Beware! This Food Is Recalled In New York State

There is a good chance that at some point in the last few days you have packed a school lunch. In fact, you may be reading this as you are getting the kids off to school or picking them up. A popular lunch item has been recalled as Kraft announces a safety issue with cheese singles.

Many parents try to find new ways to get their kids to eat more and to eat more variety of things. If you have young kids, it could be the daily challenge. Perhaps the issue is that your kids will only eat chicken fingers, buttered noodles and some sort of cheese?

Kraft Heinz is recalling more than 83,000 cases of individually-wrapped Kraft Singles American processed cheese slices because part of the wrapper could stick to the slice and become a choking hazard

This comes just a day after the announcement that there is a large ground beef recall.

NO MORE HOMEWORK?

For decades and generations, students have had to bring home projects or reading to finish and complete after school. It can be something quick and easy or something that requires more thought and perhaps an extra hand from mom or dad or a babysitter or tutor. For most kids, it is a dreaded task.

Like most parents, I asked our second grader what homework he had and asked him to complete it. Only to be met with resistance. That is when it hit me. Why are we calling this work? Perhaps a few changes could make this an easier process?
<h3>SAY GOODBYE TO HOMEWORK?</h3>
In our house, we are trying to use the term "home-learn" instead of homework.

Work is just that; work. There seems to be a limited payoff other than completing a task before the next class and, in many cases, checking a proverbial box. My father taught high school for years and helped us learn at home with our take home lessons. Don't confuse helping us with doing the assignment for us. Looking back, my twin sister and I got very frustrated at times sitting at the kitchen table trying to grasp a new concept or complete a match question or prep for a test. But my father helped us find a way to learn it and apply what we learned for the next day. Some lessons were easier to grasp than others and the real "work" was making sure we stuck with trying to retain the information rather than let it just be a brief thought that helped in that moment alone.

Our learning journey has just started with our kids who are 7 years, 5, 3 and a little one who is 4 months old. But here in the early part of this school year, I feel as though a simple lesson in semantics has helped mom and I with keeping out young learners on track.