Why you sang to your child before childbirth

Babies, it turns out, cry in their native tongue. Who knew? It turns out they really are listening those last few months before they venture out into the wide wide world. I played Ewan MacColl's Songs of Robbert Burns. to mine. That's why they cried in Scots.

Fooling around on the net over break...

My wife's currently reading a book by Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar. She was just reading the last chapter, on the Trans-Siberian Railroad , when I saw this article in the Guardian about a beautiful site Google Russia just announced. It's a virtual tour of this, one of the most famous railroads of the world. The photographs of Lake Baikal are stunning.

AntiMalware protection at home

One of the most common questions Parents ask me is "How can I get rid of the spyware my (son, daughter, teenager,mate)has put on my home computer? It takes forever to start, and then I keep getting random popups, and it takes forever to get to the page I want..."
Here's how we get rid of mal ware at home(two teenagers, many computers infected, hours spent until I figured this out)
First, I go to an uninfected computer. In my house,that would be my mac. I insert a pocket (usb) drive. I then search cnet download.com for one of the following programs: Ad-Aware, AVG free edition , or AVAST. I prefer AVAST, but I have friends in the trade that swear by AVG and Ad-Aware also.
When I find the application I want, I click on the download now button, and save the app to the pocket drive. I then eject the pocket drive, take it to the infected computer, and insert it into a vacant usb slot. I then open up My computer, then my pocket drive, launch the application from the pocket drive and follow the instructions on the screen. It's always less than 30 minutes from start to finish.

Accelerated Reader

I just remembered that I haven't updated the Accelerated Reader Book totals. The students are now at 4,449 books read;85,367,498 words read. Compare this to January 20th:
3,979 books read
77,853,322 words read.
The new total shows slightly fewer words per book; indubitably due to the 5th grade being at Walker Creek last week.

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February is Black History Month

If you're looking for articles about famous African-Americans, Don't forget to look at Enchanted Learning's Website. Thanks to our great PTA, Rancho has a yearly subscription to this wonderful site that has so many resources for our students!
And of course, I always enjoy listening to Doctor Martin Luther King: