Achieve Balance and Mastery
Karate is an ancient Japanese martial art that combines intricate movements with a high level of mental and emotional focus. This discipline encourages students to use their developing skills as self-defense against physical assault and as a shield against the onslaught of emotional pressures that are a normal part of life. At Richmond Traditional Martial Arts in Mechanicsville, the leaders of our karate classes teach this “empty hand” method of fighting as a means of defense. Our focus is on the appropriate response to take when you’re approached by an aggressor. We also incorporate the Bushido philosophy of overall health. Our lessons focus on three important characteristics:
- Kihon: Gaining Mastery Of Foundational Skills
- Kata: Using Combinations Of The Basic Skills In Defensive Maneuvers
- Kumite: Carefully Supervised Competitive Practices Between Students
Benefits of Karate Classes
- Achieve Lean Muscle And Strength Through Fitness With Karate
- Become More Flexible And Gain Balance
- Heighten And Sharpen Your Mental Strength
- Improve Concentration And Focus
- Reduce Stress Levels
- Self-Defense Skills Build Your Confidence
Learn About the Zen Philosophy of Bushido
The central philosophy guiding lessons at our karate studio are based on Bushido, meaning that the entire person, body, mind and spirit must be trained in a balanced manner. At the core of Bushido is a form of meditation and thought known as Zen. This philosophy focuses on encouraging mastery of smooth movements and personal qualities, such as confidence, courage, integrity and humility. These spiritual aspects of the discipline are as important to our students’ success as mastery of the movements.
Sign Up for Classes in the Hanover and Richmond Areas Today
This discipline is appropriate for the young and the old, the beginner and the experienced practitioner. Look at the martial arts class calendar to find a time that fits your schedule. We serve the communities of Mechanicsville, Richmond and Hanover. Learn more about our guiding philosophies and the types of classes at our studio when you call us. Our number is 804-730-0905.


For interactions between students and teachers to be successful, a rapport must be built. And these meaningful relationships aren’t just limited to brick-and-mortar classrooms—in fact, it’s more important than ever to understand how to connect with students in an online environment as virtual teaching and learning becomes more prevalent. Surprisingly, many of the tactics teachers use to engage with students in person can be transitioned to the online classroom. Below, we outline three ways teachers can build a rapport with students in a virtual learning environment.
One of the best ways you can nurture a rapport with your students in an online learning environment is to create personalized lesson plans. By developing lesson plans that reflect the interests and learning styles of your students, you not only show that you are listening but that you value what is being shared. For instance, you may get a sense that a core group of your students enjoy a competitive atmosphere and decide to incorporate friendly head-to-head games into your curriculum, such as trivia. Perhaps you notice some students prefer a quieter, more controlled learning environment that you can honor and build coursework around periodically as well. Creating lesson plans that center on what your students love and can engage with more easily is a staple of being an effective and impactful teacher.
In addition to encouraging students to share their thoughts and preferences so you can get to know them (and thereby inform your teaching strategies), you should also offer information about yourself. Take the time to talk about some of the shareable aspects of your life, such as your favorite food, hobbies, and any pets you may have. Not only does getting to know your students help create a closer, more harmonious relationship, but allowing them to get to know you can do the same. These moments humanize you and give students the opportunity to see that you are not just their teacher, but a person who shares some of the same values and interests that they do.
Though always an important part of teaching, exhibiting enthusiasm in an online classroom can be challenging. That’s because it likely doesn’t come as naturally—and may feel a bit more forced—to demonstrate enthusiasm over an internet connection. With face-to-face interactions, enthusiasm can be perceived more readily through our body language and tone. With online learning, students won’t be able to rely on a teacher’s expressions in the same way. Still, it’s important to show excitement, so coming up with ways to do this more effectively while teaching online is key. Switch up your routine by adding games, props, or music into your lessons. Keeping things fresh and stimulating will help showcase your enthusiasm, which often is contagious and will be mirrored back to you by your students.
Whether you’re considering pursuing a teaching career or have been active as a teacher in the field for years, earning an education degree is a good next step to take. At Walden, you can choose from an array of education programs—including the BS in Elementary Education (Teacher Licensure) and MS in Education (MSEd) programs—to gain greater knowledge and a deeper understanding of the teaching strategies you need to improve student outcomes. And thanks to Walden’s online learning platform, getting your MSEd or other degree is more convenient than ever. That’s because you can complete your coursework from wherever you have internet access and attend class at whatever time of day works best for you—a convenience that makes it possible to earn your education degree while you continue to work full time. If you want to become a teacher who makes an impact in the field, Walden’s undergraduate and graduate programs for teachers can help you develop the skills you need to succeed.
Walden University is an accredited institution offering a suite of education degree programs online, including the BS in Elementary Education (Teacher Licensure) and MS in Education (MSEd) programs. Expand your career options and earn your degree using a convenient, flexible learning platform that fits your busy life.
Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, www.hlcommission.org.


The Bauhaus and Harvard — mounted in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany — presents nearly 200 works by 74 artists, drawn almost entirely from the Busch-Reisinger Museum’s extensive Bauhaus collection. Founded in 1919 and closed just 14 years later, the Bauhaus was the 20th century’s most influential school of art, architecture, and design. Harvard University played host to the first Bauhaus exhibition in the United States in 1930, and went on to become an unofficial center for the Bauhaus in America when founding director Walter Gropius joined Harvard’s department of architecture in 1937. Today the Busch-Reisinger Museum houses the largest Bauhaus collection outside Germany, initiated and assembled through the efforts of Gropius and many former teachers and students who emigrated from Nazi Germany, including Anni and Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Lyonel Feininger, and László Moholy-Nagy.
The exhibition features rarely seen student exercises, iconic design objects, photography, textiles, typography, paintings, and archival materials. It explores the school’s pioneering approach to art education, the ways its workshops sought to revolutionize the experience of everyday life, the widespread influence of Bauhaus instruction in America, and Harvard’s own Graduate Center (1950), the first modernist building complex on campus, designed by Gropius’s firm The Architects Collaborative. A complementary exhibition installed in an adjacent gallery — Hans Arp’s Constellations II — features one of the site-specific works commissioned for the Graduate Center.
A comprehensive digital resource launched in 2016 provides access to the museums’ more than 32,000 Bauhaus-related objects and shares scholarship on the school’s extensive ties to Harvard and the Greater Boston area. A publication inspired by The Bauhaus and Harvard and its related programming is due out in Fall 2020.
Support for this project is provided by endowed funds, including the Daimler Curatorship of the Busch-Reisinger Museum Fund, the Charles L. Kuhn Endowment Fund, and the Care of the Busch-Reisinger Museum Collection Fund. The publication is supported by the Harvard Art Museums Mellon Publication Funds, including the Carola B. Terwilliger Fund. In addition, exhibition related programming is made possible by the M. Victor Leventritt Fund, which was established through the generosity of the wife, children, and friends of the late M. Victor Leventritt, Harvard Class of 1935. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.


AJHE Table of Contents
Assessing Elementary Health Education: Instrument Development for School District Readiness and Delivery
Sarah E. Toth, Marcia R. O'Neal, & Retta R. Evans
Health Education is the sequence of intentional learning experiences designed for improving individual and community health through improved knowledge and attitudes. Research indicates that Health Education can reduce the prevalence of health risk behaviors related to chronic disease. Specifically, health behaviors such as nutrition, physical activity, tobacco prevention, and other lifestyle choices that reduce chronic disease risk in adulthood are positively impacted by Health Education during childhood. Access to elementary Health Education is a powerful venue for bettering the health of children. Health Education strongly influences health promotion and the prevention of chronic disease in students. Ultimately, Health Education and health behavior can increase years of healthy life and quality of life while breaking the cycle of poverty.
An increase in the delivery of elementary Health Education (EHE) is an objective of Healthy People 2020. Although the majority of states mandate EHE, only approximately 37% of school districts report specific time allotments for the subject. Political pressures, district and superintendent agendas, policy gaps, and standards and accountability issues are pivotal in the wide variation of quality and frequency of EHE delivery.
Even though elementary schools may be required to include Health Education, accountability is lacking. The amount of time and number of days on which EHE is provided differs according to district and state. This leads to wide variation in the quality and frequency of health instruction. In Alabama, Health Education provided by teachers certified in elementary education is required in kindergarten through eighth grade. Additionally, Alabama guidelines suggest that there should be 60 minutes of health instruction per week separate from physical education. Because the State Department of Education in Alabama is not a regulatory agency, health is only included on compliance reviews as it relates to the school nurse.
To read the rest of this article, click here to download a pdf.


Preparing Students for the Jobs of the FuturePublished on June 23, 2020
New math curriculum for elementary students will better prepare students for a modern workforce, strengthen math competence, and improve grades
For over a decade under the previous Liberal government, too many students have not been meeting Ontario’s math standards – lacking everyday math, financial literacy, and numeracy skills. In fact, fewer than half of Grade 6 students — 48 per cent — met the provincial math standard during the last school year, down from 61 per cent in 2009. For Grade 3 students, only 58 per cent met the standard.
In 2018, our PC government made a promise to parents that we would update the math curriculum so students can improve their grades and develop the skills they need for the future.
Today, we were pleased to announce that we are delivering on that promise by introducing Ontario’s new elementary math curriculum, which aims to ensure our kids can succeed now and into the future.
The new curriculum for Grades 1-8 will help students solve everyday math problems, enshrine financial literacy in the early grades, and better prepare students for today’s competitive marketplace and the jobs of tomorrow by ensuring every student learns how to code. Specifically, it will:
- Build understanding of the value and use of money through mandatory financial literacy concepts;
- For the first time, teach coding or computer programming skills starting in Grade 1 to improve problem solving and fluency with technology, to prepare students for jobs of the future;
- Use relevant, current, and practical examples so students can connect math to everyday life;
- Put a focus on fundamental math concepts and skills, such as learning and recalling number facts.
"For over a decade, too many students were lacking everyday math, financial literacy, and numeracy skills," said Stephen Lecce, MPP for King-Vaughan and Minister of Education. "The new curriculum will help students solve everyday math problems, enshrine financial literacy in the early grades, and better prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow by ensuring every student learns how to code."
The curriculum, which is part of the government’s four-year math strategy, was developed over two years in consultation with parents, math educators, academics and math education experts, and is designed to reverse a decade of declining math scores. It will be available to students across the province beginning in September 2020 and will be the first uploaded to the new Curriculum and Resources website, a digital space for parents, educators, and students to access curriculum and learning resources.
Our PC government will continue to champion numeracy, financial literacy, and everyday problem solving, to equip the next generation of Ontarians with the skills they will need to succeed.


Head Start’s 50th Anniversary
This year, we celebrate 50 years of Head Start. It is an historic milestone that presents a perfect opportunity to reflect on how we have evolved. It also encourages us to renew our continued passion and commitment for providing high-quality services to our families.
Throughout 2015, we are reflecting on, and celebrating, five key themes:
- Head Start Is a Community Effort. Community partners are essential for success.
- Families Are Powerful Partners. Parents are lifelong educators, nurturers, and advocates of their children.
- Staff Are the Heart of Head Start. We transformed the teaching of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers into a profession.
- Staff, Children, and Families Are Rooted in Culture. Community diversities are integral and reflected in our Head Start programs.
- 32 Million Reasons to Be Proud. Head Start and Early Head Start have prepared 32 million children for school and life through comprehensive services that develop the whole child.
Explore the resources in this portal to enhance your celebrations of Head Start past, present, and future. We also invite you to continue sharing your success stories on the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center and with your Head Start families, community partners, and local media.


According to Vicki Palmer, “When children are young, they are learning sponges. Every new experience, every word they learn, every behavior they adopt, is an investment in a more fruitful future.” There is truly no better way to describe the learning stage of children during their early childhood education and how crucial this stage is when it comes to creating a great foundation for his/her development. This also provides a building block for their lifelong learning and learning activities. As a matter of fact, it was stated that the most critical brain development in children takes place before they even reach kindergarten as they are being honed or molded during this stage.
It is safe to say that enrolling children in kindergarten will help reinforce and build on what they learned during preschool stage. Up until today, there is still a debate when it comes to when the right time really is, or what the right age would be for enrolling your kids in kindergarten. According to a medical practitioner, age should not be the only basis for the decision making; other factors such as social and physical factors should also be considered.
Benefits of Enrolling your Child in Kindergarten
Early childhood education is recognized as an integral part of a child’s development as it has lasting benefits and contributes to their future success. This is the stage where they learn the skills that they will use throughout their life. Based on an article, your children will be able to develop and enhance their communication skills, build self confidence, and learn creativity by enrolling them in kindergarten.
Essential skills that will also be learned during this stage in accordance to the article are the following:
1. Social Skills
3. Respect for Others
4. Emotional Skills
5. Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Skills
6. Exposure to New Ideas and Concepts
Choosing the Kindergarten
As kindergarten provides a safe and enjoyable environment for your children to maximize their growth and development, it is vital that parents should assess carefully the school that they will choose for their child. Before making that final decision make sure that you have done your research, toured the school, and spoke with faculty. All these factors will help you make that decision and assure that it will benefit your child at all levels and is suitable for his/her needs.
What Balboa School has to Offer
With a mission to provide a diverse educational environment that promotes high academic standards, cultivates creativity, and builds the skills necessary for college, career and civic life,
Balboa School has been teaching students from across the county, including GATE and gifted students, for over twenty years. They have created a positive learning experiences that encourage students to actively engage with the curriculum and work towards mastery of academic goals.Students at Balboa School are challenged while being provided the guiding support necessary for high achievement. In terms of certification, Balboa School is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and AdvancED, the world’s largest education organization.
For Balboa School’s kindergarten program, they offer the following:
1 Dual Language Immersion Programs in Chinese or Spanish
2. Age appropriate materials
3. Differentiated Instruction
4. Sensory Activities
5. Balance of Academic Learning and Social play
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Mission and Goals
Student Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate foundational skills in performing on the piano and performing as part of an ensemble.
- Demonstrate the ability to independently practice and improve the performance of level-appropriate repertoire.
- Perform foundational repertoire on the piano with accurate rhythm and technique.
- Successfully prepare for and improve one’s performance within an ensemble.
- Analyze music, both aurally and visually, in order to recognize, interpret, and create musical structures across different genres.
- Analyze harmonic function in both Western classical and popular music traditions.
- Apply the principles of harmonic function by composing music that successfully demonstrate diatonic and chromatic musical structures.
- Accurately sing a notated melody by using solfège, and accurately transcribe a heard melody or harmonic progression by using musical notation.
- Develop a foundational understanding of the evolution of music making in the Western classical traditions, as well as an alternative history of music making in non-Western and popular music traditions.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the broad stylistic periods in music history, including Western classical, non-Western and popular music traditions.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the major aspects of ethnomusicological research.
- Articulate change or continuity over time in the practice, preservation, and dissemination of music, and support arguments with appropriate evidence.
- Demonstrate the ability to research topics related to Western classical, non-Western, or popular music traditions by using appropriate research tools.


The subject of art conveys a largely action-oriented approach to created objects. This includes art works from many areas (painting, graphics, media, performance…) as well as architecture and objects from design and everyday objects. In the studies of “Art” students are taught the skills which lead to the intracurricular and extracurricular transfer of content and knowledge. The study course is divided into three areas. Contents in the Fine Arts are one’s own artistic works, dealing with other contemporary positions and the fundamentals of perception. Discussing the historically significant works of art, architecture and handicrafts of Europe and related areas is taught in the study of Art History. Art Education concerns itself with the transfer of information and the teaching of the subject of art.
SPECIALITIES OF THE STUDY OF ART IN KIEL
Studies are divided between two institutions. The study of Art History and Art Education are taught at the Insitute for Art History at the CAU. Elective subjects, Pedagogics, Psychology and the mandatory courses (Philosophy and Sociology) are studied at the CAU. An additional part of the student education takes place at the Muthesius. Here, students are taught the artistic-practical parts in the classes of Fine Arts and in the Design department.
To be able to study art, students must pass an admission test. This consists of a submitted portfolio with approx. 20 original works. If this is found to be acceptable, the candidate is invited for an aptitude examination. This takes place at the Muthesius University over 2-3 days and consists of exercises from different artistic areas and a short interview. With the confirmation of particular artisitc talent a student can apply to study Art at the Muthesius and if necessary another subject at the CAU. Studies can begin each winter term.
BACHELOR’S AND MASTER’S – TWO COURSES OF STUDY
Firstly, Art is studied in “Zweifach-Bachelor mit Profil Lehramt” [“Double Bachelor’s with Teaching Qualification”]. A second subject is absolutely necessary, whereby Art can be combined with any other school subject. Which combinations of subjects are possible in the regular degree time period can be obtained from the study consultation pages of the CAU. In addition to the two selected subjects, the “Teaching Qualification Profile” modules of Pedagogics, Psychology and either Philosophy or Sociology must also be attended and passed. Art Education is also part of the course. This is followed by the Master’s programme if required. Here, the subject and didactic courses selected in the Bachelor modules as well as Pedagogics and Psychology are studied more intensely. The usual degree time period is 4 terms. The courses lead to the awarding of a Master’s of Education (M.Ed.) and enable graduates to apply for teaching training. Master’s programme admissions are limited by grades.


Connecting to the ELA Common Core (Pre-k-5)
Instructor Sarah Eccleston
Course Number PRDV 77124
This course explores the development, organization, and implementation of the Massachusetts ELA Common Core (March 2011). Participants will focus on the implications for school reform and unpack the 10 College and Career Readiness Anchor standards that span grades Pre-K through 5. Students will gain knowledge and understanding of skill development across the grades in the areas of reading (text types and purposes: narrative and informational text, and foundational skills), writing (text type and purposes: narrative, argumentative, informational), speaking & listening (comprehension & collaboration, presentation of knowledge and ideas), and language (conventions, knowledge, & vocabulary acquisition). This knowledge and understanding will be utilized to align curriculum with Common Core objectives and to design lesson plans. Lesson plans will be designed within a unit of study that aligns to the ELA Common Core.
Calkins, L., Ehrenworth, M., Lehman, C. (2012). Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement. Heinemann: Portsmouth, N.H.
Owocki, Gretchen (2012).The Common Core Lesson Book k-5, Heinemann: Portsmouth, N.H.
Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (March 2011). Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy. Mass DOE: Malden, MA.
Framingham State University - 3 graduate credits
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Second graders read Ruth Heller's," How to Hide an Octopus" They discovered that camouflage is a form of adaptation for survival. To celebrate their reading and completion of "Open Court Reading's, Take a Second Look," unit, they created a work of art that would show an animal using camouflage. To enhance their background knowledge of nature art, they studied works by artists Henri Rousseau, John James Audubon, and Beverly Dolittle.
To begin creating their piece they carefully chose an environment for their background and then their animal. Students selected construction paper and animal print paper, scissors and glue for their work. Students practiced contour drawings of their animal before drawing on the animal print paper. Having lots of nature books was a real plus. When children struggled with contours I had them trace over animal picture slowly, several times, then repeat the lines on practice paper. Only a few children needed my assistance to get the drawn shape. Next they created their backgrounds. I encouraged filling in their backgrounds with flora and fauna. I taught them paper sculpture techniques like over lapping, curling the paper, and going beyond the space of the page for plants. To make their art more polished they created a frame from their animal print paper.
When the art was completed, it was time to evaluate their work in small groups using the language of art to talk about their pieces. Students wrote artists statements, as the final step of the experience, deciding upon their audience, and if they wanted to inform, persuade, or entertain. Giving them choice allowed them to be creative and to have a strong voice.
I displayed everyone’s work just in time for California Art Education Association's Youth Art Month. Not only could they enjoy their art work, so could the rest of our school, and families.
(2002). Open Court Reading.L.2, Columbus, Ohio: SRA/Mc-Graw Hill
Henri Rousseau. <a title="Henri Rousseau image @ wpclipart.com
John James Audobon
Beverly DoLittle. http://www.gallery4collectors.com/BevDoolittleArt.htm
Thank you AT&T
We used the wiring for our artful galimotos


Storytelling in elementary schools improves children’s language capabilities by supplying students with a important chance to practice auditory comprehension, a essential element of early childhood education. The potential to understand spoken language requires so much greater than just hearing words and figuring out what the speaker intends the words to imply. Nonverbal cues of vocal pitch, tempo, and tonality are essential in successful communication. In face-to-face interactions, the extra nonverbal elements of body language, gestures, and facial expressions form as much as 80% of expressive language. But how, in our multitasking, screen-dominant learning environments, can teachers capture and hold the interest of their distraction-prone students?
Why not try working with the Japanese paper folding art of origami to help concentrate students’ attention for the duration of language arts activities? When an unexpected curiosity like origami is added to a storytelling presentation, the educational positive aspects for elementary college students are improved. Origami models and other fascinating objects add visual stimulation and grab attention, to ensure that young learners are focused and motivated to spend closer consideration. Yet another advantage to adding origami to stories is that origami is created one step at a time. As a story progresses scene by scene, an origami model also can be constructed, fold by fold. When the story ends, the origami model is also made. This specialized storytelling method is named Storigami. Storytelling + Origami = Storigami.
Watching and listening to stories illustrated by the progressive folds of origami models enables students to visualize the visual information from the scenes and characters described by the words, but also provides students expertise with analyzing the symbolic representations of your paper shapes and folds that happen to be paired with story characters or actions. The ability to know how the shapes relate to the story after which think about attainable outcomes are important components of successful difficulty solving, among the list of most important ambitions of elementary education.
How can teachers along with other educators find out the best way to use Storigami to make problem solving and language arts capabilities in their elementary college classrooms? Thankfully a Mid-Western educational publisher, Storytime Ink International, has published numerous collections of origami stories, for instance Nature Fold-Along Stories: Speedy and Effortless Origami Tales About Plants and Animals. This book and other fold-along storybooks describe how to make use of the approach, step by step. The Storigami books are accessible in most public libraries and from a number of on the internet sources, such as and


Art Intent Statement
At Thurlby CP Academy, we aim to give all children the confidence to express themselves through a range of chosen mediums. Pupils are encouraged to use their imagination through a wide range of media such as; pencil, crayon, clay, oil pastels and paint. Children will study a range of works by famous artists to develop their knowledge of styles and to create cross-curricular opportunities in the classroom.
Design and Technology Intent Statement
Through the Design and Technology Curriculum, children should be inspired to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems and food products with a real life purpose, in a cross curricular capacity, in our ever-changing world. Children are taught to select and use appropriate tools safely and effectively to make a product. They are also encouraged to consider the effectiveness of their designs and provide constructive feedback to others when working as part of a team.
Music Intent Statement
At Thurlby Community Primary Academy, we aim to develop children’s curiosity and passion for music, an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music and an unbiased respect for the role that it may wish to be expressed in any person’s life. We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts.
"Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.” National Curriculum Music (2014)


Spanish spelling, especially the use of written accent marks, is a major stumbling block for Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners (Carreira 2002). In fact, Mikulski (2006) found that most SHL learners ranked bettering their spelling and grammar as a very important learning goal. Despite its importance in literacy development and its perceived value as a signal of an accomplished writer, few empirical studies have addressed spelling and use of accent marks. To address this gap, the present study evaluated a step-bystep instructional approach focusing on stress identification, which was delivered in three computer-based training sessions. The sessions consisted of listening exercises containing exaggerated and contrastive stress. Additionally, students received an introductory lesson and two explicit explanations of written accent rules with practice activities. Pre-and post-Test results show the instruction effectively improved students' stress identification skills and ability to add written accent marks when appropriate. In addition, results find that the most complex aspect of learning accent use is identification of the stressed syllable. Poor spelling ability can affect students' attitudes toward writing, their fluency, and their self-confidence as writers. Therefore, it is important that SHL learners master correct accent placement through effective instructional procedures.
- Spanish Heritage instruction/instrucción de hablantes de español de herencia
- Spanish language pedagogy/pedagogía del lenguaje de español
- Spanish spelling/deletreo en español
- Written accent marks/acento ortográfico
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Linguistics and Language


Osage Art Foundation
The Osage Art Foundation was established in 2004 with three main goals – Creative Communities, Cultural Cooperation and Creative Capacity and has since played an active role in developing education and training of young people, broadening cultural awareness and participation in artistic endeavours, nurturing creativity and critical thinking and fostering international cultural exchange. The Osage Art Foundation is now widely recognised by the local community and internationally as having initiated many pioneering projects of international calibre.
The arts help us to understand who we are, where we come from, where we are going and what we want to be. They are an essential part of describing new information, new ideas and new values. The Osage Art Foundation aims to bring to the art world new voices, new vision, new ideas and new styles; to present art that spurs the imagination; to present work that addresses local issues, national concerns, and universal themes and work that celebrates diversity and difference. The Osage Art Foundation aims to celebrate the achievements of humanity together with its limitations and failures.
The Osage Art Foundation promotes and develops innovative best practice in curatorship and research, knowledge building and in teaching and learning.
The Osage Art Foundation raises funds and supports a range of programs that help young people come to a better understanding and appreciation of art and help improve relations between people of different cultures.
We believe that the arts play an important part in the life of every member of the community. We aim to help increase community participation in the arts through education and better access and understanding in order to help shape a future in which the arts play a vital role in everyday life.
The Osage Art Foundation believes that every society should strive to become a creative community. We believe that the aesthetic appreciation of art is vital to the well being of any society and should be accessible to all.
The Osage Art Foundation is committed to improving the links between education and the arts. Our projects help broaden people’s perspectives on different ways and means of expression. We have a particular interest in early childhood art education as it provides the building blocks of all art education and the foundation of skills necessary for contemporary life. Certain basic skills are implicit in all art education. Through observation, perception, expression, communication, technical skills and creativity children learn the life-long skills of open-mindedness, innovative thinking, technical skill and cultural awareness. We actively support children’s art education through seminars and workshops that stimulate children’s interest and participation in art, raising their self-awareness and nurturing their creativity and critical thinking.
The Osage Art Foundation is also committed to fostering cultural cooperation, improving understanding between people of different cultures and to developing creative capacity in every country that we work. International cultural exchange programs facilitate deeper and better understanding between people of different cultures. We aim to help break down barriers between cultures while maintaining and preserving the things that make them distinctively different.
Resources are vital if artists and communities are to engage with the arts and enjoy a rich cultural life. We aim to help improve the vitality and viability of the arts. The most important ingredients for cultivating creativity in a community are human capital and investment. Where possible, the Osage Art Foundation provides strategic funding or in-kind support to key arts organisations and third-party project based activities in order to help those activities to prosper.
The current focus of the Osage Art Foundation is on developing deeper discourse in and around the arts and in the wider community. We believe that research, analysis, examination and promulgation of issues pertaining to society, contemporary culture and value by artists, writers, critic, curators and commentators will build better understanding of regional perspectives throughout Asia and to the wider world beyond.
In order to better contextualize the work of the current generation of Asian contemporary artists, the Osage Art Foundation has helped to introduce a number of seminal contemporary Asian masters to the wider international artworld. For example, Roberto Chabet (1937 – 2013) made an unparalleled contribution to Philippine contemporary art as an educator, mentor, visionary, conceptualist, innovator, alchemist, poet and tireless promoter of younger talents, but until recently was not as well known internationally.
To date in 2013 the Osage Art Foundation has presented the Andy Warhol exhibition “Hello It’s Me, Goodbye: Andy Warhol’s Cinema”, jointly-presented by The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh the second in its series of non-profit “Market Forces” exhibitions, “The Friction of Opposites” that opened in Hong Kong in May 2013 at the same time as the commercial art fair Art Basel Hong Kong in order to focus attention on the non-commercial intrinsic values of art.
In May 2013 The Osage Art Foundation was honoured at the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards with an Award for Arts Sponsorship.


It might require a fair bit of preparation and clearing up afterwards, but there’s no denying that most children love to have some creative fun in the kitchen or engage in imaginative play with pretend foods. We’ve summarised 10 top reasons why this sort of play is so important to a child’s development.
1) Boosting social skills
Youngsters engaged in imaginative cooking play are likely to engage in discussion about what they are doing, observe what other play mates decide to ‘cook’ and share the ingredients or utensils they are using.
2) Improving vocabulary and reading skills
Whether it’s reading the recipe or the name of ingredients, cooking play provides ample opportunities to practise basic reading skills. With each new ingredient they can extend their vocabulary and consolidate this knowledge by using the ingredient for a specific purpose.
3) Practising numeracy skills
Weighing out ingredients, counting eggs, measuring sugar, such processes compound a youngster’s understanding of mathematics. Simple addition, subtraction and even division can also be practised once the cookies/pizza/cupcakes are removed from the oven – real or otherwise!
4) Developing time telling
Cooking with children is a great chance for them to practise telling the time, whether it’s at a very basic level of working out when the food went in to the oven, to working out how long it needs to cook for and therefore when they should check to see if it’s ready.
5) Learning through sensory play
Kneading, mixing, tasting, smelling, watching bread rise, these sorts of activities provide new experiences through sensory actions. Exercising each of their senses will allow them to maximise their learning potential.
6) Sparking creativity
We may not approve of the ingredients they mix in to a salad/add as a pizza topping/stick on top of a cupcake but the process allows them to experiment with ingredients and flavours and simply have some control over the end result. Role play cooking with pretend ingredients is particularly useful for allowing very young chefs to go wild without the mess!
7) Tempting a fussy eater
An ordinarily fussy eater may well be more tempted to try a new dish or ingredient if they have prepared it themselves or placed it on their own plate. Obviously this is not so desirable if the dish they’ve prepared is made from salt dough or plasticine!
8) Making sense of the world
Discussing where an ingredient has come from, why they need to be cooked in a specific way and why some foods are better for us than others, are just some areas of discussion that help children improve their general understanding of the world around them. It can also help establish the foundations of a healthy eating attitude.
9) Satisfaction of completing a process
Seeing the cooking process through from beginning to end creates immense satisfaction and a confidence-boosting exercise for any youngster. Having read the recipe, literally got their hands dirty mixing the ingredients and endured the wait before seeing (and sampling) the end result, is bound to make any budding young chef pretty proud.
10) Wide age range applicability
Cooking and role play cooking are fun, educational experiences for a broad age spectrum of children. Preschoolers can master a simple recipe with adult help and steadily progress on to more complicated recipes. It’s also a great activity to enjoy as a family.
Bigjigs Toys offer a wide selection of cooking role play toys, from kitchen appliances to role play food and baking sets – all available to purchase from our website
Do you enjoy cooking with your child/children? Share your ‘cooking with children’ tips with us and be entered in to our competition to win a Bigjigs cooking role play bundle worth over £40, comprising:
Comments must be posted by midnight on 19.02.15. On 20.02.15 the author of one cooking tip will be selected at random and announced here on our Big Blog and on our Facebook page. Full Terms and Conditions can be found here
**COMPETITION WINNER: HEIDI BROWN**
Congratulations Heidi, we’ll email you to arrange delivery of your prize.


NEWS: Volunteer Alex Ricciardelli has published a book that will support Reach Out and Read. Learn how you can help!
Reading aloud is the single most important thing parents can do to foster and maintain their child’s love of books. Physicians use their unique and supportive relationship with parents to stress the benefits of reading aloud to their children and to encourage the family’s everyday interaction with books.
Reach Out and Read is a pediatric literacy program created in 1989 by a group of pediatricians and educators at Boston City Hospital to help curb illiteracy in Boston’s poorest neighborhoods. As an early affiliated site, Lynn Community Health Center launched its program in 1996 and is now one of the most vibrant Reach Out and Read programs nationwide.
Reach Out and Read integrates parent education about literacy and literacy development into routine pediatric care. A free, age-appropriate book is given out to children six months to five years of age at every pediatric check-up so that books (and sharing them together with parents and siblings) may become a routine part of family life for our patients.
Creating a Literacy Rich Environment
You can help support family literacy by helping us create waiting spaces for families that involve books and reading. There are two ways to help:
Volunteer: Dedicate one or two hours a week to reading to children and giving away books in one of our many waiting rooms. You will not only be entertaining the children, but modeling interactive reading techniques for parents. After you finish the book, you can offer it to the child to take home for her own.
Donate Books: Volunteers Lynn Community Health Center give over 6,000 gently used books to children every year. We are in constant need of gently used books for our waiting rooms! Collect books from your neighbors, do a book drive a work or school, or ask a local service organization to collect books for the health center.
Secure donations through Network for Good.


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Unearth a surprise dinosaur by chiseling through the shell, just like a real scientist! Simply soak the clay stone in water and then carefully chisel away the material to reveal the dinosaur inside. It’s a perfectly-sized introduction to scientific discovery for kids!
• Experience the thrill of discovery • A hands-on lesson in science for kids • One clay egg, chiseling tool, surprise dinosaur and instructional guide


Open Access Graduate Research Paper
Word recognition--Study and teaching;
Awareness about the powerful influence of the family on children's literacy development has gained national prominence in recent years. Improved consistency between home and school can be reached by teaching the parent about literacy learning in order to reach the child. However, parent involvement can be difficult, especially when their children are considered to be at-risk of having reading delays. To encourage parent involvement through parent workshops can improve literacy development at home, based on the assumption that improving the literacy skills of parents results in better educational experiences for their children.
Year of Submission
Master of Arts in Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Deborah L. Tidwell
1 PDF file (74 pages)
©2002 Michelle Lynn Reicks
Reicks, Michelle Lynn, "Promoting word recognition through parent workshops" (2002). Graduate Research Papers. 1373.


This giveaway has ended. Thanks to all that entered!
This next Homeschool your Preschooler giveaway is for the older preschooler. Though, we did have fun finding different uses for this game!
Beyond Learning is an awesome Eco-friendly company created by Jill Gaynor. Jill has been active in elementary education for the past 12 years and also does fundraiser work for Healthy Child Healthy World. So designing Eco-friendly children games was right up her alley. Right now Beyond Learning has 3 Eco-friendly games: Pick-Up Words, Number Hunt, and Word Chase. Each of these games are designed for children who are learning how to read and recognize letters and numbers. All of the Beyond Learning products are printed with vegetable ink on recycled paper.
We were sent Pick-Up Words to review and I can’t wait until Ella is old enough to really play. The game comes with 30 bamboo sticks with words written on them. You gather all of the sticks and then release them to fall freely. The first player then chooses a stick to pick up and tells the other players what the word is. The player then carefully picks up the stick without moving any other sticks. If the payer moves a different stick, it is the next players turn. If the player does not move any sticks, they get to go again. The player with the most sticks wins. The game helps with word recognition, math and fine motor skills.If you are creative, you can turn this Pick-Up Words game into many different games or reading/writing tools. With an early reader, you could lay all of the sticks out and see if your child could put together a sentence. If they haven’t begun to read or write yet, you could have them pick up a stick and use the word in a sentence. Since Ella isn’t at either of those stages yet, I dropped all of the sticks and had her count them. She also put them in rows of 5. Ella has also turned the game into a musical instrument. The many bamboo sticks beating on the package make an awesome sound when shaken! We are full of ideas over here. 🙂
The Giveaway: Beyond Learning would like to offer 1 lucky reader a Pick-Up Words game!
Rules: You have until 11:59 p.m. EST October 22, 2009 to enter. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced after they respond to the winning email. The winner has 48 hours to respond to the winning email, or a new winner will be chosen. You must leave your email address! This contest is open to the US.
How to Enter: Visit Beyond Learning and tell me another game you’d like to try. Click on “Comments” to leave your post. Make sure to leave your email address!! I cannot contact the winner without it!
EXTRA entries: You must complete the “How To Enter” before making any extra entries. Make sure you leave a comment for each extra entry and tell me which one.
2. Become a fan of Mkokopelli on FB, Mkokopelli on Twitter, or Follow my blog
3. Subscribe to my blog by email (on the right sidebar) You must verify and be active at the time of the giveaway- those who are unverified will become disqualified
5. Enter another giveaway I have going on and tell me which one or leave a comment on a non-giveaway post (1 extra entry total)
6. Sign up for the Beyond Learning newsletter
7. Tell me where you can find Beyond Learning games near you
8. Grab the Homeschool your Preschooler Button and post on your blog or FB page and link back
*New disclaimer- I was sent a Pick-Up Words game for free to personally review. These are only my thoughts and ideas.


Explore Fiber is a collaborative website showcasing and exploring fiber as a fine art material.
Learn about the processes, techniques, and the materials required to make Paper Cloth from life long fiber artist and visual arts educator Christine Miller.
Whether you are teaching students still in the early stages of their fiber exploration, children in art classrooms, or are a seasoned fiber veteran looking for a new way to express your love of fiber, Christine puts together a fresh take on a versatile fiber art process – creating Paper Cloth. By purchasing this lab you will have instant access to the following:
Christine’s purpose for the Explore Fiber Labs is to demonstrate various processes, techniques, and materials used in fiber arts. Her passion will ignite a flame to share your new knowledge in the form of your own creations or through the gift of education for others! When you purchase the Explore Fiber Lab – Paper Cloth, you will have access to a video tutorial demonstrating the process. In addition, you will have access to a downloadable 14 page PDF file, written in a lesson plan format, that will list art education objectives & standards, specific material lists, vocabulary, and a step by step tutorial to make a Japanese Stab Bound book like the one pictured.
“We would love it if you share the work you or your students create with us! You can tweet us @explorefiber1 or post photos on Instagram @explorefiber using #explorefiber, , and #explorefiberlab. Explore Fiber is a collaborative fiber community that works with and promotes fiber as a fine art material. Become a member of this community, Explore Fiber with us, and share your own exciting results!
We used the same instructions in the art classroom that you will receive in the Paper Cloth PDF File. They turned out so great! The students loved the process, had fun and were pleased with their results. Be sure to share examples of work you or your students create with paper cloth!”
“These are examples of my 9th & 10th grade students’ Japanese Stab Bound books that they made with the same instructions you will be receiving in the Lab PDF file. They loved making these books and used the paper cloth they created to cover the book boards of their handmade books! There were so many individual interpretations of the process, a sure sign that student voice and choice shines through their artwork.” – Christine Miller


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Singing the Land: the Power of Performance in Aboriginal Life
For the Indigenous people of Australia, songs and dances, have encoded their history and religion, their social organisation, and their connectedness to the land for 60,000 years. As research assistant to the eminent musicologist Alice Moyle, and later on her own behalf, Jill Stubington spent many years between 1960 and 1980 in remote regions of Australia learning to listen to this music, to understand its complexity, its central role in identity, social cohesion, celebration and the resolution of family conflict. From 1960 new sound and film equipment widened the opportunities for recording; and soon the guitar and recorded popular music began to intermingle with the traditional styles. It became a matter of urgency to use the new technology to preserve the old culture. In three sections the book details the diverse culture, its musical instruments and practice; and provides listening guides to the available CDs and notations.
DR JILL STUBINGTON is a senior academic at the School of Music and Music Education, the University of New South Wales. She came to the study of Aboriginal Music in 1967 when she joined Alice Moyle at Monash University and copied, notated and edited hundreds of her recordings. She has taught and published widely on Aboriginal music and society and has been influential in introducing generations of students the study of non-Western music.
Readers are referred to Recordings by Australian Indigenous Artists, 1899–1998: A Guide to Commercially–Issued Sound recordings by Australian Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders (ScreenSound Australia/AIATSIS, 1999), which not only gives comprehensive details of all the recordings of performances by Indigenous peoples issued commercially up till 1998, but also details of where they are located.
In May 2007 AIATSIS began to reissue on CD all the recordings previously available on LP and cassette. For further information, readers should consult the following website:
Please note: Hard Cover format now available at Soft Cover format price.


Informations on pointe technique
Pointe Readiness Program
Ballet dancers are typically considered ready to use the pointe technique, which requires toe shoes, at 12 years of age. However, musculoskeletal maturity and motor skill development vary greatly. The Harkness Center for Dance Injuries’ pointe readiness program consists of a series of dynamic tests. These can provide an accurate estimation to parents and dance company leaders of a youth’s readiness to safely begin pointe work.
Functional Criteria for Assessing Pointe Readiness
Megan Richardson, M.S., A.T.C.; Marijeanne Liederbach, Ph.D., P.T.; Emily Sandow, P.T., D.P.T., Harkness Center for Dance Injuries, New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York,York, USA
Am I Ready for Pointe Work? – Checklist
Preparing for pointe work isn't just about developing strong feet. Your legs, all the way from ankle to hip, must also be strengthened, and you also need good balance and turnout before you're ready to go en pointe. The list below is shows what you'll need before you're allowed on your toes. If the list sounds daunting, remember it's for your own safety. Dancing en pointe before you're ready almost always causes injuries, and those injuries can be bad enough to end your dancing career before it's even begun.
Before you're allowed en pointe, you need to be able to achieve the following:
Good turnout in motion. It's harder to hold your turnout en pointe than it is on the flat. So if you can't stay turned out while dancing (not just at the barre), you won't be able to hold it on pointe.
No sickling. If your foot tends to sickle inwards, your weight will be on your little toe instead of your big toe. That will affect your balance and increase your risk of injury or strain. You're more likely to fall off your pointes, which is dangerous.
Good posture in motion. If you're inclined to arch your back, stick your butt out or have any other posture problem while dancing, you'll have trouble balancing on pointe.
Pointed feet. This may sound obvious, but by this I mean with straight pointed toes. Some dancers point their feet but curl some or all of their toes under. It may not be obvious with shoes on, so take your shoes off and check your toes are flat. Curled toes in ballet slippers become knuckling in pointe shoes. You can't stand on curled toes!
Good balance on one leg on demi-pointe. You need to be comfortable balancing on one leg on demi-pointe. For instance, you should be able to do a piqué passé with a straight leg, and hold your balance on demi-pointe with your leg in passé, without wobbling.
Talking of demi-pointe, if you're aiming to get on pointe, then you need to start aiming higher! Many ballet students don't take their relevé to its fullest extent, and that habit needs to change if you want to wear those pointe shoes.
The other consideration before starting pointe work is how old you are. Like it or not, age is a factor in allowing any dancer to dance en pointe.
When you're young, the growth plates of your feet are still soft and can be severely damaged by the pressures of pointe work. If you damage your growth plates, your feet may become so damaged you'll never dance again!
People grow at different rates, and only a specialist doctor can say for sure when your feet are strong enough to do pointe safely. The average ballet teacher can't be 100% certain. A few may be ready by the age of 9 or 10 - but the majority of girls aren't mature enough until age 12.
So unless you can afford a specialist consultation - which most people can't - it's much safer to delay going en pointe until age 12. If you strengthen your feet and legs, improve your turnout and perfect your balance, you'll find you can pop straight up on pointe with relative ease when you finally start, and you'll quickly catch up - and probably overtake - those students who started earlier.


Joan M. Rehlin
This month's mini art history post features Fancisco José de Goya y Lucientes (3/30/1746–4/16/1828), a Spanish Romantic painter, portraitist, and printmaker. Goya was referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Moderns. As an artistic chronicler of history, Goya depicted many of his subject matters with a leaning toward political satire, and he was immensely successful during his lifetime.
Born into a lower middle-class family, at age 14 Goya began studying painting. At age 18 he moved to Madrid and then Rome, where he continued his art education. Two of his paintings survive from that period, both dated 1771, and that same year Goya won second prize in a painting competition. He then returned to his family’s hometown of Zaragoza where he was hired to paint religious frescoes and, in 1773, married Josefa Bayeu.
In 1777, Goya earned a commission from the Royal Tapestry Factory to create rococo tapestry cartoons (from cartone, Italian for a large sheet of paper used to prepare tapestry). Designing over 40 tapestries that decorated and insulated stone walls in the Spanish monarchs’ residencies, Goya parlayed that commission into more prestigious work. During the 1780s, he painted portraits of Spanish nobility as well as royalty, and he also earned a salaried position as painter to Charles III in 1786 and Charles IV in 1789. Many of those portraits are notable for their satirical, less-than-flattering portrayals. Shown here and currently in Madrid at the Museo del Prado, Charles IV of Spain and His Family is thought to reveal the corruption behind the king’s rule, with his wife, Louisa, having the real power. Goya placed her at the center of the group and, at the back left, placed himself looking out at the viewer.
In 1793, an illness left Goya deaf and contributed to his being withdrawn. He may have also suffered from lead poisoning due to his using large amounts of lead oil paint. His subsequent physical and mental decline produced dark nightmare fantasies and caused a change in the direction of his work. At age 75, Goya painted a series of 14 Black Paintings in oil, directly onto the plaster walls of his home. Those remained relatively unknown until almost 50 years after Goya’s death when the works were removed and put on permanent display in the Museo del Prado.
Charles IV of Spain and His Family, oil on canvas, 1800, Francisco Goya
Welcome to our Art Blog where we occasionally present topics of interest in the fine art world, including featuring artists other than Jim Rehlin. Some of the artwork has been created by long-departed but well-known greats; some, by compelling contemporary artists. All will be pieces we find worthwhile to share with you. If you like any of these, consider sharing the posts forward to your own blogs and other social media.


Lamont Anderson: Fine Tuning the Temple Square Organs
For 34 years, Lamont Anderson has scaled ladders and squeezed in between pipes—11,623 of them—to tune the famed Tabernacle organ. In addition, his responsibility as a keyboard technician extends to keeping in tune all nine of the organs on Temple Square from the historic Tabernacle instrument to the imposing organ in the Conference Center, as well as those in the Assembly Hall and the Joseph Smith building.
These organs are recognized for their towering pipes, large consoles, pedalboards, with their magnificent, at times even thunderous, sound. They are, however, instruments with thousands of organ pipes that require delicate, fine tuning.
“Pipes have personalities,” Anderson says. Some don’t want to stay in tune or “sound right” all of the time. It isn’t the size of the pipe that’s the challenge. Certain pipes are just more “fickle” than others. Tuning a pipe organ means adjusting the pitch of each pipe so they are all in tune with each other. It is a “one step forward, one step back” process with a lot of little adjustments in between. Collars, slides, scrolls, caps, stoppers, and tuning wire can be changed, slightly adjusting the length of the pipe until it is playing the right pitch.
The organ wanders sharp or flat depending upon the temperature inside the hall and changes in the ambient temperature outside. For years when the temperature fluctuated, the tuning of the Tabernacle organ did too. The renovation of the Tabernacle from 2005-2007 and the introduction of a cooling system mitigated some of that swing. The temperature in the Conference Center, on the other hand, is rock solid so that organ stays better in tune.
The work can be “tedious,” but Anderson likes repairing parts that have broken or need to be replaced, and is adept at woodworking. He and Robert Poll—who trained him on the job—often find themselves making new parts or creating new tools to make the adjustments to get the different organs in their care in tune.
In addition to tuning the organ, Anderson and Poll also make other adjustments to the consoles and pedals. For example, Tabernacle organist Richard Elliott is known for his rousing organ numbers at concerts in the Conference Center. To help him, these two technicians have taken the pedals apart, “tweaked and sanded down the wood” in certain places, so that Elliott could play “as fast as his feet like to go.”
Anderson didn’t set out to work with organs. A trumpet player by training, he graduated in music education and taught school band for three years and then began looking for something else. He was working in the Tabernacle when a job opportunity tuning the organ came up. “The Lord put you here,” the building manager said. That was in 1986 and he has plied his craft now for 34 years
He leaves his position September 4, 2020. His mother sang in the Choir from the time he was two until he left to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When he went to work tuning the organs, the building and the music—and the organ in particular—became an even more important part of his life. His rare combination of skills and experience will be hard to replace but his contribution to the musical experience on Temple Square will live on.


The first Johor Piano Festival was launched in 2017 in partnership with the Johor Society for the Performing Arts.
Message from the Johor Society for the Performing Arts (JSPA)
“Research has found that learning music improves academic skills, and enhances skills that children inevitably use in other areas.”
That was a sentence I stole off Google, when I searched for ‘benefits of learning music’. And indeed, there are tons of benefits and reasons why our children should learn music, but some questions I had during my brief search were: Should our children be learning music just because research says it’ll make them better at Maths? Is music really just a vehicle for our children to be better at something else? Why do we justify learning music by emphasising its usefulness in ‘other areas’?
Of course, it doesn’t do any harm to consider these ‘benefits’, but perhaps we should take a step back and approach music education by thinking about – well, music. To me, there is nothing more profoundly human than listening to, and making, music. It is simultaneously a language that allows us to express ourselves in a way words sometimes cannot, and a language that allows people from all walks of life to appreciate and create, together.
Likewise, when we think about competitions, the first thing that comes to mind is that someone has to win, and someone has to lose. But music is far from a zero-sum-game, and it’s always magical to see how the better some players are, the better everyone eventually becomes. Sure, we can approach competitions as a kiasu parent or teacher, whose only interest lies in bragging rights – or we can stop thinking about music as a school subject, and allow our kids to experience and explore the full awesomeness of music by connecting with one another, and learning together.
As such, the Johor Society for the Performing Arts is proud to co-present the Johor Bahru Piano Festival, together with the Euroasia Association of Performing Arts. To all participants of the Johor Bahru Piano Festival, just remember this: In music, everybody wins.
Educate. Engage. Empower.
Live the Arts.
Johor Society for the Performing Arts


Learning in Digital Technologies builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in the Early Years Learning Framework. It focuses on developing foundational skills in computational thinking and an awareness of personal experiences using digital systems.By the end of Year 2, students will have ha...
Learning in Digital Technologies builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in the Early Years Learning Framework. It focuses on developing foundational skills in computational thinking and an awareness of personal experiences using digital systems.
By the end of Year 2, students will have had opportunities to create a range of digital solutions through guided play and integrated learning, such as using robotic toys to navigate a map or recording science data with software applications.
In Foundation - Year 2, students begin to learn about common digital systems and patterns that exist within data they collect. Students organise, manipulate and present this data, including numerical, categorical, text, image, audio and video data, in creative ways to create meaning.
Students use the concept of abstraction when defining problems, to identify the most important information, such as the significant steps involved in making a sandwich. They begin to develop their design skills by conceptualising algorithms as a sequence of steps for carrying out instructions, such as identifying steps in a process or controlling robotic devices.
Students describe how information systems meet information, communication and/or recreational needs.
Through discussion with teachers, students learn to apply safe and ethical practices to protect themselves and others as they interact online for learning and communicating.
By the end of Year 2, students describe the purpose of familiar products, services and environments and how they meet a range of present needs. They list the features of technologies that influence design decisions and identify how digital systems are used.
Students identify needs, opportunities or problems and describe them. They collect, sort and display familiar data from a range of sources and recognise patterns in data. Students record design ideas using techniques including labelled drawings, lists and sequenced instructions. They design solutions to simple problems using a sequence of steps and decisions. With guidance, students produce designed solutions for each of the prescribed technologies contexts. Students evaluate their ideas, information and solutions on the basis of personal preferences and provided criteria including care for the environment. They safely create solutions and communicate ideas and information face-to-face and online.
By the end of Year 2, students identify how common digital systems (hardware and software) are used to meet specific purposes. They use digital systems to represent simple patterns in data in different ways.
Students design solutions to simple problems using a sequence of steps and decisions. They collect familiar data and display them to convey meaning. They create and organise ideas and information using information systems, and share information in safe online environments.


Making ideas into visuals
Designers use text, images, and graphic shapes to craft products that call our attention and make us remember over time. Designers work on the computer or by hand in creating communication materials (magazines, packaging, ads) and experiences (brands, websites, apps) that will fit a client’s wants and needs. A degree from GVSU offers students the intellectual and professional training needed to become the creative leaders of the future. After four years, students reach the job market showing competency in critical thinking, use of technology, and practical experience.
BFA in Studio Art, Graphic Design Emphasis
Students may pursue a B.F.A. in Studio Art in this emphasis. The B.F.A. in Studio Art is designed for students interested in a professional degree in art or design. This degree will prepare students for a career as a professional artist or designer. Aside from Graphic Design, eight other Emphasis Areas are available to choose from in the B.F.A. degree.
BA/BS in Art Education and K-12 certification
Students may also pursue a BA or BS Degree in Art Education in which they can choose to take Graphic Design courses.
Students are encouraged to coordinate typography, image, symbol, and color to communicate information, meaning, and thought-provoking ideas. The design faculty conscientiously prepares majors for the realities of a design career through technological proficiency, analytical versatility, and practical experience necessary for the competitive and diverse opportunities that lay ahead of them. Our well-equipped facilities allow design students to gain expertise in designing for print production and web environments.
AIGA: Grand Valley
AIGA, the professional association for design, is committed to advancing design as a professional craft, strategic advantage and vital cultural force. As a student group, we seek to get as many students involved in the design community as possible. We meet 3-4 times a month and offer a variety of activities from screen printing, hosting skill-shares, curating exhibitions, and discuss current inspirations. Outside of our meetings, we try to attend conventions, local lectures and other area design events. We try to involve as many emphasis areas as possible in order to break down barriers and share new ideas. The meetings are open to anyone with a love for, interest in, or curiosity about the wonders of graphic design.
Prospective Students are invited to attend one of the High School Student Receptions, held throughout the academic year. Receptions follow the Laker Experience Days.
For questions about the Graphic Design area, please contact:
Graphic Design Coordinator
1119 Calder Arts Center


- The hourglass dolphin is the only dolphin living near Antarctica.
- This dolphin’s Latin name is cruciger, which means “cross,” in reference to the pattern that runs along the dolphin’s sides.
- Hourglass dolphins are fast, aggressive swimmers. They often swim behind boats, surfing in their wake.
- They’re one of the few dolphin species that is thriving, probably because they live so far from humans.
- Hourglass dolphins eat fish, squid, and shrimp. They feed at the water’s surface, drawing crowds of seabirds to eat their leftovers. They live in cold, deep waters near Antarctica although they migrate further north in the winter.
- Scientists still have a lot to learn about hourglass dolphins because they live in remote areas. We don’t know how many babies they have or how long they live. We do know that they live in groups, usually with 4 to 14 members, but occasionally with up to 100 dolphins.
- Dramatic: striking, unusual
- Thrive: doing very well
Questions and Answers
Question: How many hourglass dolphins are there in the world?
Answer: Scientists estimate there are about 144,000 hourglass dolphins living in oceans right now. They’re doing well, but climate change and pollution could threaten them.
Watch a video about the Striped dolphins.
Cite This Page
You may cut-and-paste the below MLA and APA citation examples:
MLA Style Citation
Declan, Tobin. " Hourglass Dolphin Facts for Kids ." Easy Science for Kids, Sep 2020. Web. 22 Sep 2020. < https://easyscienceforkids.com/hourglass-dolphin/ >.
APA Style Citation
Tobin, Declan. (2020). Hourglass Dolphin Facts for Kids. Easy Science for Kids. Retrieved from https://easyscienceforkids.com/hourglass-dolphin/
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With one in ten UK adults admitting to being ‘terrible’ with money, and one in four of us having no savings at all, many of us will wish we had been taught more about personal finance at school.
Children become aware of money early on, be it in the form of pocket money, weekly allowances or a visit from the tooth fairy. However, finance is still not a statutory part of the primary school curriculum and is only a sporadic part of the high school one. So it’s no surprise that a recent survey found that 71% of 15-18-year-olds worry about money.
While some financial management is being taught in secondary schools, our attitudes and habits may be formed at a younger age. But with such a big subject, which areas should be prioritised to give young people the confidence to make smart financial decisions later in life?
While some of us may take on part-time jobs and pay board for a brief period, leaving home is the first time many of us will deal with managing bills and other outgoings with only our own income to support us. Budgeting is an important skill to develop to make sure you’re covering the essentials without getting into debt.
The idea of sitting down and creating a budget can be intimidating at first, but modern technologies and applications have made it easier for young people to track their spending and manage their finances than ever before.
Learning to allocate money goes hand in hand with the skills learned in mathematics and will prove essential to anyone moving into their young adult years.
As well as managing money day-to-day, students can benefit from thinking about their finances in the long-term. The idea of building an emergency fund or planning for retirement can be difficult to grasp when young, but the earlier they start saving the better.
It’s a particularly important topic when you consider that one in ten UK adults over the age of 55 don’t have anything put away for their future. Training young people to set short-term and long-term savings goals can help them to establish how much they should be saving and for how long, while teaching techniques such as setting up automatic payments will make them more likely to put money away consistently.
There are many ways to organise our finances, and credit is undeniably a huge topic. All of us are likely to borrow money from time to time, while building a good credit score is important for life’s milestones, such as buying a home.
However, with these opportunities comes risk. And it’s important for young people to know how to correctly use their cards, rather than abusing them and getting themselves into debt.
From interest rates to the types of bank accounts out there, there’s still so much to learn. What do you wish you were taught about money at school?


Bell Ringers Week 1
Label the lines on the staff with numbers. Number 1 is on the bottom.
Label the spaces on the staff with numbers. Number 1 is on the bottom.
Copy the following symbols 5 times each on the staff provided. We will discuss them as a class.
Use Complete Sentences to answer the following:
a. What type of instruments and/or voices do you hear?
d. Which instruments are playing in the high range?
c. Which instruments are playing in the low range?
Taken From MusicEducationMatters.org
Music is Cultural - Music is a unique means of transmitting our cultural heritage to succeeding generations.
Music is Creative Creativity is an essential element of music-making, composition, improvisation and performance. In this technological age, music provides us with opportunities to use our imagination and think outside the box.
Music is Key to Brain Development Music education profoundly affects brain development engaging the entire brain. Music has its own powerful language and symbol system which requires us to analyze, compare, contrast, sequence, remember, and problem-solve.
Music is Life Skills Music promotes character development and leadership. Musical experiences can boost self-esteem, reinforce positive behaviors, promote teamwork and improve self-discipline.
Music is Integral Music Education integrates math, language, geography, history, science, social studies, art and physical education. Music is everywhere!
Music is Fun Music is the heart of the school, promoting school spirit. raising voices in song, and helping students to reach their potential through creativity and self-expression. Music enhances the quality of life integrating mind, body and spirit.
1. Which description of music do you like the most? Why?
2. Which life skills does the author state music experiences can help us learn?


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Whether you're a classically trained musician or just love to sing in the shower, you've likely experienced the power of music at some point in your life. And while listening to music is enjoyable at any age, it can be especially beneficial for school-aged children.
If you work in early childhood education, there are a number of advantages that music can offer the students you teach.
Music in your classroom
Music in education is about much more than simply teaching a child to play an instrument. Strumming a guitar or listening to Bach are enjoyable activities in and of themselves, but music can aid your students' development in many ways. According to PBS, research suggests that studying music can enhance learning in other subjects and teach kids skills that they'll use in multiple areas of life.
"Music learning supports all learning," Kenneth Guilmartin, co-founder of Music Together, told PBS. "Not that Mozart makes you smarter, but it's a very integrating, stimulating pastime or activity."
According to the National Association for Music Education, music education in schools offers a number of benefits, including the following:
The development of reasoning and language
Enhanced auditory skills
Improved creative thinking
Opportunities to learn teamwork
Increased engagement in school
The organization additionally reported that music education can improve SAT scores, teach discipline and boost self-confidence.
Strategies for incorporating music
How you incorporate music in your classroom depends largely on the age of the children you work with and your existing curriculum. Younger kids may have a hard time learning to play an instrument, but there are a number of other ways you can use music in your daily routine. For example, 5th grade teacher Andrea Antepenko wrote in Educational Leadership that she starts each day by playing music as her students come into the classroom and turns it back on periodically throughout the day to create a positive learning environment.
You can also use music to enhance your curriculum by finding songs that coordinate with the topics you're covering in class. Teaching your kids tunes that talk about shapes, seasons or any other topic will make the subjects more interesting and likely help them remember the facts.
And while it may be difficult to teach a 3-year-old to play the trumpet, even your youngest students will enjoy banging on drums and shaking tambourines. These early introductions to musical instruments can set your kids up for a lifetime of music.
To learn more about enhancing playtime with music and other early childhood development tips, consider enrolling in online childcare courses from ProSoutions Training.


The First Steps in Music curriculum is design to prepare children to become musical in three ways:
1) Tuneful– to have tunes in their heads and learn to coordinate their voices to sing those tunes.
2) Beatful– to feel the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in either twos or threes.
3) Artful– to be moved by music in the many ways music can elicit an emotional response.
John Feierabend, a music philosopher, teacher, and creator of “First Steps in Music” and “Conversational Solfege” two curriculums that we’ll be using at Folsom in grades K-6 writes this about First Steps:
All adults should be tuneful, beatful, and artful so they can participate in the music that is interwoven throughout their lives. Adults who are tuneful can sing lullabies to their babies, sing “Happy Birthday” to their children and friends, sing in worship services, and join others in singing ceremonial songs like alma maters or heritage favorites. Adults who are beatful can rock on the beat while singing that lullaby, dance at their weddings or at their friends’ weddings, and can clap their hands in time with others at a sporting event. Adults who are artful are moved by music and seek out venues to share artful experiences with others in concert halls, and in community bands and choirs or by listening to National Public Radio. Artful adults enjoy being moved by music.
When I first heard this I felt relieved. Finally I had found the words to express why I teach music. As you can see, preparing children to become professional musicians has very little to do with this philosophy. I think that is a misconception among some people that perhaps don’t see the value of music education in the public school. I am not teaching to the students who may continue to play in college and beyond, (though I am giving the necessary music foundation,) I am teaching to ALL students skills and practices that will enrich their lives no matter what their passions are.
Feierabend goes on to write:
- Adults who are tuneful, beatful, and artful are also better able to participate in a community and are able to enjoy opportunities to sing together with others, dance together with others, and share listening to beautiful music together with others.
- Children who learn to be tuneful, beatful, and artful before they leave elementary school will grow to be adults who benefit from what music can offer. Those who go on to sing in choirs or play an instrument will do so in a more musical manner. Those who choose not to sing in choirs or play an instrument later will still be enriched by being able to share music in their daily lives.
I wanted to share these words with my Folsom families because I think it is important for you to know the why behind a Music Education. This is my Why. I might say I’ve adopted Feierabend’s philosophy, but I feel more comfortable saying that I’ve finally found the words to express my own philosophy.
While this “First Steps in Music” Curriculum is aimed at Preschool through Second Grade, these same ideas of tuneful, beatful, and artful absolutely apply in grades 3-8. In grades 3-6 we’ll be using the second part of Feierabend’s curriculum called “Conversational Solfege.” Look for a blog post on this soon!


History of Catacoustic
The Catacoustic Consort presents a variety of vocal and instrumental music from Renaissance chamber music to Baroque opera, with the intent of recreating the sound of the music when it was originally composed.
The music is performed on period instruments such as the viola da gamba, theorbo, organ, harpsichord, Baroque guitar, and lute. In addition to a historically informed approach to performing music, Catacoustic is dedicated to approaching music with an understanding of the life and times when it was originally played, including informed humanities presentations to accompany its programs. Some favorite composers of early music include J.S. Bach, John Dowland, Marain Marais, and Claudio Monteverdi.
The Catacoustic Consort is also dedicated to the early music community in the greater Cincinnati area. To this end, it provides a rental program of early instruments; offers an annual grant for instruments, training, or early music education; and sponsors the annual Cincinnati Early Music Festival, which celebrates local musicians engaged in the performance of early music. Catacoustic is also committed to outreach to senior citizens.
Based in historic East Walnut Hills (Cincinnati), Ohio, Catacoustic serves the tri-state area. The Catacoustic Consort is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.


Page last updated at 02:18 CST6CDT, Wednesday, 30 October 2013 PH
Relative to the income distribution, the benefit incidence of public spending on all levels of education was progressive (pro-poor) in both 2008 and 2010. This means that the share of the poorest groups in the benefits of public spending on education was greater than the share of the same groups in the distribution of income. The analysis of subsidy rates showed that public spending on elementary and secondary education was advantageous to the poor in 2008 and 2010. The most pro-poor spending on education is that for elementary education. This stands to reason because the majority of the children in the bottom 20 percent of the income ladder usually drop out before they reach Grade 6. If they get high-quality elementary education they would acquire a minimum of literacy to be able make a decent living.
Finally, public expenditures on water were analyzed. In absolute terms, the benefit incidence of total public spending on water was poorly targeted in 2008 and 2010. The poor did not receive a greater share of public spending on water in general. In 2008 and 2010, however, public spending on public tap and yard/plot was pro-poor in absolute terms. This was not the case for public spending on water in dwelling places, which was biased in favor of the higher-income groups. Relative to the income distribution, the benefit incidence of public spending on all types of water connection was progressive (pro-poor) in both years. Predictably, public spending on public tap water was the most advantageous to the poor.
The tools of analysis acquired by those who participated in this GDN research initiative can be very useful to local government units (LGUs) that are committing themselves to orient their expenditures on social services and infrastructures towards the bottom quarter of their population in the income ladder. Governors and mayors who are interested in engaging the CRC economists in helping them design pro-poor programs in education, health and water services may get in touch with Mr. Ernest Castillo at his email address email@example.com.
The CRC team can help LGU heads to partner with business firms or nongovernmental organizations, utilizing the Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme, to put up infrastructures in their respective localities to improve the delivery of educational, health and water services that are directly targeted to the poorest segments. These projects can readily obtain financing from private commercial banks or the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP). These LGUs may also issue municipal bonds to finance these infrastructures. With many of the large PPPs at the national level at a standstill because of “paralysis by analysis,” especially at the Department of Transportation and Communication, our only hope for increasing infrastructure spending to desirable levels may be the PPPs that can be implemented by LGUs. For comments, my email address is firstname.lastname@example.org.


It is a joy to study and understand the scientific world that surrounds us. When we look deeply at the intricate details, we begin to see how beautifully creative our world is. There is a masterpiece painting in each flower and every piece of fruit. This is a fruit science for kids lesson that identifies the various structures of the fruit, compares and contrasts different fruit seeds, includes dissecting work, matching work, and a lovely spiritual lesson at the end.
Materials Needed for Fruit Science for Kids:
- Tray and/or Cutting Board
- Fruit of your choice
- Dissecting Tools
- Fruit 3-Part Cards
- Fruit Inside and Outside Cards (optional)
- Fruit Nomenclature Cards (free printable - optional deeper study)
Fruit Science Set-up and Instructions:
I prepared a dissecting tray for my child to use that included instruments from a dissecting kit (this was part of our botany Brainy Kit.) The dissecting kit contained scissors, forceps, scalpel, needles, and a measuring stick. I carefully laid them out for him along with two pieces of fruit - a pear and a strawberry.
My son, Little Bee, is four years old and has been instructed on how to use a knife. This is very important as you would not want to give your child a scalpel without knife safety awareness and proper training on how to use a knife.
I instructed Little Bee to use the tools to help him find and extract the seeds from the pear and the strawberry. He carefully cut a circle around the center of the pear with the scalpel, to remove the core that contains the seeds. Then he used the forceps to find and remove the seeds from the pear. Next he used the forceps to remove the tiny seeds of the strawberry. As Little Bee dissected, we discussed the names of the parts of the fruit. This would be a wonderful time to also incorporate the fruit nomenclature cards (in the materials list above.)
For a deeper study, please visit ~
Matching Work - Seeds to Fruit
Little Bee dissected a pear, apple, strawberry, and orange and removed the seeds. Then I set up a matching work for him using fruit 3-part cards and the seeds that were dissected. Little Bee matched the seeds to the correct fruit. The pear and the apple seeds were similar, so Little Bee had to look carefully for the differences between these two types of seeds. Upon examination there is a difference in color, shape, and size.
Benefits of this Fruit Science for Kids Lesson
This fruit science for kids lesson is a foundational study on the life-cycle of a fruit. There is life in each tiny seed and if these seeds are planted, they will grow and finally produce fruit. This lesson also helps a young child continue to develop their fine motor control while using the dissecting instruments.
Scripture Memory Verse:
"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."
How are seeds like us? We sow seeds by what we speak and by our actions (fruits of the Spirit). We can yield good fruit if we plant the seed (Word of God) in our hearts. Our fruit can be healing to others if it is from God. We do need good soil, sunshine, and a water source (Holy Spirit) to yield good fruit. When our tree grows strong and mighty, we become a place of refuge for others. God is a God of multiplication - seeds grow and yield more seeds. In heaven, we will have the tree of life that will sustain us forever. There will not be a need to fear or go hungry ever again. Amen!
This is part of the 12 Months of Montessori series 2018!
Scroll down and visit the other amazing bloggers in this series.
May 29th - Summer Themes
Free Beginning Sound Clip Cards - Summer Alphabet Printables | Natural Beach Living
Fun Summer Activities for Kids with 3 Part Cards ~ Free Montessori Printables | The Natural Homeschool
FREE Golfer Do-a-Dot Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download) | Living Montessori Now
Fruit Science for Kids | Mama’s Happy Hive
Our Children’s Garden | The Kavanaugh Report
Go Find It: A Montessori Friendly Summer Game | The Pinay Homeschooler
Hands-On Ocean Food Web Activity With Free Printable | Uno Zwei Tutu
Building Popsicle Stick Structures | Sugar, Spice & Glitter


Updated: Apr 12, 2019
With all of the cognitive/neuroscience research coming out over the past few decades, it is now commonly accepted that thought and language (not JUST language) are dynamically developing in a social environment from birth.
A foundational text is
“The Scientist in the Crib”... a wonderful read by
Dr. Gopnik, of UC Berkeley, my alma mater.
That is why I love this video clip from the Seattle area. Listen to a pre-K teacher discuss the use of Thinking Maps for literacy development beginning with phonemic awareness. Her students were having trouble distinguishing between the letters "n" and "m" ... and a Double Bubble Map is the immediately successful tool.
Research on reading comprehension is presented along with specific classroom examples developed by teachers to show how the basics of reading are facilitated along with higher order analysis of texts from across disciplines. (from my previous ASCD book "A Field Guide to Using Visual Tools")


The percussive art of tap dance is a popular form of performance, ranging from the Broadway stage to the silver screen. The rhythmic sounds, or taps, made by specialized shoes stem from a dancer's strong balance, rhythm and agile footwork. In order to produce a clean and fast-paced sound, a tap dancer should focus on strengthening the ankles in their practice.
An ankle roll is an effective way to stretch the tendons in your legs before you dance. Place your hands on your hips and stand straight with the weight of your body on one foot. Pointing the toe of your other foot in front of your body and slightly off the floor, gently begin to roll your ankle in a clockwise motion. Count out 10 circles, then switch to a counter-clockwise direction. Repeat from the beginning with the opposite foot.
Start with your hands on your hips. Lift one foot in front of you and lightly tap the toe down, keeping your heel off the floor. Repeat this 10 times to the front of your body, the side and the back. Switch feet when you are done. To give your ankles an effective workout, speed up the rhythm of your taps as you go along.
A brush is exactly what it sounds like: The dancer uses her toe to "brush" the floor, never letting their heel touch the ground. Place your hands on your hips for balance. Taking your right foot, brush your the ball of your foot across the floor in front of you, and brush it back. You can brush to the front, brush to the side, brush from front to back and brush from side to back.
Begin with your hands on your hips. Raise your right leg off the ground and bend your knee. Your right foot should be behind you. Using a forward motion, brush your right toe on the floor. Immediately step on your right toe, keeping your heel up. Then, drop your heel on the floor. Shift your weight to execute a flap-heel on your left side. This can be done moving forward and backward.
Repeated shuffles are an important tap warmup that loosen your ankles and feet. The point of a shuffle is to make your movements small and efficient to produce a syncopated sound. Lift your right foot off the floor and hold it behind you. Brushing your foot forward, touch the floor with the toe of your right foot. Then, brush your foot back, touching the floor with your right toe again. Another variation is a side shuffle, which includes making an outward-inward motion. Quicken your movements until they are clear and concise.
- United Taps: Tap Dance Dictionary
- The Tap Dance Dictionary; Mark Knowles
Ashley K. Alaimo is a writer, blogger and certified teacher in New York. She has a master's degree in elementary education and early childhood education from Medaille College, as well as a bachelor's degree in music and theater from Buffalo State College. Alaimo has also worked as an education specialist with ages birth to 12 years old, creating classroom and enrichment curriculum for various early childhood centers.
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