Discussions about transitioning from a fossil fuel to renewable energy economy often spend time talking about “green jobs.” Options such as installing solar power arrays and maintaining wind turbines are often thrown around. But, presumably, a green economy would need more than just the energy sector to employ people in “green jobs.” Could the art industry also be considered “green”?
The authors of The Leap Manifesto, an online coalition of Canadian social movement leaders, think so. In 2015, they wrote: “Shifting to an economy in balance with the earth’s limits also means expanding the sectors of our economy that are already low carbon: caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media.”
The question of whether art is really a low-carbon sector is a slippery one. Last spring, an analysis of the carbon footprint of Spotify assessed that the streaming alone (not the electricity data centers use, and not the electricity required to charge your cell phone and laptop to play the music) resulted in the release of hundreds of millions of kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions.
What the article doesn’t mention is that the millions of kilograms are about 200,000 metric tons, and that the U.S. greenhouse gas footprint was 5.4 billion metric tons in 2018. “Devastating,” as the article puts it, is an overstatement, but if you include all of the YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc., videos streamed, as well as the electricity demand of the data centers and streaming devices, it’s definitely not negligible. Luckily, this energy demand is already electrified (unlike, say, natural gas heating) so it can be converted to renewable electricity easily.
If you’ve ever seen two 18-wheelers and a tour bus in front of the State Theater, you might have noticed that there’s a sizeable transportation cost which goes into touring. If you’re a Coldplay fan, you might resent that just a little bit, as they decided not to tour on their most recent album because they felt they couldn’t justify the environmental cost. There aren’t great numbers available on the total carbon footprint of touring musicians, but it’s unlikely that it is comparable in any way to the footprint of other types of trucking.
One of the weird things about art is that while much of it is material, it’s debatably not materialist. While the accumulation of stuff is typically considered anti-environmental — for example, big wardrobes of fast fashion, or a full 17-car garage — there’s something about the accumulation of art that tends to be considered differently. We have special words for it like collecting or curating, and it feels offensive to call it “stuff,” but isn’t it?
I don’t have a great answer to this, but one of the things that sticks out to me is that art can be about the process of creation. The skill, time and originality of a work is what makes it special. Does craftsmanship eliminate the commodification of art, or is a pair of shoes designed by a CFC student just as artful as your dad’s tennis shoes?
I think we might do better by imagining art as not so material. For example, instead of imagining the expansion of the arts as a way to get more paintings in the homes of elites, it could be focused on painting murals on every brick wall, with millimeters-thick layer of paint, not possessed or accumulated by any one person. Performing arts, also, defy ownership and accumulation. Art education programs — both for young people and adults — are another non-accumulative way to encourage artistic flourishing.
Non-material, communitarian ways of expanding art are a huge societal positive. Art, as anyone who likes it will tell you, is an enormous social good. It’s responsible for the development of people’s values about different subjects, and strengthens democracy by providing media for expressing and discussing opinions.
What about the actual creation of these “green jobs”? Art, other than the kind that’s a status symbol, has a hard time growing in an economy dedicated to profit as the primary mode of assessment. At a time of transition in the economy, as we re-work the way industry and energy address climate change, including environmentally and socially beneficial art as a priority of the economy should be a critical consideration.
Katie Sims is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected] Resident Bad Media Critic runs alternate Tuesdays this semester.


CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — First graders at H.T. Faulk Elementary School have worked on a 20-page book titled, "How Do Aliens Persevere?"
On Tuesday, their teacher will ship out the students work to a publisher in Topeka, Kan.
One of the young writers, Aliyah Castillo, said she’s going to write a 5-page story and she’s already on her fourth.
Amanda Hawes' first grade class has worked on their own personal story for the past month. The main character is an alien.
“My story is about riding a hover board,” Theseus Meza said.
Meza said he's practicing using his hoverboard at home, but it’s hard. This is how he's had to persevere.
Hawes said when she first starts teaching, she goes through the steps of writing, including brainstorming and finding something the kids can relate to.
“We talked about how some kids are good at some things but not so good at others. I was really proud of the ones who chose reading as their skill to do because it is really hard for them, and so I felt like they see themselves and how they’re working hard to become writers,” said Hawes.
This group, Hawes said, struggled in the beginning because they were all in pre-kindergarten when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across the country.
“They missed some very important foundational skills as far as socialization goes. Even foundational reading and writing skills,” she said.
Now, all 20 students sit at their desk to write, count and stretch their words.
All this is in an effort to spark joy in these first grade students. Hawes said she hopes students continue to write and read.
If you would like to help with the project to make students book characters come to life turning them into 3D stuffed animals, click here.


Social Emotional Learning and HerStory: What It Is and Why Its Important to Us
At its core, Social Emotional Learning is “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” (Source: CASEL) There are five core competency areas that SEL focuses on: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills and social awareness.
In recent years, there has been a shift in how educators and child development experts think about the skills students need to be successful in school and in life. While the emphasis was once put on cognitive skills, research now suggests that a child’s success or failure is also determined by Social Emotional Learning (SEL) skills. In fact, we now know that students with strong SEL skills tend to perform better academically, and therefore classrooms are becoming more focused on educating the whole child.
Even still, many programs are hesitant to lean in too heavily on SEL skills, as they are often viewed as “soft” or “nonessential.” Further, school systems around the world do not always have the means to implement SEL skills in the classrooms.
HerStory Director Jennifer Estrada has long been a proponent of Social Emotional Learning, and emphasized these skills as she worked to develop the HerStory Curriculum, as a way to supplement the cognitive skills girls around the globe receive in the classroom. Her long-term goal is to shift the thinking around SEL skills to understanding them as vital to a person’s well-being.
“These foundational skills are linked to overall life satisfaction and general wellbeing, so they can have a big impact on a person’s life,” Jennifer says, “for girls especially, understanding and prioritizing your own needs in healthy ways can be hard and society doesn’t always readily make space for that so it’s good to build and practice these skills early on so that they can be a part of a person’s whole life.”
Social Emotional Learning and the HerStory Curriculum
Global G.L.O.W. does a lot of work early in the HerStory programs around self-awareness: thinking about and understanding who you are, what you need, what motivates you and what has shaped you. We also do a lot of work around goal-setting and intention-setting, both of which connect to and are rooted in good decision-making skills. Our curriculum also discusses healthy relationships and social awareness, with a focus on friendship and kindness as guiding values in these areas.
In HerStory Teen Clubs, girls often participate in an activity called “Circles of Trust.” Girls are invited to think about who they share different parts of their life with and who they can go to when they need to talk about something. This activity gives girls an opportunity to practice self-awareness in thinking about their needs and patterns of behavior, guiding them in responsible decision-making, and building relationship skills and social awareness as we think about how we can share with people in our circles in a way that is good for both people.
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What is an "Atelier"?
Pronounced “ah-TEL-ee-yay”, the word atelier is a French term meaning "workshop" or "artist’s studio".
The word "atelier" has come to be synonymous with the current resurgence of 19th century academic art training. An atelier course of study starts with copying master drawings and progresses to drawing plaster casts of classical sculpture. These studies are done in preparation for figure drawing and figure painting from life. Landscape, still life and portrait painting are often also included in the curriculum.
For 500 years, from the Renaissance through the 19th century, aspiring artists apprenticed in the atelier of an established artist before they could apply to a guild to become a professional artist.
Today's ateliers are small, independent art schools, usually started in the personal studio of a single artist, with a focus on historic art education models, and based on the observation of nature.
Atelier students do not work from photographs, which is one of the main ways atelier training is distinct from other kinds of representational art training.
Bouguereau's Atelier at Académie Julian, Paris, 1891
by Jefferson David Chalfant
de Young Museum of San Francisco


The article appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on 23.8.20.
The harmonious interplay between the woodwind and brass sections of a school orchestra has long brought delight to the ears of proud parents listening intently from the audience.
But junior ensembles will soon strike a different note, as they adapt to new Covid-19 rules by integrating a greater variety of string instruments into musical sessions because they are deemed more hygienic.
Schools should consider the “additional risk of infection” potentially posed by wind and brass instruments when played, Department for Education (DfE) guidance suggests.
So, in order to resume in-person “music-making” in line with the rules, some directors have resorted to buying ukuleles for their junior musicians to play in limited, socially distanced groups.
Consisting of four strings with a small guitar-like body, it is considered safer than more commonly used orchestral devices such as trumpets and flutes, or class instruments like recorders.
Music stores have reported a surge in demand for ukuleles since the lockdown began, with many children picking it up as a hobby while stuck indoors and away from school friends.
Now, conductors are wanting to introduce the instrument more widely as part of their music sessions, as they cast doubt on the near future of the school symphony in its traditional form.
“I have already started tuning the 37 ukuleles I ordered, now that we can’t have any wind instruments in school ensembles,” Dr Joanna Allsop, director of music at Cargilfield School, in Edinburgh, told The Telegraph.
“They are something we can play and can be cleaned when used in ensembles across the different years. I think the children who haven’t played it before will be excited.
“They have missed out on group playing for the whole of the last term, so we already have ground to make up,” she continued.
Dr Allsop conducts a full orchestra, composed of 35 students, and a separate 24 member junior string ensemble and wind band, at Scotland's oldest preparatory school, founded in 1873.
Where possible, she envisages outdoor classes in set year groups from next term, after spending the last few months organising virtual music sessions with the children from home.
Elsewhere, other music directors have expressed doubts about the evidence informing the Government's guidelines, citing a study by the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra carried out in May.
It concluded that there was no enhanced risk for musicians playing together in an orchestra as long as they were distanced at least a metre apart from one another.
Russell Crann, the English Schools' Orchestra course director, who is joining an academy in Cheltenham as head of music next month, said: “We are hoping that having seen studies like these, the government advice will allow students- initially within the same year group bubbles- to be able to play wind instruments together from September.”
“We hope that by the end of October we will be able to hold our course and concert to a limited audience. It will allow the students an opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of music making together.”
Positioning pupils “back-to-back”, avoiding the sharing of instruments and limiting group sizes to 15 or under are among the safety suggestions included in the DfE guidelines for the full reopening of schools.
The department will publish further safety advice about school music provision, including orchestras, “shortly”, a source said.
Bridget Whyte, CEO of The UK Association for Music Education, Music Mark, added: “The DfE says they will provide additional guidance on music making, which everyone is waiting for. It will hopefully help with working out how music will happen in schools again.
“We have questioned the fifteen figure because that number in a small classroom is perhaps too many but in a large school hall this number might be too over cautious.”
Welcome to Cargilfield! We hope this short film gives you a glimpse of what life is like for the girls and boys at our school. We would love to welcome you in person to tour Cargilfield and explain more fully exactly what makes a Cargilfield education so special and so different. Please get in touch with Fiona Craig, our Registrar if you would like to find out more; her email address is [email protected] or you can telephone her on 0131 336 2207.


Sammy the Golden Dog Emotions BINGO Dice Game
Children learn the best by "doing" and that includes learning emotion words. I created this dice game to do just that. You can print out the dice on their own or pair it with the BINGO cards.
How it works:
1.Print out the dice on paper or thick card stock (for more durability). Use the pictures dice for preschoolers and the word dice for beginning readers.
2.Cut out the dice patterns and glue the flaps to secure each side.
3. Have your child roll the dice then look in a mirror (or at another child/adult) and make the face that is on the top of the dice.
4. Find the same feeling face on the BINGO cards to cover with the Sammy squares.
5. Play the BINGO game - whoever covers 5 squares first wins!
"Johnny screams at me when he doesn't want to put his shoes on."
"Sophia pushed over the block tower when I said it was time to clean up."
"Andrew sat on the floor in the middle of Target whaling because he wanted the Oreo box."
Any of these sound familiar?
You are not alone! Actually - it is developmentally appropriate for young children to loose control of their feelings.
There are over 90 emotions and children don't have the words to talk about them yet. Imagine, as a three year old having 400 words and 90 feelings. You don't know enough words yet to even describe how you are feeling, let alone name those feelings.
But as parents and teacher of preschoolers, we know that emotional skills are one of the most important life skills children are learning.
As a matter of fact, most Kindergarten teachers say that managing feelings is one of the only skills kids need to start Kindergarten. If a child can calm down, communicate with peers, take turns and problem solve, a teacher can teach them anything!
Sharing space, listening, following directions..... these foundational skills make the most difference in a classroom.
So how do we teach children these skills so they can feel confident and secure as they work through their feelings in a positive way?
Through PLAY of course :)


Every child can reap the benefits of music when communities and schools support a complete music learning framework.
- Every student participates in and has access to music classes.
- Music classes are led by teachers specialized and licensed in music education.
- Community musicians and ensembles enhance student learning through in-school performances and coaching, school trips to educational concerts, and teaching artists.
- Music instruction each year is based on the prior year’s learning.
- A variety of music classes meet students’ educational needs and interests.
- Music is taught from kindergarten to graduation, throughout the year.
- Music is offered during the school day, when all students can participate.
- Music opportunities outside of the school day through community organizations, schools and arts organizations enrich a child’s life and music learning.
- Music classrooms are designed to meet the acoustical, space, storage, and movement needs specific to music learning.
- Instruments, music technology, and supplies are available and maintained so every student can actively participate in music-making.
- The “textbook” for the music class – the music library – is regularly updated.
- Music provides a way for students to express themselves and explore creativity.
- Music learning supports brain development, student engagement in schools, academic achievement, and the skills sought after in workplaces of teamwork, communication, and problem-solving.


Written by Assistant Professor Aw Guat Poh, Dr Connie Lum, Peng Xuan-hui, Chen Yuan and Tong Qi-ying, this paper describes and examines parents’ attitude, perceptions and behaviours towards bilingual education in Singapore. Through the findings, this paper offers insights on the impacts of the “English knowing bilingualism” policies on parents’ linguistic choices and behaviours. It also highlights common misconceptions on bilingual learning, where further research was suggested to explore and investigate these findings deeper.
Written by Dr Seetoh Peipei and Dr Connie Lum, this report discusses how Little Skool House’s curriculum influences children’s language trajectories in English and Mandarin. This report follows the fourth phase of this literacy development research, in which the children’s receptive and expressive (vocabulary) language development are evaluated at the start (January/February) and end (November/December) of their Primary One school term. Parents’ perception of Little Skool House’s curriculum and their children’s adjustment to primary school as well as their social skills development are also examined in the report.
作者：林美莲博士、Lynn Heng、寇烨、杨雅茹【摘要】本行动研究以“故事教学促进幼儿学习华语兴趣”作为课题开展，分析并探讨新加坡学前华文教育的现况。研究者通过多种形式的故事教学，提升幼儿学习华语的兴趣和效果，促进幼儿语言能力和身心健康的¬全面发展。本行动研究通过 “策划、行动、观察、反思” 这一行动研究法，探讨与改进教师在故事教学中采用的方法，以及各种故事教学法的有效性 Written by Dr Connie Lum et al., this article describes an action research which analysed the current situation of Chinese Language education in Singapore’s preschools. It reported how interest in the learning of the Chinese language can be enhanced through the use of story-based learning activities.


- Liz Crouse
- Shawn Lee
- Date Added:
Students will learn the potential costs and benefits of social media, digital consumption, and our relationship with technology as a society in the three-week lesson. This inquiry based unit of study will answer the following questions:
Essential Question: How can we use science fiction’s ability to predict the future to help humanity?
Supportive Questions 1: What predictions of future development has science fiction accurately made in the past? This can include technology, privacy, medicine, social justice, political, environmental, education, and economic.
Supportive Question 2: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are positive for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to make these predictions reality?
Supportive Question 3: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are negative for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to stop these negative outcomes?
This collection of lessons represent adapted and remixed instructional content for teaching media literacy and specifically civic online reasoning through distance learning. These lessons take students through the steps necessary to source online content, verify evidence presented, and corroborate claims with other sources.
The original lesson plans are the work of Stanford History Education Group, licensed under CC 4.0. Please refer to the full text lesson plans at Stanford History Education Group’s, Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum for specifics regarding background, research findings, and additional curriculum for teaching media literacy in the twenty-first century.
This social media literacy unit introduces students to foundational skills in analyzing images and social media posts. It also reenforces critical thinking questions that can be applied to various forms of media. This unit was taught to 9th grade students but is easily adaptible to a range of secondary classrooms. It was also taught in conjunction with another unit focused on social media platforms and content.
This unit engages students in a variety of activities that analyze and reflect on the role of social media in our everyday lives. This includes options for collaborative group work, reading nonfiction articles, a design challenge and presentations to communicate ideas. The unit also includes a formal writing assessment option that aligns with the Common Core State Writing Standards. Activities can be adapted or combined in a variety of ways to support student reflection and analysis. These lessons were piloted in 9th grade English classes but are suitable or a range of secondary students.
This lesson invites students to use multiple forms of media, including their own Instagram accounts, to explore their on-line identities. The lesson culminates in a personal, visual essay. In the essay, students will use their own images as evidence. Then, students will reason about that evidence to compare what they see on their Instagram posts to their “real world” self. Using information from resources explored in class, students will include a discussion of “authenticity” and properly weave in quotes from those resources.
This interactive lesson helps students understand how companies use algorithms to sort job applicants. It also encourages students to reflect on how digital data mining also can contribute to the hiring process. Students examine resumes and digital data to consider the ways in which our data may open or close opportunities in an increasingly digitized hiring market.
In this lesson, students will define their dominant roles online, explain the benefits of each type of online role and discuss the responsibilities and risks inherent in each type of online interaction. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website entitled "Who Am I Online?"


The pandemic has prevented us from going to school and classes to progress our education. Looking on the bright side, there are plenty of online courses on the internet that have advantages against traditional classes. If you want to learn to read music sheets and expand your instrument’s versatility, music theory courses are an amazing alternative. Here are some of the best online music theory courses available that can assist you in the learning process.
Getting started with music theory
Bruce Taggart is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at the College of Music at Michigan State University. He has taught undergraduates and graduates music theory since 1996.
This course provides a basic overview of the elements of music theory for people who have little or no prior knowledge of the subject. Pitch, rhythm, meter, etc, and fundamental harmony are all part of the subject. Once finished the course, you should be able to read and write in treble and bass clef using standard meters and rhythmic values by the end of the course, as well as notate and harmonize a simple tune.
Music theory comprehensive complete
Dr. Allen is a professional musician, university lecturer, and top-rated Udemy instructor. The Grammy Foundation has acknowledged him for his music education programs. This is a class for the average person who wants to turn their interest in music theory (or music in general) into a useful skill. Whether you’re a professional musician or just starting out, this class will offer what you need.
Fundamentals of music theory
This course will teach students the fundamentals of music theory, including how to read and write Western music notation, as well as how to evaluate, analyze, and listen to music critically. The fundamentals of Western music theory will be covered from the very beginning and extend to some sophisticated concepts in the later lessons. The class will be useful to both beginners and seasoned musicians.
Music theory – Fundamentals for composition in any genre
The first half of the course was created to assist you to discover and develop your natural musical abilities. The goal is to achieve flexibility and fluidity in the writing of music, allowing you to express your true voice without resorting to fabrication.
The approach consists of a series of lessons and exercises that focus solely on the most important aspects of musical development. There will be no sight-reading, tests, fast cures, or diplomas to display on your wall. Deep listening, compositional challenges, personal reflection, and many hours of successful practice will all be part of the program.
Yale University’s Music Theory
There is a misconception that online music classes or courses are very costly. However, these music theory lessons are basically free on YouTube, with a playlist of 23 lectures.
Not only that, the course has a very interesting teaching method. Rather than beginning with an introduction to Western music theory, it begins by teaching you how to listen to music. According to the instructor, Craig White, understanding the greatness that lies behind great music begins with appropriate listening to harmony, melody, and rhythm. While this course does not provide any certification, it will absolutely assist you in learning music theory in a fun way.


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Supporting Preschool Science Learning Through Music
Wednesday, November 7, 2018 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EST
Presented by Ellen Acuna, In-School Services Representative and Teaching Specialist
Sponsored by Music Together
As all educators know, young children are natural scientists! Driven by their innate curiosity, they explore, experiment, and ask questions as they learn about the world around them. In this way, scientific inquiry and understanding begin in early childhood. Providing children with active and participatory music experiences can be an enjoyable way to support the development of scientific thinking and understanding in fun and developmentally appropriate ways.
In this edWebinar, Ellen Acuna, In-School Services Representative and Teaching Specialist, explores the National Science Teachers Association’s key principles to guide the learning of science among young children and discuss how music experiences can support these principles. She demonstrates how songs, rhythmic chants, instrument play, and other music activities can support many of the science benchmarks listed in state early learning standards that have a science domain.
Learn new musical tools to use to support young students’ engagement in scientific exploration and understanding, laying the foundation for future science learning in K-12. This recorded session will be of particular benefit to educators working with toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners.
About the Presenter
Ellen Acuna has nineteen years of experience as an early childhood music and movement specialist working with children birth through age five and their parents and caregivers. She has enjoyed bringing music education to a variety of different settings, including a School for the Deaf where she worked with deaf and hard of hearing children, a center for teenage moms with their babies, working with the elderly and young children in intergenerational classes, and a variety of other outreach programs. Ellen has a B.A. from West Chester State College (now West Chester University), where she studied speech communications. In addition to being a Music Together In-School teaching mentor for other music and movement specialists, she presents professional development workshops for music specialists and classroom teachers, and has presented at national conferences.
Join the Music in Early Learning community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view past edWebinars to earn CE certificates.
edWeb members can download a personalized CE certificate from their edWeb member page. Not a member? Join here!
At Music Together, we understand the importance of music in early childhood—from birth, in fact. Because the truth is, most people are born with enough music aptitude to play in a symphony orchestra when they are adults, if they choose. But first we must learn how to “speak music”—to take the musical instrument we all have, ourselves, developing that musical capacity from a very young age. The sounds we make, our movements, our rhythms—these are the building blocks of music and of early childhood learning. And that’s what Music Together is all about.


Language and Literacy
Attached you will find the chart that needs to be completed for the M1 section only (in pink), 2 ppts. and listed below is a link to a you tube video.
Notes/Instructions from the teacher:
A great deal of reading instruction is understanding the definitions of the abundance of terms used under this category, the scope and sequence of instruction, explicit and implicit instruction and opportunity for students to engage with their newly developed skills, levels of complexity what allows you to plan for growth and remediation. The resources this week provide an in-depth and concentrated exposure to all of these concepts and are full of rich information, including definitions and classroom teaching practices.
Your work for this week is to begin a personalized “file” of information that categorizes and provides an explicit and implicit approach that you may use in your as you gain a better understanding of the process of teaching, assessing, and remediating phonics instruction for your students. This document will be invaluable to you as you prepare for the licensure exams in reading.
Attached is a chart that includes the terms you will encounter in this week’s readings. Begin to fill out the chart from the multiple resources provided. You will only fill out the chart for Module 1 at this time.
Please note: The information you are including must be in your own words, as there is no value in just copy/pasting information.
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Which stringed instrument is right for my child?
What a musical master wants to become is practiced early on. And so today, learning to play a musical instrument in early childhood is one of the most valuable educational and developmental-psychological measures for the comprehensive promotion of the next generation. However, to ensure that everything happens exclusively for the well-being of the children, despite all parental ambition, the instrument to be learned must be chosen with the utmost care and consideration. And in this context, stringed instruments are enjoying ever-growing interest.
violin for children
Good music teachers know from their professional experience that it is easiest for children between the ages of five and six to playfully discover the violin as an expressive and versatile stringed instrument. If the school child under the caring care of the music teacher shows the appropriate talent and a clearly visible motivation, then the joy of playing will soon bear the child’s reward. And the knowledge of one’s own constantly growing skills also strengthens the child’s self-confidence in the long term.
Viola for children
Logic cannot explain why the viola is more of a wallflower than a megastar in early music lessons. Therefore, parents should free themselves from all prejudices and offer their offspring the viola as a musical companion. Because either two people who want to grow and mature musically together in the next few years will come together here, or the mutual dislike will be immediately obvious. In any case, you should give your child the chance to get to know this full and velvety deep sounding stringed instrument impartially.
Social skills: children learn primarily from parents
cello for children
How is a little person supposed to play a big cello? Of course not at all. Because there are of course special learning cellos that are perfectly tailored to young virtuosos in terms of body length and string ratios. So it could well be that the little ones, with the right talent, are better able to cell than spell. As a result, the cello, as the violin’s big sister, can provide child-friendly joy of playing and meaningful early musical development.
Double bass for children
What is fine with the cello is cheap with the double bass. Because here, too, it goes without saying that child-friendly double bass lessons can of course only be fun and meaningful with a double bass that is proportioned to suit children. Currently, the cute 1/16 double bass and the 1/8 and 1/10 children’s bows specially made for small hands are available for music education.
Whether a child would want to become enduring with one of these stringed instruments can only be determined through “trial and error”. In any case, the parents should offer their child attractive musical opportunities until there is a “spark” between the offspring and the instrument. Because only when learning to play is fun can you look forward to great results.
Children have to practice the string instruments, but what if the neighbors then complain about noise pollution from music ? When does house music become noise pollution ?


Three Tips for Remote ELA Instruction
As we have noted, Covid-19 has exposed and exacerbated inequities in schooling; this moment calls on us to lean into the fundamentals of equitable instruction. In thinking specifically about teaching English/Language Arts, we’ve developed three tenets to guide you as you navigate remote instruction. They don’t require online access, but they do require books. A number of organizations focus on getting books into the hands of children who need them. If your students need books, look into Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, First Book, Kids Need to Read, and The Book Foundation.
Here are the tenets:
Reading begets reading
Make sure students are reading. For all ages, reading improves reading. Once children learn the code, a reciprocal cycle of improvement follows. The more you read, the better you decode. The better you decode, the more you can read. With continued reading, decoding becomes word recognition. Novel words become learned vocabulary. Reading content becomes background knowledge. Background knowledge fuels interest, interest fuels motivation, and the cycle of improvement continues.
Read-alouds should also be encouraged. Remember, read-alouds are a supplement to, not a substitute for, students doing their own reading. Read-alouds are a great way to build language, knowledge, and vocabulary. They do less to teach the decoding and word recognition that keeps the reciprocal cycle of reading improvement moving.
Foundational skills are the foundation
To read, students need to know the sounds in speech and how they link to letters. This includes the ability to manipulate sounds. That is, the ability to blend and segment sounds to make up or break apart words. Students also need the ability to blend letters to form words and the ability to segment written words into their component parts. An aligned (and systematic) program in grades K to 2 is the best way to teach these foundational skills.
Otherwise, aim to reinforce K-2 students’ existing knowledge of letters, sounds, and words. If you do have time with students, check out the Student Achievement Partners Foundational Skills Guidance document. If you lack time and/or touchpoints with students, encourage letter, sound, and word games. Caregivers can play games that have children rhyming, making up silly words, clapping syllables, and finding known letters and words in their environment. These games reinforce foundational skills.
For older students who are not fluent with decoding or word recognition, word games are also a worthy activity. Word ladders, crossword puzzles, and word searches along with games like Scrabble, Boggle, Wheel of Fortune, and Bananagrams strengthen the word-level skills that underlie reading.
Fluency is the bridge between word recognition and comprehension
Fluency is a critical link between word recognition and comprehension. When students do not decode with automaticity, they cannot build a store of recognized words. Now is the perfect time to focus on students’ reading fluency. Fluency refers to how smoothly an individual reads. Fluency has three characteristics:
- Accurate decoding and word recognition
- Reading at a conversational pace
- Reading with appropriate prosody, or expression
Fluent reading doesn’t guarantee comprehension, but disfluent reading hinders comprehension. Disfluent readers spend a disproportionate amount of time sounding out words. Disfluent readers also wrestle with sentence complexity. As a result, disfluent readers often lack the focus to comprehend what they’re reading. The good news is that fluency improves quickly with some attention and practice. Fluency-building activities (e.g., choral reading, partner reading, reader’s theater) provide caregivers an easy way to support children with reading.
To learn about fluency building activities, check out the UnboundEd Building Fluency guide and Student Achievement Partners’ Weekly Reading Practice Routine. The routine is appropriate for virtual asynchronous learning or limited access/technology situations. Both documents provide the knowledge you need to strengthen fluency development remotely.
If you have an aligned curriculum and have found suitable ways to deliver it remotely, power on! If not, use these tenets as a guide. Even without an explicit standards-based focus, progress in reading skills makes addressing the coming year’s unfinished teaching and learning that much easier.


Parent education was previously embedded within the nurture assumption (Lykken 2000, 640) which maintains that parenting is not a self-sufficient and self-sustaining act but is inherently directed towards the well-being and functional behavioral development of a child. Historically, parent education is influenced by the education model that emphasizes the process of training and developing knowledge, skills, mind and character. With personal parenting knowledge recognized as what parents know and upon which they think and act in parenting, parent educators must expand their locus of parent education to include the personal parenting knowledge and experience of learners. The research team set up a group parent education program, named ‘Self-learning in Parenthood’ which enables participants to examine and reflect collaboratively on their parenting experience within a group-based conversation. This paper studies the experiences and learning of the participants and re-examines the role of parent educator. Copyright © 2014 The International Journal of Early Childhood Learning.
|Journal||The International Journal of Early Childhood Learning|
|Publication status||Published - 2014|
CitationYuen, L. H. F., Kwong, W. M., & Lam, C. M. (2014). Collaborative learning in group parent education: A case study of process and outcome. The International Journal of Early Childhood Learning, 20(1), 53-62.
- Parent education
- Teacher education
- Teacher professional development


Locusts might seem like harmless little grasshoppers, and in many ways, they are like grasshoppers. They eat plants and they hop long distances on springy back legs. Just one locust can’t cause trouble. The problem is, locusts sometimes gather in big groups, or swarms. A swarm of locusts can stretch over 400 square miles in size and include billions of the hungry insects.
People have feared locust swarms for thousands of years. An approaching swarm looks like a big black cloud. As the swarm descends, the insects eat everything in sight – garden crops, flowers, grass and even clothes hanging on a clothes line. In poor desert countries, families can starve after locusts eat all their food.
Not So Fun Facts about Locusts for Kids
- One locust can eat its weight in plants every day. A swarm of locusts can eat up to 400 million pounds of plants each day!
- Locusts can travel long distances, so they can cause major damage. They’ve been known to fly from Africa to England!
- Locusts have even been known to swarm inside houses and eat the furniture!
- These pests have powerful jaws. The sound of a swarm of them eating can be heard from faraway.
- Some clever African tribes have learned to outsmart the locusts. When a swarm approaches, the tribe builds a big fire. The smoke confuses the locusts and they drop to the ground. The people catch them, roast them and eat them!
- Harmless: safe, causes no harm
- Springy: bouncy
- Swarm: large group
- Descend: come down
- Starve: become ill or die because of hunger
Learn More All About Locusts
Check out this video of how locusts perceive the signal to swarm:
A video explaining how locusts know they are to swarm.
Question: Do locusts live in the U.S?
Answer: Locusts live in almost every country, but they rarely cause serious damage here. In the 1800s, though, Mormon pioneers in Utah almost starved because of a locust swarm. Seagulls came and ate the locusts – saving the pioneers.
Enjoyed the Easy Science for Kids Website all about Locusts info? Take the FREE & fun all about Locusts quiz and download FREE Locusts worksheet for kids. For lengthy info click here.


Smooth Transition From Home To Classroom
Are your children ready to make that transition? How do you know?
For children entering a classroom–a structured environment, often for the first time–the experience can be pretty traumatic. In order to make sure a child is ready for the transition, a number of factors should be considered:
- Does the child know his/her birth certificate name?
- Does the child know mother/father’s names (other than mama or dad)?
- Does the child know how to sit still for at least 30 minutes?
- Does the child demonstrate ability to focus on starting and completing a task (tying shoes, coloring a page in a coloring book, etc.)?
- Does the child know where their address and parent’s telephone number?
- Does the child know his/her birth date?
- Does the child recognize letters of the alphabet?
- Does the child recognize numbers 0-9?
- Does the child use the bathroom by themselves?
- Does the child know how to hold a pencil/crayon?
- Does the child know how to hold a book?
- Does the child know how to follow instructions?
- Does the child know how to socialize appropriately with other children?
The above are the basics that every child should know before they ever cross the threshold of a classroom. Knowing these fundamental basics will insure a child’s success and learning will not be as traumatic as it for those who don’t know. A traumatized child means parents get lots of phone calls from teachers and principals.
A good pediatrician will always tell parents if there are physical or cognitive concerns about a child by the time they’re 3 years old. They monitor physical, fine motor skill development and the child’s ability to follow simple directions. Making sure a child is vaccinated ensures they’ll not infect others or get infected with communicable diseases. Make sure a record is kept of all their developmental milestones in a safe place.
To get a child ready for this monumental occasion, read to them, sing to them, play games with them that ignite a desire to learn and when they get to school, they’ll be ready to learn what the teacher has been prepared to teach. A child who sees a parent read a book is more apt to want to read for themselves. Having a variety of books available for children is a necessity to encourage strong literacy skills.
Breathe deeply–inhale–hold it, now let it out. Helping a child make this transition can be as easy as breathing when you know they’re ready for school. Help them and yourself–make sure they are SCHOOL READY!


We provide local youth art education that is inspired by sustainability and issues surrounding our local environment through our gardening initiatives. We examine the areas of environmental science, agricultural education, and the arts through our programming in which students investigate STEAM curriculum and produce environmentally sustainable art work. We offer field trips, site visits, and engaging learning opportunities in beautification projects with students.
We also offer schools our experience and expertise to build or grow their own gardens on campus. Customizable programs are available to meet the unique needs of schools and districts.
Introducing: Sustainable Environmental Art Delivery (S.E.A.D.)
Our Early Childhood Education Program provides digestible STEAM information for 2-5 year olds and their caregivers, ready made project-based tactile learning activities, and nature inspired art activities that focus on early literacy.
Budding Artist Program Objectives:
● Provide STEAM based learning opportunities that engage students in meaningful hands-on educational activities that examine the relationship between agriculture and the environment;
● Combine arts, agriculture, and literature for students to apply scientific inquiry skills and creatively solve real-world problems; and
● Collaborating with artists, students explore themes in nature, science, and the arts to apply knowledge to the community in a way that is reflective of cultural surroundings.
Offering programming at New Orleans Public Library this Spring!
Interested in signing up for our Budding Artists Program? Click the link below to join us the month of March at the Norman Mayer Public Library. Classes will be held on Thursdays at 10:30.
We provide art and literacy workshops that focus on our natural surroundings. Learners and their caregivers are invited to explore themes in nature while reading a creating artwork in this humanities based program.
Environmental literacy is integral to fostering an understanding of ecological, economic, and cultural connections between humans, emphasizing that humans are part of a global community and that actions and decisions made locally by individuals or communities have effects that go well beyond local environments.
Our collaborative arts integration programming delivers meaningful experiential learning to children and their caregivers. The program is designed for participants to experience an increase in responsiveness and appreciation for art and the environment, to develop higher order thinking skills, make observations, and gain improvement in receptive vocabulary skills. Over the course of a program, students examine a topic through observing, reading, and creating sustainable art projects that go home with learners to continue the scientific inquiry beyond the classroom.


- by Gersi Mirashi
- January 13, 2023
Digitalization in educational systems.Teaching art in the age of computer technology
by, Dr. Blegina Hasko BEZO
The rapid pace of societal change and the proliferation of new technologies are changing practically every area of our personal and professional lives, including how we work, think, play, communicate, send, and disseminate information. Use of technology in education has an impact on teacher-student interaction. Innovation is a global paradigm shift in each aspect of our society, including the community of education, transforming itself and its functioning. With the development of modern technology, the process of teaching art is changing. Over the last decade, computers have begun to play another role in the great benefits of art education. Images in an electronic format can no longer be separated from the basic composition of art education. Electronic media has changed the way art is taught, students learning about art, and ultimately the way art teachers understand art lessons. The relationship that has been established between art and computer technology is critical in defining the future of the educational system. Throughout history, the worlds of art and art education have employed technology in their processes. Art teachers are now responsible for teaching not only traditional subjects but also image processing technologies. Crucial to future teaching is how teachers will integrate and combine traditional teaching tools, processes, and ways of thinking about Art with the new tools, new processes and thinking skills needed to blend and utilize the complex variety of information concepts in today’s world. This paper elaborates how computer and related technologies can be applied in teaching art, the extent of impact that computerassisted art has on art students and the utilization of technology to ameliorate the teaching of strategies of thinking and learning and the development of artcentered cognitive skills.


HERBARIA:A GUIDE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
WHAT GOOD IS A DEAD PLANT?
Herbaria: A Guide for Young People leads you on a discovery of who loves dead plants. Learn about famous historical plant collectors and the paths they established investigating plants. Join today’s field botanists as they go far and wide to discover new species. See in the herbarium how specimens are mounted and organized for everyone to use and enjoy. Locate herbarium museums around the globe. Visualize yourself as a botanist gathering, preserving, and unlocking the mysteries of plants.
AVALABLE FOR PREORDER NOW
Click a button below to order.
“I can’t recall another source that excited and simplifies the fascinating study of plant science for kids. This book makes it easy for young people to imagine being a future botanist.”
—Barney Lipscomb, Leonhardt Chair of Texas Botany, Director of BRIT Press and Library, Botanic Research Institute of Texas


Success is increasingly about building skills beyond formal education
Countries showing higher levels of participation in organised adult learning activities also demonstrate higher literacy and numeracy skills. The large variation among countries at similar levels of economic development suggests major differences in learning cultures, learning opportunities at work, and adult-education structures.
Lessons from strong performing countries
High quality initial education and lifelong learning
- Investing in high quality early childhood education and initial schooling, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds
- Financial support targeted at disadvantage
- Opportunities and incentives to continued development of proficiency, both outside work and at the workplace.
Make learning everybody’s business
- Governments, employers, workers and parents need effective and equitable arrangements as to who does and pays for what, when and how
- Recognise that individuals with poor skills are unlikely to engage in education on their own and tend to receive less employer-sponsored training.
Effective links between learning and work
- Emphasis on workbased learning allows people to develop hard skills on modern equipment and soft skills through real-world experience
- Employer engagement in education and training with assistance to SMEs
- Strengthen relevance of learning, both for workplace and workers broader employability
Allow workers to adapt learning to their lives
- Flexibility in content and delivery (part-time, flexible hours, convenient location)
- Distance learning and open education resources.
Identify those who can benefit from learning most
- Disadvantaged adults need to be offered and encouraged to improve their learning
- Foreign-language migrants
- Older adults
- Show how adults can benefit from improved skills, both economically and socially.
- Easy-to-find information about adult education activities
- Combination of easily searchable, up-to-date online information and personal guidance and counselling services
- Less educated workers tend to be less aware of the opportunities
- Recognise and certify skills proficiency.


Improvisation Lesson: Hot Cross Buns
Posted September 13, 2017by
Hot Cross Buns
an excerpt from This Is What I Can Do: Improvisation Starters for Music Classes K-5
by Patrick Ware
- Teach the words and melody of the B section.
- Many children will be familiar with this song.
- After completing the ‘We do’ teach the words and melody of the A section.
- Where the B section is very traditional, the A section is sung in a swing style.
- Have students explore the 4 levels of body percussion
- Allow students time to Snap, Clap, Patchen (patting legs) and Stomp
- With each body percussion exploration begin by asking, “How many different sounds can you make using a ____________?
- Once students have explored the possibilities have each student create their own 8 beat body percussion rhythm.
- Encourage students to create an idea that they can remember and can readily re-create. Simplicity is good.
- Have students exchange 8 beat body percussion rhythms in shared space.
- Having learned the A section; while singing students will use the A section to jazz walk to a new partner. Students should have selected a new partner before the end of the A section
- During A section new-found partners create their own walk.
- During A section partners figure our who is improvising first
- During the B sections students sing melody the melody while keeping the beat with a patchen clap pattern.
- In C section students take turns trading body percussion improvisations
- The final form is ABCAB
What’s left to do
- Play the arrangement on barred instruments
- Add recorder and/or barred instrument improvising in E blues (E G A Bb B D E)
- Add vocal improvisation
This lesson has been reproduced with permission, and is an excerpt from Patrick’s book, This Is What I Can Do: Improvisation Starters for Music Classes K-5. Classic Orff process added to some cool jazz riffs in arrangements of children’s rhymes and original tunes makes this book a perfect addition to your classroom library. Beatin’ Path Publications, Ltd. ISBN 978-0-9963591-6-0
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This looks perfect for my 5th graders who are studying jazz and recorder. I have your other book, but it is too advanced for my kids. Thank you for this! Will be purchasing this book for sure.
I’m looking forward to doing this with my 3rd graders this year. We are studying jazz, scat, and will use HCB on recorder next year. Not sure what “jazz walk” means. Can you fill me in?
I attended a workshop with Dr. Ware last year. Jazz walking is simply walking the half note and snapping beats 2 and 4. But you have to do it “cool cat” style. You can also include some “shhh’s” on swung 8th notes like the high hat.


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Full Month of Kindergarten: Lesson Plans, Activities, Printables, Curriculum December/Holidays and Traditions
is backordered and will ship as soon as it is back in stock.
December Focus- Letter Sounds and Recognition- O, L,B, F, G. Holiday and Traditions. Beginning Sounds and Ending Sounds, Traditions and Celebrations. Would you rather? Change of Season and Temperature tracking. One more one less, two more, two less in numbers to 10. Number Lines and 3D shapes. STEAM includes make a snowman, building an ice structure and jingle bell maze.
December is a month to share our celebrations and traditions. To learn about culture and to think about family and relationships. We continue to develop strong letter sound and recognition skills and numeracy skills.
Sweet Treats Include:
PreK - K and Homeschool
Balanced Literacy, Math, and Science
K.OA.A.3, K.MD.A.1, K.MD.B.3, RF.K.1, RF.K.1a, RF.K.1d, RF.K.2b, RF.K.2c, RF.K.2d, RF.K.4, L.K.1, L.K.1a, L.K.1d, L.K.2, L.K.2c, L.K.2d, L.K.5c, K.CC.A.2, K.CC.A.3, K.CC.B.4, K.CC.B.4a, K.CC.B.4b, K.CC.C.6, K.OA.A.1, and K.OA.A.2
Activities, Printables, and Lesson


Pioneer Activities for 3rd Grade
Imagining the pioneer lifestyle isn't easy for children who grow up surrounded by technology and modern conveniences. Hands-on pioneer activities enhance the third grade social studies curriculum by making the history interesting and interactive. Incorporate a variety of pioneer-themed activities to help students better understand this period in American history.
Live Like a Pioneer
A pioneer day gives the third grade students a chance to experience a bit of pioneer life. Shut off the classroom lights and avoid using anything that requires electricity to create the feeling of a pioneer schoolhouse. Teach the students folk songs, such as "Oh Susanna," "Yankee Doodle" and "Polly Wolly Doodle." Square dancing also engages the students in a pioneer activity. Make corn husk or clothespin dolls to show the students what pioneer kids might do with free time and the simple toys with which they played. A wash tub and washboard gives the kids a chance to practice the manual labor pioneers did. Bring clothes for the kids to wash in the tub. Make butter with the kids by shaking heavy whipping cream in a jar.
Living History Museum
A museum is often a quiet place with no touching, but this third grade activity allows the students to become the museum displays. Each small group of students represents a particular aspect about pioneer life, such as moving westward, traveling the Oregon Trail or claiming land and building homes. The students design a background and sign that provides facts about the scene they're creating. Students also wear costumes relevant to the pioneer time, such as bonnets and aprons for the girls and hats and overalls for the boys. Use simple props to make the display come alive. For a display showing how pioneers worked the land, use garden tools and plastic vegetables to create the garden scene, for example. The group can also decorate a large appliance box to look like a log cabin and set the stage with a large piece of brown paper on the floor as a garden. Invite other classes and parents to visit the living museum.
A journaling activity gets the students to think about how day-to-day life was like for pioneers. Instead of writing a report about pioneers, have the third graders write journal entries from the perspective of a pioneer child. The information learned in history class gives the kids ideas to incorporate into the journal. For example, after learning how pioneers built sod houses, the students might write an entry from a pioneer child watching his parents building their own sod house, discussing the duties he was assigned. Introduce specific topics or let the students come up with their own entry topics.
Instead of simply reading about the pioneers moving west, track the movement with maps and activities throughout the unit. Start by locating the East coast on a map to show where pioneers started. Use pins on the map to show the westward expansion. Use picture books and children's non-fiction books to take the kids on the journey west. The "Little House on the Prairie" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder work well because they follow the family as they move while giving details about daily pioneer life. Other book options include "How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis and Clark" by Rosalyn Schanzer, "The Cabin Faced West" by Jean Fritz and "Cabin in the Snow" by Deborah Hopkinson. Discuss the use of wagons to move across the country and the hardships the pioneers faced, such as wild animals, sickness, difficult terrain and clearing the land.
Based in the Midwest, Shelley Frost has been writing parenting and education articles since 2007. Her experience comes from teaching, tutoring and managing educational after school programs. Frost worked in insurance and software testing before becoming a writer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in elementary education with a reading endorsement.


Of all the birds of prey, hawks are the most common. You might have heard their screeching, echoing call or seen them soaring high in the air. The red-tailed hawk is common in America. It has a reddish brown tail.
Hawks are fierce hunters. They have good eyesight and can see prey from high in the sky. They dive down to catch rabbits, mice, lizards, fish, squirrels or snakes. Sometimes they perch from a tree or telephone pole and swoop down after prey.
Fun Facts about Hawks for Kids
- Hawks often hunt at dawn when nocturnal animals are still awake.
- Hawks sometimes fight in the air over food.
- Hawks mate for life. The male does tricks in the air to impress a female. These showcases can last over 10 minutes.
- Hawks build large nests out of sticks. The nests can be 3 feet wide. Hawks place their nests atop a tall tree, a cliff or even a cactus.
- As mentioned already a hawks eyesight is excellent, their hearing is also excellent but a hawks sense of smell is not so good.
- Hawks can dive at speeds in access of 150 mph – yikes that’s fast.
- Female hawks are generally larger than their male counterparts.
- Hawks can hunt in the air also for other birds.
- There are over 200 species of hawks worldwide. The largest hawk in North America is the Ferruginous Hawk.
- A hawk can see colors.
- A hawk can live up to 20 years, although 13 to 15 years is about the norm.
- The large rough legged hawk has a wingspan up to 1.4 m (4.5 ft).
- Common: frequent
- Screeching: harsh, high sound
- Fierce: tough, aggressive
- Prey: a hunted animal
- Nocturnal: animals that are awake at night
Learn More All About Hawks
Check out this cool video about a hawk:
A documentary of red-tailed hawk against a rattlesnake.
Question: Are hawks good parents?
Answer: Both the mother and father sit on the eggs and take care of the young.
Question: Do hawks hunt together?
Answer: Most hawks hunt alone, but a few work together like wolves to track down prey.
Enjoyed the Easy Science for Kids Website all about Hawks info? Take the FREE & fun all about Hawks quiz and download FREE Hawks worksheet for kids. For lengthy info click here.


Parents often wonder how they can help their children learn to read, and it's no surprise that they're interested in this essential skill. Reading plays a pivotal role in determining success in later school years. According to one study, the basis of how well 7-year-olds read, predicts their earning capacity 35 years later! No matter where your child is in their literacy development, there are some ways you can help them with reading. Here are some practical recommendations for helping kids learn to read.
Take part in fun learning at home
Taking an active part can develop your child's reading ability, comprehension, and language skills, and also improve your child's interest in reading, and attitude towards it. Technology can help you meet the literacy needs of your children. Serve as an “online teacher.” Talk to your child about different things in creative ways. These talks can amplify language development, build the necessary background knowledge, and help your child develop useful skills eventually.
Engage in literacy activities at home
This is important for your child's early literacy development. When you engage in joint reading, drawing, singing, storytelling, reciting, game playing, and rhyming, you and your child can take turns doing it in parts. When reading, ask the child to connect to the story, and have her tell you more about what she is deciphering. Give positive feedback from time to time and ask open-ended questions during joint reading to boost her interest and critical thinking skills.
Create a literacy-rich environment
For young children and infants, nursery rhymes are especially helpful for language and early childhood education. An online teacher who reads aloud to increase the amount of language your child hears can be helpful in this regard. Hanging different kinds of print around your house or labeling objects in your home can also go a long way in showing the importance of language, reading, and writing. Talk to them about everyday experiences, show them child pictures, and narrate the stories.
Make reading out aloud a regular activity in your home
Make reading a part of your daily life, and for all you know, kids will learn to love it. It's important to set aside some time when everyone turns off the TV and the internet and does nothing but reading. Make it a fun learning experience, too. When your child finishes reading a book that has been developed into a film, you can make popcorn and sandwiches and watch the movie together. The point to take home is to make reading a regular enjoyable part of your family routine.
Teaching literacy is comparable to teaching other skills
Parents can successfully teach their kids to eat with a spoon, keep their fingers out of their mouths, and say “thank you.” These things can be taught pleasantly, or they can be made into a painful chore. This notion applies to teaching literacy, too. If you show your 20-month-old a book and she shows no interest, then put it away and come back to it later. If your child tries to write her name and ends up with a backward “B,” no problem. Don't pressurize her. No hassle. You should take joy in the journey, and so should your child.
If you have developed the habit of using a different language at home, speak and read to your child in that language. This can help grow her vocabulary and make connections at school. It can also increase her curiosity and readiness to learn at school. Fun learning opportunities in the mother tongue will also open doors for literacy learning in English.
Your involvement in your child's learning can be one of the most important factors in their academic success. Even something as simple as reading aloud to your student for 15 minutes each day can dramatically help their reading and academic abilities. So, start working on it today!


The 2018-19 school year is underway! And, in recent years, stories about teacher shortages, long-term substitutes, and other staffing issues have become a staple of back-to-school reporting.
The National Council on Teacher Quality lays out the facts about the issue.
- Only half the people who graduate from teacher prep programs actually take teaching jobs as new teachers in any given year. One reason is that teacher prep programs generally produce about twice as many education graduates as schools are hiring—they’re just not producing the types of teachers that most schools need.
- The teacher workforce is growing. There were over 3.8 million public school teachers in the 2015-16 school year—an increase of 13 percent (about 400,000 teachers) in four years, while the student population has stayed constant during that same period.
- Shortages are much greater in some subjects than others. Elementary education majors are consistently the most common area of initial certification, and yet schools don’t need to hire nearly as many as are produced. The teachers that schools have the most difficulty finding are those with STEM and special education certifications.
- These shortages are nothing new. States have reported many of these same shortage areas for decades.


About 35 million American adults have limited reading skills, according to findings from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. That often means these individuals struggle to find good jobs or comprehend vital information about their health and finances. As a literacy specialist, you can empower young people to overcome obstacles and build the foundation for academic and professional achievements. In the online Master of Science in Education, Literacy Specialist (MSEd, LIT) from Pace University, certified teachers explore strategies to create inclusive environments where diverse groups of children and adolescents grow into more confident and capable readers. If you already hold a master’s degree in education, our Advanced Certificate in Literacy Specialist (ADV CERT LIT) program may be ideal for you.
Ranked as one of the Best Online Education programs in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, the MSEd, LIT prepares educators to take on complex instructional challenges and become eligible for an advanced or professional certificate in teaching literacy to children or adolescents. With coursework covering literacy development, assessment models, digital literacy and more, this program offers the knowledge and flexible classroom practices to help students from a wide range of backgrounds, including individuals with language or learning disabilities, English language learners, and high achievers.
Choose the educational path that fits your long-term objectives with concentrations available for:
- Early Childhood/Childhood (birth–grade 6)
- Middle Childhood/Adolescent (grades 5–12)
In our specialized curriculum, you’ll investigate key concepts in child development, theories of language acquisition, and storytelling. The program emphasizes the importance of multimodal literacy for the digital natives in today’s classes. Teachers discover how they can incorporate electronic platforms to encourage their students to engage with texts and share their own stories. Experiential components, including fieldwork and a capstone project, give you opportunities to apply cutting-edge approaches in the real world and receive valuable feedback.
Visit our curriculum page to learn more.
To learn more about Master of Science in Education, Literacy Specialist, fill out the fields in this form to download a free brochure. If you have any questions at any time, please contact an admission advisor at (866) 843-7201.
Literacy education is an important and rewarding field that empowers children and teachers. Literacy is central to the ways we express ourselves, which can leave lasting impressions and lead to forward movement in careers.
Francine Falk-Ross, Program Coordinator
Build Your Career in Literacy Education
The literacy specialist master’s degree makes certified teachers more reflective practitioners, ready to adjust to learners’ changing needs at each stage of development. This program can help education professionals excel in a variety of positions and contexts, such as:
- Reading teacher in all classrooms, including special education settings in a public or private school
- Reading specialist in a library, resource center, tutoring center, or other educational institution
- Reading coach who collaborates with teachers to supplement their literacy instruction
- Private instructor for students with reading disabilities
- Consultant on literacy issues for publication companies
- School administrator
Graduates from the MSEd, LIT earn advanced credentials from a school of education that’s accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). The program helps to meet the requirements for an advanced or professional certificate in teaching Early Childhood/Childhood (birth–grade 6) or Middle Childhood/Adolescent (grades 5–12) literacy.
For additional details on certification, visit our FAQ page.
Research-Driven Insights from Pace Faculty
Courses in the online master’s program are taught by accomplished reading teachers and researchers. Drawing from years of experience working with diverse student populations, the expert faculty in Pace’s School of Education discuss how to create inclusive learning environments. Our professors have created a curriculum that explores innovative pedagogical research and offers powerful methods to address new literacies by incorporating digital resources into lessons.
In the MSEd, LIT program, you can benefit from individualized mentorship while fitting courses into your busy schedule. Faculty members engage with graduate students in one-on-one conferences and offer guidance through the practicum and capstone project.
Visit the faculty page for more information.


Fine motor skills demonstrate the ability of children in preschool programs to coordinate the smaller muscles in their hands. These skills include picking up items, grasping objects, letting things go, and following patterns. Preschool children benefit from activities that increase fine motor skill development and enhance the hand and finger coordination. Children need to develop dexterity and strength in their fingers and hands, along with their eye-hand coordination to effectively use manipulatives like crayons, pencils and scissors later on.
The development of fine motor skills moves through a logical progression from the random reflex grasping of a baby to more precise hand movements of preschool children. The following activities can help young children to develop their fine motor abilities.
Taking Things Apart and Putting Them Together
Children must coordinate the use of both of their hands when they are taking things apart and putting them together. These activities include stringing beads, building with Duplo blocks, stacking objects and attaching items with Velcro.
Preschoolers enjoy pointing to people, objects and pictures in books. To perform these skills, they need to develop their movement of individual isolated fingers. Activities like pushing buttons and poking through holes enable them to strengthen their index fingers, which is necessary for the development of grasping.
Banging and Hammering
Hand grasping and arm movement control are strengthened through banging and hammering. Children can develop these skills by beating on drums with drumsticks and hammering benches with toy hammers.
Objects In and Objects Out
The ability to grasp and release an object can be enhanced through activities in which children can place their toys into and later remove them from, a container. Young children enjoy sorting shapes, scooping sand, and pouring water. These types of movements help them to develop their wrist, elbow and shoulder motions.
Sensory objects like water, sand, finger paint and play dough enable children to develop the necessary sensory discrimination awareness they need in their hands.
Building with blocks, playing with dolls and action figures, lacing strings and connecting puzzle pieces are just some of the activities that develop fine motor strength and control and require precise small finger movement.
Purposeful activities like drinking from a cup, brushing their teeth, using utensils and getting dressed help children to develop their independence as well as their fine motor skills.
To learn more about helping your children develop their fine motor skills in McKinney preschool programs, call the experts at the Heritage Learning Center at (972) 782-4464 today!
[osky-citation keyword=’McKinney Preschool Programs’]


As I was looking into Dalcroze courses, something occurred to me. I know the system traditionally uses fixed do, but what are the Dalcroze rhythm syllables? I did some research and asked around to people with training, and here’s what I found.
The Dalcroze rhythm syllables aren’t set in stone, although Dalcroze himself encouraged a mnemonic approach (word association). It’s also common to see Dalcroze educators using the French Time Names syllables.
Read on for a brief explanation of these systems.
2 Common Rhythm Syllables Used By Dalcroze Teachers
Dalcroze himself didn’t advocate for specific rhythm syllables, but he did encourage a word-association system. Tammy Renee Fust found in her research that many Dalcroze educators today will also use the French Time Name system.
In this section, I’ll briefly go into these two approaches.
The mnemonic approach may be commonly known as a word association system. This is similar to how Orff approaches rhythm syllables.
In the mnemonic system, rhythms are given words whose syllables and cadence match the feeling of the rhythm itself. This aligns with the general Dalcroze goals of connecting musicians with the feeling of the music.
For example, a quarter note would be given a single syllable word that’s normal to say fairly short (such as “walk” or “Bob”). A half note would be given a single syllable word that’s normal to stay longer (such as “moo” or “slide”).
Paired eighth notes could be given a two-syllable word such as “running” or “wiggle”.
Though the Kodaly counting system uses other specific syllables, it’s common for Kodaly-inspired teachers to use the mnemonic approach as a tool for preparing the concept.
French Time Names
French time-names are a product of music education learning in 19th century France. The system originally used specific syllables to replace note values (like the ta ti ti system).
In its original form, the syllables used were the French words for the rhythms which is where the “time names” comes from.
The father of American music education, Lowell Mason, changed this system to fit his late 19th-century music classrooms. He chose syllables he thought would be easier to say for English speakers.
It’s at this point, the syllables also changed to become a beat-function system. This means the “ta” would always be where the beat landed.
For more on beat function systems, check out the takadimi system or the Gordon rhythm syllables.
Mason used the following syllables:
Frequently Asked Questions
In this section, I’ll answer some common questions associated with Dalcroze rhythm syllables.
What is a rhythm syllable? – A rhythm syllable is a word or sound associated with rhythmic values to help students and musicians develop better reading and performing.
What is Dalcroze theory? – Commonly known as Dalcroze Eurhythmics, this method seeks to improve students’ appreciation, aural understanding, improvisation, and expressive connection to music.
The main tool of this method is the body which is connected to all learning activities in Dalcroze. Read more at the Alliance For Active Music Making.
What are the 3 components of the Dalcroze approach? – The 3 components of the Dalcroze approach are:
- Rhythmic solfege (as discussed in this article and using fixed do for pitch)
- Improvisation (developing fluency with musical language)
- Eurhythmics (body movement to develop expression of music beyond notes and rhythms)
Now you a little more about Dalcroze rhythm syllables. Syllables combined with the movement instruction of Dalcroze eurhythmics will give your students great fluency with rhythm.
Did any of this surprise you? Let us know below.


How do we incorporate sustainability into an early childhood center building?
Completed in 2013, this early childhood learning center is built on land shared by a Quaker meeting house. The client group sought to accommodate 72 children aged 3 months to 5 years in a structure that promotes experiential learning and interaction with the environment and follows sustainable design principles.
The majority of the classrooms in this 9,500 square foot building are located on the ground floor, each with direct access to an outdoor play area. A central corridor connects the spaces, with clerestory windows providing natural light and ventilation into the interior space. The corridor terminates with a large expanse of glass, providing a reading area with a view to the woods. Classrooms for older children, a staff room, and a roof garden are located upstairs, and a winding path up the hillside provides outdoor access for the second level. To allow the building to function as a learning tool, the structure is an exposed, glulam post-and-beam system with exposed ductwork.
Designed to meet LEED Silver criteria, sustainable features abound. A shared parking lot reduced the need for more asphalt-covered land, heating and cooling are provided by a geothermal pump system. Large windows throughout allow for a bright interior with abundant natural light, while deep overhangs on the south facade guard against heat gain. The roof garden collects runoff while allowing children to learn about plants. Low VOC materials and finishes were selected to maintain healthy indoor air quality. See the renderings below for a graphic display of these elements.
For more articles on the Friends Center for Children and other Early Childhood education centers, click here.


Looking for an incredibly fun Earth Day craft idea? Kids will love making their own Earth Day hats with the free Earth Day Hat Printable template!
These free printable Earth Day Hat templates are a simple way to make a DIY Earth Day hat that will bring joy to your little ones!
This Earth Day Hat for kids is perfect for classroom use. Simply copy the black and white template. Then kids can color their own Earth Day hat, cut it out and put it together.
Don’t you just love easy preschool crafts?! It’s hard to beat a simple, low prep, low mess activity.
This Earth Day hat headband allows little ones to practice scissor skills and the coloring portion is great for fine motor skill development.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases by readers clicking my links, at no additional cost to you.
Supplies to Make the Preschool Earth Day Hats
For this easy Earth Day hat craft you will need:
– A printed copy of the Earth Day Hat Headband Template (form is at the end of the article)
– Cardstock – I recommend card stock for durability, but copy paper works too.
– Crayons or Colored Pencils
– Scissors (we love this brand of kid safe scissors)
– A Stapler
How to Make an Earth Day Hat Headband – Preschool Earth Day hats
First, print out your copy of the Earth Day Hat template printable. I recommend printing on cardstock to make it more sturdy, but regular paper will work as well.
Next, give your child crayons or colored pencils to color the Earth Day hat. You might like to encourage them to use blue and green to color Earth.
This is also a great opportunity to show young children a picture of our planet.
Now it’s time to cut! Kids will need to cut out the rectangular strips as well as the hat portion.
Most preschoolers will be able to cut this hat by themselves, but if you have younger children, they may need some assistance.
After all of the pieces of the Earth Day craft hat have been cut out, have an adult help kids assemble the hats.
We used a stapler to attach the strips of paper to the Earth Day hat template.
Last, adjust the headband to fit each child’s head and cut off the extra paper.
Now, your Earth Day hat is ready to wear. Kids are sure to be proud of their homemade Earth Day hat!
I hope your kids enjoy this wearable Earth Day hat craft as much as mine did!
More Earth Day Fun for Kids
Looking for More Earth Day Activities for kids? There’s some more ideas on my blog!
You can find 4 Free Printable Earth Day Coloring Pages here. There’s coloring sheets encouraging recycling, reusing, and reducing waste. These free earth day printables are such a fun way to teach little ones how to take care of the earth.
Need an easy Earth Day craft idea? Check out this Marble Paint Earth paper Craft. Kids of all ages will enjoy painting designs with marbles onto the planet Earth template. It’s so much fun and makes the perfect Earth Day activity!
Plus don’t miss this huge list of Earth Day Activities for Kindergarten Students and Preschool. There’s tons of Earth Day crafts, fun activities, word search pages, word scramble sheets, printable hats, fun games, and more for your Earth Day unit.
Plus, there’s fun fine motor activity ideas for your Earth Day theme as well as sensory bins. You are sure to find a cool new Earth craft or a great way to teach little ones to take care of our planet.
Grab the Free Printable Earth Day Hat Template
Ready to grab the adorable Earth Day Crown?
To get the free printable Happy Earth Day Hat pdf file for kids, simply drop your email in the box below. You will receive access to my Resource Library, where you can find this free printable hat, along with so many other free printables for kids.
If you are already a subscriber, simply go to the Free Resource Library (the password is in nearly every email I send) and print these free preschool Earth Day hats today!
Want to save this fun Earth Day project for later? Pin the image below to your Earth Day Crafts and fun activities board on pinterest.
thank you so much!


Black History Moments
Black History and the Transportation Industry
The lobby of the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI) Gilchrist Building displays some of the first electric traffic signals used in the United States. That equipment, which evolved from a number of even more creative manual devices, has a rich and telling history. Part of it we owe to one of the country’s first Black inventors, Garrett Morgan, who some in the transportation business refer to as “The Father of Transportation Technology.”
The son of slaves, Morgan had only an elementary education. He left Kentucky in 1895 as a teenager searching for opportunity. He settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, and soon became well-known for his talent as a sewing machine repair-man, eventually starting his own tailor shop. In fact, much of the sewing in his 32-employee operation was done on machines he built. Morgan is also re-cognized as the inventor of a version of the gas mask eventually modified and used by the U.S. Army in World War I. He established a successful newspaper, and over his lifetime held patents on a variety of personal grooming products.
It was his experiences driving on the streets of Cleveland, however, that prompted Morgan to enter the transportation arena. Early 20th-century vehicle crashes were frequent, and after witnessing the death of a young girl in a collision between an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage, he crafted a T-shaped pole unit that featured three positions: Stop, Go and an all-directional stop position that halted traffic in all directions to allow pedestrians to cross streets more safely.
In his 1923 U.S. patent for the manual traffic signal, Garrett Morgan stated “This invention relates to traffic signals, and particularly to those which are adapted to be positioned adjacent the intersection of two or more streets and are manually operable for directing the flow of traffic…In addition, my invention contemplates the provision of a signal which may be readily and cheaply manufactured.”
Morgan’s hand-cranked semaphore traffic management device was in use throughout North America until all manual traffic signals were replaced by early models of the automatic red-, yellow- and green-light traffic signals currently used a-round the world.
Shortly before his death in 1963, the United States Government awarded Morgan a commendation for his traffic signal.
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What is a learning support assistant?
LSA stands for Learning Support Assistant. Learning support assistants usually work with students who have special needs, or don’t speak English to help them cope with the classroom environment. This is usually on a one to one basis and is meant to help the student and take some extra responsibility off the teacher.
What is an inclusion teaching assistant?
General Duties: To provide care and support to individual students by supporting learning through planned and differentiated activities. To assist students’ literacy and numeracy development and carry out specified learning tasks as directed by the teacher.
Is a learning support assistant the same as a teaching assistant?
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? A teaching assistant (TA) is usually assigned to a class or year group and help a range of children to achieve their potential. Learning support Assistants (LSA) work with one or two specific children with special educational needs and support them in class using different strategies.
What is the role of a learning assistant?
Key responsibilities of teaching or learning support assistants include: supporting children across the curriculum, often with a particular focus on maths, reading and writing. giving extra help to children with special needs or those for whom English is not their first language.
How do I become an effective Learning Support Assistant?
- Support independent learning. One of the most important things for TAs to remember is that they are not there to do the child’s work for them.
- Understand individual needs.
- Have a good relationship with teachers.
- Get to grips with edtech.
- Be a good listener.
- Be prepared to be flexible.
- Look for CPD opportunities.
How do I prepare for a learning support assistant interview?
- Think about everything that goes into a lesson. For example, the materials, seating arrangements, activities and classroom management all play a big part in a lesson.
- Draw from your past experience of either working or studying in a school. Discuss lessons that you think worked and those you didn’t.
How do teaching assistants support the curriculum?
To support the curriculum, a Teaching Assistant should: n Prepare and maintain equipment/resources as directed by the teacher and assist pupils in their use. n Undertake structured and agreed learning activities/teaching programmes, adjusting activities according to pupil responses.
What is an inclusion support worker?
This role includes providing practical support for learning and other school activities, helping pupils to develop their academic, social and emotional skills. This will involve working with small groups and/or individual pupils in and out of the classroom.
How do I become an effective learning Support Assistant?
How do TAs support pupils?
What skills do you need to be a TA?
Skills and experience you’ll need
- An ability to build good working relationships with both pupils and adults.
- Good organisational skills.
- Flexibility and creativity.
- Enjoy working with children.
- Good literacy and numeracy skills.
- Ability to manage groups of pupils and deal with challenging behaviour.


East Lothian Council’s YMI has produced short films to highlight the work of six of our projects and you can watch them here.
We Are The Music is a snapshot of East Lothian YMI’s accessible music-making opportunities.
Music makes an important contribution to the life of every school and should be celebrated, promoted and encouraged. It helps build pupils’ self-esteem and self-discipline and leads to higher standards across the curriculum. Today many more schools are benefiting from this transformational power that music brings to pupils, staff and parents alongside the wider whole school community.
The 10 Things Schools Should Know About Music
This booklet, produced by Music Mark, summarises the 10 key benefits of music, from recognition within the ‘National Plan for Music Education ‘ that music is an educational building block through to the inclusive nature of music irrespective of abilities. Music should be an entitlement for every child, an integral part of school life and never side-lined as just a ‘nice to have’ subject.
Read a Summary of the 10 Things Here
#2 Music Improves Learning Skills
#3 Music is an Educational Building Block
#4 Music Encourages Creativity
#7 Music Boosts School Improvement
#8 Music Underpins Better Behaviour
These articles will be updated on a regular basis. Share your favourite things about music in schools on Twitter using #YMIEastLothian #10Things
A new music manifesto for young people in Scotland.
Learning Music Can Change Brain Structure – Research from Edinburgh University Neuroscience.


Reading Comprehension Fundamentals: Grade 3
Focus on identifying the author's point of view; plots, themes and sequencing; figurative language; recognizing inferences and literary genres; cause and effect elements; comparing and contrasting; summarizing story details, and historical fiction readings.
Reading Comprehension Fundamentals provides you tools to target the reading skills and strategies with which students need the most help. The 35 skill-based units include fiction and nonfiction texts, a variety of practice activities, and a unit review.
The comprehensive units guide students to develop a deep understanding of each skill, strategy, and genre introduced with a simple "teach, practice, and assess" approach. Ample reading experiences and varied response formats help to improve students' overall comprehension and test-taking skills.
|Third Grade Comprehension Activities for Nonfiction Texts||Third Grade Comprehension Activities for Fiction Texts|
|Main Idea and Details||Setting|
|Text Features and Visual Information||Plot|
|Cause and Effect||Point of View|
|Compare and Contrast||Predict|
|Problem and Solution||Visual Information|
|Summarize||Cause and Effect|
|Fact and Opinion||Compare and Contrast|
|Simile and Metaphor|
Nonfiction genre studies include expository nonfiction, persuasive nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, and descriptive nonfiction. Fiction genre studies include historical fiction, realistic fiction, fables, and fairy tales.
Use Reading Comprehension Fundamentals as a core standards-aligned reading resource or select the units that align with your curriculum and with your students' needs.
Each of the six-volumes in this reading comprehension series by Evan-Moor provides foundational skills that students can use to improve their reading strategies, literary analysis skills, and genre recognition abilities. The workbooks contain approximately 36 units, and each of them include fiction or non-fiction text material that emphasizes one fundamental reading skill, as well as practice in identifying the structure or genre of the literary selection. This series contains black and white illustrations, and can be used as a supplement to a core reading program, as reinforcement drill, or as test-prep exercises. Workbooks also contain answer keys in the back of each volume, and nice large print that is easy to read. 176 pgs, pb. ~ Mike


This article shows how to navigate in your Excel workbook with ease. Below is a basic sample worksheet. Notice the Name Box. When you place your mouse near or over that area, the description Name Box appears. The usefulness of this small feature is a bit overwhelming. For now, it is good to know that not only does it show the current cell’s address, it can also be used as a ‘Go To’ box. If you know exactly or even approximately where you want to go, this little portal can take you there quickly.
The first New Year’s Resolution challenge: Develop your comfort with using the Name Box for navigating in your Excel sheets. For example, if you start with typing A1 + Enter in the Name Box—you guessed it!—it will take you to the top corner of your worksheet.
The more advanced Excel user may have hidden rows or columns. If you type an address for a hidden location the cursor will change as described below: If the column or row is hidden, it will place the cursor where the cell should be.
When you start navigating through your document by typing in an address rather than simply scrolling, you will find that it is more efficient. It takes a little time to develop the mindset and habit, but it is well worth it as it leads to the comfort zone of taking on the next two, time-saving challenges. You will first notice that you start thinking of your worksheet with greater attention to the address of where things are located. You may even write them down on your scratch pad for quick reference.
The second New Year’s Resolution challenge: Create named cell addresses. Again, this is a habit and mindset to develop. Start by creating named addresses for locations that you frequently visit, especially if they are out of view.
To create a named address:
- Place your cursor in the cell you want to name.
- Then place your cursor in the name box.
- Type a name with no spaces (use “_ “ in place of the space).
Remember, using the name box to create address names will increase your efficiency and promote you to being a savvy (or savvier) Excel user. It is a habit and a mindset—so be patient and diligent with this resolution.
The third New Year’s Resolution challenge: Building on our previous two skills is the next resolution, to navigate to preselected ranges. Following is an example, select the range à type an address name in the Name Box. Then select that address name from the drop down.
Enjoy your new navigation tools. With a little practice, these tools will speed up your Excel movements and help you zip thru large worksheets, even workbooks.
Cathy Goetz | Business Software Consultant
Cathy is responsible for supporting clients with their Microsoft Dynamics GP solutions. From the beginning, she helps her clients determine the scope of their project and provides software demonstrations. Her expertise in gathering requirements will produce a carefully planned system for successful implementation and configuration.
Cathy holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Elementary Education from Jamestown College in Jamestown, ND. Cathy has over 28 years and a wide range of industry experience in Agriculture, Retail Logistics, Construction, Contracting, Education, Finance, Food, Gaming, Real Estate, Property Management, Legal, Government and Nonprofit. Her roles included management positions, database analyst, application developer, software consultant and trainer, business owner, founder, teacher, and senior accountant. She has been involved with several ERP implementation projects, including Dynamics GP. Her specialties include data migration, Microsoft Access application development, data integration, data cleansing, database normalizing, and developing relational databases from legacy systems. She is highly skilled in report writing, documentation, developing training materials, and presentations. Cathy is certified as a Microsoft Certified Master Instructor for Microsoft Office and has recently completed an accounting program at Frederick Community College. She is currently preparing for the CPA examination.