9/11 Children All Grown Up

by WSJ
September 11, 2009

Editor’s Note: We at the Chronicle along with millions of Americans, will never forget what happened September 11, 2001.

Today we will be honoring those heroes, families that have lost their love ones.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

It is eight years since 9/11, and here is an unexpected stage of grief: fear that the ache will go away. I don’t suppose it ever will, but grieving has gradations, and “horror” becomes “absorbed sadness.” Life moves on, and wants to move on, which is painful for those who will not forget and cannot be comforted. Part of the spookiness of life, part of its power to disorient us, is not only that people die, that they slip below the waves, but that the waves close above them so quickly, the sea so quickly looks the same.

I’ve been thinking about those who were children on 9/11, not little ones who were shielded but those who were 10 and 12, old enough to understand that something dreadful had happened but young enough still to be in childhood. A young man who was 14 the day of the attacks told me recently that there’s an unspoken taboo among the young people of New York: They don’t talk about it, ever. They don’t want to say, “Oh boo hoo, it was awful.” They don’t want to dwell. They shrug it off when it comes up. They change the subject.

This week, in a conversation with college students at an eastern university, I brought it up. Seven students politely shared some of their memories. I invited them to tell me more the next morning, and was surprised when six of the seven showed up. This is what I learned:

They’ve been marked by 9/11 more than they know. It was their first moment of historical consciousness. Before that day, they didn’t know what history was; after that day, they knew they were in it.

It was a life-splitting event. Before it they were carefree, after they were careful. A 20-year-old junior told me that after 9/11, “a backpack on a subway was no longer a backpack,” and a crowded theater was “a source for concern.” Every one of them used the word “bubble”: the protected bubble of their childhood “popped.” And all of them said they spent 9/11 and the days after glued to the television, watching over and over again the footage—the north tower being hit by the plane, the fireball. The video of 9/11 has firmly and ineradicably entered their brains. Which is to say their first visual memory of America, or their first media memory, was of its towers falling down.

I’d never fully realized this: 9/11 was for America’s kids exactly what Nov. 22, 1963, was for their parents and uncles and aunts. They were at school. Suddenly there were rumors in the hall and teachers speaking in hushed tones. You passed an open classroom and saw a teacher sobbing. Then the principal came on the public-address system and said something very bad had happened. Shocked parents began to pick kids up. Everyone went home and watched TV all day, and the next.

Simon, a 20-year-old college junior, was a 12-year-old seventh-grader at a public school in Baltimore. He said: “It’s first-period science, and the teacher next door, who was known to play jokes on other teachers, comes in completely stone-faced and says a plane has hit the World Trade Center, and no one believes him.” Simon didn’t know what to believe but remembered reading that in 1945 a plane had struck the Empire State Building, and “the building stayed up,” so he didn’t worry too much.

“At lunch time the vice principal comes up and he explains that two planes had hit the World Trade Center and one had hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center was gone, and I never—when you have your mouth agape it’s never for anything important, but I remember having my mouth agape for a minute or two in complete and utter shock. I went to my art period and I remember my art teacher sitting there with her hands on her face just bawling, she was so frightened. My mom picked me up, and I remember walking with her, and I’m saying ‘This is Pearl Harbor.’”

Nine-eleven, he felt, changed everything for his generation. “It completely destroyed our sense of invincibility—maybe that’s not the right word. I would say it made everything real to a 12-year-old. It showed the world could be a dangerous place when for my generation that was never the case. My generation had no Soviet Union, no war against fascism, we never had any threats. I was born when the Berlin Wall came down. It destroyed the sense of carefree innocence that we had.”

Juliette, also 20 and a junior, was in eighth grade in Great Falls, Va. “I think the kids were shocked,” she said. “The major question was how could this happen, who would do that—like, how does something so crazy happen? What I had is a sense that it was going to be one of those days of which 30 years down the road, people would ask me, What were you doing on that day, where were you on 9/11?—that my children would ask me. And so I set myself to remembering the details.”

I told her that it is interesting to me that no great art has yet come from 9/11. The reason may be that adults absorbed what had happened, and because we had absorbed it, we did not have to transmute it into art. Maybe when you are still absorbing, or cannot absorb, that’s when art happens. Maybe your generation will do it, I said.

She considered this. “There’s always the odds that something much more horrible will happen that will really shake us out of our torpor, that will wake us she said.

The attack was not only an American event. Robbie, an 18-year-old freshman, was 10 and in primary school in England. “We were near the end of school. There were murmurs from teachers about something happening. I remember going back home, and my mum had both televisions on with different news channels. I remember the tower and the pillar of smoke. The big pillar of smoke was very vivid to me, and my mother trying to explain the seriousness of it. I think 9/11 brought us bang slap into the 21st century. I remember when the millennium came people said ‘new time, new world,’ but 9/11 was the ‘new time, new world.’ I understood it was something big, something that changed the world.”

Then he told me that after we had talked the previous evening, he’d had a dream. “I was back in my old school in England, and in front of me I could see the city of Bristol, nothing distinct, but big towers, big buildings. And I could see them crumbling and falling. There was a collective fear, not just from myself but amongst everyone in the dream. I remember calling in the dream my mum, and saying ‘Are you safe, are you safe?’ I think this perhaps shows that after 9/11 . . . as a small child you felt safe, but after 9/11, I don’t think I personally will ever feel 100% safe. . . . I think the dream demonstrates—I think the dream contained my hidden feelings, my consciousness.”

He remembered after 9/11 those who rose up to fight terrorism. Even as a child he was moved by them. There are always in history so many such people, he said. It is always the great reason for hope.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Remembering 9/11 – Story Tellers

By Elizabeth Llorente
Sept 11. 2009

Editor’s Note: We at the Chronicle along with millions of Americans, will never forget what happened September 11, 2001.

Today we will be honoring those heroes, families that have lost their love ones.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

For almost a year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, journalist Maria Alvarez spent nearly all her time at Ground Zero, chronicling for the New York Post the horrors she witnessed firsthand around the towers before they collapsed, and then the grim and gripping aftermath. She watched the heroics and selflessness of emergency responders, the grace and dedication of those who searched for remains, and the remarkable ethic of those who cleaned up amid the dangerous toxins. When the cleanup of the site ended, so did her assignment—and her sense of purpose.

“It was very hard. All my purpose in life for all those months after September 11 came to a halt,” says Alvarez, who came from Bolivia as a young child. “I got assigned to another story, a big trial in Connecticut. I thought, ‘That’s good, it’ll help me forget.’ But it wasn’t the same anymore. I had an insatiable appetite to write about 9/11. I felt anything [else] I was doing was meaningless.”

Now Alvarez, 49, is once again telling the story of September 11 and the heroism she witnessed that day and in the months that followed. But this time she is telling the story as one of nearly 150 volunteers who conduct guided tours of the Tribute World Trade Center Visitor Center.

The volunteer walking tour program began in 2005, a year before the Tribute Center opened. The first group of 17 volunteers guided groups interested in learning about the history and impact of the World Trade Center around the perimeter of the site. Today’s volunteers, who go through training and commit to conducting between two and nine tours a month, engage visitors during walking tours and in the museum’s galleries by sharing  their own personal experiences—of survival, loss, and healing—directly related to that fateful day.

“Our volunteers allow the Tribute Center to provide a rare opportunity for visitors to learn through oral histories,” says Tracy Grosner, volunteer program coordinator. “Each individual perspective is different. These personal experiences put a human face on the overwhelming events that shocked the nation and the world.”

More than 40 percent of the visitors to the Tribute Center are international, and of the six languages in which audio tours are offered, Spanish is the language most frequently requested, says Grosner.

Juan Alamo, a 70-year-old volunteer who was born in Cuba, was sworn into the U.S. Army on September 11, 1961, and recalls the many deals he had sealed over the years at the North Tower’s Windows on the World restaurant as a top financial officer of various major investment firms.

“I love this country, everything it did for me,” he says. “This was a horrendous act that was perpetrated on our country. I had to help out.”

He decided to volunteer as a tour guide, encouraged by the hope that he says will come with the rebirth of the area. “There’s rebuilding, a renaissance going on there,” he says. “This country was able to put it back together. There’s hope, there’s tomorrow.”

Source:  AARP

Remembering 9/11 – Eagle Scouts Build Memorial in Florida

By Shelby Fallin
September 11, 2009

This week communities across the country are honoring the memory of the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Jeff Cox, a 15-year-old Eagle Scout from Windermere, Florida, wants to give people in his community a way to honor those victims every day. He decided to bring a piece of the World Trade Center buildings to his hometown for a memorial.

“I remember I was in second grade and I really didn’t know what was going on,” Cox said of the attacks. “Then seeing these two huge buildings falling down on TV—it was like a scary movie, and I never really liked scary movies.”

On September 11, 2001, four consumer airplanes were hijacked and intentionally crashed in a terrorist attack on the United States. Two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centers in New York City. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth plane was headed for the White House, but crashed instead into a field in Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people died in the attacks. Many of those people were firefighters and police officers—first responders—attempting to save people from the wreckage.

The young Eagle Scout’s older brother is a local firefighter who was recently wounded in the line of duty. Cox said he wanted to honor the firefighters and other first responders, as well as the memories of all the people who died that day.

To put his plan in action, he first did some research. Cox went online and found that the Port Authority of New York City had preserved pieces of metal from the World Trade Center buildings. He then approached the Mayor of Windermere, Gary Bruhn, to see if the town would be interested in having a memorial.

“I thought it was a tremendous idea,” Bruhn said. “We have a lot of requests for projects. This is a project that will stand the test of time and generations.”

The Port Authority gave Cox several choices. He finally chose a 650-pound beam that was recovered from the destroyed buildings. The Port Authority keeps remnants from the attacks in Hangar 17 at JFK Airport in Queens, New York.

The next problem was how to ship such a huge hunk of steel from New York to Florida. Cox started looking for sponsors and volunteers to help. It didn’t take long. UPS has agreed to sponsor some of the cost of the shipping and local engineers have volunteered to design the memorial.

The town of Windermere donated a piece of land where the memorial will be placed. The city is helping Cox find someone to donate a spotlight.

Cox hopes to have the memorial finished by the end of the year. He is planning a dedication ceremony on February 20, 2010.

“The town of Windermere is celebrating its firefighters and policemen that day and I thought that would be a great day to dedicate the memorial, too,” he said.

Mayor Bruhn agrees.

“It will be a constant reminder of those firefighters and first responders not only on 9/11 but beyond that,” Bruhn said. “They serve our community and put their lives on the line everyday.”

The memorial is not just for Windermere residents, but all of Central Florida as well, the Mayor added. “I think it will touch a lot of people to see steel from the actual towers.”

You can find out more about the artifacts being preserved in Hangar 17 at JFK airport in New York from a report written by Kid Reporter Juliette Kessler in 2007. Kessler, who was also in second grade when the attacks occurred, was in school only a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Six years later she toured the hangar and remembered her experiences from that day.

Source: Scholastic News Online

Editor’s Note: Shelby Fallin is a member of the Scholastic Kids Press Corps. We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Fears That Make You Smile

by Beverly Beckham
Sept. 9, 2009

I can see it from her point of view. Literally. I walk into the bathroom, kneel down, look up, and the cow on the wall does appear to be glaring at me.

“I no like. I ‘fraid,” Charlotte says, beeline-ing it past this bathroom and actually detouring — walking through the dining room and living room — to get to the steps that lead upstairs.

Charlotte is 2 and short like a fire hydrant. And the cow, though not real and not even three-dimensional — it’s painted on the bathroom wall — does loom over her. So I respect her feelings: The cow can look a little menacing.

Knowing this, I attempt to reassure her.

“The cow is smiling at you,” I tell my small granddaughter. “She likes you, Charlotte. She is a very nice cow.” But Charlotte is buying none of this. My spunky little Charlotte who is not afraid to climb on boulders and over fences, who jumps on and up and down and through just about anything, who picks up worms and ants and spiders (and sometimes pretends to eat them!), who swaggers through life doing all of the things the bigger 5-and-6-year-old kids do, wants nothing to do with this big stuck-on-the-wall inanimate, acrylic, huger-than-life heifer.

“Cow scary!” she insists as she climbs the 13 steps to the upstairs cow-free bathroom.

I shake my head and laugh because the cow was never meant to be scary. Quite the opposite. The cow and the sheep and the rooster and the duck with her ducklings and the pig and the mouse and all the little spiders and bees and butterflies and flowers lovingly painted on the walls by Sarah Bonnanzio three years ago were meant to be entertaining and fun.

I’d seen Bonnanzio’s work at the Public Library in Canton, Mass., where I live and where she’d donated her time and her talent. And I called her because I had a tiny space that I knew she could make cheerful and bright.

And she did. She painted a pig over the sink and ducks over the toilet and a rooster over the window and cow’s backsides over the door and a great big solemn-looking cow surrounded by sunflowers over the towel rack.

Solemn, but to Charlotte scary.

The other grandchildren sang “EE-I-EE-I-O” in the bathroom when they were 2 and 3. They counted the butterflies. They buzzed like bees. They mooed and they oinked and they bah-ed. They loved all the animals. They still do. Not Charlotte. She hollers as she races by.

Avoiding the Area

For months we chuckled at all the racing and hollering and the more recently “I no likes.” Because, really, Charlotte not liking the cow was just a funny quirky thing up until a few weeks ago when she began to actually use a bathroom.

Before it was an occasional trip up the stairs to check out the bathroom just in case. “Here’s the potty. Want to sit on it, Charlotte?” And Charlotte, just like her brother before her, refused.

Now Charlotte is potty-trained and the upstairs bathroom is an issue because from the backyard — where we’ve been spending our time, where there’s a playhouse and a tiny blow-up pool, where the kids run around all day — there are 13 steps leading just to the house, nine to the porch. Three to the garage. And a single big step into the kitchen.

Then there are 13 more steps to the second floor cow-free safe zone.

Twenty-six steps up. Twenty-six steps down. Up and down. Up and down so many times a day!

“Maybe you should paint over the cow,” Adam, Charlotte’s 5-year-old brother said last week as I sat splayed out and gasping on a lawn chair.

Charlotte’s mother suggested draping a towel over the bathroom door, then pushing the door wide open. This actually worked. It covered most of the cow’s head and all of the cow’s eyes. “Look, Charlotte,” we trilled. “The cow can’t see you anymore.”

But she could see still the cow.

“Cow big!” she moaned, bolting out of the bathroom, and back outside, putting as much distance between her and the bloated bovine as possible.

No Cows, No Dogs

Last week she decided that she didn’t like the big stuffed black dog that has stood by my front door since before she was born. She used to like it. She used to sit on it! But not anymore. “I no like dogs,” she told us, furrowing her brow.

A stuffed dog and a fake cow’s face give Charlotte the vapors. But two live groundhogs that live under a shed in my backyard? Charlotte says, “They fun!”

She chases them and laughs as they disappear under the shed and she’d be poking at them with a long stick if we let her. “I see hogs?” she says and we say, “No, Charlotte, not now. Maybe they’ll come out later.” And she’ll sit and wait for as long as it takes, as long as she’s not near the cow and the dog.

Source: Grandparents

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Hubble Opens New Eyes on the Universe

By NASA/PIO
Sept. 9, 2009

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, ready to uncover new worlds, peer ever deeper into space, and even map the invisible backbone of the universe.

The first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble showcase the 19-year-old telescope’s new vision. Topping the list of exciting new views are colorful multi-wavelength pictures of far- flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie “pillar of creation,” and a “butterfly” nebula. Click For larger image and more info

With the release of these images, astronomers have declared Hubble a fully rejuvenated observatory. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., unveiled the images at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 9, 2009.

With its new imaging camera, Hubble can view galaxies, star clusters, and other objects across a wide swath of the electromagnetic spectrum, from ultraviolet to near-infrared light. A new spectrograph slices across billions of light-years to map the filamentary structure of the universe and trace the distribution of elements that are fundamental to life.

The telescope’s new instruments also are more sensitive to light and can observe in ways that are significantly more efficient and require less observing time than previous generations of Hubble instruments.

NASA astronauts installed the new instruments during the space shuttle servicing mission in May 2009. Besides adding the instruments, the astronauts also completed a dizzying list of other chores that included performing unprecedented repairs on two other science instruments. Click For larger image and more info

Now that Hubble has reopened for business, it will tackle a whole range of observations. Looking closer to Earth, such observations will include taking a census of the population of Kuiper Belt objects residing at the fringe of our solar system, witnessing the birth of planets around other stars, and probing the composition and structure of the atmospheres of other worlds.

Peering much farther away, astronomers have ambitious plans to use Hubble to make the deepest-ever portrait of the universe in near-infrared light.  The resulting picture may reveal never-before-seen infant galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 500 million years old. Hubble also is now significantly more well-equipped to probe and further characterize the behavior of dark energy, a mysterious and little-understood repulsive force that is pushing the universe apart at an ever-faster rate.Click For larger image and more info

Related Links:

Gallery of all images
&Read the NASA press release

Source: NASA

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

Tips for a Germ-Free School Year

By NG Kids
Sept. 8, 2009

The school year always brings new friends, new teachers, new assignments, and unfortunately some new germs. But not to worry, a new school year doesn’t have to mean new illnesses!

Follow these tips and you might score a perfect attendance record this year!

Wash your hands with soap and water after you sneeze, cough, or use the bathroom. Count to 20 or sing a couple of rounds of Row, Row, Row Your Boat while you scrub!

Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water aren’t available.

Use a tissue when you need to sneeze or cough. Throw your tissues in the trash—don’t attempt a Guinness World Record for the biggest pile of dirty tissues!

If you can’t stifle a cough or sneeze in a tissue quickly enough, sneeze into the crook of your elbow.

Take a multi-vitamin every day.

Don’t share water bottles or drinks. Your friend might not know he or she is sick and spread germs to you.

Don’t share your hair brush or hat. Little creatures like head lice could be hiding out and could be passed on from one person to another.

Stay home from school, sports practice, and parties if you feel sick or have a fever.

Wash your dishes with detergent and very warm water to kill germs.

Stay away from family gatherings and reunions if you are sick or if one of your family members is sick. Grandma and Grandpa and younger cousins may have a stronger reaction to the illness than you do.

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. A healthy diet can help boost your immune system and help you fight off illnesses before they make you sick!

Sleep eight or more hours every night. A strong body will help you fend off infections.

Wash your hands after you high five, fist bump or shake someone’s hand.

Don’t double dip into the salsa or dip.

Get some fresh air and exercise every day. Outside air often carries fewer germs than stagnant indoor air.

Avoid crowded places like movie theaters and shopping malls if the flu has been reported in your town.

Don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. These areas are germ spreaders.

Don’t share ear buds with friends. They can harbor loads of germs.

Blow kisses to your sick friends and family instead of kisses and hugs.

Get a flu shot if your doctor or school recommends it.

Source: National Geographic

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Who Were Our Presidents? Part 7

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/GCC
Sept. 8, 2009

 

Editor’s Note: How many of us along with our children? Know who our Presidents were and what they have done in Office.

Each week we will pick a President and tell you about them and their accomplishes.

We hope that you will enjoy this series. And let us know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

7. ANDREW JACKSON 1829-1837

  

More nearly than any of his predecessors, Andrew Jackson was elected by popular vote; as President he sought to act as the direct representative of the common man.

Born in a backwoods settlement in the Carolinas in 1767, he received sporadic education. But in his late teens he read law for about two years, and he became an outstanding young lawyer in Tennessee. Fiercely jealous of his honor, he engaged in brawls, and in a duel killed a man who cast an unjustified slur on his wife Rachel.

Jackson prospered sufficiently to buy slaves and to build a mansion, the Hermitage, near Nashville. He was the first man elected from Tennessee to the House of Representatives, and he served briefly in the Senate. A major general in the War of 1812, Jackson became a national hero when he defeated the British at New Orleans.

In 1824 some state political factions rallied around Jackson; by 1828 enough had joined “Old Hickory” to win numerous state elections and control of the Federal administration in Washington.

In his first Annual Message to Congress, Jackson recommended eliminating the Electoral College. He also tried to democratize Federal officeholding. Already state machines were being built on patronage, and a New York Senator openly proclaimed “that to the victors belong the spoils. . . . ”

Jackson took a milder view. Decrying officeholders who seemed to enjoy life tenure, he believed Government duties could be “so plain and simple” that offices should rotate among deserving applicants.

As national politics polarized around Jackson and his opposition, two parties grew out of the old Republican Party–the Democratic Republicans, or Democrats, adhering to Jackson; and the National Republicans, or Whigs, opposing him.

Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and other Whig leaders proclaimed themselves defenders of popular liberties against the usurpation of Jackson. Hostile cartoonists portrayed him as King Andrew I.

Behind their accusations lay the fact that Jackson, unlike previous Presidents, did not defer to Congress in policy-making but used his power of the veto and his party leadership to assume command.

The greatest party battle centered around the Second Bank of the United States, a private corporation but virtually a Government-sponsored monopoly. When Jackson appeared hostile toward it, the Bank threw its power against him.

Clay and Webster, who had acted as attorneys for the Bank, led the fight for its recharter in Congress. “The bank,” Jackson told Martin Van Buren, “is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!” Jackson, in vetoing the recharter bill, charged the Bank with undue economic privilege.

His views won approval from the American electorate; in 1832 he polled more than 56 percent of the popular vote and almost five times as many electoral votes as Clay.

Jackson met head-on the challenge of John C. Calhoun, leader of forces trying to rid themselves of a high protective tariff.

When South Carolina undertook to nullify the tariff, Jackson ordered armed forces to Charleston and privately threatened to hang Calhoun. Violence seemed imminent until Clay negotiated a compromise: tariffs were lowered and South Carolina dropped nullification.

In January of 1832, while the President was dining with friends at the White House, someone whispered to him that the Senate had rejected the nomination of Martin Van Buren as Minister to England. Jackson jumped to his feet and exclaimed, “By the Eternal! I’ll smash them!” So he did. His favorite, Van Buren, became Vice President, and succeeded to the Presidency when “Old Hickory” retired to the Hermitage, where he died in June 1845.

Editor’s Note: Here is some of the accomplishment of the 7^th President:

He was military governor of Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815), and eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy. He was a polarizing figure who dominated American politics in the 1820s and 1830s. His political ambition combined with widening political participation, shaping the modern Democratic Party.[1] Renowned for his toughness, he was nicknamed “Old Hickory.” As he based his career in developing Tennessee, Jackson was the first president primarily associated with the frontier.

· Jacksonian Democracy – “the people shall rule” – increased turnout of votes proving that common people had the vote & would use it to their ends
· reflected individualism, versatility, opportunism
· laissez faire
· supported spoils system
· did not support internal improvements (roads, canals)

· Webster- Hayne Debate 1829
· Indian Removal Act 1830
· Nat Turner’s Rebellion 1831
· Nullification Crisis 1832
· vetoes recharter of BUS 1832
· Tariff of 1832
· Force Bill 1833
· vetoes Maysville Road
· Texas Revolution 1836 & recognition 1837
· Specie Circular 1836
· Bank War 1836

We would like to know what you think? And is there anything else that he has done? You could win a prize dan@youngchronicle.com

Source: White House Askville

A Dream Comes True For 13 Year Old

By NG Kids
September 8, 2009

Laura Dekker is a girl with a dream–to be the youngest person to circumnavigate (sail around) the world alone in her yacht, Guppy. Laura isn’t new to sailing. She was born on a boat in New Zealand, and was sailing solo on lakes when she was six years old. She sailed across the English Channel to England and back at her father’s insistence that she prove herself before tackling the open ocean. Laura is 13 years old.

A Dutch court has ruled that Laura is too young to make the trip alone, and has placed her under state supervision for two months to make sure she stays on dry land.

Do you think 13 is too young to sail solo around the world? How old do you think someone should be before sailing such a huge distance alone?

Read more about Laura Dekker on the BBC

Source: Kids National Geographic

 

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

The 12th Annual Poster Contest!

By Alexander
September 7, 2009

We had so many great entries for our 12th Annual Food Allergy News for Kids Poster Contest this year. We know you’ve been eager to see the artwork of our winners. Here are the entries that won first, second, and third places!
Theme for the 12th Annual Poster Contest: “Take Action, Prevent Reactions.”

 

Ages 4-7

 

 

 

 

 
Ages 8-11

 

 

Take a look the 2008 winners and 2007 winners!

Food Allergy

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

A Garden Playhouse

By Family Fun
September 6, 2009

Practicality and whimsy are perfect playmates in this outside-in room.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
	Plywood
	Wallpaper sample
	Hot glue gun
	Wooden birdhouses
	Fabric
	Cedar shake
	Masonite
	Molding
	Fake plants
	Craft board
	Rope
	Screws

Time needed: Weekend Project

1. To create a robin, cut out from wallpaper samples and hot-glue a craft-store nest and eggs next to it.

2. For curtain holders, paint two wooden craft-store birdhouses. Drill holes for the fabric, then screw them to the window frame. A craft-store bird perches in the entry hole.

3. Use a third birdhouse into a floor lamp by drilling a hole through the bottom and mounting it on a hollow post made from narrow boards.

4. The plywood playhouse is topped with cedar shakes and faced with Masonite. Thin strips of molding staple-gunned together create the illusion of windowpanes , while a wooden window box filled with fake flowers, moss, and ivy adds a welcoming touch.

5. The swing is made from a craft board purchased at Home Depot, strung on rope, and attached to lag screws drilled through the ceiling into the joists.

Source: Family Fun

 

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

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