last moon

sabato 30 marzo 2013

Love versus Fear



Will it be love
If I close my mind to you
There locking
All the deepest
feelings of my life?

Will it be love
If I don’t need you
To share
My troubled soul?

Will it be love
If I am shy
To caress you
Though I’d like
To melt
My energy’s body
With yours?


Will it be love
If I like you only first
And after I don’t?


Do we impoverish
Our bodies
because of their minds
Or are we declassing our minds
Through their own bodies?

It might only be
Love against fear
As we are not made only by stuff!



Sardinia the 19th September 1983



domenica 17 marzo 2013

7 Activities to Help Kids Understand Passover

Passover can be a difficult holiday for children to understand. The Seder (traditional Passover meal) can be long, and children don’t often understand why certain foods (leavened foods) are prohibited during the holiday. Here are a few activities to keep your children as involved as possible during Passover and the Seder.
  1. Create a Haggadah – Have your child draw pictures of the different aspects of Passover. They can draw themselves reading the 4 Questions, create a picture of the Seder plate and illustrate looking for the Afikomen. Put them in order together and bind with rings or string. Kids can use their own Haggadah at the Seder to help them be involved on a level that they understand.
  2. Create a Seder plate together – Have your children help arrange the Seder plate with you, explaining what each item represents. You can also print off a child-friendly Seder plate here. Kids can color in the Seder plate while the family is sitting around the table.
  3. Talk about the Seder – Talk with your kids about the Seder, which is typically held on the first night of Passover. Discuss how the Israelites were redeemed from slavery and given the gift of the Torah and explain why the symbolic foods are out on the Seder plate.
  4. Read the 4 Questions together – It’s tradition that the youngest child reads the 4 Questions at the Seder, starting with the first, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Reading them together, in English and in Hebrew, will familiarize your children with the questions and the answers that will be asked at the Seder. Helping your child understand before the Seder will prepare them to be active in the Seder.
  5. Read or tell the Passover story to your children – Reading or telling the story will help familiarize your children with the reasons that Passover is celebrated. The Israelites left Egypt quickly and there was no time for bread to rise, which is why eating matzah (unleavened bread) represents the time when people were forced quickly out of their homes. Passover also reflects a time for cleaning to rid houses of hametz (anything leavened).
  6. Discuss the plagues – The 10 plagues are an important part of the Passover story and you should discuss them with your children, taking time to explain their importance. You can have your children act out the story or draw pictures of the plagues to add to their Haggadah.
  7. Afikomen – The afikomen (or half of a piece of matzah) is hidden by the head of the household, and when it’s time for dessert it’s tradition that the children hunt for the afikomen and return it in exchange for money or a small prize. The afikomen helps children stay involved (and awake!) during the meal, knowing that their part in finding the afikomen is coming soon and that there is a reward for it once found – a prize and dessert!
  8. Children don’t have to be bored during the Seder, but to ensure that they aren’t it’s important to be prepared with activities for them so they can participate during the meal. Have your children help prepare the house, the table and the food for Passover. Encourage them to use this time to ask questions and make statements about their Jewish heritage. This can be a wonderful learning experience for everyone involved!
 This post was proposed to me for publication by Sarah Tucker. If you want to know more about it please go to the link belowed:

http://www.4nannies.com/blog/7-activities-to-help-kids-understand-passover/
This post 

martedì 5 marzo 2013

15 Ways to Make Boring Foods Fun


Convincing kids to eat healthy foods when they’re constantly bombarded with marketing tactics promoting preservative-laden novelty items isn’t easy, but it can be done. There are a variety of ways to make healthier fare more fun, encouraging kids to eat better while still allowing them to enjoy their food. Childhood is the time when eating habits are established, so helping kids make healthier choices on their own is one of the best things you can do for them. These 15 tactics can add some visual spice to run of the mill foods, saving the long-term health of your kids and your pocketbook in the process.
  1. Cookie Cutters Aren’t Just for Cookies – Turning an ordinary, wholesome sandwich into something exciting can be as easy as making fun shapes with a cookie cutter.
  2. Buy Baby Varieties – There’s something inherently fun about miniature food. As an added bonus, the strong flavors that can cause kids to turn up their noses with foods such as veggies may not be as pronounced in baby varieties because they’re often harvested before the taste profile fully matures.
  3. Learn Food Origami – Turning radishes into roses and boiled egg slices into daisies are just two examples of ways that creative knife work turns ordinary food into a treat.
  4. Dress Up Lunch Bags – Who says that lunch bags have to be brown? Decorate them together with stamps or drawings to make the contents within seem more special.
  5. Make Faces – Making a face out of a food item is a whimsical way to encourage kids to eat things they might ordinarily refuse.
  6. Create Animal Shapes – When in doubt, make food look like an animal. With a bit of imagination and some creative prep, you can turn an ordinary snack into something exceptional.
  7. Play With Your Food – Your mother may have forbidden the idea of playing with your food, but that doesn’t mean you have to. An inverted apple slice with toothpicks through the bottom and a single grape on each end of the toothpick turns ordinary fruits into a car kids can enjoy playing with before they chow down.
  8. Sweet Sushi – Fruit leathers are healthier than rolled up gummy fruit treats and can make adorable wrappings for “sushi” made of crushed rice cereal.
  9. Freeze! – Frozen foods are just more fun than those at room temperature! Before serving foods that are frozen solid, make sure that all of your pint-sized diners are able to chew them without difficulty to prevent choking.
  10. Get Experimental – You can draw inspiration from a variety of sources, but there’s nothing like coming up with your own innovative food design. If cooking is a hobby of yours, you may even find that the process is fun and soothing.
  11. Splashes of Color – The primary draw of many processed foods marketed to kids is the bright coloring. Unfortunately, those attractive hues are almost always the result of chemical dyes and additives. Take a cue from the food manufacturers and make your kids meals colorful. Steamed vegetables tend to hold their color when they’ve been blanched, so work with the natural colors of the veggies and come up with a fun arrangement.
  12. Take a Dip – Even the most pedestrian foods become fun when dipping is part of the eating process. You don’t have to opt for fat and preservative filled processed dips, either. Organic offerings and hummus are great choices.
  13. Creative Containers – Kids love things that are just their size, so buying small containers or ones with a unique twist can make mealtime more fun. Small ramekins, re-purposed containers and other innovative methods of plating can make an everyday snack seem new and exciting.
  14. Toppings are Tops! – If it can be squirted, shaken, sprinkled or dusted over food, kids will almost always love it. Sometimes the addition of a few fun toppings alone can be enough to convince kids that a run-of-the-mill meal is something special.
  15. Group Prep – When kids have a hand in preparing their food, they’re automatically more invested in it and less likely to think that it’s boring. Letting little ones assist with assembly may create more work when it’s time for clean-up, but it keeps them engaged and involved with the preparation of their food. It’s also a great way to spend quality time together, passing on basic food prep skills and tricks.
If you’re running low on inspiration, there’s no shortage of kid-centric recipes and plating ideas on the Internet. Entire blogs are dedicated to the idea of fun kid-cuisine and are filled with techniques for every skill level.

This post was proposed to me for  publication by Sophie Leake. If you want to know more about it please go to the underlined sight: