I happened to be browsing tonight through a\u00a0catalog designed for early childhood classrooms that follow a popular educational philosophy that advocates carefully preparing children’s environment and using specially designed child-sized objects.<\/p>\n
Alhough there were several nice,\u00a0reasonably-priced\u00a0items\u00a0that I found appealing, there were a few things that absolutely blew me away.<\/p>\n
Honestly, now, is an 18-piece set (apron, soap dishes, dishpan, pitcher, bucket, scrub brush, sponge, soap, drying cloths, and floor cloths), priced at $50, really<\/span> necessary for a “table-washing activity”?\u00a0 Yes, yes, I know these are designed for classrooms, not homes, but come on, people!\u00a0 Sounds like overkill to me.<\/p>\n But at least that set contains some useful items of value, even though\u00a0all of them are readily available at any major\u00a0discount store.<\/p>\n What really takes the cake is the\u2014I kid you not\u2014”Long Black Strip,” which is supposed to serve as a dramatic representation of the time from the “Big Bang” (don’t even get me started) to the first life on Earth.\u00a0 The strip is 5 cm wide and 30 meters long, and life on earth is represented by a narrow white band on the end.\u00a0 What I find most dramatic about this\u00a0is the price:\u00a0 $50!!\u00a0 For a 5cm x 30m piece of cloth!\u00a0 So what if it’s handwoven cotton with serged edges?\u00a0 A roll of black crepe paper with a\u00a0strip of masking tape at the end\u00a0would make the point just as effectively.<\/p>\n Do you know how many books<\/em> you could buy with $50?\u00a0 Now there’s an educational resource that has its own line-item on my budget.<\/p>\n Mary Jo Tate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I happened to be browsing tonight through a\u00a0catalog designed for early childhood classrooms that follow a popular educational philosophy that advocates carefully preparing children’s environment and using specially designed child-sized objects. Alhough there were several nice,\u00a0reasonably-priced\u00a0items\u00a0that I found appealing, there were a few things that absolutely blew me away. Honestly, now, is an 18-piece set … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}