With Labor Day behind us, most students are already in school. Not only is the the first week of school stressful to the students, but it is also stressful to the parents who send their kids into the school building to a new teacher, a new curriculum and new students.
There’s always the classic worries for our kids such as bullying, drugs and other bad influences. But what do you do to make sure you “get along” with your child’s teacher?
I’ve been an educator for ten years. I’ve found that many times, at the beginning of the year, relationships are either built or destroyed because of bad behavior on the parts of parents.
So here are four tips to help parents forge a relationship with their child’s teachers:
1. Always introduce yourself to your children’s teachers at the beginning of the school year.
The beginning of the year is not only hectic for parents and kids, but it is also hectic for the teachers. We spend hours developing curriculum, decorating classroom, and attending district professional development, but we all love to meet parents. Meeting parents actually gives us teachers insight on the children in our classrooms. So, send an email, tweet or come up to the school and introduce yourself to us! It will give parents a face to a name on their child’s schedule and it will give us teachers a name to a face if we need to contact you in the future!
My son is 12 and to this day my husband and I go and personally meet every teacher that will have a class with him. I not only introduce myself, but I let them know, at the beginning of the year, any academic information they may need about him. I never want there to be a school year where I don’t know even one teacher! These are the people who will be with him every day for 8 hours a day. It is imperative we know his teachers!
2. Ask for ways to support them in the classroom.
With budget cuts, teacher layoffs and new curriculums, teachers need all of the help we can get. So find creative ways to support your teacher. We love “care packages” for the classroom full of essentials like: copier paper, band aids, pencils, pens,etc. I can’t count how many supplies we go through from our own budget so every ream of paper helps! Also support is not always financial. Many times it can be helping reinforce skills learned in the classroom.
If I’m going over “Romeo and Juliet” in class, then it’s always helpful for parents to review the play and go over it with their children at night. Even parents of younger children can get involved by reviewing Dolche Sight Words and numbers, and by having their children read every night. Whatever support you can offer is needed, regardless of the grade or subject level. Just ask your child’s teacher when you meet with them at the beginning of the year.
With my two younger children getting ready to start elementary school, I know that the school supply lists will be extensive so I make sure to get a few extra items so that the teacher isn’t forced to go in their pockets for what my child needs!
3. Offer to volunteer in the classroom.
Teachers get one planning period a day and during those 50 minutes there is no way everything can be accomplished. To help your child’s teacher, volunteer to come in the classroom and help in any way possible. Many educators need a Room Parent (even in upper grades) that can help file papers, call other parents and enter discipline logs for them. It doesn’t matter if you come and volunteer an hour a month the time is appreciated and needed with how much administrative duties teachers are made to do on a daily basis. In addition, this is a perfect way to get to know the teacher better and learn how the classroom flows in order to better support your child.
When my son was in elementary school, he LOVED to see me or his father at the school. However, now he’s mortified when he sees me in his middle school. That’s okay! I still volunteer at games in the office and in the classroom. I tell him it’s my responsiblity to be in the school as much as I can so that the school knows that we care!
4. Support your child’s teacher throughout the year with decisions made with your child.
Throughout the school year, there may be decisions about your child regarding discipline, academic work, and socialization with the other kids. Please support your support your child’s teacher on these matters. When you disagree with a decision, schedule a conference with the teacher and come to an agreement about any decisions regarding your child.
When my son was having trouble learning to read, his first grade teacher and I sat down and developed a plan that I could use at home and that she used at school to help him. Without working hand and hand with her, he would of been another victim of poor reading habits! I always remember it takes a village to raise a child! Do your part!
In the end, the only way to “save” our children is to make those relationships with teachers who are with your child on a daily basis.
Source: Black and Married with Kids
Showing posts with label How To. Show all posts
Showing posts with label How To. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
10 Smart Rules for Giving Negative Feedback
Praising good performance is easy, but what about those times when someone on your team needs a kick in the butt more than a pat on the back?
In that case, you’ll need to give some negative feedback–and do it without demotivating or demoralizing the other person. This post explains exactly how to do this.
Before we get started, though, it’s important to remember that the goal of feedback isnot to tell people what to do or how to do it. That’s mistaking the process for the goal.
The actual goal of feedback–even negative feedback–is to improve the behavior of the other person to bring out the best in your entire organization.
With that in mind, here are the 10 rules:
1. Make negative feedback unusual.
When a work environment becomes filled with criticism and complaint, people stop caring, because they know that–whatever they do–they’ll get raked over the coals. “I try to give seven positive reinforcements for every negative comment,” says Dan Cerutti, a general manager at IBM.
2. Don’t stockpile negative feedback.
Changes in behavior are more easily achieved when negative feedback is administered in small doses. When managers stockpile problems, waiting for the “right moment,” employees can easily become overwhelmed.
“Feedback is best given real time, or immediately after the fact,” explains management coach Kate Ludeman.
3. Never use feedback to vent.
Sure, your job is frustrating–but although it might make you feel better to get your own worries and insecurities off your chest, venting a string of criticisms seldom produces improved behavior. In fact, it usually creates resentment and passive resistance.
4. Don’t email negative feedback.
People who avoid confrontation are often tempted use email as a vehicle for negative feedback. Don’t.
“That’s like lobbing hand grenades over a wall,” says legendary electronic publishing guru Jonathan Seybold. “Email is more easily misconstrued, and when messages are copied, it brings other people into the fray.”
5. Start with an honest compliment.
Compliments start a feedback session on the right footing, according to according to management consultant Sally Narodick and current board member at the supercomputer company Cray. ”Effective feedback focuses on the positive while still identifying areas for further growth and better outcomes.”
6. Uncover the root of the problem.
You can give better feedback if you understand how the other person perceives the original situation. Asking questions such as, “Why do you approach this situation in this way?” or “What was your thought process?” not only provides you perspective, but it can lead other people to discover their own solutions and their own insights.
7. Listen before you speak.
Most people can’t learn unless they first feel that they’ve been heard out. Effective feedback “means paying attention and giving high-quality feedback from an empathic place, stepping into the other person’s shoes, appreciating his or her experience, and helping to move that person into a learning mode,” says Ludeman.
8. Ask questions that drive self-evaluation.
Much of the time, people know where they’re having problems and may even have good ideas about how to improve. Asking questions such as “How could we have done better?” and “What do you think could use improvement?” involves the other person in building a shared plan.
9. Coach the behaviors you would like to see.
Negative feedback is useless without a model for how to do better. But simply telling the other person what to do or how to do it is usually a waste of time.
Instead, use this tried-and-true coaching method, which is based upon what top sports coaches do.
10. Be willing to accept feedback, too.
If you truly believe that negative feedback can improve performance, then you should be willing to accept it as well as provide it. In fact, few things are more valuable to managers than honest feedback from employees. It’s to be treasured rather than discouraged or ignored.
Source: Time
In that case, you’ll need to give some negative feedback–and do it without demotivating or demoralizing the other person. This post explains exactly how to do this.
Before we get started, though, it’s important to remember that the goal of feedback isnot to tell people what to do or how to do it. That’s mistaking the process for the goal.
The actual goal of feedback–even negative feedback–is to improve the behavior of the other person to bring out the best in your entire organization.
With that in mind, here are the 10 rules:
1. Make negative feedback unusual.
When a work environment becomes filled with criticism and complaint, people stop caring, because they know that–whatever they do–they’ll get raked over the coals. “I try to give seven positive reinforcements for every negative comment,” says Dan Cerutti, a general manager at IBM.
2. Don’t stockpile negative feedback.
Changes in behavior are more easily achieved when negative feedback is administered in small doses. When managers stockpile problems, waiting for the “right moment,” employees can easily become overwhelmed.
“Feedback is best given real time, or immediately after the fact,” explains management coach Kate Ludeman.
3. Never use feedback to vent.
Sure, your job is frustrating–but although it might make you feel better to get your own worries and insecurities off your chest, venting a string of criticisms seldom produces improved behavior. In fact, it usually creates resentment and passive resistance.
4. Don’t email negative feedback.
People who avoid confrontation are often tempted use email as a vehicle for negative feedback. Don’t.
“That’s like lobbing hand grenades over a wall,” says legendary electronic publishing guru Jonathan Seybold. “Email is more easily misconstrued, and when messages are copied, it brings other people into the fray.”
5. Start with an honest compliment.
Compliments start a feedback session on the right footing, according to according to management consultant Sally Narodick and current board member at the supercomputer company Cray. ”Effective feedback focuses on the positive while still identifying areas for further growth and better outcomes.”
6. Uncover the root of the problem.
You can give better feedback if you understand how the other person perceives the original situation. Asking questions such as, “Why do you approach this situation in this way?” or “What was your thought process?” not only provides you perspective, but it can lead other people to discover their own solutions and their own insights.
7. Listen before you speak.
Most people can’t learn unless they first feel that they’ve been heard out. Effective feedback “means paying attention and giving high-quality feedback from an empathic place, stepping into the other person’s shoes, appreciating his or her experience, and helping to move that person into a learning mode,” says Ludeman.
8. Ask questions that drive self-evaluation.
Much of the time, people know where they’re having problems and may even have good ideas about how to improve. Asking questions such as “How could we have done better?” and “What do you think could use improvement?” involves the other person in building a shared plan.
9. Coach the behaviors you would like to see.
Negative feedback is useless without a model for how to do better. But simply telling the other person what to do or how to do it is usually a waste of time.
Instead, use this tried-and-true coaching method, which is based upon what top sports coaches do.
10. Be willing to accept feedback, too.
If you truly believe that negative feedback can improve performance, then you should be willing to accept it as well as provide it. In fact, few things are more valuable to managers than honest feedback from employees. It’s to be treasured rather than discouraged or ignored.
Source: Time
Friday, July 20, 2012
Want to get rich? Creating a financial cushion is the first step
We’ve written before about ways the rich get richer. Chief among them: not being forced to waste money by paying interest to credit card companies and other lenders.
A recent survey from Bankrate reveals why so many people have trouble doing this – they have zero money set aside for emergencies. Of the 1,000 people interviewed for the recent survey, 28 percent of respondents (18 percent of retirees) admitted they had no emergency savings and 21 percent said “some, but less than three months’ expenses.”
What happens when you have no financial cushion and a big, unexpected bill comes up? You borrow to meet the expense and, as a result, become poorer. Say you blow the engine in your car, for example, and need $5,000 for an immediate fix. If you’ve got the money, you pay it and go on down the road. If you don’t, you might use a credit card and borrow it at 15 percent interest. Make minimum payments on that debt, and you’ll end up paying more than $12,000 for the repair – $5,000 for the shop that did the work, and $7,000 for the one that fronted the cash.
This does more than make you $7,000 poorer. There’s also opportunity cost to consider, because the $7,000 you paid in interest could have been working for you instead of against you. For example, if you’d kept that $7,000 and were able to earn 10 percent on it by investing in stocks, it would have grown to $18,000 in 10 years – that’ s another $11,000 you could have been richer.
This is precisely how those with money get more and those without get less.
That’s the argument for having an emergency fund. But how do you build one when you’re barely making ends meet?
First, realize you’re not alone. According to CareerBuilder, 42 percent of workers live paycheck to paycheck – including lots of people making six figures. The solution for all these people isn’t to hit the lotto, where your odds are more than 100 times worse than the odds of being struck by lightning. The answer is to save smart, day by day, following these steps…
Step 1: Set a specific goal
If your goal is, “Save a lot of money” you’ll likely fail. Successful planning requires specifics that help you prioritize long-term goals (an emergency fund) over short-term ones (eating out every week).
For example: “Save $5,000 by this date next year.” Having a specific amount and date leaves no wiggle room – you have to come up with $415 extra bucks a month to make it happen.
In short, the more specific your date and destination, the more likely you are to reach it. Tools like Mint.com’s goal tracker can help you stay on top of things and make it easier to analyze your spending for more savings.
Step 2: Pay yourself first
Here’s another common tactic that doesn’t work: “Keep what’s left at the end of the month.” Why? Because there’s rarely anything left. Try this instead: Treat your goal like your most important bill. Think of it as money you owe yourself, due on a certain date.
Want to make it even easier? Automate a regular transfer from checking to savings.
Step 3: Find extra money
Saving now is more important than saving big. Even if it’s just $25 a month, do it now and don’t stop.
Start saving by adjusting your spending plan – Money Talks News is all about finding ways to save without sacrificing quality of life. Whatever the budget item – groceries, fuel costs, home energy, cable – we’ve probably written about how to spend less doing it. (If we haven’t, drop us a line and let us know.) Here are just a few of the hundreds of saving ideas we have…
Buy generic when it makes no difference (aspirin, sugar, salt, flour, bleach) and save 30 percent.
Use smartphone apps like GasBuddy to find the lowest local price on gas.
Check and change your AC’s filters and clean its coils monthly – it can reduce your power bill by 10 percent.
Going on a “dollar diet” is tough – nobody wants to starve themselves. But tips like these don’t negatively impact your life – they simply allow you to live the same life for less money. Just be sure to add to your savings when you subtract from your spending.
Step 4: Keep growing
Once you get an emergency fund built, you can start saving in places where you can make a lot more – like the stock market, real estate or your own business.
For instance, say you save $150 a month. Do that for 20 years without investing it and you have $36,000. A nice sum, but look at what you end up with at these interest rates…
At 2 percent – $44,219
At 5 percent - $61,655
At 10 percent – $113,905
At 15 percent – $224,586
Higher returns don’t happen without risk, and they don’t happen overnight. The only way you can invest in things like stocks or real estate is to have money you won’t need for at least five years. That’s why step one is to build a cash cushion so you can take more a little more risk and more time to potentially earn a higher return.
That’s how the rich get richer – and you will too.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
A recent survey from Bankrate reveals why so many people have trouble doing this – they have zero money set aside for emergencies. Of the 1,000 people interviewed for the recent survey, 28 percent of respondents (18 percent of retirees) admitted they had no emergency savings and 21 percent said “some, but less than three months’ expenses.”
What happens when you have no financial cushion and a big, unexpected bill comes up? You borrow to meet the expense and, as a result, become poorer. Say you blow the engine in your car, for example, and need $5,000 for an immediate fix. If you’ve got the money, you pay it and go on down the road. If you don’t, you might use a credit card and borrow it at 15 percent interest. Make minimum payments on that debt, and you’ll end up paying more than $12,000 for the repair – $5,000 for the shop that did the work, and $7,000 for the one that fronted the cash.
This does more than make you $7,000 poorer. There’s also opportunity cost to consider, because the $7,000 you paid in interest could have been working for you instead of against you. For example, if you’d kept that $7,000 and were able to earn 10 percent on it by investing in stocks, it would have grown to $18,000 in 10 years – that’ s another $11,000 you could have been richer.
This is precisely how those with money get more and those without get less.
That’s the argument for having an emergency fund. But how do you build one when you’re barely making ends meet?
First, realize you’re not alone. According to CareerBuilder, 42 percent of workers live paycheck to paycheck – including lots of people making six figures. The solution for all these people isn’t to hit the lotto, where your odds are more than 100 times worse than the odds of being struck by lightning. The answer is to save smart, day by day, following these steps…
Step 1: Set a specific goal
If your goal is, “Save a lot of money” you’ll likely fail. Successful planning requires specifics that help you prioritize long-term goals (an emergency fund) over short-term ones (eating out every week).
For example: “Save $5,000 by this date next year.” Having a specific amount and date leaves no wiggle room – you have to come up with $415 extra bucks a month to make it happen.
In short, the more specific your date and destination, the more likely you are to reach it. Tools like Mint.com’s goal tracker can help you stay on top of things and make it easier to analyze your spending for more savings.
Step 2: Pay yourself first
Here’s another common tactic that doesn’t work: “Keep what’s left at the end of the month.” Why? Because there’s rarely anything left. Try this instead: Treat your goal like your most important bill. Think of it as money you owe yourself, due on a certain date.
Want to make it even easier? Automate a regular transfer from checking to savings.
Step 3: Find extra money
Saving now is more important than saving big. Even if it’s just $25 a month, do it now and don’t stop.
Start saving by adjusting your spending plan – Money Talks News is all about finding ways to save without sacrificing quality of life. Whatever the budget item – groceries, fuel costs, home energy, cable – we’ve probably written about how to spend less doing it. (If we haven’t, drop us a line and let us know.) Here are just a few of the hundreds of saving ideas we have…
Buy generic when it makes no difference (aspirin, sugar, salt, flour, bleach) and save 30 percent.
Use smartphone apps like GasBuddy to find the lowest local price on gas.
Check and change your AC’s filters and clean its coils monthly – it can reduce your power bill by 10 percent.
Going on a “dollar diet” is tough – nobody wants to starve themselves. But tips like these don’t negatively impact your life – they simply allow you to live the same life for less money. Just be sure to add to your savings when you subtract from your spending.
Step 4: Keep growing
Once you get an emergency fund built, you can start saving in places where you can make a lot more – like the stock market, real estate or your own business.
For instance, say you save $150 a month. Do that for 20 years without investing it and you have $36,000. A nice sum, but look at what you end up with at these interest rates…
At 2 percent – $44,219
At 5 percent - $61,655
At 10 percent – $113,905
At 15 percent – $224,586
Higher returns don’t happen without risk, and they don’t happen overnight. The only way you can invest in things like stocks or real estate is to have money you won’t need for at least five years. That’s why step one is to build a cash cushion so you can take more a little more risk and more time to potentially earn a higher return.
That’s how the rich get richer – and you will too.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Ordination on the go? There’s an app for that!
Ever wondered what it would be like to become ordained as a priest, rabbi or imam?
If you have an iPhone, you could be just a few screen swipes away from finding out.
That’s because Tony Jones, theologian-in-residence at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has developed an application, or “app,” that allows iPhone users to experience mock ordinations in more than two dozen faiths. Solomon’s Porch is a Christian ministry that began as a local church and today calls itself a “holistic, Christian, missionary, community.”
The app, called Ordain Thyself, doesn’t confer any legitimate religious credentials to its users, but it does allow iPhone owners to see what they would look like wearing the religious garb of different clerics, and read a brief and humorous overview of various world religions.
Jones, himself an ordained minister, decided to create the app partly to combat what he sees as an inability of faith leaders to laugh about themselves and their religions.
“Religion is serious business to be sure,” Jones told CNN’s Belief Blog. “But it could use a little stand up comedy to lighten us up.”
Jones, who is also the author of “The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement,” says on the whole reaction to the app has been positive, but the technology is not without its critics.
One woman, a Lutheran minister, accused Jones of belittling the ordination process, which often requires years of hard work and religious study.
Jones, who attended a seminary for three years leading up to his own ordination, dismisses such criticisms.
He points out that while ordination can be an onerous process in many faiths, others allow practitioners to become ordained online with minimal effort and a small fee.
“Ordination, in a lot of ways, is in the eye of the beholders,” Jones adds.
Jones and his team also respond to their critics on the app’s website, telling users whose religious sensibilities are offended to “find an app that can deliver you a better sense of humor.”
The app is advertised as an entertainment product, but Jones hopes users will learn more about the world’s religions when they play around with it, a goal Johnnie Moore finds dubious.
“That’s a little stretch,” Moore, a vice president of Liberty University, told the Belief Blog, adding that the app contributes in many ways to the stereotyping of belief systems.
“I kind of wish that all of this effort had been put into something a little more educational,” Moore added, saying that Americans could really benefit from efforts to better understand world religions.
Yet despite his criticisms, Moore, who is an outspoken advocate of using technology and social media to reach out to people of faith, sees the app as “interesting for its purpose,” so long as it continues to advertise itself as an entertainment product.
“The contribution of this app and others like it is that they start a conversation, and that’s always valuable,” he says.
Ordain thyself allows users to explore 28 positions of leadership in many of the world’s largest religions, as well as several less common ones.
The app even explores several pop-culture faiths, such as the Klingon religion from “Star Trek,” the “Dudeist” faith inspired by the film “The Big Lebowski” and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which was created by atheist Bobby Henderson in 2005.
Source: CNN's, Belief Blog
If you have an iPhone, you could be just a few screen swipes away from finding out.
That’s because Tony Jones, theologian-in-residence at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has developed an application, or “app,” that allows iPhone users to experience mock ordinations in more than two dozen faiths. Solomon’s Porch is a Christian ministry that began as a local church and today calls itself a “holistic, Christian, missionary, community.”
The app, called Ordain Thyself, doesn’t confer any legitimate religious credentials to its users, but it does allow iPhone owners to see what they would look like wearing the religious garb of different clerics, and read a brief and humorous overview of various world religions.
Jones, himself an ordained minister, decided to create the app partly to combat what he sees as an inability of faith leaders to laugh about themselves and their religions.
“Religion is serious business to be sure,” Jones told CNN’s Belief Blog. “But it could use a little stand up comedy to lighten us up.”
Jones, who is also the author of “The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement,” says on the whole reaction to the app has been positive, but the technology is not without its critics.
One woman, a Lutheran minister, accused Jones of belittling the ordination process, which often requires years of hard work and religious study.
Jones, who attended a seminary for three years leading up to his own ordination, dismisses such criticisms.
He points out that while ordination can be an onerous process in many faiths, others allow practitioners to become ordained online with minimal effort and a small fee.
“Ordination, in a lot of ways, is in the eye of the beholders,” Jones adds.
Jones and his team also respond to their critics on the app’s website, telling users whose religious sensibilities are offended to “find an app that can deliver you a better sense of humor.”
The app is advertised as an entertainment product, but Jones hopes users will learn more about the world’s religions when they play around with it, a goal Johnnie Moore finds dubious.
“That’s a little stretch,” Moore, a vice president of Liberty University, told the Belief Blog, adding that the app contributes in many ways to the stereotyping of belief systems.
“I kind of wish that all of this effort had been put into something a little more educational,” Moore added, saying that Americans could really benefit from efforts to better understand world religions.
Yet despite his criticisms, Moore, who is an outspoken advocate of using technology and social media to reach out to people of faith, sees the app as “interesting for its purpose,” so long as it continues to advertise itself as an entertainment product.
“The contribution of this app and others like it is that they start a conversation, and that’s always valuable,” he says.
Ordain thyself allows users to explore 28 positions of leadership in many of the world’s largest religions, as well as several less common ones.
The app even explores several pop-culture faiths, such as the Klingon religion from “Star Trek,” the “Dudeist” faith inspired by the film “The Big Lebowski” and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which was created by atheist Bobby Henderson in 2005.
Source: CNN's, Belief Blog
Friday, July 6, 2012
How to beat the heat? Five tips from Arizona
Phoenicians have learned a thing or two about surviving scorching summer days. And folks in the nation's middle section could use the advice.
St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago and several other Midwest cities already have broken heat records this week or are on the verge of doing so.
The National Weather Service said the record-breaking heat that has baked the nation's midsection for several days was slowly moving into the mid-Atlantic states and Northeast. Excessive-heat warnings remained in place Friday for all of Iowa, Indiana and Illinois as well as much of Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Kentucky.
St. Louis hit a record high of 105 on Wednesday and a record low of 83. In Wisconsin, the coolest Milwaukee and Madison got was 81 in the early morning, beating previous low records by 2 and 4 degrees respectively. Temperatures didn't fall below 79 in Chicago, 78 in Grand Rapids, Mich., and 75 in Indianapolis.
"When a day starts out that warm, it doesn't take as much time to reach high temperatures in the low 100s," said Marcia Cronce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "You know it'll be a warm day when you start out at 80 degrees."
For people in other parts of the country who aren't used to hearing the weather man say, "It'll be cooling down to 105 tomorrow," here are a few unique tips from the Valley of the Sun:
1. Keep your ride cool. Those cumbersome windshield reflectors are your new best friend. And if you have young children, buy an extra one to strap over a car seat to keep metal clasps from heating up in the sun as your car sits in the parking lot. You might even throw an ice pack or frozen water bottle in the seat to keep it cool for little ones while you shop.
2. Get creative about sleeping arrangements. Set up beds on a porch or back yard. Or just sleep in the shade, during the heat of the day.
3. Avoid the sun. Sure, sunscreen helps. But you can avoid it altogether by waking up and doing yard work before sunrise or going for your daily run at midnight.
4. Think before you touch. Any surface that sits in the sun could be hot enough to burn. There's no shame in using pot holders to open doors. Also, carry a towel to put on hot seats, and keep curtains pulled tight to block out the rays.
5. Water is your friend. Drink it. Swim in it. Spray it on your face. In Phoenix, shopping centers and cafes greet visitors by showering them with a fine, cool mist. You can get the same effect by filling a spray bottle with water.
And if all this talk about smoldering temperatures is getting you down, look on the bright side. You can always bake cookies on the dashboard of your car. We really do that.
Credit: Christian Science Monitor
St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago and several other Midwest cities already have broken heat records this week or are on the verge of doing so.
The National Weather Service said the record-breaking heat that has baked the nation's midsection for several days was slowly moving into the mid-Atlantic states and Northeast. Excessive-heat warnings remained in place Friday for all of Iowa, Indiana and Illinois as well as much of Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Kentucky.
St. Louis hit a record high of 105 on Wednesday and a record low of 83. In Wisconsin, the coolest Milwaukee and Madison got was 81 in the early morning, beating previous low records by 2 and 4 degrees respectively. Temperatures didn't fall below 79 in Chicago, 78 in Grand Rapids, Mich., and 75 in Indianapolis.
"When a day starts out that warm, it doesn't take as much time to reach high temperatures in the low 100s," said Marcia Cronce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "You know it'll be a warm day when you start out at 80 degrees."
For people in other parts of the country who aren't used to hearing the weather man say, "It'll be cooling down to 105 tomorrow," here are a few unique tips from the Valley of the Sun:
1. Keep your ride cool. Those cumbersome windshield reflectors are your new best friend. And if you have young children, buy an extra one to strap over a car seat to keep metal clasps from heating up in the sun as your car sits in the parking lot. You might even throw an ice pack or frozen water bottle in the seat to keep it cool for little ones while you shop.
2. Get creative about sleeping arrangements. Set up beds on a porch or back yard. Or just sleep in the shade, during the heat of the day.
3. Avoid the sun. Sure, sunscreen helps. But you can avoid it altogether by waking up and doing yard work before sunrise or going for your daily run at midnight.
4. Think before you touch. Any surface that sits in the sun could be hot enough to burn. There's no shame in using pot holders to open doors. Also, carry a towel to put on hot seats, and keep curtains pulled tight to block out the rays.
5. Water is your friend. Drink it. Swim in it. Spray it on your face. In Phoenix, shopping centers and cafes greet visitors by showering them with a fine, cool mist. You can get the same effect by filling a spray bottle with water.
And if all this talk about smoldering temperatures is getting you down, look on the bright side. You can always bake cookies on the dashboard of your car. We really do that.
Credit: Christian Science Monitor
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