This post is sponsored by VolunteerSpot.

Over the last few years, my school district has seen a lot of budget cuts. This year alone the district must fully implement the Common Core Curriculum for K-12; upgrade the computer network/hardware to prepare for online assessments in 2014-15 and pay costs related to the Teacher/Principal Annual Professional Performance Reviews.  And a lot more is needed: additional teachers to balance middle school teams and eliminate the Super Team model; the piloting of a dual-language (Spanish-English) kindergarten; the addition of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) course electives in high school and providing incoming students and teachers with iPads.

Quote a mouthful, right? But with school budgets getting tighter than ever, how much of it will really happen?

Wouldn’t it be nice to help your school out with additional money?  I’m about to tell you about a simple way to help your school out.

This back-to-school season, VolunteerSpot is giving away THREE (3) grants of $1,500 each to school-parent groups (like the PTA, PTO, etc.) around the country. The winners will be chosen at random so the more entries your school gets, the more chances you have to win. Here’s what you need to know:

Here’s all you need to do (You can do one of these, or all.)

1. Use VolunteerSpot during August to Take the Pledge to volunteer for your school. Don’t worry if you don’t have a specific activity to sign up for yet; just make the commitment to help out with one thing this school year.

Just be sure to include your school’s name when prompted during the easy registration process. Boom! You’ve got 1 entry already.

2. Use VolunteerSpot’s FREE online sign up sheets during August* to organize the parent volunteers for any school activity: back-to-school events, classroom helpers, carnivals, book fairs, hospitality teams & potlucks, concessions – any activity that involves multiple volunteers will be easier to manage with online sign ups and scheduling.

3. If you are a TEACHER, there is a special contest just for you. Volunteer Spot wants to help you get ready for back-to-school, and they’re giving away TWO iPad minis just to get you to try it!

How to Get More Chances for Your School to Win:

Invite (okay, bug) your neighborhood friends and fellow parents to use VolunteeerSpot this August too. Every new Pledge and new activity organized in VolunteerSpot.com counts as an entry for your school, so the more people you can get to sign up, the more entries to win $1,500 your school will get.

Post it on Facebook, or even better, email your whole class and ask them to take the pledge too. You might even remind people to take the pledge when you see them on the first day of school. Isn’t it worth it for the chance to win $1,500 bucks for your school?

One Last Brilliant Idea

Maybe you’re not the person who gets super involved in organizing activities for your school, but you probably know who is. Send the link to this page to the person you know who is most involved with your school’s parent/school organization. That way, even if you don’t need to organize an activity with VolunteerSpot right now, you can still help someone else out AND help your school win.

The Rules

If you have really bad insomnia, you can read the official rules here. Zzzzzz.

- Three schools will be chosen at random to win. Each will receive a $1,500 grant from VolunteerSpot for their designated school’s parent-teacher organization.
- You must be at least 18 years old to enter for your school.
- You must reside in the United States.
- The following uses of VolunteerSpot count as entries: registering and school organizer or teacher/educator VolunteerSpot account (it’s free!), setting up an activity, signing up for an activity someone else has set up, and pledging to volunteer.
- The sweeps will run from Aug 1- Aug 30, so enter now! Winners will be drawn at random and notified in September

If you still have questions, please click HELP at the top of VolunteerSpot.com and contact them directly.

About a month ago, an email landed in my inbox from a very familiar, friendly voice.  It was from Andrea Sheehan, an old friend and former colleague.  She had found me on Linked In and was wondering what I was up to.

The timing could not have been better.  I was on the cusp of leaving my position and was looking for a new opportunity.  Andrea went on to tell me about a new company she was forming and the excitement in her voice was as transparent and honest as I’d ever heard.

Andrea is a mom of 4  (I don’t know how she does it).  She’s also a former teacher and publishing executive.  We worked together just around 10 years ago in my last fulltime working job (man, those 10 years flew by!).  Our kids are not that far apart – her oldest is 7, mine is 9.  Like me, she’s constantly watching her kids and thinking of them as the graduates of 2020.  The future isn’t far, it’s near. She realizes that as a tween, the pressures are building up on all kids like my daughter.  Standardized testing is moving in fast and furious and learning isn’t quite as fun as it used to be with these big, looming deadlines.

The next few years are important years for these kids.  Their performance and grades are critical indicators or how they will do in high school and college.

Andrea realized that kids lose interest in learning right around this time. They get bored by instructional methods and start to get lazy.  As a former teacher, she is able to analyze what’s missing to deliver outcomes and motivate students.  She has no intention of working against teachers, but she wants to work WITH teachers to improve what’s going on in the classroom and create innovative mobile apps and eReaders that inspire kids to do and be more than they ever imagined.

Is my daughter in the class of 2020?  That is WILD.  We can’t wait to inspire kids like her – it must be done now.

This is what Andrea says about giving her own daughter what she needs to flourish:

I can help her prepare for the challenges that lie ahead, both in school and in life.

I can give her the confidence in her ability to make sense of the world, even when I’m not around.

I can equip her with the tools she needs to make informed decisions.

Her mission: To kick-start a generation of confident, capable kids who are going to change the world.

Sounds like a mission I’d join!

So, I did.

Please join us on Facebook and Twitter and see where the road takes us.

I must stress that what happens in the film is the result of hard work, determination and not taking no for an answer. It is certainly not about LUCK. Quite the contrary. The characters are in a very unlucky situation and will do anything to create a change for their children in order to provide them with a better life.

Brief plot synopsis: Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis play two determined mothers, one a teacher, who will stop at nothing to transform their children’s failing inner city school. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy, they risk everything to make a difference in the education and future of their children.

During our half hour conversation with the filmmaker Daniel Barnz, along with cast members Viola Davis, Rosie Perez, Oscar Isaac and Maggie Gyllenhaal, we discussed how moms are naturally advocates for their children.

Watching Won’t Back Down now as a mom with a son who just entered a city preschool made it a very different experience than if I had seen it perhaps four or more years ago before having my child. I was curious how much Maggie Gyllenhaal thought about her own daughter Ramona who is a first grade student as she was portraying Jamie and here’s her reply:

“I think what happens when you become a mom or a parent is, without even meaning to, the whole spectrum of emotions that you have, investments, feelings about the world just widen so much. And now I have a second child, and it happened again even more, even greater. All of those feelings are just in me. So, yes, all those kind of feelings informed how I played Jamie and who she was. Those are things that you don’t know before you’re a mom. For example, you could reach into your pocket in a business meeting, and find a bag of Cheerios, you know? All of the things that just happen that you can’t really explain to someone. Look, I played mom before I was a mom. I think I did okay. But, it’s different now.”

Like me, Gyllenhaal doesn’t know if she would have been sobbing hysterical during the lottery scene while re-watching Waiting for Superman if she wasn’t a mom.

There were other things besides being a mom which drew Gyllenhaal into the movie. “When I read it, I thought, I have to do this movie, we can’t live in a democracy and not have an educated electorate. What tools are we going use to choose our leaders if we don’t educate the people in this country?”

Gyllenhaal is shocked over the controversy wrapped around Won’t Back Down. “I’ve made so many movies where I’ve braced for the controversy; I was ready, for it — movies about vibrators, S&M, the World Trade Center and all sorts of things.”

Gyllenhaal didn’t do much research regarding our country’s educational system until after wrapping the film. Her cast mate Rosie Perez works in public education through her charity, Urban Arts Partnership, and explained, “It’s difficult and disheartening when you walk into these schools and the first thing that the child sees is a metal detector along with a correctional officer with a gun. And a night stick. You wonder if the kids are feeling criminalized,” explained Perez.

She went on to make a very important statement. “One thing that people do not understand is that you may be born into poverty, but that doesn’t mean you’re born into a certain level of capacity. All these kids need is an opportunity. When you present them with the opportunity, they will rise to the occasion each and every time.”

As a society, we’re lucky for these celebrities who embrace a cause and help shed light on it to the larger population. As Jaime and Maile know, a little bit of “lady lucky” never hurts either.

Photo from L-R: Sarah from OneSavvyMom.net; Michelle from MomTrends.com; Monica from MacaroniKid.com; Rosie Perez; Viola Davis; Maggie Gyllenhaal; Lainie from TheCultureMom.com; Oscar Isaac; Eileen from LatinaOnAMission.com; Daniel Barnz

Do yourself a favor and go see Won’t Back Down which opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, September 28, 2012 and has a running time of 121 minutes.

Link Up!
‘Like’ Won’t Back Down on Facebook
Follow @WBDMovie on Twitter #WontBackDown

Lainie Gutterman is the Editor and Founder of My, Myself and Baby and a NYC writer.  She is a also a contributor at BabyGizmo.com.  Her Twitter handle is @meandbabyi and she can be found on Facebook. 

The breakfast and discussion were being held to launch a new global report  “A Life Free from Hunger: Tackling Child Malnutrition,” marking a critically important year for nutrition.  The global launch is taking place in partnership with organizations around the world to ensure that governments, international agencies, civil society, business and the media respond to the hidden crisis of chronic malnutrition, which kills 2 million children a year and has left 170 million children under age 5 stunted.

Every hour of every day, 300 children die because of malnutrition. The good news? This crisis is solvable.  Here are some of the pieces from the presentation and report:

• Chronic malnutrition is preventable, but remains deadlier and more widespread than food scarcity.
• Almost half a billion children are at risk of permanent damage in the next 15 years.
• Chronic malnutrition, or a lack of proper nutrition over time, is deadlier and far more widespread than the short-term acute malnutrition frequently seen during food crises.
• Chronic malnutrition weakens young children’s immune systems, leaving them far more likely to die of childhood diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria. It leads to 2 million child deaths a year, three times as many as result from acute malnutrition.
• Malnutrition underlies 2.6 million child deaths every year, or one third of all child deaths.

It was shocking to hear that malnutrition is hidden, it is everywhere.  The world has enough nutritious food to feed these children, and together we must ensure that every woman and child has enough to eat.

If the world fails to act and the current rate of progress of reducing chronic malnutrition continues at less than 1 percent a year, 450 million children will be affected in the next 15 years.

What can you do to help?  You’re invited to join Save the Children for their annual Advocacy Summit and help fight child hunger. Don’t miss your chance to help change policies to make the world a better place for children. You can donate to Save the Children to help make a difference.  But the easiest thing to do?Follow @SavetheChildren on Twitter using hashtag #HiddenCrisis and on Facebook.

This year, Passports with Purpose, a travel blogger’s fundraiser that I am participating in, is supporting Room to Read.  If you read this blog regularly, you know that giving back and travel are two of my passions so I’m thrilled to be involved.  You might also be interested to know that I am very involved in the local chapter of this terrific organization and that we just raised 20K for them.  Here is a photograph of CEO and co-founder Erin Ganju at our recent event in Westchester.

Room to Read believes that World Change Starts with Educated Children. They envision a world in which all children can pursue a quality education that enables them to reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world.  Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, they develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond.

For Passports with Purpose, this translates into specific, concrete efforts — they plan to raise enough money to fund the establishment of two libraries, their exact locations TBD, in under-served communities in Zambia. The program will put books in the hands of kids that don’t have them. There are corresponding goals — bring in good teachers and librarians, engage the libraries in supporting regional education programs, increase literacy and, by doing so, change lives for the better. There’s lots of information on the Room to Read site about their programs, please go read up if you want more detail.

This is where The Culture Mom comes in.

Lending a hand is simple. We’re joining over 100 other bloggers who have all secured fantastic prizes. Blog readers like you have the opportunity to check out the assortment of prizes. Then, for each $10 donation, you get entered into a drawing for the prize(s) of your choice.

This is where our prize sponsor comes in.

Earlier this year, my family and I stayed at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek® while in Disney World and it was the perfect place to stay for afamily our size.  It’s comfortable, convenient, and quite luxurious.  Even to this day, my kids keep asking when we are going back.  The resort has so much to offer: location, activities, accessibility, spacious rooms, amenities, free shuttle service to all the Disney parks, five fabulous pools scattered around the resort, miniature golf, club rooms, an extremely kind staff and more. It’s the perfect kind of trip for a family that wants something for everyone.

In support of PwP, Wyndham Bonnet Creek® is offering a complimenary three-night stay in a 2-bedroom deluxe unit: Located in Lake Buena Vista, Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort is mere minutes from the gates of Walt Disney World®. You’ll not only enjoy free scheduled transportation to and from the Disney Theme Parks, but a very rewarding stay on site. From the full activities calendar to special touches like the tranquil Lazy River, beautiful pool and private lake, this is no ordinary stay.  Valued at $713.52.   Certificate must be presented at check-in. This offer expires12/23/2012. Based on availability. No cash value.

This is where you come in.

Do you have $10 to spare?  Want the warm feeling that comes with giving back? Follow these steps:

1. Head on over to the prize catalog / donation page.
2. Select Wyndham’s prize (and/or whichever strikes your fancy) and make your tax deductible donation via PayPal for a chance to win.
3. Wait patiently.  Prize winners will be announced on December 23rd.

Check out the PwP website for full details or let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below and finally, watch this video about the program:

Disclosure: This prize was provided to me free of charge as a entree in this fabulous campaign to help people in other countries.  All opinions expressed are my own.

This morning I had the privilege to be invited to a special event about Wonderoplis, a new web site created by the National Center for Family Literacy. When I got the invitation, I was intrigued by an organization’s goals that seemed to speak to me.  Words jumped off the invitation: discovery, imagination, creativity, literacy. With Jenna Bush Hager as the spokesperson. I knew that this was an event worth waking up for and heading into the city to.

After an introduction and video, I learned that Wonderolopolis was Created by National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) and is sponsored by Verizon Thinkfinity.  With a mission of making learning an everyday, fun family activity, Wonderopolis launched in October 2010.  It’s a fresh take on literacy and education, one that both parents can use at home and educators can use in the classroom.

The folks at Wonderopolis performed months of research determined parents were eager for resources that reflected learning in the context of daily life and real-world knowledge. With this information, a core content strategy evolved revolving around a Wonder of the Day®, a curious question derived to make learning fun and practical, and a web site was born. They created a “Wonder of the Day”, something that bottles the learning that happens all around us into the Wonder of the Day. Each day, the site focuses on a clever topic, designed to immediately be put it to use by parent and child with the suggested activities, vocabulary words and enjoyable videos. Families can learn where banana bruises come from, how Jell-O keeps its jiggle and why a trip through the imagination can be better than a trip around the world.

The event was held at Fishtail, a lovely eatery located in a historic seasfood house. Our tables were set with lovely place settings that were jars of wonders.  Here’s what one looked like:

Jenna Bush Hager is clearly passionate about teaching.  She talked about her inspiration coming from her mother and grandmother, and their love of reading.  She’s a teacher and truly believes in this initiative.  Here she is talking to one teacher about her use of Wonderopolis in the classroom and there are some of her sound bites in the video below.

Deep cuts to school budgets, demands to increase parental engagement and pressures to meet higher standards on test scores are just some of the challenges facing today’s educators. While originally intended for families, Wonderopolis has quickly found it’s way into the classroom as a way to attract and engage parents. It helps teachers find creative new ways to infuse fun into learning and encourages parents to be partners in their children’s education.

Created to combat summer learning loss, a troubling trend of children forgetting much of what they learned during the school year, NCFL’s Camp What A Wonder is a free virtual camp to engage families in wonder-filled learning while school’s not in session. The first camp of it’s kind, Camp What a Wonder will provide exploration, adventure and discovery, without having to leave home or pay thousands of dollars in camp registration. Virtual sessions will “convene” each Thursday from June 23rd through August 11th, when the Wonderopolis.org background will change and reveal a new weekly theme.

The National Center for Family Literacy is the worldwide leader in family literacy. More than 1 million families have made positive educational and economic gains as a result of NCFL’s work, which includes training more than 150,000 teachers and thousands of volunteers. For more information, visit www.famlit.org.

Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this article.  I did get a jar of wonders as a gift.

(The picture to the left is of Jenna and myself)

Verizon Thinkfinity Content Partners produce the program’s discipline-specific, standards-based web sites. Each site includes lessons for teachers, activities to use in and out of the classroom, games for young children and teens, adult literacy resources and reference materials for anyone in the education field, as well as for parents and afterschool practitioners.

When you become part of the Thinkfinity Community you have access not only to all of the fun and educational resources that are offered, but also to a network of parents and teachers who are just as inspired as you are to help their children learn and grow in a fun, engaging way.  You can register at: http://parentsandteacherscommunity.com/ct.php?flid=124

Navigating through Thinkfinity is designed for ease of user experience whether you’re a child or adult. The free online community offers tools to help you organize your resources, network with friends and other teachers, and share ideas, plans and advice with others in the education community. All content is classroom-ready, held to state-specific standards and has been put through careful expert review. Leaders in education have contributed to each discipline including arts, economics, geography, history, literature, reading, math, science and social studies.

Thinkfinity helps parents work with children to give them the tools to learn in a structured yet fun interactive environment. Families and kids of all ages will find excellent resources for practice, play, projects and reports on thinkfinity.org. You can search for a specific topic, or choose from recommended activities, maps, games, reading lists and homework help. All K-12 resources are grade-specific. Here are just some of the interactive games and tools that parents and kids can explore:

1. An interactive geometric dictionary to enrich language and visual associations
2. A customized mapmaking tool that allows you to explore any region in the world
3. Essay writing tools that help you structure and plan out your essays
4. Astronomy exploration that allows you to compare the size of planets

An additional goal of Thinkfinity is to help educators motivate their students to successfully navigate and engage with the world while furthering their own development as teachers. There are adult literacy resources and reference materials for educators, parents and afterschool practitioners.

By providing free online tools, Verizon Verizon Thinkfinity is taking an active role in furthering achievement and helping kids and adults reach their goals within a powerful educational community. Engaging with Verizon Thinkfinity is a fantastic way to protect and support children and teens.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post by Verizon Thinkfinity.  The opinions stated are not my own.

This past Monday, armed with a bundle of colorful pipe cleaners (or “fuzzy sticks,” as they are referred to in most classrooms), I set out for PS 111 in midtown to lead a pre-show, in-classroom workshop for the upcoming perMformance of Mischief at The New Victory Theater. As a New Vic Education staff member and teaching artist, I travel to schools across New York City and lead pre- and post-show workshops in Pre-K to 12 classrooms. The workshops allow the students to actively explore the art form (in this case, dance) of the show they are about to see on the New Vic stage.

My co-teaching artist, Javier, and I arrive at the school. The tables are pushed aside and the students stand in a circle, waiting to see what these eccentric strangers will do. Without saying a word, I pull out a colorful fuzzy stick and bend it into a “C” shape. Javier immediately shapes his body to physically match the shape of the fuzzy stick. A few students giggle, wondering what will happen next. Without saying a word, Javier gestures to suggest that the students create the shape as well. All of a sudden, I change the shape of the fuzzy stick to a “V.” The students now know the rules of the game and they immediately pose in a way that matches the shape. However, each shape is slightly different in translation; they have just made their first choreographic decisions.

Throughout the workshop, we encourage the students to make specific physical choices and explore the relationship between the object and their bodies. The result is remarkable – the act of translating the object’s shape to their own bodies unlocks a new freedom and creativity in movement. Soon, the students each get their own fuzzy stick and are asked to make literal shapes (“Turn your fuzzy stick into a square”) and abstract shapes (“Create a shape that represents the emotion of Excitement with your fuzzy stick”). They explore the movement of these shapes, and attempt to mimic this movement in their bodies. In pairs, they create a small human puppet using two fuzzy sticks and a movement phrase for their puppet to perform. Finally, they recreate this movement phrase in their own bodies. In the course of a forty five minute workshop, the students have taken on the role of choreographer, puppeteer and performer.

As a teaching artist, it is amazing for me to watch as the students, who are just becoming aware of their own bodies and the way they move, rehearse and perform dance pieces that they have created. They navigate working as an ensemble, physically executing their own idea, and feeling artistic ownership over their work. Student-centered exploration, or empowering students to work within a structure to artistically create on their own, is one of the guiding principles upon which every New Vic workshop is created.

The experience takes on new meaning when my students come to The New Victory to see a performance (in this case, Mischief) and excitedly exclaim, “We did that!” when they watch the performers on stage. Mischief utilizes colorful foam noodles (a larger version of our fuzzy sticks) that the dancers manipulate, mimic and play with to create a remarkable and fun approach to contemporary dance. A collaboration between a theater company (UK’s Theatre-Rites) and a choreographer (Arthur Pita), it is the first dance piece for family audiences commissioned by the world-renowned dance institution Sadler’s Wells. The combination of puppetry and dance provides the perfect introduction to dance for the youngest audience member. My students bounce out of the theater, ready to create their own dance pieces. Thanks to the performance, and of course the fuzzy sticks, a new generation of artists dance back on to the subway to school.

Jonathan Shmidt is the Assistant Director of Education at the New Victory Theater. He manages the New Victory Education Partnership Program, which provides 30,000 students with access to school-time performances and in-classroom workshops. Jonathan is on the adjunct faculty for the Program in Educational Theatre at New York University. He has collaborated on Theater for Young Audiences initiatives with the Boston Lyric Opera, Theater Offensive and Immediate Medium. Jonathan is the co-founder of YEA: Young Educators in the Arts, a networking group for emerging professionals in Arts Education. He holds a Masters Degree in Educational Theatre from New York University.

Hosted to honor the Arts Olympiad winners from each U.S. state and territory and from nearly 100 participating countries, the festival attracts at least 10,000 attendees. The upcoming festival in June 2011 is a timely and important celebration for organizations, companies and leaders to demonstrate their support for children and a better future for all.

More than 300 educational, cultural and business leaders as well as artists, scientists, technologists and Olympians will host free workshops and activities, interact with the children, listen to their concerns, play and paint with them, inspire them and be inspired. But the children are our celebrities. They stage the festival and serve as event MCs. Young artists, musicians, dancers, and performers from across the globe showcase their talents, learn from each other, and create a nexus for the future.

The festival’s educational programming integrates the arts with science, sport and technology for the promotion of creative, peaceful and healthy cultures. Drawing upon ICAF’s Peace through Art approach, featured in the December 2006 issue of U.K.’s leading medical journal The Lancet, the instruction on festival’s first day [Health + Environment Day] is informational, spotlighting common concerns shared by children; the educational framework on the second day [Creativity + Imagination Day] is participatory, kindling children’s inherent talents and potential; and the training on the third day [Peace + Leadership Day] is inspirational, encouraging children to embrace lifelong creativity and empathy and dedicate themselves to building peaceful, prosperous and healthy communities.

Disclosure: This post was posted directly by the the World Children’s Festival, however I did approve its submission before posting to my site.