Factory Toys and Their Discontents: Artistic Toys in Germany and Austria ca. 1900
Museum of German-American Heritage, Washington DC, March, 21 2019
On 21 March 2019, Dr. Megan Brandow-Faller joined the Museum of German-American Heritage for an enlightening lecture and discussion on the role of German toys in American households at the beginning of the 20th century and onward.
In conjunction with our current exhibit, How German Toy-makers Captured the Hearts of Americans: 200 Years of German Toys, she will deliver a general overview of the German toy industry and explain in greater depth the “artistic” or reform toy movement that began in German-speaking Europe in 1900. Brandow-Faller will inform visitors as to how the artistic movement known as the Vienna Secession spawned a push for a return to the “primitive” and childlike toys of pre-industrial Europe, in opposition to the industrialized and mainstream toys that were popular at the turn of the century. In her lecture she will incorporate toys similar to those on display in our current exhibit, bringing the history behind many of the toys displayed to life. Her research on the role of gender in the design of reform toys will also shed light onto an unexplored area of history: women’s roles in toy production.
About Megan Brandow-Faller
Megan Brandow-Faller is Associate Professor of History at the City University of New York, Kingsborough. Her research focuses on art and design in Secessionist and interwar Vienna, including children’s art and artistic toys of the Vienna Secession; expressionist ceramics of the Wiener Werkstätte; folk art and modernism; and women’s art education. She is the editor of Childhood by Design: Toys and the Material Culture of Childhood, 1700-present (Bloomsbury 2018) and the author of The Female Secession: Reclaiming ‘Women’s Art’ and the Decorative at the Viennese Women’s Academy, 1897-1938 (Penn State University Press, Forthcoming). Brandow-Faller has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and books.


Preschool is an important transition in your child’s life. From the safe confines of your home your little one transcends into an alien environment, far from the safety of her mother’s arm. Needless to say, it is a critical period and being anxious is all too natural.
There are certain things, however, that can ease this move. Not only will they get your little one ready for the new environment but also give you confidence that your little one will adjust just fine. The beauty of these activities is that they are non-academic, fun and do not add any pressure to the already anxious mother and toddler. These activities are aimed t building communication and social skills that your child will need to adjust and stay happy at preschool.
Little children learn a lot through their senses. They need to touch and feel to absorb information and understand things better. Sensory play is just that. It allows children to explore the world around them with their senses. Engaging in sensory play is thus a must to prepare a child for preschool.
- Allow your child to get messy with finger paint, play dough, slime to help him explore the sense of touch.
- Take some kidney beans, chick peas, lentils and put them into opaque containers to make different sounds. Let your child explore and understand the different sounds each grain makes
- Kinetic Sand or sand play is another activity that helps your child to invigorate her senses.
- Blind fold your child and make her smell different spices from kitchen.
- Another blind fold activity is to make your child taste different foods and guess them.
Playschool or any kind of formal atmosphere outside home requires children to listen and follow instructions. It is hence imperative to practice listening skills at home and give children 1-2 line instructions to follow. Children also must learn to take turns and play amicably.
- Play simple games to build turn-taking skills and patience to wait for their turn to come. Like singing rhymes while taking turns, passing the ball, painting together all teach children to be patient and wait for their turn.
- Pretend play is another activity which allows children to listen and follow instructions. Ask your child to get his doll dressed and take him to school.
- Assign small, simple chores like tidy up your toys and put your shoes away, pick your clothes and put them in laundry etc.
- Play silly games like jump and then clap, roll and sit etc. These games help children develop essential listening skills and practice following instructions.
A polite, well-mannered child is a always a delight to have. Work with your child to teach basic courtesies like Please, thank you, welcome. Teach them to wash hands before and after meals, after using washroom, keep their plates in the kitchen sink, clean their face etc. Another important thing to teach is to wait for their turn to speak.
Build Social Skills
Before a child starts playschool, it is imperative to expose her to an outdoor social environment where she has the opportunity to interact and observe other children of similar age.
- Schedule play dates with friends and family to help child adapt to different people and mingle with them.
- Visit Play areas where children can play independently along side with other children. This will help develop an ease, comfort and security for your child and help her understand that mom is around, thus help her deal with separation anxiety.
Another good way to get children ready for preschool is to read to them. There are ample titles available that cater to this topic and discuss various emotions pertaining to this new phase. These books help children understand and familiarize them with school settings. Once they are aware of the environment and the outcomes, half of the anxiety goes away.
Preschool is a place where your child will learn alphabets, numbers, colors and beyond. But before your child can learn any of these skills, it is important that she feels comfortable and safe in her new environment. None of the above activities are academic in nature but they are foremost in building the right mindset for preschool. Academics will fall into place once your child has adjusted and adapted to her new environment. The least you want is to burden her with literacy and numeracy skills, which can add to her anxiety.
Lastly, it is crucial to understand that despite every effort, some apprehensions and anxiety will be there irrespective of how much you have prepared yourself and your child. At the same time, starting school is indispensable. While some children we adapt with relative easy others will take their own good time. Every child is different and care must be taken keeping temperament of your child in mind.


Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps and in Europe, its summit reaching 15,777 feet. The name has been derived from French and it means ‘White Mountain’. It has got this name due to the fact that the mountain is covered by snowfield and glaciers.
This mountain is located between two countries Italy and France. Italian people call it Monte Bianco. It is quite difficult to define the exact height of Mont Blanc because it varies every year according to the height of its snow cap.
Quick Facts: –
- The first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc was in August 1786 by Jacque Balmat and Michel Paccard.
- The first woman to reach the summit was Maris Paradis. She made the ascent in 1808.
- More than 20,000 climbers reach the summit of this mountain every year.
- In 1950 and 1966 two passenger airplanes have crashed on the mountain killing more than 160 passengers.
- The most popular climbing route taken by the climbers is the Voie des Cristalliers or Voie Royale.
- There is a 7 mile long tunnel traveling directly underneath the mountain. It links France and Italy.
- This mountain is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence.
- The lowest recorded temperature on Mont Blanc was -43°C set in January 1893.
- A small aircraft was landed on the summit in 1960 by pilot Henri Giraud which was only 30 meters long.
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The general topics covered are Number and Algebra, Shape, Space and Measures, Handling Data and Applying Mathematics. Financial Capability is also taught throughout Key stages 3 and 4.
At Glenlola Collegiate School all pupils study Mathematics throughout Key Stage 3 and 4. Further Maths GCSE is also offered at Key Stage 4. Mathematics is also taught at AS and A2 level. Progress is assessed though classwork, homework and Tracking tests.
Key Stage 3
All pupils study Mathematics at Key Stage 3.
Key Stage 4
At Key Stage 4 we have classes studying the following options:
- Fast Track – GCSE Maths in year 11(T4 and T6); Further Mathematics GCSE in Year 12
- Module M3/4 in year 11; Module M7/8 in year 12
Key Stage 5
We follow the CCEA Mathematics specification, studying:
- Core 1: Pure Mathematics (non-calculator)
- Core 2: Pure Mathematics
- M1: Mechanics
- Core 3: Pure Mathematics
- Core 4: Pure Mathematics
- S1: Statistics
Studying Mathematics is necessary in life. It will develop problem solving skills, numeracy skills, critical thinking, logic and financial awareness.
These skills can lead onto studying in further or higher education in a range of areas and potential careers such as:
- A number of Engineering opportunities
These are only some of the many fields open to Mathematics students. All career paths will require a Mathematics GCSE of Grade C or above.


Chairperson: Michael S. BockovenEmail: firstname.lastname@example.orgBuilding: NAI
A visual arts education is essential to the fundamental growth and development of all students. As an important component of a well-rounded learning experience, art education is a powerful influence in making students more discriminating and more sensitive to the things they see, use, and create in their everyday lives. Art helps students make informed, conscious aesthetic judgments and decisions. The North Allegheny Visual Arts Department believes that every student’s life will be enriched and improved through art education, that they will become life-long learners and patrons of art, and that they will join in the continuing conversation about the nature and meaning of art in life. The North Allegheny Visual Arts Department also believes that all students benefit equally from art education and that opportunities for art education should be accessible and inclusive to every child.
The content of art education is formed by the knowledge, understanding, and skills drawn from Art Production, Art History, Art Criticism, and Aesthetic Appreciation. The basic content of the North Allegheny Visual Arts curriculum consists of the interweaving of these four strands and is further framed by engagement in the artistic processes of creating, presenting, responding, and connecting, which are paramount to a quality visual arts education in the 21st Century. Art Production is the primary approach to understanding, responding to, and appreciating visual arts through actual engagement in the creative process, where students learn to discover and formulate original ideas and effectively present them visually. Art History provides students with the opportunity to discover and make connections to how art of the past and present has reflected, communicated, and influenced the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of people throughout the history of human civilization. Art Criticism is the study of applying informed criteria for responding to and evaluating works of art, developing careful attention to detail and the ability to analyze and make meaning of a complex array of visual information in artworks, and learning to distinguish between subjective and objective criteria by looking at multiple critics’ points of view and methods. Finally, Aesthetic Appreciation synthesizes Art Production, Art History, and Art Criticism to arrive at the position of valuing the artists, the processes, and the products of visual art, and involves having a well-developed, knowledgeable standard of belief for measuring the purpose, significance, and benefits of art.
It is the belief of the North Allegheny Visual Arts Department that all professions and career paths benefit greatly from a foundation in the arts. Engaging in the visual arts helps children develop significant dispositions that are receiving increased support as vital skills for living in the 21st Century. These skills not only include the “four C’s”: creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication; but also innovation, flexibility and adaptability. A visual arts education is significant to the development of creativity, which has become one of the most important attributes sought after by businesses and companies looking to hire 21st Century college graduates.
From a global perspective, art education teaches visual literacy, which is vital to the development of citizens in our society. The visual arts are considered one of the primary forms of communication, and the ability to make discerning evaluations of symbolic communications is critical in preparing children to live in our contemporary world. The creation of art is a discipline involving a structured creative process. The study and practice of art serves to facilitate organization, planning, goal setting, research, idea formation, observational skills, creative thinking, risk-taking, personal realization, reflective habits, and the ability to carry an idea through to completion. The visual arts stimulate a behavior of sustained engagement, self-discipline, and persistence that results in a higher quality of product or creation. Art education fosters the capacity to appreciate diversity, and through art, students learn respect, attitudes, and values that have value in a global society.
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Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Students' perceptions of recess: An examination of predictors of peer conflict
Recess plays an important role in students' school days because it provides students opportunities to interact with their peers in unstructured settings. Some research has explored the relation between peer conflict within school contexts and how it is related to locations of positive play and the presence of adult supervisors. Further, researchers have conducted studies to examine within group differences for gender and grade, as well as between school differences. However, results have been mixed. This dissertation examined the degree to which the following variables were related to where peer conflict occurs during recess: location of adult supervisors, location of positive play, students' gender, students' grade, and students' school. Participants included 1043 second through fifth grade students in three schools from a Midwestern state. Data collected included student marked playground maps showing where students engage in peer conflict and positive play, where adult supervisors are located, and where students spend most of their time at recess: in addition to students' self-reported grade, gender, and school. Logistic regressions were used to examine relations between location of peer conflict and location of positive play, location of adult supervisors, students' gender, students' grade, and students' school. Results indicated that there was at least one location that demonstrated a significant relation with peer conflict across the variables studied. There were significant odds that peer conflict would occur in one of the common playground locations when adult supervisors were located there. Four locations demonstrated a significant relation among the occurrence of peer conflict and the absence of positive play. Results also showed a significant relation among peer conflict and students' gender, though results were mixed as to the odds of peer conflict occurring for males as compared to females. There were significant relations across grades with lower grades indicating that conflict was more likely to occur in certain playground locations as compared to higher grades. Results also showed significance of peer conflict occurring between schools. Future research and implications for practice are discussed.
Education|Elementary education|Educational psychology
Dooley, Kadie, "Students' perceptions of recess: An examination of predictors of peer conflict" (2014). ETD collection for University of Nebraska - Lincoln. AAI3625085.


Welcome to Foundation
The Foundation year is the start of an exciting educational journey. We provide a safe and stimulating environment that nurtures and promotes the physical, social, emotional and learning development of your child.
Our students develop their reading skills. They use picture cues, build their sight vocabulary and retell stories. Students enjoy the rhythm of language through stories, songs, poems and rhymes. They learn to read predictable texts with familiar vocabulary and supportive images, recalling events and recognising a variety of text structures. They practise English sounds and letters and apply their knowledge when writing familiar words and phrases to express their ideas. Students develop their formal handwriting skills, along with correct pencil grip. They focus on using appropriate vocabulary to participate in social and class discussions. Students talk about their experiences, and retell events with others.
They develop their numeracy skills. They independently estimate, count and compare small groups of objects. Students recognise and order number words and numerals to 20 and beyond. They form number patterns and solve simple number problems, using a range of strategies. Students compare the length, mass and capacity of familiar objects.They make simple patterns and identify and sort shapes, within their environment, according to their features. Students sort data into categories and make comparisons. They learn to collect, display and interpret data.
The children are engaged in ‘hands on' differentiated learning experiences to develop skills and knowledge in all areas of the Victorian curriculum . We celebrate 'One Hundred days of school' and 'Alphabet Day' with special activities and dress up days.
Our Foundation students have a Year 6 buddy. The buddies help the Foundation students to settle into school and visit them in their classrooms to help with their learning. Both year levels participate in the 'Better Buddies' program from the Alannah and Madeline Foundation.
Discovery Learning sessions start in Term two, where students explore, create and investigate tasks together.
We offer many interesting incursions and excursions that link to the main area of investigation for the term. Science learning investigates Weather and the Night sky (Earth and Space), the needs of Living things ( Biological) Materials (Chemical) and How objects move (Physical). Technology learning investigates Push and Pull with toys. History learning investigates My personal history and Family traditions and celebrations. Foundation students explore who is in their family, where their family originates from and how they are connected to each other. Geography learning investigates Weather and Local places. Health learning investigates All about me.
Our school student well being program is the 'Resilience, Rights & Respectful Relationships" program. We use mindfulness strategies to develop resilience and confidence.
Our 'Swim and Survive' program at the Monash Aquatic centre is an important event, as learning to swim confidently is an essential survival skill.
Other activities will be placed on the Foundation Blog, as they occur.
SEMESTER TWO 2019
Foundation students learned to read fiction and non-fiction texts with familiar vocabulary and supportive images, recalling events and recognising a variety of text structures. They practised English sounds, letters and word families and applied their knowledge when writing familiar words and phrases to express their ideas. Basic grammar and punctuation was a focus. Students talked about their experiences, and retold events with others. They planned, rehearsed and delivered short, simple presentations.
Foundation students continued skip counting and applied this knowledge to number patterns and sequences. They applied simple addition and subtraction strategies, explored money and began basic division and multiplication. Students compared the length, mass and capacity of familiar objects. They identified and sorted 2D and 3D shapes within their environment. Students collected, displayed and interpreted data. They explored mapping and positional language.
Foundation students identified and mapped local places around the school to gain an understanding of their surroundings. They explored how to keep themselves safe in different environments and who to approach for help, such as police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and trusted adults. Foundation students were introduced to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and their connection to land through Dreamtime stor
Parents are most welcome to help in our classrooms, in the library, on excursions and camps and on our parent group committee and School Council committees.
All parents who assist in any way must have a Working With Children Check. This card must be presented at the office when parents sign in
Literacy activities- to use at home:


NEH-Funded Education Project "Dvořák and America" Provides Context behind Music
“It’s an honor to be one of the few orchestras to receive funding from the NEH,” says St.Clair. “To our knowledge this is a nationally unprecedented initiative, combining a multi-media thematic youth orchestra concert with an educational exercise not only for the audience, and for area schools, but for the youth orchestra musicians themselves. Through the series of activities the students will participate in prior to the concert, we hope they will gain a broader understanding of Dvořák and, we hope, a strong appreciation and bond to this special piece of music.
“We know that a well-rounded music education is not about simply learning to play the notes,” St.Clair adds. “It is equally important to develop the capacity to listen and respond to music.”
The project looks at how Dvořák, in coming to America, became an “American composer”; that his American accent in such works as the “New World Symphony” and American Suite is not a superficial overlay, but a distinct American style different from the more chromatic and texturally dense style of his European works. The Dvořák story exemplifies the importance of the arts in pedagogy and in human life, as well as how culture can help individuals or communities better understand themselves. “Dvořák and America” focuses on issues of race and national identity catalyzed by urbanization and immigration a century ago—issues which remain crucial to the American experience today.
“Music Unwound,” at its core, is a concerted effort to correlate language, literature, culture, philosophy and visual arts with music, while forging new alliances between and among orchestras, museums and universities in each host city. A consortium of four orchestras led by Pacific Symphony, including the Buffalo Philharmonic, North Carolina Symphony and Louisville Orchestra, became the joint recipient of a $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)—a multi-year commitment to “Music Unwound,” integrating humanities content with live concert performances. This is the first NEH public programs grant to go to an orchestra in a decade. The NEH National Education Project supported the creation of Horowitz’ young readers book, Dvořák in America, and the Robert Winter/Peter Bogdanoff companion interactive DVD.


In this workshop, we will introduce you to new educational settings and recent music technologies. Teachers and musicians are invited to enhance their toolset in musical projects with mobile technologies.
During this five-day course participants will get a solid overview of music making with the help of applications in education and art. This will open up new perspectives for an innovative professional field where different groups of people work creatively with smartphones, tablets and applications within cultural and educational institutions.
The demand for projects where a wide target audience can create music with applications has been growing for years, especially among music schools, youth organizations, concert halls, museums and theatres. These projects are meant to meet the needs of children, teenagers, people with and without disabilities, seniors, etc. as well as to connect music and media education in order to turn it to an integral part of the outreach practice, based on art und culture.
- The course focuses on specific concepts, methodological and didactical approaches to music education, oriented toward digital technologies;
- the value will be placed on combining educational course contents with the participants' own artistic practice;
- to learn more about the diversity of music applications, we will discuss them referring to specific project examples, as well as to pros and cons of using them in different contexts;
- own musical experiments will be presented to the participants and professors during a collective concert;
- central point of the course is to test the educational offer with applications (together with the students of a resort group).
The course is carried out as a creative laboratory: from the very beginning, the participants will experiment on different topics in groups using music applications. These working phases will be guided by experts and reflected together with other students. Afterwards, the participants' own project ideas are the main focus. During the training they develop and test specific music projects and work straight on their portfolio, which represents their own app-based musical art and outreach practice.
The acquired competences will build the basis for educational programs with music applications, which are intended to provide access to modern music making for different target groups in regular and music schools, youth leisure events, concert halls, museums and theaters using their own or provided tablets.
The course is suitable for musicians, teachers at regular and music schools, as well as freelance teachers, social educators and other multipliers working with children, teenagers, adults, people with disabilities and senior citizens.
Matthias Krebs and Marc Godau belong to the pioneers of app music. As DigiEnsemble musicians, they regularly perform with tablets on concert stages and are involved in numerous cultural and educational music projects as music teachers.
Laura Konjetzky is a pianist and composer and has received numerous prizes for her work. Since her participation in the tAPP certificate course, she regularly integrates music apps into her artistic youth projects.


Early Music Education And Children's Thinking Development
Early music education has irreplaceable significance for the development of people's life. Music education helps develop people's right brain and enhance their creativity. Therefore, music education for children is a good way to directly cultivate their music quality and interest, as well as the best ways to cultivate their creativity. In early childhood, the child's brain can be said to be a blank sheet of paper. Timely music education is of great significance to the physical and mental health development of children. Through toddler music player, explore the development of children's thinking, understand the development of children's thinking from the perspective of psychology, and develop early childhood music education in line with children's growth process, making toddler music player
in line with the general rules of children's thinking development, which play a role in promoting the development of children's thinking.
Things that is not interesting will not attract children's attention. To make music education deep into the child's heart, we should seize their interest in the cultivation. Children don't like boring things, so the role of toddler music player is very important. Integrating music into life makes children like music in life and feel happy,which is the starting point of children's music education interest. Children's nature is lively. First of all, we have to create an environment for them to love music and put children in a good, live music environment.


TIME IN CONTEST WITH TRUTH
There is no truth. There is only perception
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Throughout the history of painting artists like Tiepolo used titles such as Time Unveiling Truth for their allegorical paintings. In Time in Contest with Truth there is a reference to this history of allegory in painting. The action of two men engaged in a table tennis contest represents a battle often waged in art, politics and life for the right to represent what might pass for truth. It is often the case that, whoever wins the battle, will write the subsequent history book or become the next leader. The two paintings in this triptych were once the subject of such a battle and although we are certain which one is real and which one counterfeit, there is not always a clear-cut answer at the end of each contest.
On April 1, 2011 the performance Time in Contest with Truth took place in the galleries of the museum.
The performance envisioned by Ted Efremoff - TIME IN CONTEST WITH TRUTH seeks to activate New Britain Museum's various galleries as historic zones, each with a unique perception of what truth is. Participating artists are Gregory Bailey, James Holland, Chris Joy, John O'Donell, Rebecca Parker. Each performer (wearing a red tie or rose) will lecture on artworks in the museum representing the prevailing thought of the time period in American art when the artworks were created. The performers are interested in engaging the audience in a dialogue about the nature of truth in relation to time as part of an interrogation of the museum as a vessel for public opinion. The performance will happen on Friday, April 1st from 6 to 8pm at the New Britain Museum of American Art.
We often find belief, truth and power closely associated, with one mistaken for another. The representation of belief as truth in the service of power occurs so often in human experience that we might use the term "truth claims" as more appropriate…… An objective fact can prove to be, in actuality, a subjective insistence designed to achieve a certain end……. …….Belief may have the aura of truth when it has been invested with power, but beliefs may be only strong proposals……..
Critical Art Pedagogy: foundations for postmodern art education
Link to article on the museums site:


Where wisdom rules the curriculum
Every effort is made to ensure that the students grow into mature and aware individuals capable of being positive contributors to society.
Holistic Development of the Child!
Integrated education that fosters the holistic development of the child’s personality.
The integrated curriculum includes hands-on activities to allow children to connect with the environment. Performing arts like painting, elocution, quiz, dramatics, singing, and dance are effortlessly blended into the curriculum. Students are graded on their performance in these various activities. Field trips to places of cultural, historical, and environmental interest are built into the curriculum. Festivals are celebrated each month and the significance of each is explained through small skits enacted on the occasion. Children grow in competence as they are provided with exposure to inter-school competitions. Prominent personalities often visit the school and encourage children on their journeys of growth. Children are taught the rules of etiquette and behaviour to be able to carry themselves with confidence in various situations they might experience. Children are helped to develop into holistic individuals capable of inspiring positive changes in the society.
Continuous evaluation of students.
Evaluating the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective abilities of the child.
Students are not ranked on their performance. Instead a grading system is in place that continually evaluates the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective abilities of the child. Parents are kept in the loop about their child’s progress at school.
3C Assessments at Edify School
Pre-Assessments: At the beginning of each unit of inquiry, teachers will assess children’s prior knowledge.
Formative Assessment: Is ongoing and regular assessment.
Summative Assessment: Happens at the end of the teaching & learning process.
Promotion from grade VI onwards is based on the following criteria:
Sports and Co-Curricular activities
Academic assessment is a continuous process comprising of class tests and 3 term exams. Grading on art education, SUPW, physical education and life skills is an internal part of promotion.
Parents As Partners
Parents are considered as significant partners in the holistic development of our children.
Parent visit the school at regular intervals on informal occasions like – Coffe Mornings, Parent Workshop, Parent – Staff Picnic. Parents at Edify School also teach the students on subjects they specialize in.
Edify School firmly believes that the teacher’s role in a student’s life is not limited to the confines of the classroom. Twice a year teachers visit students’ residences to get a feel of their milieu and social background. This helps them to bond with the children and their families and enhances their interactions with the children. At Edify School, students perceive their teachers as friends first and then as learning facilitators. This ensures a warm and friendly environment where students are at ease.


Special training offers college students with recognized disabilities specialised instruction designed to fulfill their distinctive learning wants, giving them the chance to develop to their fullest potential. We search to advertise the success of all college students via inclusive training, collaboration, family-centered practice, a helps mannequin approach to understanding incapacity, evidence-primarily based practice, data-based mostly choice making, and a strengths-primarily based local weather by which college students, families, and school staff really feel welcomed, respected, and supported.
ODE Policies and Procedures for Special Education: 2007-2008 Each district must have in effect insurance policies and procedures implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Schooling Act (CONCEPT), and relevant federal and state legal guidelines and laws.
seventy five The landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, which declared unconstitutional the ” separate however equal ” preparations in public schools for college kids of different races, paved the best way for PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Mills vs. Board of Education of District of Columbia , which challenged the segregation of scholars with special needs.
With a master’s diploma in learning disabilities from Chicago State College (1981) and a bachelor’s diploma in elementary education and gentle intellectual disabilities schooling from University of Illinois in Urbana (1977), Meg has taught early childhood, elementary and secondary college students generally and special education.
Quantitative evaluation reveals that significant difference exists on acceptance amongst academics as a consequence of colleges’ type and their academic and professional qualification whereas no important distinction exists attributable to faculties’ locality and their … Read More


WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup finds that the world's roughly 630 million would-be migrants are most likely to be young, single, educated, and relatively financially well-off. But they are also most likely to be underemployed and may feel they need to move to another country.
Gallup's latest findings on adults' desire to move to other countries are based on a rolling average of interviews with 401,490 adults in 146 countries between 2008 and 2010. The 146 countries represent more than 93% of the world's adult population.
Young People Want to Move Away
People's desire to migrate is strongly related to their age. Moving to another country permanently is a common dream among young people, with more than one in five 15- to 24-year-olds worldwide saying they would like to migrate if they had the chance. This desire declines sharply after age 25, about the time that many people start to put down firmer roots. By age 65, this desire dwindles to 4%.
With respect to roots, single adults (25%) are more than twice as likely as those who are married (11%) to say they would like to move to another country permanently if they had the chance. Age explains some of this, but even among the youngest adults (15 to 24), those who are married are less likely to say they would like to move.
More Educated More Likely to Want to Move
Potential migrants also tend to be better educated. They are more likely to have secondary or higher education, with about one in five in each of these two categories saying they would like to move to another country. This is not the pattern everywhere, however. In Northern America, those with an elementary education or less are more likely than their more educated counterparts to want to move.
Desire Gap Between Richest and Poorest
People who are more likely to have the means to move are more likely to desire to leave their countries for good. The desire to migrate rises with income, with people in the richest 20% income quintile of their countries the most likely to want to move. This pattern is evident in most regions, but again, Northern America stands out because the poorest income group is the most likely to want to leave.
Underemployed Often Most Likely to Want to Move
Adults who are unemployed or employed part time but want to work full time -- whom Gallup classifies as "underemployed" -- are nearly twice as likely to want to move as people who are employed at capacity or not in the workforce at all. People who are employed full time for an employer, self-employed full time, or employed part time and do not want to work full time are considered employed at capacity. Across the world, the underemployed are more likely to want to move, although this is true to a lesser extent in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Gallup finds that worldwide people's desire to migrate permanently to another country is showing signs of cooling, but the hundreds of millions of adults who would still like move, where they would like to go, and who they are have substantial implications for labor forces in countries that send or receive migrants. The strong relationship between people's desire to migrate and their age and education reinforces how important it is to study what pushes or pulls these potential migrants before their desires become real brain drain or brain gain.
Results are based on aggregated telephone and face-to-face interviews with 401,490 adults, aged 15 and older, in 146 countries from 2008 to 2010. The 146 countries surveyed represent 93% of the world's adult population. One can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error for the entire sample accounting for weighting and sample design is less than ±1 percentage point.
For complete methodology and specific survey dates, please review Gallup's Country Data Set details.
Learn more about how the Gallup World Poll works.


Common Sense School
Common Sense, the national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids and families thrive in a world of digital media and technology, has recognized Willow Elementary School as a Common Sense School.
Willow Elementary School has demonstrated its commitment to taking a whole-community approach to preparing its students to use the immense power of digital media to explore, create, connect, and learn, while limiting the perils that exist in the online realm, such as plagiarism, loss of privacy, and cyberbullying. The recognition acknowledges our schools commitment to creating a culture of digital learning and citizenship.
"We applaud the faculty and staff of Willow Elementary School for embracing digital citizenship as an important part of their students' education," said Liz Kline, VP, Education Programs, Common Sense Education. "Willow Elementary School deserves high praise for giving its students the foundational skills they need to compete and succeed in the 21st-century workplace and participate ethically in society at large."
Willow Elementary School has been using Common Sense Education's innovative and research-based digital citizenship resources, which were created in collaboration with Dr. Howard Gardner of the GoodPlay Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The resources teach students, educators, and parents tangible skills related to internet safety, protecting online reputations and personal privacy, managing online relationships, and respecting creative copyright. The free resources are currently used in more than 100,000 classrooms nationwide.
To learn more about the criteria Willow Elementary School met to become recognized as a Common Sense School, visithttps://www.commonsense.org/education/recognition-schools.


The abacus is taught as part of maths curricula in primary schools across most Asian countries. It is also widely taught as an extra-curricular module after school.
The abacus continues to generate tremendous interests in children and adults alike for its hands-on nature. It is a tool which enables intuitive learning and harnesses the natural potential in many children. It allows children to understand numbers and place value concepts easily.
This teacher soroban is operated on a standing position to enable students to see what is being shown to them.
This student soroban has been cleverly designed to allow children as young as 3 or 4 to manipulate the beads.
Benefits and uses
Improves children’s maths skills independent of their underlying abilities. Hence, enhances children's attitude towards learning maths and boosts confidence.
Enable the integration of the use of sight, sound and finger movements which develop children’s ability to call up images and patterns.
Spatial ability is highly applicable in the areas of architecture, engineering, science, maths and the arts.
Helps dyslexic children improve their numeracy skills as dyslexic children are generally visual and tactile learners.
Increases children’s concentration spans and develop their mental ability to compute large sums within seconds.


Students in Third Grade learn about virtues in the Blest Are We series. Students learn about how God calls us to faith and how Jesus is with us. Students attend Mass every other Wednesday and on all Holy Days. During this time, students are nourishing their faith with prayer and the sacraments. Throughout the year students take part in preparing liturgies for daily Mass and for a Parish-wide, Sunday Mass.
Language Arts and Literature
The CAFÉ Reading framework provides students in Third Grade the strategies to improve comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and extend vocabulary. The students use Daily 5, which fosters literacy independence by first building stamina in silent reading and progresses into writing and word building activities. It allows for individualized attention in small groups and one-on-one. Students also complete novel studies as a class within this framework, which allows for understanding of literary terms and greater comprehension.
Third grade students build their writings skills by studying narrative and informational writing. The students use Step Up to Writing to help learn and develop their writing voice.
Vocabulary and grammar skills are enhanced through daily grammar practice as well as working with the grammar program Voyages through English. The Zaner-Bloser spelling and vocabulary programs allow for practice with spelling, word origins, prefixes, suffixes, and word meanings.
In Third Grade, students use the Go Math program for a hands-on approach to math. Students continue to build on the foundational skills learned previously. They begin to solve problems using multiplication and division, while understanding place value so that they can do multi-digit arithmetic. Students are introduced to fractions and learn the concept of area.
Third Graders learn about community and state and national branches of government. They learn about the California Native Ohlone Indians. They are able to identify map elements and can understand geographic terms.
As a class, students in Third Grade participate in the school-wide Science Fair. They use the scientific method to help prepare their project. In addition, students learn about mammals, bats and insects, fish, sharks, sea mammals. They learn the difference among solids, liquids, and gasses. Much of their focus is on life science, astronomy, and space.
In Third Grade, students work on refinement of basic stability, locomotor and manipulative skills. Students begin to show and interest in skill development. Instruction includes refinement of the activities and concepts introduced in second grade. Students participate in P.E. three times a week for 30 minutes.
Students in Fourth Grade participate in Spanish class twice a week.
Third grade students master reading standard music notation and begin reading the letter names of notes to indicate pitch in treble clef. They study the components of the staff, measures, and time signatures, and learn to draw notes and rests that appropriately complete measures in simple time signatures.
Our technology is integrated at the classroom level and part of the curriculum. Third grade students may use the iPads to work on vocabulary, practice their Spanish pronunciation, or work on Math problems, among other activities. Third grade students are assigned their own iPad for use during the school year. Each iPad includes a keyboard.


By Teachers, For Teachers
Whether you have been teaching for decades or have only been teaching for a few years, planning out your lessons ahead of time is one of the most effective and efficient things that you can do. Mapping out your teaching strategies ahead of time allows you to be flexible and make any necessary changes that may be needed. Here are five more teaching strategies that you can use to transform your lesson plans.
While it’s important and quite essential to understand the standards and curriculum, it doesn’t mean that you have to stick to using the standard textbook when creating your lesson plans. Try going beyond the textbook to teach concepts through alternative methods that are engaging, like presentations, using technology, or group work activities. All of these things will help boost students’ learning while still following the curriculum. Here are a few more resources to consider using as an alternative or even an extension of the textbook.
Many teachers chose to use the Goldilocks rule when planning their objectives for their lesson plans. This rule means that the objective should not be too broad or too specific, but it should be just right. For example, the objective, “Identify the details in the story” would be too general of a statement, while the objective, “Identify the characters in the book “Charlotte’s Web”” would be too specific. An appropriate statement would be “Identify characters in a story.” The goal is to create a simple objective that uses student-friendly language while defining a skill.
When looking to transform your lessons, you will want to make sure that you use a few visual learning strategies to help engage your students. Research shows that visual aids help arise students’ interest, while helping teachers explain a concept more easily. Here are a few common visual learning aids that make a lesson easier for students to understand.
Effective teachers have found that student choice is a great motivator. So when planning your lessons, give students a few options. You can integrate student choice in a variety of ways: Give them a choice board where they choose a few tasks to complete out of a set of tasks, give students an assignment then give them the choice when to complete it during the week, or allow them to choose who they work with to complete a task. Implementing any of these ideas can influence students’ motivation and help them to succeed in class.
When planning your lessons, try creating your assessment first, this way you can figure out what you want students to know at the end of the lesson. Then you can create the lesson based on that information. When you take this approach, you are not teaching to the test like many teachers feel they have to do. Instead, you are creating a test based on your standards and curriculum, then creating an effective lesson plan based off of that. Planning your assessment helps you make sure that students are hitting their checkpoints and grasping each skill or concept that you are teaching them.
If your goal is to create transformational lessons, then they should focus on enriching the lives of your students. You can do this by carefully crafting your objectives so they are not too broad or too specific, but just right. In addition to that, they should be engaging and go beyond the textbook, incorporate visuals, and give students the opportunity of choice. When you do this, along with planning your assessment first, then you have ultimately transformed your lessons so that your students will be engaged and motivated to learn.
How do you transform your lessons? Do you have any specific teaching strategies that you like to do? Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas in the comment section below, we would love to hear what you have to say.
Janelle Cox is an education writer who uses her experience and knowledge to provide creative and original writing in the field of education. Janelle holds Masters of Science in Education from the State University of New York College at Buffalo. She is a contributing writer to TeachHUB.com, TeachHUB Magazine, and Hey Teach. She was also the Elementary Education Expert for About.com for five years. You can follow her on Twitter @Empoweringk6ed, on Facebook at Empowering K6 Educators, or contact her at Janellecox78@yahoo.com.


When I was at university, in addition to studying music I studied Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. There was a significant focus in that course of study on Semiotics. Semiotics is the study of how one interprets symbols. Semiotics has informed my musical practice by making me aware of the mental processes that I undertake in my daily life. Each time I read music I am instantaneously recognising the pitch of a note, its duration, its articulation, and then linking that to the finger combination that is used to play that note, the tongue action, breathing technique and embouchure that I have to use to play that note realise the music that is on the page. And that process all happens before I try to express anything of my own!
Breaking down the mental process like that has played a significant part in my teaching. I approach it with my students by asking them what the note is, how they play it on their instrument, how long the note is, whether it is tongued or not and what volume it is played at. As students respond to these questions they begin to develop their capacity to recognise the symbols (notes) and process what they mean. Initially, they do this in isolation, and as they become more fluent with symbol recognition they begin being able to recognise multiple aspects of the symbol at the same time. Usually, students first manage to put pitch and duration together, then dynamics, and finally articulation.
As I continue to develop this aspect of my teaching, I realise that I often ask my students to engage in incredibly complex mental processes and expect them to be able to do it instantly. Sight-reading, for example, is an incredibly complex process, and students often find it stressful. Yet, as teachers, we often just tell students “the more you do it, the easier it will get.” However, I find this to be untrue, because attempting to do something complex without breaking it up into its component parts is usually a recipe for disaster. More often than not, students attempting to sight-read make mistakes, and lose confidence in their ability to sight-read. Sight-reading becomes something incredibly stressful for them, and when they are confronted with the task of sight-reading in an exam or ensemble context they are often overcome with anxiety.
Yet, the contrary is also true. If students are taught to break down complex processes and decipher the components from early on in their music education, they will begin to gain confidence in their abilities. As students learn how to decipher duration, pitch, articulation, dynamics and the other elements of music, they start to get quicker at doing so. The speed and accuracy with which students can process the component musical information increases their confidence. As students become more confident, their enjoyment increases and they start to believe they are good at music. It is that belief which propels students to a lifelong love of music.


Promoting Math in the New Year
As the new year approaches, we have been gaining significant momentum in math skills and problem solving. Math I is focusing on dividing decimals based on a thorough understanding of place value. Relating the chip model to the steps in division of decimals is paying off with increased understanding of how the algorithm functions. If you have a student in Math I, ask him or her to demonstrate how they can solve a decimal division problem using this concrete model–a great confidence builder!
Math II and III students are working in unit prices and rates including speed, work, and measurement conversions. Ask your math student to help you shop using unit prices posted on grocery store shelves. Why not save money while reinforcing valuable math skills and smart consumer habits?
Math IV is learning to do proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. Remember the Scarecrow’s line in The Wizard of Oz after receiving his request for a brain? In the famous 1939 film, the Scarecrow mistakenly claims, “the sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.” Our Math IV student can tell you why that isn’t true. Ask her to explain and then show you the proof using the “square within a square” model. Then find a home project to put this valuable theorem to use!
As we embark upon another great school year, I am starting my 21st year at Index School. I began my career rather adventurously in a small school in Nevada where I taught two years in a 5-6-7-8 classroom. I discovered that I loved the age group, working in a small community, and being able to work collaboratively to create curriculum to meet standards in ways that engaged the students. And so, the journey continues….
I graduated from Lewis-Clark State College summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education and a minor in Reading. Student teaching experience includes 2nd grade, 5th grade, and high school college prep and regular English classes. My endorsements include Reading K-12 and most recently, English 4-12. I have considerable credits in my Master’s Degree program in the area of Literacy Specialist K-12. Part of my Master’s work was working with students who had reading difficulties in the Center for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno under the supervision of Donald Bear and Shane Templeton, well known literacy specialists, professors at UNR, and two of the co-authors of Words Their Way.
I consider myself a lifelong learner not only academically, but also in general. My greatest desire is to nurture that mindset along with critical thinking and curiosity in the students I am fortunate enough to teach.
I enjoy reading (of course) and most outdoor adventures, especially those in and around water. The best times are those spent with family and good friends. I’m exceedingly proud of my son and daughter and their families, including my three grandchildren who furnish much of the joy in my life.


Congratulations to our teams who participated in ‘Cwis Dim Clem’ competition this week. Both teams demonstrated a very good general knowledge of Wales and Welsh culture as well as the ability to translate from Welsh to English and vice versa. The results were very close with Team A scoring 34 points and Team B scoring 29 points. A very close competition indeed. Only twelve teams from across the region can go through to the next round, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed that Mount Street Juniors Team A have scored enough points to secure their place in the next round.
As part of the Lower Junior Chocoholics topic the children have been investigating the melting of chocolate. Our literacy focus at the moment is instructional writing and as a special treat the children planned and made chocolate stirrers. They had to choose the toppings they’d like to add and using their instructional writing techniques plan the task. Each child got to choose if they’d like white chocolate, milk chocolate or dark chocolate and then looked at how the different types of chocolate melted. Once the stirrers were made we put them in the fridge to set ready for home time. We were all very excited to see the finished product when we popped them out of the mould!
Mrs Woods’ Year 3 class have had lots of fun this week applying their numeracy skills. They were given the challenge of building a monster from coloured unifix blocks. Each coloured block had a monetary value which was set out on a sheet, they had to calculate each block and make sure not to spend over £5. Here is one example of a scary unifix monster as you can see there are lots of working outs and the grand total comes to £3.64.


Teaching rhyming words can be tricky, especially for little learners who are just starting to learn their CVC and short vowel sounds. This Snowman CVC Rhyming Words Activity is such a great way to get kids involved in learning their CVC words AND short vowel sounds.
This activity would pair well with our CVC playdough mats right here.
How to teach CVC Rhyming words
The best way to start teaching CVC rhyming words is to begin by reviewing the short vowel sounds with the students. Many though miss the important foundational steps before starting with short vowel sounds. Here are simple steps that you can take to instroduce and successfully teach CVC rhyming words.
Simple steps to teaching CVC words
- Start with short vowel sounds: be sure your students know their short vowel sounds first. The CVC short vowel sounds to focus on are a, i, o, u, and e. Some words you can give as examples include tap, tip, top, pup, and pet. These are all short vowel sounds and simple words that kids won’t have trouble understanding as you introduce the topic.
- Recite the alphabet: Before students can work on rhyming skills, you need to be sure they know their alphabet order and their alphabet sounds. Try different alphabet songs, chants etc. before you introduce CVC words. I work with a lot of ESL students and most always need more alphabet recognition activities.
- Know the vowels: Kids need to know their vowel sounds before they’re introduced to CVC words. Practice chants, alphabet songs etc to help them know the sounds vowel letters make in words.
- Long and short vowel sounds: Give the students examples of long and short vowel sounds. Your focus should be on short vowel sounds to begin with but it’s important for kids to know that long forms also exist.
Here’s a fun little info graphic which you can print and hang!
These short and simple steps should help you introduce CVC rhyming words to your students, once they are aware of the foundational skills, they can then begin to identify similar sounds and words that have the same sound.
Like tap and cap.
Tip and sip etc.
However, if you find that some of your students are still struggling with some aspect or step from above, you can prepare to review the skills with them during a one-on-one support session. Drills with the whole class also benefit so many students, I do this often!
- Spider Spinners and Clippers CVC Beginning Sounds
- CVC Words Vowel Sounds Activity Strips
- CVC Words Interactive Puzzles I Teach K-2 Linky
- Rainbow Word Family CVC Puzzles Free
Snowman CVC Rhyming Words Activity
Onto this activity! I created this as a way to help kids identify their CVC rhyming words. You can get the students to write their words at the end of the activity too. A recording sheet is included. This activity is hosted over at Totschooling.net. Head to the post right here to see how to prep and use this activity!


Creating a musical environment for very young children is crucial. Among the many things adults can do is to provide children with suitable musical toys with which they can interact, exploring the sounds they can make with the toys. Here is an excellent article on this important stage of musical development in early childhood.
There are a wide variety of musical instruments and toys that are available for children of all ages. Some help children’s musicality, and some are very annoying, like the guitar pictured below (trust me, I know from experience.)
While you can buy all sorts of props, and I suggest that you do, here are some ideas for the Do-It-Yourselfers out there. Dancing ribbons and scarves are great ways to encourage musical movement in young children. They are fun and colorful. I suggest these over the streamers on sticks for young children because children running around with sticks is never a good idea. These are more durable, too. However, you may not need the dozen or twenty-something that come with the sets sold by music education retailers. If you DIY, you can make scarves or dancing ribbons in you or your child’s favorite colors, which may encourage them to use it…
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This spring Young Rembrandts students learned about the artist Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) and completed a colorful rendition of his Sailor painting, an abstract portrait of a man, full of color and pattern. And while the kids enjoyed doing such an impressive and challenging piece of art, we loved introducing them to Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Most people think of Picasso as the guy who painted anything and everything and drew like a child. And while he did help birth modern art as we know it today, what many people forget is that Picasso was first a master of realistic painting. As a child, Picasso took art classes with his father, an artist, curator and instructor. He learned the fundamentals of drawing and his ability to paint realistically in his early teen years was remarkable. After his early years of training and mastering in the fundamentals, Picasso branched out and created art that explored different elements of art – line, form, color and dimension. This is the art he is best known for, his abstract art.
Picasso’s career and life as an artist profoundly influenced the way we think about art and art education. As ‘real’ art became more abstract, it seemed like anybody could do art, which is good – but at the same time it undermined the need for teaching children the ‘how to’ of art. But kids need art. They need paint and clay, time and materials that allow them to explore, play, explore, share and invent. But they also need to learn the ‘how to’ of art. They need to learn how to draw a face, a car, a dog a picture of themselves or their family. They need the kind of instruction that teaches them the technical skills, so when they get to their paper, paint and pencils – they can draw, paint and make whatever comes to mind – without the shame or frustration that comes with not knowing how.
All kids have a desire to express themselves and are drawn to make, see and do. But they need information, training and systematic skill development to gain competency. They need art class. In every other kind of art, such as music, dance and theater, there is a predetermined, systematic method of training. It is expected that with practice and repetition students will gain a level of mastery that leads to freedom of expression and creativity.
“Art training requires the same structure, time, discipline and planned skill acquisition as math, science and reading.” – Being Visual
To learn music, one learns to read notes while training on an instrument. Dancers learn with rigorous and skill-specific physical training. It should be the same for art class. And it should matter. Students need training in the technical skills to become adept in producing and creating art. That means learning how to see, how to draw, how to use color, shadow, texture and more. Without it they tend to give up. They stop doing art and consider themselves incapable. And somehow, this has become acceptable. There is an agreement in the education community that not everyone needs art, or is meant to do art, so not being proficient is excused. And yet we do not consider math, science, reading or writing optional. Regardless of a child’s early or latent signs of natural ability in these subjects, we provide all school-age children with skill-specific training, knowing it is the information and training that develops their abilities. We need to do the same with art.
In the elementary classroom, there is very little time devoted to teaching art. Budgets are strained, and the arts are not highly valued in our test-focused education system. What little time there is for art instruction has to cover a vast array of media experiences, large numbers of students with minimal staff, often without appropriate budgets and classroom space. Without art class, the majority of young children will stop doing art. They stop drawing. They stop making. They stop enjoying. They remove themselves from all the benefits that participating in the arts can provide. And worst of all, they blame themselves. They stopped doing art because they thought they weren’t good at it, when in reality they didn’t get the instruction they needed.
Art is not for the select few, just as reading and writing are no longer for the elite. With the majority of students relying on their visual skills to think and learn and literacy skills requiring visual mastery, this has become even more critical. All children need training in the visual arts.


Karen and her colleagues think it is unacceptable that young people are blocked from developing creativity and experiencing moments of mindfulness during a day of learning because of timetabling and traditional teaching practices. Their reality at the start of the year, however, was that there was a core group of staff at her school who were conservative, opposed to change and had a very loud collective voice!
Karen and her colleagues decided to tackle their problem head-on and actively reduced some of the barriers in place so that students had access to a range of opportunities to engage in the creative process.
They’ve spent this year getting ready to launch the following programs in 2017..
1. Genius Hour. For 2 periods a week in 2017, Year 7-9 students will have an opportunity to engage in a learning program that fosters innovation, creativity, choice and passion, at the same time as developing literacy and numeracy skills.
2. Creative Timetabling. Maximising the time that teachers have with groups of students, enabling time for extended investigation. So if a teacher takes one group of kids for both Science and Maths, they will have 420 minutes per week to teach the curriculum for those two subjects, without needing to dictate what gets done in which lesson slot. This means teachers have the scope to spend extended periods of time on learning goals, and additional opportunities to gather evidence of student progress through cumulative student assessment.
3. Alternate Program. At the end of 2017, Karen’s school will run a program to encourage students to come to school for the last few days of learning. They’ll run activities like wildlife sketching outdoors, team cooking challenges, skill development in favourite sports, a trip to CQU for scientific experiments, scrap booking, coding and computer program writing, Make-A-Space, spending time with a local artist learning a new technique, listening to elder stories in the Yarnin Place and spending time with primary school students reading.
Karen and her team’s ideas kick into action at the beginning of 2017 but their comprehensive approach to creating a creative timetable means that a huge number of kids can be positively and directly impacted. In addition, staff have benefitted from the design and planning process Karen and her colleagues have led this year.
“One of the other teachers at my school was on the brink of leaving our school and possibly the profession because she’s been so disheartened at work this year. She’s been really involved in the planning and design process and she’s now looking forward to next year at our school. She’s excited about the impact she can have on changing the mindset of students and staff. We almost lost an amazing operator to the systems, but she is back on board and raring to go and make a difference!”.
Like the idea?
Karen would love your support for Creating a Creative Timetable, or for you to start a similar program in your school, and she’d love to hear about any ideas you have or lend a hand where she can. Shoot an email to firstname.lastname@example.org if you want to get in touch with Karen and her clever colleagues and we can connect you. Feel free to cheer her on in the comments below as well.
#WhatChangeLooksLike #ECStories #EduChange


This week, our Resource List of the Week concentrates on Drama. Before starting, let’s give a definition of this subject.
What is Drama?
According to Merriam Webster, Drama is a subject
“…intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance”
To better understand the topic, we recommend you read the following titles and resources.
1. Drama & the Dramatic – Dawson, S. W.
This book explores the history of Drama and provides critical overviews on different aspects of the subject. Firstly, it explores the intricacies of plays, before going on to examine the dramatic language, action and tension used within them. Finally, this title is a valuable resource for those studying drama and English literature.
2. Theatre in Practice – O’Brien, N., and Sutton, A.
This title outlines the central practices and key practitioners in theatre. Firstly, it explores a wide range of work from innovative theatre companies, then, it combines an informal, unpretentious tone with a wealth of practical exercises. Secondly, the book includes some of the latest practices in theatre, including a step-by-step approach to develop key skills such as devising, improvising, rehearsing mono/duologues and directing plays.
3. Disability and Theatre – Barton Farcas, S.
This book is a step-by-step manual on how to create an inclusive theatre for anyone with disabilities. Firstly, it explains how and where to find actors as well as how to publicise productions, run rehearsals, direct intricate scenes like fights and battles, and deal with technical issues. This practical information was born from O’Brien’s 16 years of running the first inclusive theatre company in New York City. Furthermore, this knowledge is applicable to any performance level.
4. Interpreting the play script – Fliotsos, A.
This title explores how one type of analysis cannot fit every play, neither does one method of interpretation suit every theatre artist or collaborative team. In addition, this book is the first text to combine traditional and non-traditional models, giving students a range of tools with which to analyse different kinds of performance.
5. Stage-Play and Screen-Play – Ingham, M.
This book explores and reveals the differences in vocabulary between film and theatre. Firstly, each chapter examines the processes involved in stage-to-screen and screen-to-stage transfer and how they are grounded with relevant and applied contexts. Secondly, Ingham draws upon the growing field of adaptation studies, to present case studies ranging from Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan and RSC Live’s simulcast by Richard II to F.W. Murnau’s Silent Tartüff. Furthermore, the book offers a fresh insight into the ways in which film and theatre communicate dramatic performances, underlining the differences between them.
This is a website which offers a wide range of resources for those who are involved in teaching and practising of drama. This content includes games, courses, articles, videos and apps. This website is run by David Farmer, who is a freelance writer, theatre director and drama consultant. Also, he delivers training and presentations for organisations worldwide.
UK Theatre is the UK’s leading theatre and performing arts membership organisation.
It can support organisations and individuals in the performing arts at any stage of their career, through a range of training, events and other professional services. This website has a wide range of reports and resources available to support any part of drama and theatre.
This paper explains how, when you involve games in drama teaching, they can be a simple, cost-effective method to achieve a wide variety of educational goals. Furthermore, the document explains how games can combine elements of creative drama, improvisation, pantomime, creative movement and storytelling. Finally, the paper explores how games can have a tremendously positive effect on literacy development, academic success, and social interaction.


Our aim is to nurture a love for reading. Our strong literacy programme focuses on ensuring that our phonics programme provides children with the necessary skills required to decode language, allowing them to build words using the sounds they have learnt. Through small group work, varied reading and spelling schemes and differentiated programmes of learning, each child learns at the pace appropriate to their ability. Although we actively encourage independent learning, our reading scheme continues throughout the whole school, until we are sure that the necessary skills are firmly in place for a child to continue their learning journey successfully.
We also aim to foster a love for writing, whether providing a child with the required skills to free their imagination on paper, describe an idea or explain an opinion. Our rigorous teaching of grammar and punctuation equips each child with the necessary tools required to understand how to write appropriately, for the many varied formats that each child will experience. It is wonderful to observe the enjoyment our children feel when they are obviously delighted by the many wonderful poems, debates, stories, newspapers, play scripts and other pieces of writing they have produced. Support is offered in a variety of ways to ensure that every child is given the necessary teaching programme they require to continue and challenge their learning process.
At Oakwood, success means that a child can speak with confidence in a variety of situations, enjoy reading independently, whilst discovering which genre of novel excites them, and fostering an environment which celebrates the freedom to write independently.
Our pupils are successful in developing their numeracy skills through focused teaching that embeds core skills while challenging and extending pupils' knowledge and understanding. Years 3 to 6 follow the National Curriculum using the comprehensive Hamilton Trust scheme of work, covering a wide range of topics aiming to consolidate and extend the children’s learning. Year 6 supplement this work by covering the additional elements of the ISEB syllabus in preparation for senior school entry.
Teaching and learning is differentiated to ensure that support or extension work is available as appropriate. The children are taught in 3 sets per year group, rather than as forms, covering work that is appropriate for the set that they are in, ensuring a more individualised approach to their learning.
From Year 3, children are taught science by specialist teachers in the school's science laboratory. The science team are very enthusiastic about making their subject as practical as possible, engaging our pupils in a variety of ways, both in the classroom and at home. We use a variety of text books, science equipment, the school grounds, DVDs, the internet, LearnPads and each other to find out about the world around us. The curriculum is varied and incorporates all areas of science, biology, chemistry and physics. Throughout their science education, our pupils have the opportunity to work on their own, within groups or pairs and as a whole class. They plan and conduct scientific investigations and carry out a range of practical activities, which will enhance their theoretical knowledge and understanding of science. Every pupil is encouraged to perform to the best of their ability and most importantly enjoy their studies. Each pupil has two double lessons of science per week (two 70 minute sessions). From Year 4 the children have science prep each week, which comprises a variety of activities, both practical and written.


Converting a fraction to equal 1
The simplest case to start converting to whole numbers is converting a fraction to equal 1
This presentation gives several examples of when a fraction = 1, using eighths, thirds and quarters. Examples include riding your horse to make one whole journey or eating one whole pot of stew. We know from experience that students benefit from examples in multiple contexts. Want it as a PDF? Get it here.
We also know that students may learn in different ways, which is why we made a video of this presentation as well. Want to link to it on your class website so students can review? Help yourself!
Converting a fraction to equal 1, in Video
End your class with style learning fractions by playing Fish Lake
In Fish Lake, players practice with Fractions while learning math problem-solving strategies.
Intructions: MAC OS X, Win 7, Win 8, Win 10.
|Recommended for||4-6 grade|
|Math Standards alignment||5-6 grade|
|Available for||Mac, MAC OS X, Win 7 Win 8, Win 10|


Dr. Foley's Music at Neil Armstrong Home Page
Welcome to General Music
at Neil Armstrong!
Philosophy and Curriculum
Music is all around us. To react to that music by singing and moving is a natural human response. What we hear, feel, and understand guides our response. In general music at Neil Armstrong, we are working to develop our singing, moving, creating, listening, and reading skills so we can understand, relate to, and interact with the music all around us.
Singing is at the core of all music learning and is therefore our primary focus. It helps us learn how to hear music in our heads and how truly to “read” music. All children can learn to sing well and in tune. First we find our singing voice through vocal exploration. Then we match simple pitch patterns and work to learn simple songs. The songs then become more complex and will eventually have two or more parts going on at the same time. These pitch-matching and song-learning skills make us ready to read melody patterns and simple songs and participate in music making experiences.
Music inspires movement and movement inspires music. Movement skills allow us to internalize music. We begin to develop our skills by focusing on steady beat and flowing movements with music from a variety of styles and cultures. Then we learn to move with large and small steady beats at the same time. As our meter-movement skills (grouping the beats in twos and threes) develop, we begin moving to rhythms using body percussion and instruments. Throughout all of our movement activities, we seek to be creative and expressive and make the music come alive.
Our overall goals include the ability to sight read familiar and unfamiliar melody patterns, rhythm patterns and simple songs. We are using solfege syllables (do re mi...) and hand signs for our tonal reading (reading pitch) and rhythm syllables (a special language for reading rhythm) for our rhythm patterns. Our rhythm reading and writing skills will most likely develop sooner than our tonal skills. To help develop melodic reading, you, the parents, must encourage your children to sing at home. The best way to encourage them to sing is if you sing for and with them; children learn by example.
Why Music Education?
Singing, moving, creating, and reading music are skills, not gifts, and all students can develop their individual potential and interact with the music around them. This is a critical age for music learning, and developing musical skills is what we are all about in music class.
Students playing the harp with out guest musician!


It matters, according to research. You should start with teaching her “the code,” that is, the connection between the sounds of the English language and the letter symbols we use to mean those sounds. Here’s how. (Look for more information on all these ideas in previously published blogs at comicphonics.com.)
- First, make sure she can pronounce all 42 sounds of English. Listen to how she pronounces everyday words and make sure she is saying the sounds correctly. Help her with pronunciation.
- Then connect sounds with letter symbols, a few at a time. Start with the beginning sounds of a few key words such as the child’s name, m for mom, d for dad, b for baby. Help her to hear those sounds in the beginnings of other words. For example, if you are pouring her milk, ask her what sound milk begins with. Then show her an “m” and explain that is how we show that sound.
- Beginning sounds are always the easiest to hear, so focus on them.
- Help her to write the initial of her name and a few other meaningful letters.
- Since each vowel has many sounds, teach her to associate each vowel with a word and an image that begins with a “short” vowel sound such as apple, egg, igloo, octopus and umbrella. Later, she can compare the vowel sounds in new words to those vowel sounds.
- In speaking, start putting letter sounds together to form one-syllable short-vowel (CVC) words she knows, like “cat” and “dog.” When she can hear how words are formed (phonics) by combining sounds, use letter tiles to show her what the combining of sounds in words looks like using letter symbols.
- When you are reading stories to her, point out words she might be able to decipher, and help her to sound them out.
- When she knows most of her sound – letter matches, she is ready to start reading books which use one-syllable, short-vowel words. Unfortunately, few good ones exist. We at comicphonics.com have written five humorous books for new readers. (See the links to the right of this blog.) Your librarian can point out where other books are shelved, but many labeled “first” readers contain difficult words. Margaret Hillert has written some good beginning books, and so has Dr. Seuss. Good illustrations can help the child figure out the meanings of difficult words, but she will probably need your help as she begins.
Figuring out the code of written English is how a child begins to learn to read. There are lots of commercial methods to do this, but the best I have found is the Explode the Code series. Children find its combination of goofy pictures and sequenced phonics instruction fun.
Later you can focus on other aspects of reading including fluency and comprehension. But the place to begin is demystifying the code by connecting the sounds of our speech to individual letters and pairs of letters, and then combining them to form words.


Use the links below to help your child become a confidant Mathematician.
Did you know that children with good numeracy skills are more likely to earn more, stay in education longer and have more chance of actually being in work when they grow up?
Children are born with an innate mathematical ability and research has shown that parents have a massive effect on how this develops. Even if you feel you aren’t good at maths, there are things you can do with your child now that will make a big difference to their ability:
It’s all about confidence…
For children to be good at maths, they need to feel confident about giving it a go. Praising your child for their effort, not their ability, will increase their confidence and make them hungry to learn more.
Positivity is the key…
Children who succeed at maths are usually the ones who enjoy it most, so remember – maths is fun, everyone! Yep – just keep telling yourself that, even if that’s not the way you remember it from your own childhood. We all know how easily children pick up on the things we say, so it’s vital that you don’t pass on your dislike or fear of maths by saying things like ‘I was never any good at maths’ or ‘I hated maths at school’ etc…
If you know of any good websites please let us know.
RM Easimaths - Free - ipad and Android
Mathletics Student - Free - ipad
onebillion - Free - ipad
Number Monsters - £1.99 - iPhone, iPad, Android
Wee Kids Math - 69p - iphone, ipad
Leila and the Little Folk - £1.99 - Android
Math Bingo - 69p - ipad, iphone, Android
Times Tables: Squeebles multiplication - 69p - iPhone, iPad and Android
Squeebles multiplication 2 - £1.49 - iPhone, iPad and Android
If you know of any good apps please let us know.


Specific areas of learning
The four specific areas in the EYFS are –Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the world and Expressive arts and design. These areas are fundamental in a child’s life although not as much of a priority as the prime areas for 0-3 years. These areas are essential in order to fully build the prime areas and be successful in the community. They also help to achieve long term confidence and participate in the wider world. The specific areas must be gradually built upon and develop alongside the prime areas in order to support all development and learning. Below details what the specific areas are and how we can achieve them.
Literacy development involves encouraging
children to link sounds and letters and to
begin to read and write. Children must be
given access to a wide range of reading
materials (books, poems, and other written
materials) to ignite their interest.
Mathematics involves providing children with
opportunities to develop and improve their skills
counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating
simple addition and subtraction problems; and describe
shapes, spaces, and measures.
Understanding the world involves guiding children
to make sense of their physical world and their
community through opportunities to explore, observe
and find out about people, places, technology and
Expressive arts and design involves enabling children to
explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as
well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing
their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities
in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and


The Indiana University of Pennsylvania String Project, a community outreach program, provides a string music education program for children ages five through eighteen in Indiana and the surrounding area, as well as a teacher-training program for IUP music students.
The IUP String Project is one of thirty-two similar programs joined under the auspices of the National String Project Consortium, dedicated to promoting string music education in the United States.
As a member of the National String Project Consortium, the IUP String Project joins in addressing the two main issues facing string education today:
The program is directed by IUP music faculty member Dr. Linda Jennings.
The mission of the IUP String Project is to:
The IUP String Project is part of a long, rich history in string education in the U.S. The IUP String Project is modeled after the University of Texas String Project in Austin, Texas, the original program of its kind.
“The idea of the String Project came about in the years following World War II when an acute shortage of string players became apparent. There was a dearth of qualified string musicians to fill symphony positions, and few school children were being attracted to and trained in the art of string playing.
“In 1948, Dr. William E. Doty, founding dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, listened to and supported Albert Gillis' idea to develop an imaginative program for the training of string teachers. Together they founded the Junior String Project, and Professor Gillis became the director, a position he held for the first ten years. Eight years later, the program was renamed The University of Texas String Project.
“Professor Phyllis Young joined the staff in its fifth year and began directing in 1958. She continued as director for the next thirty-five years.”
—Taken from the UT String Project
Having served as a model for similar programs at other universities in the U.S., the string project concept became part of a broader, nationwide initiative of the American String Teachers Association to advocate for string education in the 1990s. A study in 1995 showed that there was a serious shortage of string teachers in the public schools, which continues today.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, ASTA began sponsoring grants of $100,000 ($10,000 for ten years) to support the development of sting projects at universities in the U.S. Because of these grants, many new string projects sprouted up across the country.
The development of the string project concept has continued to develop within the National String Project Consortium, a coalition of string project sites based at colleges and universities across the U.S. The NSPC is dedicated to increasing the number of children playing stringed instruments and addressing the critical shortage of string teachers in the U.S.


27J Schools: A Vision for Our Students’ Future/ Preparing Our Students Today
“The mission of 27J Schools, with the support of the family and community, is to ensure that ALL students have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for present and future competence and success.”
This is the fundamental purpose of our work. Our mission drives teaching and learning across our system and frames the decisions that we make as a school district.
The student of today is the citizen, the worker, the parent and the leader of tomorrow. In the year 2038 our students of today will be engaged in society in ways that we cannot fully understand. Rapid technological advancement, the interconnectedness and the access to information has changed the landscape of work. Imagine…
What will the world be like in 2040? What jobs will exist? What skills will be needed? What attitudes will allow them to be successful in life 20 years after graduation?
And yet we must prepare them.
Their future compels us to employ a dynamic vision of teaching and learning. Our students need us and we are accountable. In 2040 acquiring information will have been replaced by a whole host of skills that will require a great deal more of our students than our traditional approach has offered. These skills include:
- Entrepreneurial Skills - Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Inquiry, Analysis, Innovating, Risk Taking
- Personal Skills – Self Awareness, Perseverance, Initiative, Personal Responsibility, Flexibility
- Interpersonal Skills – Collaboration, Communication, Cultural-Global Networking, Civic Engagement, Character
- Professional Skills- Time Management, Career Awareness, Information Literacy, Productivity, Self-Advocacy, Use of Information and Technology, Leadership
Notice that “knowing of content” has fallen completely off of the list. The list of skills, understandings, and dispositions demanded by the future require something different of educators in our classrooms. These aren’t lessons to be lectured, listened to, and recalled by our students. Learning today and preparing our students for our world tomorrow requires far more from our learners. As educators, we must engage these foundational skills through a new set of learning experiences.
In 27J Schools, we have named the ideal classroom for learning the Thinking Classroom. We envision a classroom where students are actively thinking, inquiring, problem-solving, engaging, self-regulating, and owning their learning. This learning, received in the Thinking Classroom, will go with our students as they head into the future of 2038.
Preparing our students for their future is the challenge of our careers and an opportunity for all of us in 27J Schools. We are committed to preparing all students for a successful career and life far beyond high school graduation. We believe the best way to prepare for the future is by practicing these skills, understandings, and attitudes in the Thinking Classroom today.


At Atwell Primary School curriculum planning is undertaken using the Western Australian Curriculum.
The learning program is structured using literacy and numeracy blocks to ensure all content is covered. This year our priority areas are reading, writing and the use of the concrete, pictorial and abstract model through the support of the Prime Maths text.
Each year level K-6 operates as a ‘team’. A key feature of the team culture at Atwell is collaborative planning between teachers within the same year level. Teachers share ideas, resources and teaching strategies with their colleagues, as this provides consistency in the learning program across all classes within a team.
Atwell Primary School creates operational plans for all learning areas. You can access these via the sub-menu on the Curriculum tab above.


In taberna quando suus by Dr. Phibes and The Ten Plagues of Egypt
An experimental union of metal and Carl Orff's 1935-1936 new musical compositions of selections from the Carmina Burana
About the Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana, Latin for "Songs from Beuern" (short for: Benediktbeuern), is the name given to a manuscript of 254 secular poems and dramatic texts from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written almost entirely in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces of Old French or Provençal. Many are macaronic, a mixture of Latin and German or French vernacular.
They were written by students and clergy when the Latin idiom was the lingua franca across Italy and western Europe for travelling scholars, universities and theologians. Most of the poems and songs appear to be the work of Goliards, clergy (mostly students) who set up and satirized the Church. The collection preserves the works of a number of poets, including Peter of Blois, Walter of Châtillon and an anonymous poet, referred to as the Archpoet.
The collection was found in 1803 in the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuern, Bavaria, and is now housed in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. Along with the Carmina Cantabrigiensia, the Carmina Burana is the most important collection of Goliard and vagabond songs.
The manuscripts reflect an "international" European movement, with songs originating from Occitania, France, England, Scotland, Aragon, Castile and the Holy Roman Empire.
About Carl Orff
Carl Orff (July 10, 1895(1895-07-10) - March 29, 1982(1982-03-29)) was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana (1937). In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.
In taberna quando suus by Dr. Phibes and The Ten Plagues of Egypt is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.


Whether you are homeschooling your children or you are looking for a fun activity to do during a school break or holiday, these cricket science experiments are fun as well as educational. Finding Crickets To get started you will need to find some crickets. If you can’t find some in your back yard,…Read More 5 Fun Cricket Science Experiments for Kids
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