Growing up, lunch was always the best part of the day, not because of the food, but because as soon as you finished eating you could go play on the playground!

Now, a new article in the Health section of the NY Times points out that scheduling playtime immediately before lunch (instead of after) might result in less food waste, less upset stomachs, and more focused students when they get back into class.

So simple it just might make sense?

When you’re not out tricking or treating this Halloween, there’s plenty to do at Speakaboos:

Watch one of our spooky stories, like our brand-new storybook video Frankenstein, or the now-classic Billy and the Witch.

Then, scare your brain silly with the online Halloween Word Search Game, and print-out instructions for some creepy arts and crafts:  make your own Witch Hat and Monster Ooze (PDF printouts).

Happy haunting!

The Department of Health and Human Services is trying to go viral in its efforts to prevent the spread of swine flu. Check out a great PSA from HHS and Elmo below, where imparts a very simple lesson even kids can learn–sneeze into your elbow or shirt sleeve rather than into your hands (or into the air). That way, you won’t wipe all your germs over some unsuspecting handrail or piece of furniture. For more from the HHS, including a contest-winning swine flu rap, see their YouTube channel here

There are few things in this world more fascinating, or scary, than carnivorous plants. A new one, nepenthes attenboroughii, has been discovered and named by researchers in the Philippines. It is the second largest “pitcher” plant known to man, a type of plant named because of its hollow shape filled with liquid. Growing up to four feet tall, the plant secretes nectar around its opening which attracts insects, rodents and frogs to fall into the opening, where they are killed and digested by the liquid. Awesome!

To learn more about nephenthes attenboroughii more check out this article at AOL News.

Photo Credit:  Redfern Natural History Productions Ltd./LiveScience.com

Encourage your young ones to read this summer with Speakaboos storybook videos—use our handy summer reading list to make sure you get the most out of the summer hours!

Family activities (PDF file downloads):
•    Arts and Crafts: Build a Birdhouse, Make Your Own Guitar, Cotton Ball Hare
•    Recipes: Mediterranean Fruit Kebobs, Banana Hot Dogs, Chicken Fingers
•    Coloring Pages: Jack and the Beanstalk, The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella
•    And much more at our Activities Page

A new student loan repayment plan for federal student loans called Income Based Repayment (IBR) went into effect this month. To sum up, the plan, instituted by the federal government, will help some borrowers by reducing their required monthly payments to under 15% of their income.

So if you currently have a student loan payment that is higher than you can afford to pay with your income, this plan will help you. However, IBR doesn’t reduce the amount of interest you owe, so the longer you take to repay your loan, the more interest you will accrue. If you are already comfortably able to make your loan payments, it is probably a good idea to continue paying as much as you can–the faster you pay off your loan, the less interest you will be charged.

One interesting part about IBR is if you make IBR payments for 25 years, your remaining debt (most of which would be due to interest at this point) will be forgiven. And if you work in a public service or non-profit job, you only have to pay for 10 years. However, this plan only applies to federal loans and you’ll have to do extra paperwork, not to mention it’s still a LONG time to be making payments.

For more details and information see this website, and contact your lender to sign up for the plan.

Chao Mu-he, or “Grandpa Chao” as his classmates call him, will receive his master’s degree in philosophy this weekend from Nanhua University in Taiwan.

All you youngsters out there who think school is tough should take note, Chao decided to go back to school simply because he was “bored” after the hospital he used to volunteer at told him he was too old to work there.

Congraduations, Grandpa Chao, Speakaboos applauds your lifelong pursuit of education.

Read the full story at USA Today

Photo credit:  AP

A charter school opening this fall in Washington Heights, NYC is seeking to prove what educators have been saying all along–if teachers are paid more, we’d have a better education system.

But sorry teachers, the eight teaching positions at the grade 5-8 school, called the Equity Project, have already been filled.

So what kind of teachers does $125K buy? According to an article yesterday in the New York Times, the staff was selected out of over 600 applicants, 100 of which were interviewed, and will boast two Ivy League degrees, decades of experience, and a PE teacher who used to train Kobe Bryant.

Lets just say expectations for the first class of 120, chosen in a lottery that favored kids from the neighborhood and low academic performers, will be very, very high.

See the full story here.

I don’t know too much about the stock market, but this is either a beacon of hope for investors or further evidence of the irrationality of our economy:  a group of four 5th graders from Neenah, Wisconsin won a statewide economics contest by turning $100,000 of imaginary money into $203,000 over ten weeks.

The group of four girls, who say that if they actually had that much money they would “probably buy a lot of toys,” competed against teams all over Wisconsin, and won the grand prize:  a trip to the New York Stock Exchange.

For the full story, click here

Saya, a lifelike robot with the ability to smile, scold and call roll, was tested in a Japanese classroom earlier this year. And since the logistical problems with programming a robot to teach children are very obvious, the robot’s developer, Tokyo University of Science professor Hiroshi Kobayashi, insists that the robot is meant to be a tool and not a replacement for humans.

What I find most interesting about this story is that not only does Japan have an apparent shortage of teachers and labor, university professors there have the time and resources to build elaborate, expensive robots which are ironically impractical.

Fun story though. Read more about Saya at NY Daily News.

Photo:  Koji Sasahara, AP