Monthly Archives: December 2017

Recipe

Recipe: Ham and Bean Soup

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Ok, so you you have some beans, and some leftover ham. What shall you ever do with these ingredients? Well, as my dad always did with leftover ham, you make some ham and bean soup. A great side for his ham and bean soup was his cornbread (made proudly from a box of Jiffy cornbread mix), which was great when I dipped it in the broth.

 

Ingredients:

Soup:

  • 1lb of beans
  • ½ lb of ham (leftover ham works just fine), cubed
  • 1 small onion, minced
  • 1 cup of chopped carrots
  • 1 tablespoon of parsley, minced
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Cornbread:

  • Jiffy Cornbread mix

Directions:

Follow directions for cornbread on Jiffy mix box. If using dried beans, add beans to a pot of boiling water and with a few pinches of salt and remove pot from heat. Let beans soak for an hour and then drain. (Just use fresh beans as you would these soaked beans in the recipe) Add beans to large pot with 1-2 cups of water along with onion, salt, and pepper. Bring pot to boil for 20 minutes and then reduce to simmer. Add carrots, ham, and parsley to pot. Simmer for 60-90 more minutes. Serve soup hot with cornbread.

STEM

Building for Success

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Ryves Up! uses a variety of activities to help build crucial skills for the participating elementary students.  Students learn about basic science concepts related to plants, such as photosynthesis and how to water and grow plants.  And best of all, the kids have a great time with these activities!  As second-grader Jackson Schommer exclaimed, “I like learning how to grow plants.  We get to water them and take some home.”

Experiments are also run to reinforce concepts that they learn.  Kids partake in activities such as predicting if celery or a white radish will absorb more water, or writing down in journals what they think will happen to several seedlings that are grown either in the light or in the dark.  These experiments make the students think about what they have learned and apply concepts to real life applications.  This increases critical thinking and hypothesis forming skills of the students.

An article from The Hanen Centre discusses why critical thinking is so important.  Critical thinking and language influence each other as children learn.  Critical thinking makes kids use words such as because, if, then, and different verb tenses to expand their language.  This expanded language also improves the ability to critically think and form well-structured statements.  Increased critical thinking abilities also helps improve literacy by allowing kids to problem solve, read between the lines, and connect multiple concepts and ideas.  The kids even bring seedlings back home to grow to continue their learning outside of school and the Ryves Up! program.

STEM

The Future Engineers

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Teaching STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) to youth is unbelievably important.  According to the Council of Canadian Academies, elementary school is the best time to start introducing STEM topics, like Ryves Up! does for Franklin Elementary students in Terre Haute.  Children at this age start to form their attitudes toward STEM subjects.  Developing interest and having fun with STEM, such as laughing third grader Carmen McMurray stating the red fluid from a white radish looks like a chopped off finger, makes kids more likely to pursue STEM in the future.

Kids that are taught STEM at an early age are set up for success in their futures.  The U.S. Department of Commerce says STEM occupations are growing almost twice as fast as non-STEM majors, at 17% compared to 9.8%.  An article from Engineering For Kids discusses the benefits of providing kids a STEM education.  This article mentions STEM taught children will be more likely to pursue STEM degrees, and that STEM degree holders have a higher average income even in non-STEM careers.  The STEM education from Ryves Up! helps teach kids problem solving, critical thinking, and sets them up for a more sustainable economic future for themselves and their future families.

STEM teaches kids about topics with real life applications, which keeps the kids interested and engaged, similar to this video. An article from Deseret News discusses the room for growth in the future for STEM.  All careers, especially as time goes on, will require basic STEM competencies whether they are STEM or non-STEM.  The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reports there will be a deficiency of 1,000,000 STEM graduates from now until 2025.  This means kids that pursue STEM will be in an advantageous position to obtain STEM careers.

 

Gardening

How Does Gardening Benefit Children’s Lives

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We live in a digital world today, and there is a growing concern from parents that kids are spending more time in front of the screens. The Ryves Up! Program can help you with it. We provide children with more opportunities to get in touch with the nature. In this process, they will learn how to appreciate the beauty of different natural species and harvest foods through their own hard work.

Gardening has a lot of advantages for kids. It encourages children to eat healthier. Through their engagement on the fields, children would cherish the foods they grow, and frankly speaking, half the fun of gardening is being able to eat what you grow. It will help them better understand the importance of keeping a balanced diet. Obesity is a less possible problem for them, considering gardening an increase in their outdoor activities.

Kids love to play with mud. Normally, parents might think that there are lots of germs in the soil, so it releases kids in an environment full of germs and pathogens. But lack of childhood exposure to germs may actually raise their risks of getting diseases like asthma, allergies and autoimmune in their grown-up lives. So getting dirty while gardening may strengthen a child’s immunity and overall health.