regularly. And if you're in the habit of dashing out the door for work in the morning with only a cup of coffee, take note: Women in the study who worked full-time had a greater risk than those who worked part-time, the researchers noted, possibly because job stress has been found to raise glucose levels.

3. It gets you moving

In a recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN), people who ate breakfast were more physically active during the morning than those who didn't. That might be because a temporary increase in blood sugar gave them more energy. It's interesting to note that those who ate a morning meal consumed more calories over the course of the day than the breakfast skippers-but they didn't gain weight because they were more active.

4. It might give you a mental edge

Research involving adults and children has indicated that breakfast might enhance memory, attention, the speed of processing information, reasoning, creativity, learning, and verbal abilities. Scientists at the University of Milan in Italy reviewed 15 studies and found some evidence that those benefits might be a function of the stable glucose levels that a morning meal provides.

5. It just might keep your weight down

Although more than 100 studies have linked eating breakfast with a reduced risk of obesity, researchers point out that those studies are merely observational and thus don't prove that the meal keeps you from gaining weight. More solid evidence comes from randomized controlled trials. One study of that type, published in the journal Obesity, found that overweight people who were dieting and ate more calories for breakfast than dinner lost more weight compared with subjects who ate larger evening meals. But other trials have been inconclusive. A study published in AJCN found that eating or skipping breakfast had no effect on weight loss, although it may have been too small to be meaningful.

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Why Eating the Right Breakfast Is So Important - Consumer Reports

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In a recent study that involved almost 27,000 men, researchers found that those who didn't eat a morning meal were 27 percent more likely to develop heart disease than those who did. "Our research indicates that people who skip breakfast gain weight, which can lead to diabetes as well as high cholesterol and blood pressure -all of which can raise your risk of heart disease," Rimm notes.

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More hands on acttivites helps kids learn better 

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More hands on acttivites helps kids learn better 

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http://www.raftstore.net - Educators of all types - classroom teachers, after school providers, scouts, and early care and education professionals -- are always looking for ways to inspire curiosity and engage students in the learning process. RAFT is a leader in hands-on learning and provides educators with a wide variety of project based learning educational resources.

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More hands on activities help kids learn better 

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More hands on activities help kids learn better 

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Being able to touch and do it on your on with out paper is an easier way to learn.

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In my household and others, the question looms: Does sitting in any way help students learn? Why do we feel the need to tame students' physical natures, rather than incorporate them into the learning process? By sending our children off to still, quiet classrooms, are we neglecting meaningful, hands-on learning that could be occurring through physical activity?

After all, the brain is ultimately an essential part of the body, a co-conspirator with those wiggly feet and chatty mouths that get little ones into trouble. As the late arts educator Elliot Eisner reminded us, we learn about the world through our senses, drawing information in through our bodies to feed our understanding of the world.

That the mind is nestled within our physicality is not a new concept, but perhaps a nearly forgotten one in our age of cerebral and cyber wealth. Even in the early 20th century, progressive educator John Dewey famously unbolted the desks from the floors of the classroom, arguing that education stems from experience. More recently, we've seen treadmill desks and bouncy balls substitute for desk chairs.

As an educator with an interest in authentic learning, I wonder if that is enough.

As the mother of super-physical children, I worry that it's not even close to being enough.

The paradigm of the still, quiet classroom with neatly aligned desks unfortunately requires that some students spend a great deal of energy complying with physical restrictions rather than learning. Certainly, at some point, children need to learn to control their bodies. But making it an overriding concern in the classroom might be a waste.

Meanwhile, commitment to recess, art, labs and nearly any type of learning that involves the body is generally dwindling. As an educator and mother, I know that image is fundamentally at odds with the nature of children.

So, educators can either spend a great deal of energy trying to get students to conform to the expectations of quiet focus -- or they can change the expectations.

On my quest to find educational arcadia for my children, I explored the options available in our neighborhood. Just looking around at the schools near my home in Atlanta -- private, charter and public schools that my children could attend -- I found innovative teachers and administrators who don't want students to sit still and work quietly. They're making changes to schools' physically restrictive natures, sometimes for entire buildings, and sometimes just at the classroom level.

It wasn't always obvious, and required me to ask questions and look closely at how classrooms were set up. Here were three educators I found who were finding ways to make movement a part of how their students learn.

Just as my concerns about my sons' educational futures began to crescendo, we struck gold. A progressive private school opened mere steps from our front door. Focused on experiential education, a sense of community and child-focused flexibility, Hess Academy has my oldest, wiggliest son flourishing.

According to Kristen Hess, the principal and founder of Hess Academy, movement in the classroom is an extension of student choice.

"As adults we have the option of movement available to us," she told me. "We fidget or doodle, we get up to stretch our legs, we walk to the back of the room, but we don't give this option to children."

The best learning environment, she said, has different options, not just a standard solution for all students. I could see her philosophy at work in a classroom where students worked, some sitting at tables, some stretched across the floor and some using their chairs as writing surfaces.

Hess' first foray into education was as a gymnastics instructor and her active nature coalesced with her learning philosophy when she entered graduate school, she said. There, it became clear that "expecting children to disconnect from their bodies isn't natural. We have five senses for a reason."

Hess sees at least three roles for movement in the classroom: It's a way to optimize focus and attention, to release pent-up energy so students can focus on a different activity, and as a vehicle for learning. Taking advantage of just one of these aspects, she explained, is usually insufficient.

"Unfortunately there is a trend of decreasing movement in our daily lives and spending less time outside," Hess said. "We have to counter that in the classroom by giving students time to interact in meaningful ways. All of our teachers believe that movement enhances learning.

"The more you can use your body, the better you can learn concepts."

The school itself has the feel of a beehive. During a recent visit, once class was moving around the school on a scavenger hunt. In another class, students scattered around the room to discuss ideas and create drawings for "Think Out of the Box Thursday," where they transformed a given shape into creative creatures and inventions. The littlest ones conducted an experiment, setting an insect buffet outside their classroom window to see which foods ants would eat.

The activity often extends outdoors. The days typically started and ended on the playground, where all students got a physical outlet to burn off their extra energy before even entering the school. It's an extension of the classroom, a place that marries play and learning.

Recently, when I arrived to pick up my son, I found him scouring the playground to locate and identify insects or collect food for caterpillars and grasshoppers. It wasn't just my child's curiosity at work; it was part of a classroom unit on bugs.

The learning comes home, too: His classroom's tadpoles inspired him to give us nightly tadpole updates and regularly re-enact the birth of a tadpole from its egg by curling up under a blanket and popping out.

Many parents might assume that such freedom of movement means classroom chaos. They might believe their child would never succeed in such a setting, and they might be right: Not all children are suited to this kind of environment and not every teacher is comfortable or capable of managing it.

Truthfully, I would be skeptical had I not witnessed enough classroom settings to see that this approach works -- but only if it is coupled with a clear structure. This is particularly important during transitions. Teachers who embrace this flexibility need the finesse to effectively shift students from less restrictive activity to more organized work. Knowing the students, their limits and strengths is key to understanding what techniques might work best.

Teacher Megan Anderson Angiulo explained that her classroom management techniques varied from year to year depending on the class. If she wanted to get students' attention during a less-restrictive activity, she gave them a physical prompt, such as "Put your pencils down and put your finger on your nose."

Redirecting their entire bodies -- not just their brains -- effectively moved students in the next direction. With a different class, she might clap a rhythm that students would repeat. With her current group, she laughed, that would set off a clapping frenzy. She'll save the applause technique for another year.

"Ultimately," she said, "you have to trust that they want to learn."
Matching student and teacher
Not all parents have the resources or the desire to send their children to private school. It didn't seem like an obvious option for my family, and I'm still surprised that we were able to make it happen. Fortunately, there are options. Although the freedom of movement might not be an explicit part of every school's curriculum, teachers in all kinds of schools are trying to incorporate movement into their classrooms.

At the International Community School, a public charter school near my home that offers an International Baccalaureate, I found fourth-grade teacher Drew Whitelegg.

He makes a point of allowing a lot of movement among his students. His curriculum is inspired in part by Jonathan Kozol's book "Letters to a Young Teacher," which explains that kids are good at moving and talking a lot -- and yet, institutions are surprised when students struggle to sit still and stay quiet.

"If you try to fight the restlessness and impulsive nature of children, you end up denying an important developmental stage," said Whitelegg, who served as a soccer coach before becoming a teacher. In addition, "it sets up disciplinary issues where students are in trouble for nothing other than the need to move."

In the classroom, students moved constantly -- at their own discretion and at the request of the teacher. I saw one student sit in a swivel chair with wheels so she could oscillate rhythmically during the lesson. A soccer ball lingered under the feet of one student, and then another.

During a math lesson on place value, a group of students lined up in front of the class holding numbers ranging from .001 to 100. Using the soccer ball as a decimal point, Whitelegg asked the class to put the numbers in order. He demonstrated the lack of symmetry on either side of the decimal point by moving the students so their line folded in half.

While movement wasn't part of the entire school's mission, Whitelegg explained that teachers try to match rising students' needs with teachers' strengths. His classroom often winds up with students who need to move.

His classroom can look chaotic compared to others, he said. Recognizing that his colleagues tend to use teaching models that support a quiet classroom, he said that he is more comfortable in a more dynamic environment -- and so are the children that end up in his classroom. He emphasizes the need for students to learn boundaries early in the school year and to build a classroom culture in which students know what to expect.

"As a teacher you try to remember what you were like when you were 9 or 10 years old," he said, "and you start from there."

Finally, I visited our local public school, where you might expect it to be most difficult for teachers to rethink traditional classroom expectations. Unlike private schools that have the liberty to approach education in unconventional ways, public school teachers are beholden to an entirely different set of expectations and standards. Although teachers at the school attested to administrative support for unconventional strategies, it seemed conditional on rising test scores. It is easy to understand why teachers under such scrutiny might avoid taking risks, but some teachers are up to the challenge.

I met Carlita Scarboro, a first grade teacher, at Laurel Ridge Elementary, near Atlanta. Scarboro's classroom is active and lively, full of confident and convivial students.

"Making them sit," she said, "creates problems with behavior."

Scarboro's interest in allowing movement in the classroom originated with her experiences with her own son, who was diagnosed with a mild form of autism. Her experiences volunteering at her son's school and her background in business and event planning informed her "rogue" teaching philosophy: Her classroom, she believes, is a lab.

"I like to take them out for field work," she said.

Getting students involved in activities allows them to better grasp the content they're studying, she said.

"You can reach them on all different levels," Scarboro said. "If they sit there, they zone out and they're not engaged."

In her class, students watched a video on goods and services, then followed it with an activity: Pairs of students wrote scripts and used props to act out the parts of consumer and producer and to portray the laws of supply and demand. I saw how their bodies became part of the learning, with students celebrating vocally and physically when they answered correctly on the group quiz that followed.

Scarboro moved herself, her students and their work around the classroom to keep them on their toes. Students moved from the rug to their tables and to various part of the room to submit papers or deliver the lunch count to the cafeteria.

Allowing movement in the classroom requires a lot of classroom management, Scarboro told me, and despite the motion and noise, it was highly structured. There were clear signals to transition from one activity to another, to quiet down or shift students' attention.

She built in some organization in fun, easy-to-understand ways, too. At the beginning of the year, students were organized into teams and their spots on the carpet were color coded to coordinate with their table and team mascot -- orange tigers, red puppies and green geckos. She said it's important to establish definitive parameters at the beginning of the year and not to change them. Having such "stops" in place allows her to give the students more leeway later on in the school year.

"Kids need to feel like they are part of the action," she said. "It makes a big difference when you feel like part of the process."

My family emitted a collective sigh of relief when we found a school that was a perfect fit for our kids and their persistent levels of activity. With a little effort, I believe other families can do the same; it's clear that teachers in all kinds of situations can push the limits of traditional physical restrictions in schools.

In my own curriculum, as a professor, I have built more and more movement into our classroom activities, forsaking the traditional format of lecturing to her students. It's often an uphill battle for students who expect a "sage on the stage," but the benefits have been rewarding. I see fewer students drag themselves to my classes with dread, falling asleep at their desks or noodling around on their cell phones and more students are meaningfully engaged with the content.

For parents like me, who see their children struggling to maintain the still, quiet expectation in school, I encourage seeking out educators and schools that allow opportunities for children to learn through their bodies.

It might mean visiting classrooms, talking to teachers or cornering the parents of older students for guidance. It could be as simple as calling the principal and saying, "Listen, my kid is a mover. Who can handle that best?"

It is not always easy, but it can be done.
Do you have a child that struggles to sit still in class? How did you handle it? Share your experiences in the comments, on Twitter @CNNschools or on CNN Living's Facebook page.

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why do we make students sit still in class? - cnn

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Why do we make students sit still in class? - CNN

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In my household and others, the question looms: Does sitting in any way help students learn? Why do we feel the need to tame students' physical natures, rather than incorporate them into the learning process? By sending our children off to still, quiet classrooms, are we neglecting meaningful, hands-on learning that could be occurring through physical activity?

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Being in a quiet area can help you focus much better and help with your train of thought

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quiet areas in classrooms - Google Search

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Basic Skills class-- Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/ . Make your own animated videos and animated presentations for free. PowToon is a free tool that allows you to develop cool animated clips and animated presentations for your website, office meeting, sales pitch, nonprofit fundraiser, product launch, video resume, or anything else you could use an animated explainer video.

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Being prepare is a great way to start everything and helps with organization

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Uploaded by Emily Dellagana on 2014-04-17.

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chewing gum helps focus better and helps with you during test

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being early helps with your stress and being early helps make you in a better mood

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The car accident that snarled your commute, the alarm that didn't go off, the burning need to respond to that one annoying Facebook post - Americans have a million excuses for being late to work (some of them legitimate). And apparently, more and more of us are forced to trot these excuses out on a pretty regular basis.

According to a new CareerBuilder.com survey, 29% of employees say they're late to work at least once a month, up four percentage points from last year, while 16% admit to being late on a weekly basis, a three percentage point increase over a year ago. The top reasons people blame for their tardiness are (in order): traffic, oversleeping, bad weather, being too tired to get out of bed, and plain old procrastination.

If you count yourself among one of those morning dawdlers, it's probably not great news for your career. Although two-thirds of the hiring managers CareerBuilder surveyed agreed that the idea of a 9-to-5 workday is antiquated, more than 40% still said they've fired someone for being late.

The good news is that more bosses seem somewhat lenient about tardiness, realizing that work completed is a better barometer of productivity than how long employees spend warming their desk chairs. " Our survey research shows that nearly 1 in 5 employers - 18% - say they don't need employees to be punctual if they can still get their work done. That's up from 16% last year," says Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder. " I think we'll see that percentage go up," she adds.

Still, being perpetually late isn't good for either your professional reputation or your stress level. Experts have a few suggestions for how to get a handle on things even before you've grabbed the handle of your coffee mug.

Start by giving yourself more time. When you leave home with just enough of a window to make it to work on time, you're bound to be late with even the slightest delay en route. "If you miss one traffic light or have to run back inside to grab an umbrella, it becomes impossible to make it in on time," Haefner says. So here's her simple suggestion: "If you're chronically late, I'd say plan to be everywhere 15 minutes early." You don't have to commit to it forever; just try it for a week and see if your punctuality improves. Be sure to coordinate with your spouse or others so that everyone is on the same page with you leaving for work a little earlier than usual.

Don't use "best day" math. We live in a world where we're constantly urged to be better, faster, more productive. "Most of us have time estimation issues. We're just trying to do too much in the time we have allotted," says career coach Brenda Abdilla. One consequence of this is that we can start measuring ourselves against unrealistic expectations. Don't fall into the trap of planning your commuting time based on that one day when there was no traffic and you hit all green stoplights on your way there. Add in some wiggle room so the only way you'll be late is if something goes very, very wrong on the commute.

Arriving early doesn't mean you have to work right away. Give yourself an incentive for building in an extra 10- or 15-minute buffer, says career coach Roy Cohen. "If you show up at work with extra time, you can do stuff for yourself that you would've done at home," he says. When you're at the office before your colleagues arrive, feel free to use that time to catch up on personal tasks that are hard to squeeze in otherwise: Schedule that coffee date with a friend, order that baby shower gift, or catch up on your personal email.

Try a flexible schedule to cut out traffic. "It's such a colossal waste of time to be sitting in traffic - that's the worst possible use of your time," Abdilla says. See if your boss is willing to let you come in late with the idea that you'd stay late too. Or find a gym near work so you can drive in early enough to beat traffic, then work out, shower, and dress there. If your company is open to it, another option is working from home one day a week. For people with long commutes, this could save you a couple of hours every week.

Ponder the real reason you're late so often. It's impossible to come up with a solution if you have no idea what's causing the problem. "An important step to conquering the behavior is figuring out exactly what's causing it," Haefner says. "It could be a lack of motivation, a skill deficit, fear of failure, lack of interest, or simply habit." Being able to pinpoint reasons can help you find tactics for thwarting your tendency to drag your feet in the morning.

Get help for an overcrowded schedule. If you're chronically overworked or overbooked, that stress is going to build up over time. "It does bring about resentment," Abdilla says. "If you're feeling very powerless, you're going to find a way to kind of get everybody back by running late or not being present." If you're expected to respond to your boss's email before you leave the house and still be at your desk on time, ask him or her to prioritize which is more important, she suggests. Even the best workers can't be in two places at the same time.

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Why You're Late for Work All the Time - and How to Fix It

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The car accident that snarled your commute, the alarm that didn't go off, the burning need to respond to that one annoying Facebook post - Americans have a million excuses for being late to work (some of them legitimate). And apparently, more and more of us are forced to trot these excuses out on a pretty regular basis.