January 20, 2012 was the 24th death anniversary of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, popularly known as ‘Bacha Khan’. Thinking of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in 2012, it seems that his main message is now forgotten in the pages of history and his invocation is merely left to empty words echoed by his amazingly corrupt ‘heirs,’ his grandson and the cronies who inhabit the Awami National Party (ANP). Today, seldom does one hear of Bacha Khan’s name in the league of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr — the pioneers of non-violent resistance to injustice in their times. Forgotten is the great, devoutly Muslim leader, who led the fierce and warlike Pakhtun tribesmen to take an oath of non-violence.
Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born in 1890 in Uthmanzai near Charsadda in the Frontier. Having not had the chance to purse higher education like his elder brother, Dr Khan Sahib, Abdul Ghaffar Khan went along a less trodden path. Sensing that the main problem of the Pakhtuns was the lack of education and incessant feuds, Ghaffar Khan set up the Darul Ulum in 1910 in Uthmanzai and Mardan to give elementary education to the villagers. Later in 1921, he set up the Anjuman-e-Islah-e-Afghana, the ‘Society for the Reformation of the Afghans’, to again rid the Pakhtuns of illiteracy and social evils. Thereafter, a network of about 70 Azad Islamia Madarassas were established throughout the province to promote education, Pashtu language and literature, patriotism and true love for Islam. These initiatives were significant in three ways. First, most of these schools were established in the villages, rather than the cities, which were the main focus of reformers during the early part of the 20th century. Secondly, all these initiatives were deeply rooted in the Islamic tradition of seeking knowledge and the promotion of peace and good relations. Thirdly, these schools, independently conceived, were nevertheless part of a great focus on indigenous education and social improvement prevalent in British India. All these great projects, firmly embedded in resuscitating pride in India’s national and religious heritage did a lot to awaken patriotism among the people and charged the nationalist movement.
Abdul Ghaffar Khan also followed the obvious nationalist cause after his educational initiates and established the Khudai Khidmatgars, ‘Servants of God’ movement in November 1929. This movement was significant since it was also deeply rooted in the ideology of non-violence. For the warlike Pakhtuns, where revenge and conflict are almost a way of life, Ghaffar Khan preached the gospel of non-violence. His philosophy of non-violence was deeply religious and found the inspiration in the person of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and his treatment of people, especially of those from Makkah after the city’s final conquest. This adherence to non-violent principles was absolute, so much so that when the British police fired on Kudai Khidmatgar members indulging in civil disobedience in April 1930, they did not retaliate and suffered over 200 casualties. No wonder then that Ghaffar Khan was soon called the ‘Frontier Gandhi’ for his faithfulness to the principle of non-violence. Like Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan focused not only on gaining independence from the British but also the transformation of the self. So as Gandhi advocated satyagraha, ‘experiments with the truth’, Ghaffar Khan advocated a radical transformation of the Pakhtuns, as peaceful, forward-looking people.
Despite Ghaffar Khan’s significant contribution to Islamic philosophy, social reform and political thinking, he is a lost figure in the Pakistani narrative. His revolutionary ideals were stifled in the evolution of Pakistan, simply because he did not ‘fit’ in the meta-narrative which did not allow any deviation from the line of the Muslim League. It did not matter that Ghaffar Khan’s ideology was as Islamic as anyone else’s and perhaps even more beneficial to adhere to, with its focus on non-violence, non-discrimination and social development, than the purely communal policies of the Muslim League.
Shame that today, the party which claims Bacha Khan can only think of evoking his name, but seem oblivious of his ideals while they indulge in extreme corruption. I wonder if Bacha Khan would be tempted to break his vow of non-violence if he saw today’s ANP?
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2012.


Schoolism.com - Drawing Fundamentals with Thomas Fluharty
English | AVC1 640x360 15 fps | AAC 64 Kbps 44.1 KHz | 1.12 GB
Every great artist begins with the fundamentals. In this course, award-winning illustrator, Thomas Fluharty, will coach you in the foundational skills that he employs to draw. You will learn how to see your subject, effectively use tones, perspective, and composition, and much more. So whether you're a young artist just beginning your artistic journey, or an older artist who has never been formally trained in fundamentals, in sharing with you his vast experience, Thomas will help make drawing simple.
This course consists of five video lectures presented over six weeks.
Lesson 1 - The Power of Seeing
In my first lecture, I will talk about the difference between looking and seeing. Anyone can look at a subject, but it takes a deeper understanding of that subject in order to truly SEE. Seeing is about knowing, thinking, and asking questions. I will talk about how to LOOK at a subject and SEE simplified shapes. I will discuss my thought process while observing and drawing the shapes in a dog's face. We will then draw a frog together using this shape technique. Assignment: You will be provided with a picture of a giraffe. Apply what you learned about shapes to draw this giraffe.
Lesson 2 - The Power of Values
In this lecture, I will talk about value or tone. When we use lights and darks in our images, we give them power, create drama, and communicate form. I will talk about how the great masters effectively used value and together we will make a value scale. You will be asked to follow along by drawing a lion that I provide using shapes, and then adding values to it. In my demo, I will take my frog drawing from Lecture 1 and add values, creating drama. Assignment: Draw the statue of the Angel or the Reclining Lion, applying everything we have discussed about value.
Lesson 3 - The Power of Perspective
I will start this lesson by discussing perspective and the horizon line. I will show you how ellipses relate to the horizon line and introduce the grid line. I will show you how objects sit on the grid and demonstrate the power of the grid in a quick and simple sketch. You will be asked to draw a picture of Venice from an image provided, applying what we talked about in this lesson. Then I will draw the same image while talking through my thought process. Assignment: Draw the White House image provided, applying all the ideas we discussed about perspective.
Lesson 4 - The Power of Composition
In this lecture, I will talk about what good composition is and is not. In essence, good composition means placing and arranging objects in a picture in a balanced and pleasing way, thus establishing the power of an image, making it attractive to the viewer, and ensuring its success. I will discuss the rule of thirds and relate it to the grid principle from Lecture 3. Through multiple video demos, I will show you my approach for good composition (as well as examples of poor composition). Assignment: Produce a drawing that demonstrates good composition using the 5 reference images provided.
Lesson 5 - The Power of Gesture (and Other Cool Things)
In this lecture, I will talk about an oft-overlooked aspect of storytelling: gesture. I will show you great examples of gesturing and explain what makes them dynamic and expressive. Other cool things: in your drawing career, you will likely draw a lot of faces, so I have included a 45-minute demo of how I draw a face. I will offer you my observations about the face, my tips for constructing and semi-blind contour drawing of an easily recognizable face. There is no assignment for this lesson. However.....keep drawing!!


Norwin program aims to develop science, technology, engineering, math, skills
Students as young as kindergartners will have the opportunity to build inquiry-based skills through a new program in the Norwin School District this fall.
The program, called STEM Squires, will challenge students in kindergarten through the fourth grade to complete quests in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields and one related to a STEM-related career.
Students will earn five badges and ultimately earn the title “STEM Squire.”
“We just identified that we wanted to do something in the kindergarten, first and second grades specifically,” Natalie McCracken, assistant superintendent of elementary education, said.
“What we recognize with kids, when they're younger, they're curious and imaginative. They're open to thinking and learning.”
After students completes a quest in one of the areas, they will present their findings to a panel of teachers. Students must be able to explain their project and findings.
For example, to earn the science badge, a student could participate in the school science fair, McCracken said. Interviewing an engineer would earn a student a badge for the STEM-related career quest, she said.
The program is voluntary, but, McCracken said, she anticipates a majority of the district's students in the target grades will participate.
Of the district's 5,265 students, about 2,000 are in kindergarten through fourth grade.
“We want to capitalize the way young people think,” McCracken said. “We want them to solve a problem or test a hypothesis. We don't want STEM to be an initiative; we want STEM to be a way of life.”
The program is the latest push district officials have placed on STEM-focused learning.
Over the summer, officials offered a variety of educational camps to keep students engaged in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. One of the camps, “Camp Invention” was specifically targeted at students entering grades one through six.
Amanda Dolasinski is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.
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Applied developmental psychologist Jan Frijters has a powerful message for teens living with dyslexia, their parents and teachers: don’t give up the struggle to read.
In fact, the International Reading Association - the world’s foremost expert on literacy - is so impressed by the research behind this message that it has granted Frijters and his team its 2014 Albert J. Harris Award for their paper “Evaluating the Efficacy of Remediation for Struggling Readers in High School.”
“This award is an excellent validation of the need to move research-based interventions into the schools,” says Frijters. “It’s a validation not to write off some adolescents who many people think, ‘well, if they haven’t learned to read by now, there’s no hope for them’.”
Developmental psychologist Maureen Lovett, a colleague of Frijters, created a remedial reading program focusing on three areas — word identification strategies, knowledge of text structures, and reading comprehension strategies.
With massive support from psychological and educational colleagues at the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the research teamed rolled out the intervention to the most struggling high school students in an entire school district.
The research team worked with 268 students in mostly Grades 9 and 10 who had “very serious” reading delays, mostly due to their struggles with picking up reading skills.” Eighty-three students on the waiting list acted as the “control” group.
“When we talk about reading disability, we talk about children who are just consistently failing to meet the developmental expectations of where they should be for their age,” he says, adding that it includes slow reading, inaccurate reading or reading without understanding what is written.
Participants were assessed on reading and reading-related skills at the beginning and end of the semester, with some participants being assessed one year later.
The researchers found that students who went through the program achieved higher scores on all aspects of reading compared to students in the control group, even one year later.
Frijters says providing adolescents with reading skills has “massive implications” for their lives.
“It has implications for whether an adolescent who turns into a young adult will pick up a health information pamphlet, for example,” he says. “It has direct relations to whether or not they will be able to get a job that depends on them being able to read.”
And it’s a big challenge. In recent years, up to 15 per cent of high school students in Ontario have failed their first attempt at one or more components of the provincial literacy test, which threatens their chances of earning a secondary school diploma.
The development of this intervention is continuing under the umbrella of the Center for the Study of Adult Literacy, on which Frijters is one of five principal investigators. Collaborators at Brock University, the University of Memphis, Georgia State University and SickKids Hospital are building a hybrid reading intervention for struggling adult readers.
Frijters’ and colleagues’ paper, “Evaluating the Efficacy of Remediation for Struggling Readers in High School,” was published in the Journal of Learning Disabilities in 2012.
The Albert J. Harris award recognizes an article or monograph “that makes an outstanding contribution to the understanding of, prevention, or assessment of remediation for struggling readers in high school.”
The 53,000-member International Reading Association (IRA) is a nonprofit, global network of individuals and institutions committed to worldwide literacy. Based in the U.S., the IRA works to improve the quality of reading instruction, disseminate research and information about reading, and encourage the lifetime reading habit.


This class focuses on the nature of literacy development and understanding the role of concepts and context in word meanings, vocabulary development and multiple meanings. The differences between English and other languages that affect the acquisition of English literacy, and the impact of disabilities on oral and written English language development also will be stressed in English 475.
These topics are important to teachers who must deal with non-English or limited-English speaking students from foreign counties. In California public schools, there are some 1.5 million students with limited English skills, said Lillian Vega-Castaneda, professor of elementary education.
"We're hard-pressed to prepare teachers. We might have five or six different languages in one class," she said. "We're trying to design a program that meets the needs of all children."
It takes more than being bilingual -- it takes teaching strategies, Vega-Castaneda said, because teachers will have students whose first languages the teachers don't know.
Need Help? Call us at 1-877-710-6182.
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Art Education: Profound, Positive and Imperative
June 28 - July 24
Curated by Debby Viles
Common, and important, buzzwords and phrases in Art Education include:
|Learner Engagement||Curriculum Enrichment|
|Action Research||Educational Games|
|Critical Thinking||Cooperative Learning|
|Interdisciplinary Approach||Teacher Developed Materials|
|Participatory Research||Integrated Curriculum|
|Student Educational Objectives|
All one has to do is plug-in any combination of the above into the Eric database on the Decker Library website to receive a myriad of articles, lesson plans, and research studies on the latest developments in the field.
It has become positively evident that providing Art Education on the K-12 level is the most important aspect of knowledge-building a human may ever receive. When a person is educated in the Arts, they learn skills that will give them more adaptability, a higher regard for life's conditions, and most importantly, a multidisciplinary thought process for problem solving for the rest of their lives. Thus, teachers of art require the highest quality research and development in order to fulfill the needs of humans in our complex society.
There are numerous books on lesson planning and many curriculum guides on the Decker Library's shelves that will help trigger ideas for the dedicated teacher. Marianne Sade, Reference Librarian, is the Library's expert subject liaison for Art Education. She has worked hard with MICA's extraordinary Art Education faculty and staff who are dedicated to providing the latest and greatest information to the field.
For more information, visit the Library's Lib Guide at http://libguides.mica.edu/ED5206, or contact Marianne Sade at email@example.com.
Circulation Policy for Books on Exhibit
Circulating books on display in the museum cases are available for check out at any time. Please see a staff member at the circulation desk to request a book from the cases. Titles, when available, may be checked out at any time from the MRC. For books on display from the Special Collections (Cage), please see a reference librarian.
From the cover of Designs for Living and Learning: Transforming Early Childhood Environments, Second Edition by Deb Curtis and Margie Carter: LB 1140.23 .C87 2015 Quarto


Pre-school education is an important stage in a child's development where children learn as they play. A good quality pre-school experience builds on the valuable learning that takes place in and around the home and develops the learning and other skills that children will rely on in later life.
Evidence suggests that a quality pre-school experience can bring a range of benefits, including a smoother transition into primary school and increased educational attainment.
Every three and four year old child has a funded, part-time pre-school education place of five sessions a week if the parents which to take it up. Local authorities have a duty to provide this under the Standards in Scotland's Schools Act 2000.
No, it is not compulsory. It is for parents to decide whether they want their child to participate.
A child’s pre-school education entitlement starts:
|17 August||for children who are three years old by 31 August*|
|5 January||for children who are three years old between 1 September and 31 December|
|18 April||for children who are three years old between 1 January and 28 February|
*Children cannot start until their third birthday. For example, a child born on 26 August could not start pre-school education until that date.
You should contact the pre-school education provider of your choice to apply for a place for your child.
Aberdeenshire Council offers different types of pre-school nursery education. The majority of places are provided through nursery schools and classes run by the Council. It also works in partnership with private day nurseries and playgroups to make sure there are enough places and a range of provision available.
All centres must meet the registration criteria and National Care Standards laid down by the Care Inspectorate and are inspected annually.
All pre-school centres are also regulated by HM Inspectorate of Education and are quality assured by us. You can read or download the reports on the HM Inspectorate of Education and Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland website.
All funded pre-school education centres will follow A Curriculum for Excellence, Early Level covering eight curriculum areas:
- expressive arts
- health and wellbeing
- religious and moral education
- social studies
A range of experiences and learning opportunities are provided to stimulate and support children to develop and lead their own learning.
Pre-school education centres work with parents to support each child's learning and development. Opportunities are available for staff and parents to share assessment information and review each child's progress and development.
The primary school will talk with your child's pre-school centre and you, to make sure that planning for your child takes account of their achievements and development needs. The primary school curriculum is planned to build on children's pre-school experiences.


Why should I take music lessons?
Music has the power to change your life! Learning from a professional
educator will help you grow musically and understand your instrument.
I've always wanted to learn, but I can't because....
There is always a way to take lessons even with today's lifestyle.
Watch this video below to learn why.
Let us be your partner in music education!
Looking to help your student advance so they can become first chair of their ensemble? Or, are you an older adult looking to take up or restart playing music now that you have more free time? Then let Q&F be your partner in music education!
We offer music instruction for all playing ranges from the new beginners up through advanced players. Our qualified teachers can help you with almost any instrument including woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, guitars, drumset and piano.
When you take lessons at Q&F you also have access to the latest accessories, music, instruments and service by our trained and knowledgeable staff.
What are some benefits of playing music?
Making Music Makes You Smarter!
-Middle school and high school students who participated in instrumental music scored significantly higher than their non-band peers in standardized tests. University studies conducted in Georgia and Texas found significant correlations between the number of years of instrumental music instruction and academic achievement in math, science and language arts.
Source: University of Sarasota Study, Jeffrey Lynn Kluball; East Texas State University Study, Daryl Erick Trent
-Children and Teens — Playing music positively affects the development of children’s cognitive skills. It builds confidence, self-discipline and inspires creativity. Also playing music can increase productivity and help kids and teens connect socially with their peers.
-Adults and Seniors — Playing excercies the brain and helps fight memory loss. It helps reduce stress and lower blood pressure. And it can stave off depression and loneliness.
Making Music Makes You Healthier!
-Playing a musical instrument can reverse stress at the molecular level, according to studies conducted by Loma Linda University School of Medicine and Applied Biosystems. (as published in Medical Science Monitor)
-Making music can help reduce job burnout and improve your mood, according to a study exposing 112 long-term care workers to six recreational music-making sessions of group drumming and keyboard accompaniment. (as published in Advances in Mind-Body Medicine)
-Music making can help reduce blood pressure according to a new study conducted by the Department of Cardiology of Leiden University Medical Center of the Netherland. (as published by the U.S. National Laboratory of Medicine)


- Reviewed on Thursday, October 2, 2014
- Grades Used: 3rd Grade
- Dates used: 2014
We are on chapter 3. My daughter is 8 and I would say that English is one of her stronger subjects- naturally.
We really enjoy this curriculum. We switched from an all A Beka curriculum last year, to an almost all BJU curriculum this year.
BJU for all the subjects we have (Spelling, English, Science, Heritage Studies) is very well laid out, organized and illustrated.
For English, the teachers guide is useful, I use them for all subjects. Lessons all start out with presenting the lesson, then guided practice, then independent. Chapters all end with a review, cumulative review (includes content from previous chapters for reinforcement) then a test.
My daughter enjoys this and she's gaining knowledge. It's not cumbersome and it allows for some creative writing as well. I think each day, her English skills are being fine tuned.
I will say, with all BJU- reading comprehension is a must. Their curriculum is beautifully written and the questions require that you have read and understood what was taught. There's no cutting corners, and she picked up quickly after the first week, with all answers to "prove it". Meaning- find exactly where you read it and answer accordingly. This is a valuable skill IMO! What a curriculum should do.
- Reviewed on Monday, May 20, 2013
- Grades Used: 3rd-5th
- Dates used: 20012-2013
Our first year homeschooling after taking our boys out of public school was scary!I researched every typeof curriculum out there! That was overwhelming. I only used BJU Science last year and my boys like it so much that I regret not choosing more BJU for other subjects.
I just settled on next year's choices and BJU is going to be used to English, Science, History, and Reading.
I use things differently than most. I skip the teacher editions and most gasp at this.... My background is in elementary education so I don't need the answer key and I didn't find much more new information in the TE's. BJU isn't cheap so it helps to use the student texts and supplement with my own teaching and activities. It makes it less teacher-intensive as well.
BJU English is great in its approach and order. I love the alternating chapter on grammar and writing. I will add in videos from BrainPop or print extra practice if they struggle with a concept. The student worktext is a great spine and very thorough.
- Reviewed on Saturday, February 2, 2013
- Grades Used: K-6th
- Dates used: 2005-2013
I love love love this program! My kids have been using this curriculum for all of elementary school and they score high on standardized testing every year in English/ Grammar. I've heard that Abeka is better but in my opinion BJU Press does a great job with sentence diagraming, grammar, and even the composition chapters. Very pleased!
- Reviewed on Friday, July 29, 2011
- Grades Used: 1st-3rd
- Dates used: 2007-2011
We used 1st grade as a EFL program. That didn't work for us, beceause the focus was on learning to read not learning English. 2nd grade was a good year dc liked it very much and learned to write. 3rd grade we became irritated about the grammar sections. Again the same topics, just ticking boxes or writing T and F.
We still like the writing sections, but BJU is too expensive to get here to do it partially.
So we will switch next year.
We plan to work with Galore Park English.


Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Fifty Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners, Second Edition
No current Talk conversations about this book.
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0130984620, Spiral-bound)This practical, hands-on book provides fifty carefully-chosen strategies to help ELL pupils understand content materials while perfecting their skill at speaking, reading, writing, and listening in English. Each strategy is accompanied by a definition, rationale, and step-by-step implementation instructions; and, all are specifically tied to the most current ELL standards. Included use of current Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) standards ensures future teachers learn strategies that support TESOL's three goals, nine standards, and three grade-level groupings—supports teachers' documentation of standards-based planning and teaching, as well as monitoring and individualization of instruction for ELL. Organized into five sections which flow easily from theory and planning, through learner involvement and vocabulary building, to increasing comprehension. Numerous strategies in the theoretical overview section, plus suggestions for assessment integrated into many strategies in other sections. Provides a repertoire of non-traditional assessment ideas such as anecdotal records, performance samples, and portfolios. Integrates material on the use of educational technology such as the internet, visual aids, etc. Includes thorough, concise summary of relevant research from Krashen, Cummins, Terrell, Swain, Asher, and others.
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:14:31 -0400)
Fifty Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners, Fourth Edition, by Adrienne Herrell and Michael Jordan, includes a rich assortment of practical strategies aligned to TESOL standards which have been field-tested in diverse classrooms. Each strategy includes a brief explanation, step-by-step instructions on how to plan and use the strategy, and two classroom scenarios demonstrating how the strategy can be adapted for different grade levels and content areas. Herrell and Jordan have included additional language and literacy development strategies, technology strategies, and assessment strategies to support both pre-service and in-service teachers.
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Okay, the tedious hipster librarian article wasn’t the only thing to come out of the ALA Annual Conference. We also got a Declaration for the Right to Libraries, which is as interesting for what it leaves out as what it includes.
The document claims to be in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I guess that works, if you squint the right way.
It’s not that the document is against the spirit of those documents, it’s just that those documents enumerate rights, whereas this Declaration enumerates what in other ALA documents, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself, would be considered whereases.
Here’s the meat of it: “We declare and affirm our right to quality libraries–public, school, academic, and special–and urge you to show your support by signing your name to this Declaration for the Right to Libraries.”
There’s certainly nothing about libraries in the other documents. In the more sweeping UN Declaration, there’s nothing about libraries, reading, or literacy.
The closest it comes is education, and in the US at least we haven’t achieved even that right as stated. You might disagree, in which case check out Article 26 (1):
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
While we technically have a free and compulsory elementary school system in this country, any honest person familiar with the differences between public school systems in rich suburbs compared to public school systems in poor inner cities would have to admit the vast inequality. There are plenty of schools that hardly educate at all, regardless of the reasons.
And forget about higher education being equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. That was a dream in America in the 1960s maybe, or at least in California, but that’s long gone. Higher education is accessible on the basis of wealth for the most part.
Regardless, the Declaration for the Right to Libraries is serious, which puts it well above a lot of the propaganda about how great libraries are. Here are the whereases:
- Libraries Empower the Individual
- Libraries Support Literacy and Lifelong Learning
- Libraries Strengthen Families
- Libraries Build Communities
- Libraries Protect our Right to Know
- Libraries are the Great Equalizer
- Libraries Strengthen our Nation
- Libraries Advance Research and Scholarship
- Libraries Help Us to Better Understand Each Other
- Libraries Preserve Our Nation’s Cultural Heritage
Definitely serious stuff. I’m not sure they’re all strictly true, but it’s all stuff most librarians would want to be true and sometimes try to make true, and that’s better than so many of the UN rights, which are given pretty short shrift in a lot of countries around the world.
Think about what’s not in there, though, things like “Libraries Give Us Access to Videogames.” I guess the International Gaming Day crowd within ALA weren’t very successful lobbyists.
We also don’t see “Libraries aren’t just about books these days.” Despite the whereases not mentioning books as such, the preamble says, “In addition to the vast array of books….” Books are still pretty darn important, and are crucial to support several of the points above.
Normally I’m critical of ALA documents and resolutions, often because there’s so much potential wasted on irrelevant or dead causes. At ALA, the Council debated resolutions on ALA divestment in fossil fuels (that one lost) to a resolution on prayers in meetings (that one passed), which declared that the ALA is a secular organization and won’t hold public prayers. Well, duh.
Then there was the resolution where the ALA confirmed its commitment to basic literacy. Fortunately that one passed, but did they really need to do that? Although considering what some people want to turn libraries into, I guess maybe they did.
Despite some minor flaws in the presentation, the Declaration of the Right to Libraries isn’t pointless, irrelevant, or fluff. It shows that when librarians are put under pressure, they can come up with some pretty good reasons why libraries are important, and not just public entertainment centers.
Thus, consider that declaration signed by the Annoyed Librarian.


First Year Inquiry Program to Assess Critical and Creative Thinking
By Richard W. Slatta, Director,
First Year Inquiry Program
Since its inception more than a decade ago, the First Year Inquiry (FYI) program has focused on student critical thinking skills. With a proven record of improving this key area of cognition in first-year students, we will undertake a pilot program to assess both critical & creative thinking. During the fall 2012 semester, six FYI instructors will pilot a revised critical/creative thiking assessment procedure, a step that will help move us toward the focus of the university's Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) mandated for 2014. If the pilots are successful, we will revise and broaden future program objectives & assessments accordingly.
Revised pilot program goal: to improve student critical and creative thinking skills. We define critical thinking as moving beyond opinion or unsupported speculation to reach a reasoned judgment, grounded in evidence appropriate to the discipline. Students should analyze evidence, explain causality, and reason logically. We define creative thinking as constructing meaningful new connections by generating original and varied explanations to disciplinary problems or questions. Creative thinking activities (verbs) include interpret, invent, discover, imagine, suppose, or hypothesize. Success in college and beyond requires a synergy between these two types of thinking. All major intellectual and business projects involve their interplay, so first-year students offer an ideal audience to foster these essential, foundational skills.
The synergy between creative & critical thinking: Creative thinking involves searching for meaningful new connections by generating many unusual, original, and varied possibilities, as well as details that expand or enrich possibilities. Critical thinking, on the other hand, involves examining possibilities carefully, fairly, and constructively focusing your thoughts and actions by organizing and analyzing possibilities, refining and developing the most promising possibilities, ranking or prioritizing options, and choosing certain options.
" Generating many possibilities is not enough by itself to help you solve a problem. Similarly, if you rely on focusing alone, you may have too few possibilities from which to choose. Effective problem solvers must think both creatively and critically, generating options and focusing their thinking.
" Both generating and focusing involve learning and applying certain guidelines (attitudes and habits of mind that support effective thinking) and tools.
Another take: Critical Thinking vs Creative Thinking
" Creative Thinking - generative, nonjudgmental, expansive--generating new ideas.
" Critical Thinking - analytical, judgmental, selective--making choices among alternatives.
Think of the thinking process as a kayak with 2 paddles. One paddle represents creative thinking; the other critical thinking. If you only use one paddle (i.e., creative thinking), you'll end up going in circles. To move the kayak forward, you've got to alternate between paddles.


|Lesson Plan ID:
The topic and focus of this lesson will be teaching basic and fundamental volleyball skills. The instructor will provide demonstration of skills for students. The students will then be given time to practice the skill under teacher supervision.
|PE(7) ||1. Apply critical elements for all locomotor, nonlocomotor, and manipulative skills in modified game situations. |
|PE(7) ||2. Demonstrate striking skills in modified versions of sport and recreation activities. |
|PE(7) ||3. Analyze manipulative skills for specific sports or recreational activities. |
|PE(7) ||13. Identify the characteristics of both good and poor sportsmanship. |
|PE(7) ||17. Exhibit attributes needed to accomplish a set goal in a competitive and cooperative environment. |
|PE(8) ||2. Incorporate striking skills that demonstrate accuracy, distance, trajectory, and consistency in a variety of innovative activities. |
|PE(8) ||3. Discuss the concepts that affect motor skill development and performance. |
|PE(8) ||5. Critique game strategies for innovative or cooperative group activities. |
|PE(8) ||6. Provide performance cues and feedback while participating in partner skill practice sessions. |
|PE(9-12) ||4. Utilize safe practices when participating in physical activities. |
|Primary Learning Objective(s):
The students will be able to demonstrate the overhand and underhanded volleyball serve.
|Additional Learning Objective(s):
Students will be able to analyze and apply the rules of the sport throughout the lesson. The 2007-08 rules can be found here.
|Approximate Duration of the Lesson:
|| 91 to 120 Minutes|
|Materials and Equipment:
Volleyballs, Volleyball Nets
|Technology Resources Needed:
Internet access for video demonstration
The instructor will prepare for this lesson by studying the most updated volleyball rule books. The major concepts of this lesson will be to teach the rules of the game and to demonstrate the fundamentals so that students will learn to practice the proper skills.
Students will be given a brief description of the rules and procedures used in volleyball.
Students will view the video demonstration at the link below. A computer with a digital projector can be used for large group viewing.
Students will divide into two groups and line up on the endlines of the volleyball court.
The instructor will describe and demonstrate the proper form for the under and overhanded serve.
Students will be allowed to practice for an allotted time.
Students will be monitored by the instructor to ensure that students are using the proper techniques.
The instructor will provide feedback for student improvement.
(Basic Serve Techniques
)Video demonstration with coach guidance on a variety of volleyball skills.
|Attachments:**Some files will display in a new window. Others will prompt you to download.
For assessment the students will be required to complete 8 of 10 over- or underhanded serves across the volleyball net.
Students may work on receiving the volleyball if they have mastered the skill of serving.
Each area below is a direct link to general teaching strategies/classroom
for students with identified learning and/or behavior problems such as: reading
or math performance below grade level; test or classroom assignments/quizzes at
a failing level; failure to complete assignments independently; difficulty with
short-term memory, abstract concepts, staying on task, or following directions;
poor peer interaction or temper tantrums, and other learning or behavior problems.
|Presentation of Material
||Using Groups and Peers
|Assisting the Reluctant Starter
||Dealing with Inappropriate
Be sure to check the student's IEP for specific accommodations.
|Variations Submitted by ALEX Users:


Learning Koori language
Historically, when it comes to the naming of Australian towns, there have largely been three options; towns named after white male explorers, governors and statesmen, towns or suburbs named after English towns, and towns name after Aboriginal nouns which depict geographical features, flora and fauna.
In Gippsland, despite a treacherous past between European settlers and the Gunai Kurnai people, nearly half of Gippsland towns have aboriginal place names.
Before European settlement derivations of approximately 250 Indigenous languages were spoken across Australia, with 40 languages spoken in Victoria alone.
The nomadic nature of these indigenous tribes resulted in many words and phrases being swapped across the regions and neighbouring territories such as Indonesia.
Since colonisation, many of these languages have been lost.
However in recent years, the infiltration of aboriginal language programs into the local primary school curriculum is helping to preserve localised indigenous language and culture.
ABORIGINAL PLACE NAMES IN GIPPSLAND
Wonthaggi - borne, drag, to pull along
Morwell- woolly possum
Yarram - Horse, hair on the head
Korumburra - maggot, fly
Toongabbie - a place near water
Mirboo - kidney fat
Leongatha - teeth
Koonwarra - Swan
Moondarra - thunder
Koo-Wee-Rup - blackfish
Lang Lang - Stones, Stoney
Meeniyan - Moon
Yanakie - small
Jumbuk - sheep
Buchan - bag there, place of the bag
Cowwarr - Mountains, hills
Traralgon - place of fishes
Tambo - perch
Warragul - Dingo
Marlo - white clay
Goongerah - possum
Wuk Wuk - dirt
Gunai- Kurnai - man of
- Footage of the washed up yacht taken from a police helicopter
- Five arrested after joint counterterrorism operation
- Scientists dissect rare beached pygmy right whale
- Inquiry criticises Hazelwood operator, health warnings
- Questions raised over millions of dollars in carbon tax compensation given to Latrobe Valley power station
- Thorpdale potato grower Des Jennings says he will be harvesting for another month
- Chris Griffin, from the Australian Dairy Industry Council, presented to a coal seam gas inquiry in Gippsland
- Fisheries Victoria's Bill Lussier on the 2015-16 rock lobster commercial fishing season
- Victorian egg farmer Marnie Ellis wants pasture based hens included on free range labels
- Victorian Planning Minister Richard Wynne says his state welcomes wind energy investment


It’s not just what you eat but where and how you eat that seems to affect obesity, say researchers who looked at the effects of family dinner rituals.
Families who frequently ate dinner in the kitchen or dining room had significantly lower body mass indices for adults and children, compared with families who ate elsewhere, including in front of the television, the researchers wrote.
“Family meals and their rituals might be an underappreciated battleground to fight obesity,” the researchers wrote in the journal Obesity, published Wednesday.
“The ritual of where one eats and how long one eats seems to be the largest driver,” said Brian Wansink, a Cornell University professor and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. He co-authored the study with Ellen Van Kleef from Wageningen University in The Netherlands.
Girls who helped make dinner had higher BMIs. “there is no effort to imply causality. We do not know if cooking leads girls to become heavier or whether heavier girls are more interested in learning to cook and helping with meal preparation,” the researchers wrote.
And boys who stayed at the table until everyone finished eating had lower BMIs, the researchers wrote.
Researchers decided to depart from looking at the food and consider the rituals around meals. They queried 190 parents and 148 children in grades three to six in the Chicago area. The height and weight of adults and children were measured.
The parents were asked about their habits around mealtimes such as what was discussed at the table, how frequently everyone sat together at the table, and how the meal was prepared. Talking meaningfully about the children’s days and saying grace before eating were associated with lower BMIs in the adults, and eating with the TV on was associated with higher BMIs for everyone.
Perhaps, the researchers said, meals at the table were less distracted or more supervised.
Wansink and Van Kleef suggested that changing mealtime rituals is an easy experiment for families to try. They proposed families who need a nudge for meaningful conversation could start with getting each person to disclose four things: high point of the day, low point, who he/she most appreciates and the plan for tomorrow.
Previous research has shown links between mealtime conversations and literacy development in children, and between family eating habits and eating disorders.


Playing in a class prepares children for being in an orchestra
Learning a musical instrument at primary school can boost a child's confidence and learning in other areas, a report suggests.
Nine out of 10 schools asked about a government-funded scheme that teaches pupils to play instruments in a group, said the process raised self-esteem.
Many teachers said the scheme led to more positive attitudes to learning and improved motivation in other subjects.
The groups are run in 6,500 schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The study by the University of the Arts, London, focuses on the Wider Opportunities Programme, in which eight and nine-year-olds learn to play an instrument together as a class for free. Even the class teacher joins in and learns to play.
Some 97% of primary head teachers and staff in the 1,389 schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who took part in the research said pupils looked forward to lessons and enjoyed playing instruments.
Many of the teaching staff said team-working skills had improved as a result, as had pupil concentration.
The scheme also had an "empowering effect" on some of the participating children, the study said.
John Witchell, chief executive of the Federation of Music Services, which commissioned the report, said there was a lot of evidence from all the people who responded about the wider impacts, such as better motivation and improved behaviour.
"It's one of those activities that is a social activity where all the children work together," he said.
"They are not competing against each other, they have to collaborate and use their minds and bodies to produce the music.
"They also have to use their emotions to enable self-expression as well."
In terms of music education, the study found learning an instrument in class as effective as small group tuition.
The programme was particularly useful as an introduction to learning an instrument, identifying talent and in promoting a joyful experience that benefits the "whole child's development".
A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Children get tremendous value from music, both as a subject in its own right and as a means of motivating students to reach higher levels of attainment across the curriculum.
"Learning to play a musical instrument can encourage the development of listening and concentration skills, appropriate behaviour, self-motivation, communications skills and teamwork."


This morning we’re honored to be able to share a prezi by Currier Memorial School educator Susan Gibeault, on fostering students’ global awareness. Gibeault has taught special education, speech and language and elementary education and received the 2012 BRSU Outstanding Teacher award. This presentation is the culmination of a project she undertook with […]
Archive for February, 2014
Mark Olofson has put together an online version of the Aurasma presentation we gave at VTFest in November, including shots of the app in action, ideas for implementation and student feedback. Let us know if you use this app in your classroom!
Brought to you by the inimitable Susan Hennessey, who shows here how you can use the Chrome browser extension Kaizena to add voice comments and link students to video resources on a sample writing assignment. Best part: you can assemble a library of video resources and shoot out your favorites over and over. Anyone […]
Guest post by Lindsey Halman, facilitator at The Edge at Essex Middle School: What is a system? How are living things organized? How do the structures of organisms contribute to life’s functions? Learners on the Edge team addressed these questions through a unit on Structure, Function and Information Processing in Living Organisms using the […]
Some fantastic Friday reading: Over at AMLE Magazine, TIIE director Penny Bishop and associate director John Downes are talking about the power of teaming in supporting successful technology integration in schools: Today’s middle school teams use a wide range of technology tools to achieve six important goals: to develop their teacher team; to design […]
One way I know for sure an app has potential to transform classroom practice is when, with minimal introduction and little prep time, a whole team of teachers adopts it and launches its use.
On February 11th, Edmunds Middle School opened their doors to the community and invited them to see what technology integration looks like in a 21st century Vermont school.
As part of celebrating Digital Learning Day yesterday, we visited The Edge team at Essex Middle School for their annual Project Fair, where students share their learning with the community. Here’s a look at some of the amazing work on display. For a round-up of more Digital Learning […]


Fresh off of watching the season finale of “Fringe” last Friday, I happened upon an amazing discovery: FOX and the Science Olympiad have teamed up to create lesson plans to help students explore the real science behind some of the show’s plot devices. Magnetism, combustion, electromagnetism, protein modeling, and more are covered using incidents investigated by the Fringe Division in seasons 2-4.
The lesson plans are geared toward students in grades 9-12 and only use the show as a starting point — the real learning takes place with hands-on activities and discussions. Relevant Science Olympiad competitions are also referenced to give teachers a clear path to include more project-based learning in their curriculum.
Sadly, there are no instruction sheets for building portals to alternate universes, no recipe for cooking up your own batch of stasis-inducing “amber,” or brain scanning of any sort in these lessons. There is a chance, however, for a few cunning teachers and parents to slip some science fiction into the classroom and snag some new fans for the genre. Maybe you’ll even get to re-watch a few episodes with your kids to “help” with homework.
As exemplary as this is, those of us that are unable to avail our kids of this wonderful and visionary addendum to the New South Wales primary school curriculum will just have to improvise. Fortunately, Walking with Dinosaurs will be touring Australia from late April to June. For more information go here. Remember, we owe it to our kids. And even if the Raptorapocalpyse does not eventuate, seeing this may motivate some of them to become palaeontologists in later life. And that is a good thing in itself.
As our kids are heading off to school, the LCROSS mission will be underway. The mission will first crash a rocket into the moon’s southern pole while the craft with all the sensors and recording equipment follows behind, analyzing the cloud of material kicked up by the impact, looking for water.
Unfortunately, those of us on the east coast will probably not be able to witness this moon bombing first hand(check out the youtube video here), but those amateur astronomers with telescopes over 10 inches and west of Manitoba should be able to see the debris kicked up by the Cenatur rocket impact.
So get up early on Friday morning, gather the Geeklets around the computer, or telescope if you are able, and watch as NASA bombs the moon in its ongoing “thirst” (I had to say it once) to find water elsewhere in the solar system.


The old blue prints are out the window and at Apex High School we are laying down a new set of plans that are setting the world of Art Education on its ear. Simply stated, we are no longer interested in making art but rather, making artists.
The Open Art Room is a concept where students no longer follow step by step, recipe type art projects but are encouraged to communicate ideas and take risks in a self-directed learning environment.
Are we geniuses who thought this all up? Well, some of it. However, we are really good at borrowing and synthesizing concepts. We merged great ideas from PBS Art 21 and Choice-based teaching methods like Teaching For Artistic Behaviors (TAB). Here are some of our foundation methods.
Theme Lessons: Starting with a big idea or questions allows the students to conceive meaningful art. We're not just drawing puppies here. We are creating art that communicates to the audience.
Choice in Media: Gone are the days when art was all about paint on canvas. Anything can be an art material so why should the teacher decided? Choice in media allows the student to select the materials they believe will best communicate their vision.
Artistic Behaviors: Knowing how to color inside the lines is not what it takes to make an artist. Yes, artists need to have art making skills but they also need to know how to communicate through their work, take risks and solve problems. At Apex, we developed a list of Artistic Behaviors students use as a guideline when working on their projects.
Reflection: Once the art is created, an artist should be able to intelligently speak about it. We encourage each artist at Apex to track the progress of their work and reflect on finished pieces online. Each beginning student creates a blog that follows them throughout the program.
All of this is not without controversy. There are some that say students need guidelines and boundaries and believe programs like ours simply let children do whatever they want without structure. We say, one look at the innovative work coming out of our program silences these accusations.


|Physical Science for Teachers|
|PHS FOR TEACH|
|CLASS CODE:||PH.S 110||CREDITS: 4||FEE: $10.00|
|DIVISION:||PHYSICAL SCIENCE & ENGINEERING|
|GENERAL EDUCATION:||This course fulfills a General Education - Physical Science requirement.|
|DESCRIPTION:||For Elementary Education Majors Only.
Includes a three-hour lab per week.This is an introductory course and lab dealing with the basic topics of Physics and Chemistry with applications to elementary education.
|TAUGHT:||Fall, Winter, Summer|
|CONTENT AND TOPICS:||The main objectives are to gain an appreciation of the basic concepts and principles of physics and chemistry and show how they come into play in the students lives, and demonstrate hands-on applications to aid in teaching elementary school level activities.
Topics include motion, energy, heat & temperature, waves, electricity, magnetism, light, atomic models, periodic table, chemical formulas, acids and bases, and nuclear physics.
|GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:||1.Experiment with and understand basic principles and topics of physics and chemistry including:Motion, Newton’s Laws, Energy, Heat and Temperature, Waves, Electricity and Magnetism, Light, The Atom, The Periodic Table, Chemical Formulas, and Nuclear Reactions.
2.Use and understand the scientific method, and the relationship between observation and theory.
3.Understand how major concepts are developed and changed over the years.
4.Gain a greater appreciation of the development of scientific ideas, showing that science is always changing as new information is understood and reviewed.
5.Integrate physics and chemistry and apply the concepts to understand basic phenomenon in biology, astronomy, meteorology, geology, and the integration of philosophy and history and their role in the development of scientific ideas.
6.Analyze a problem and solve it using oral and written reasoning based on the basic concepts of physics and chemistry.
7.Plan, organize, and present a scientific experiment.
8.Practice and improve communication and cooperative learning skills.
9.Express their knowledge and ideas through written language.
10.Determine the relationship between the various ideas of physics and see how they affect each other.
11.Increase by understanding and applying the concepts presented in the course.
|REQUIREMENTS:||Homework is assigned from the exercises in the textbook. Everyone will teach elementary school labs to their classmates and will need to compile a lab notebook with at least 30 experiments that can be used in elementary school.|
|PREREQUISITES:||Elementary Education Major
Math Level: Moderate use of high school algebra
|EFFECTIVE DATE:||January 2002|


One of the foremost Canadian female practitioners of Impressionism in her time, Helen Galloway McNicoll is known for her sunlight-infused genre paintings of women and children in rural environments.
Born in Toronto in 1879, her family later moved to Montreal where she studied painting under William Brymner at the Art Association of Montreal.
McNicoll was unique in relation to other female artists at the time, as being the daughter of the vice president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, she was able to further her art education by traveling to England to study at both the Slade School of Art in London and at St. Ives in Cornwall, and to divide the duration of her lifetime between Montreal and England. It was in England that McNicoll met British Impressionist Dorothea Sharp, with whom she was to develop a close and long-lasting friendship.
One of the few artists during an age of artistic experimentation to paint using the fresh, clear chromatics and anecdotal themes associated with Impressionism, McNicoll exhibited with the Royal Society of British Artists beginning in 1913, becoming a full member of the society in the same year. In Canada, McNicoll was elected a member of the RCA in 1914, after having shown her work with the academy since 1906.
Particularly adept at capturing tranquility, McNicoll’s paintings were renowned for their portrayals of contemporary life imbued with an atmosphere of peace and stillness. It has been speculated that this heightened visual perception may have been a result of her deafness caused by a bout of scarlet fever in childhood.
In 1915 McNicoll’s career and life was cut short by illness, and she passed away at the young age of 35 from the effects of diabetes.


> I am looking for Preschool Activity Ideas to teach
> young children an appreciation for the elements of
> design. Any Ideas? I would also be interested in
> anyone's insight on how to educate parents and
> co-workers on the value of art with young children,
> and the value of learning the elements of design in
> a preschool setting.
I know you and I are on the same wavelength here. I am
posting your question to Getty list and Art Education,
too. I have talked about this with folks - but mainly
off list. I don't have my posts on this machine.
The elements must be made meaninginful to the wee
ones. That will make the job of the elementary art
teacher so much easier. For line, take them on a "line
hunt" - really ham it up. Even get a pithe helmet. For
colors - have them act them out. How they make them
feel, etc - what kind of sounds?. For shapes - have
them hunt for shapes - then move their bodies to form
shapes. Make shapes hats (see Jeryl Hollingsworth's
site for her K hats -
They will wear their shapes hats all day! Get them
singing fun little songs about line- shape - color
The more you can involve movement the better. Learning
the language of art is like learning any kind of
language. If they learn it while they are young, they
will never forget it. Read books about the elements
and design an activity. Tammi posted Cat's Colors
(students collected color samples from magazines -
then glued on an orange and black stripe cat).
Folks - post your ideas on how to make the elements
and principles meaningful to pre-school and I will
compile for Early Childhood lesson plan page.


Student Developmental Level Childhood Education Grades 1-6
Acceptable courses include those elementary education courses that would be required in an elementary education major.
Examples include but are not limited to pedagogical content that is primarily focused on:
- methods of teaching in the elementary school
- literacy instruction in the elementary school
- child psychology courses if they focus only on childhood 1-6 education
Six semester-hours (s.h.) must focus exclusively on childhood education.
Unacceptable courses include those that focus on:
- more than one developmental level such as
- life span developmental psychology
- methods of teaching grades K-12
- child and adolescent psychology
- secondary, middle level or early childhood education
- children’s literature, child development and child psychology courses that focus on all grade levels.


Note: To protect the privacy of our members, e-mail addresses have been removed from the archived messages. As a result, some links may be broken.
Re: Expressing War & Peace through art
[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]wendy sauls
Tue, 29 Sep 1998 21:12:56
some time ago i saw a project in school arts in which students used
refrigerator box cardboard opened up to make something like a little room.
on one side of the room, war was represented, and the other side, peace -
images, words, colors...it was very powerful and moving, looked like a
great idea. my memory of the specifics is a little vague but if you have
access to back issues at the library or something...we are doing a school
wide conflict resolution unit this week in homeroom at my ms. today one of
my students asked "how come in history we learn about all the wars and
battles and killing but never about people who get along and are nice to
each other?" well?
Art Teacher, Kanapaha Middle School, Gainesville, FL
Doctoral Student, Art Education, Florida State University
home page: http://grove.ufl.edu/~c4930cqs/home.html


Another school year, come and gone. Plan ahead for summer, by constructing a holiday calendar with your child. Not only will it teach your kid about the passing of time, but it will build excitement, all summer long!
What You Need:
- 3 large pieces of oak tag or stiff paper
- Index cards or paper strips
- Example calendar (to serve as a guide and let you know the dates for national holidays)
What You Do:
- Tell your child that you’re going to create your own summer calendar, from scratch. Make sure you have adequate space to work. A large kitchen or dining room table is perfect.
- Show your child a current calendar. Talk about how the calendar is set up—the names of the days and months, the number of days in a week, and the number in one month versus another.
- Lay your paper out and ask your child to count the number of days in the month of July. Then talk about the number of horizontal and vertical lines needed to make a calendar with 7 columns across (for the days of the week) and the appropriate number of rows (for the number of weeks in the month).
- Together, draw the calendar. While you’ll be doing most of the set-up, talking about the method behind the madness helps kids learn abstract concepts, and the visual of making the calendar at the same time, helps solidify things.
- Now it’s time for the details. Help your child write the names of the days of the week as column headers. Then help him write in the numbers (1-31 for July).
- Start filling in your calendar with upcoming family activities and events. Write in any upcoming vacations. Pencil in camp dates. Mark up family visits or special outings.
- Now that you have a few dates filled in, plan some fun things to fill in the blanks! It doesn’t have to be a huge event—it can be something as simple as a weekly walk in the park, a trip to the local library, or a nighttime ice cream run. Whatever it is, book it! And have something to look forward to doing together.
- Once all the main details are in place, let your child personalize the family calendar with their own creative flair. Display it in a location where everyone in the family can see it and pencil in new activities. And talk about time all the time!
Alicia Danyali, BS Elementary Education, taught primary-level students for four years at the International School of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The last four years of her teaching career, she taught at the Washington International School in Washington, D.C. She recently completed writing a series of children's picture books and is a mother of one young son.


At least half of every student's time in art class is spent on art production, using a variety of materials, including many drawing and painting media, modeling and ceramic clays, plaster, wire, papier-mâché, fibers, plastics, and more. The most popular medium here is ceramics, and all students work at handbuilding sculptures and pottery which we fire in our kiln. 6th graders, additionally, take turns at using our potter's wheel throughout the year.
Mr. Delahunt's students also study visual culture — this includes what we have conventionally called art, but much more. Visual culture includes everything in our visual world, imagery in all kinds of media, in electronic games, in sports, cosmetics (and other fashion-related settings), comic books, and politics. It involves the imagery associated with holidays and terrorism. Certain works that a Eurocentric audience might call art are not called art by the cultures that produced them can be included in discussions of visual culture, but might not be in discussions of art. Examples of such work might include kachina dolls, bonsai, and boomerangs.
Students in several grades may go on a field trip this year to the Phoenix Art Museum.
Students have various opportunities to exhibit their work at Copper Canyon, and also away from school, including the annual district student art show at Paradise Valley Community College in the spring.
I frankly don't put much store in the notion of talent. I'm convinced that every student simply needs the best opportunities I can devise for him and her to excel. So my goal is to design my lessons in such a way that all, or nearly all students succeed at art challenges which are satisfying and meaningful to each. I assess each student's work on the degree to which each achieves the objectives of their assignments. Please contact me if you have any special interests in or concerns about the art program. And if you'd like to know about ways for students to employ their art enthusiasms beyond their Copper Canyon experiences, look at a list of other art classes for kids in our area.
The Arizona Dept. of Education has said
that our Paradise Valley
Unified School District's visual art curriculum is among the
best in the state — a program involving art production, its history (context) and criticism,
In more than half of the schools in the U.S. (and in this state)
art is left to the classroom teacher to jam in along with the
myriad of other subjects she must fit into her schedule.
ArtLex has thousands of articles about art terms used in art production, art criticism, art history, aesthetics, and art education. I've produced ArtLex as a learning resource for my students and others studying art. Some of the hyperlinks found on the pages about my elementary art program will take you to ArtLex articles about terms on these pages.
I have taught art at three elementary schools
and one secondary school in the Paradise Valley Unified School
district (northeastern Phoenix and north Scottsdale) from 1986-2005.
I began publishing information about my classes on the Web in
1995. I began teaching at Copper Canyon Elementary School in the
fall of 2002, and will be posting more information for and about
these classes as time permits. I received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1986, and am currently a graduate student at Arizona State University, pursuing a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in art education.
Please send your comments.


Depending on the disposition of your two-year-old, you may be in the midst of the most terrible or terrific time in her life! While you may not feel like it some days, this too shall pass. In the meantime, what can be done with a two-year-old to foster learning, make memories and help save your sanity along the way?
“Get down on the child's level, sit on the floor, or at their play table & do something that requires both of you using your hands, example, finger painting, water colors, play dough,” advises toddler teacher Dianna Vavrik. “Show them you remember how to play, giggle, and in general can be silly with them!”
Create a Craft
Toddlers love crafts and making messes! Messes can be cleaned up and the skills and fun your child will derive from these activities will be well worth the mess.
- Strengthen fine motor skills by giving your child a variety of materials to write and draw with. Crayons, markers, colored pencils and different kinds of paper including notebooks, small pieces of scrap paper, even old wrapping paper will make drawing more inviting.
- Give your toddler a pair of child-safe scissors and help her cut (with supervision of course). Old newspapers, magazines, or small pieces of ribbon are great for practicing beginning cutting skills.
- Toddlers love stickers, and manipulating them is great for fine motor development. Let her decorate boxes, paper towel tubes or make her own sticker book. You don’t have to save everything: remember it is the process and not the product that's important for young children.
Young children love to imitate what they see you doing in your everyday life. Give her a few props and watch as she recreates your life before your eyes!
- Create an area that can be used for acting. Include some costume pieces (hats and vests are great) and some simple household props (baby dolls, play food and dishes). Your child may be engaged for hours, especially if you play with her. Let her be the mommy while you be the child!
- Act out favorite stories, rhymes and songs. The simplest props will do the trick and no costumes are necessary. You can make up your own ending to stories, too!
- Have Dad or older siblings help you role-play behaviors that you would like to have your toddler change. Have her give ideas for better ways to handle different situations.
Bounce and Boogie
Toddlers are all about movement! Rather than fight it, embrace this wiggly time in her life by making it fun for the whole family.
- Put on your favorite music and boogie. Surf the radio stations or your CD collection for different kinds of music and see what she likes. Talk about how some music is fast and some is slow. Move with the beat of the music and don’t be shy!
- Create an obstacle course outside (or inside on a cold or wet day). Use items for crawling over, under and through. Jump, turn in circles, sit on a chair or whatever you and your child can think of. See how fast she can do the whole course and have her try to go faster each time she tries.
- Make your own instruments using old cans, boxes and tubes. Add rice or beans, rubber bands or a spoon to create a fun homemade band. The classic pot and pan band is fun too (just a little more noisy!).
Learn About Language
Your child is at a critical moment for language development. Help build her vocabulary and prepare for reading and writing success.
- Make a book by stapling a few pages of paper together. Write your child’s name on the cover (after all, she is the author and illustrator) and allow her to illustrate her book using crayons, pencils and markers. If she has a story to go with it, you can write down the words on the pages.
- Read lots of books with your toddler. Make reading part of your daily routine and you will instill a love of reading in your child at a young age.
- Make up silly rhymes as you go through the day. Nonsense words are funny to toddlers and rhyming games are wonderful for early literacy development.
Bounce, giggle, act and create your way through your child’s two’s! She will love to have your attention and her favorite activity is spending time with you. Keep her active and having fun, and this time will likely be one you will fondly remember and cherish.


in these particular areas, and that is what has to be improved, the other components being at the desired level.
Likewise, assessments designed to evaluate programs should provide the kinds of information decision makers can use to improve those programs. People tend to think of school administrators and policy makers as removed from concerns about the details of instruction. Thus large-scale assessment information aimed at those users tends to be general and comparative, rather than descriptive of the nature of learning that is taking place in their schools. Practices in some school districts, however, are challenging these assumptions (Resnick and Harwell, 1998).
Telling an administrator that mathematics is a problem is too vague. Knowing how a school is performing in mathematics relative to past years, how it is performing relative to other schools, and what proportions of students fall in various broadly defined achievement categories also provides little guidance for program improvement. Saying that students do not understand probability is more useful, particularly to a curriculum planner. And knowing that students tend to confuse conditional and compound probability can be even more useful for the modification of curriculum and instruction. Of course, the sort of feedback needed to improve instruction depends on the program administrator’s level of control.
Not only do large-scale assessments provide means for reporting on student achievement, but they also convey powerful messages about the kinds of learning valued by society. Large-scale assessments should be used by policy makers and educators to operationalize and communicate among themselves, and to the public, the kinds of thinking and learning society wishes to encourage in students. In this way, assessments can foster valuable dialogue about learning and its assessment within and beyond the education system. Models of learning should be shared and communicated in accessible ways to show what competency in a domain looks like. For example, Developmental Assessment based on progress maps is being used in the Commonwealth of Victoria to assess literacy. An evaluation of the program revealed that users were “overwhelmingly positive about the value and potential of Developmental Assessment as a means for developing shared understandings and a common language for literacy development” (Meiers and Culican, 2000, p. 44).
The New Standards Project, as originally conceived (New Standards™, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c), illustrates ways to approach many of the issues of large-scale assessment discussed above. The program was designed to provide clear goals for learning and assessments that are closely tied to those


I’m presenting at the 2012 Professional Development Conference of the Ohio Music Educators Association. Two of my sessions fall under the heading of Research to Practice. This is obviously an interest of mine. I believe research is a worthwhile endeavor that can inform what musicians do in their performance and what music teachers do in their instruction. Below I’ll provide descriptions of a couple of sessions I’m doing, along with the handouts for each.
Research to Practice: Bring Vernacular Musicianship into Your Classroom
(Thursday, February 16, 5:15pm)
Recent research has promoted the merits of incorporating popular music—or “vernacular music”—into school music. Vernacular musicians tend to acquire a skill set that differs from that typically emphasized in formal education. A number of music researchers have provided evidence that the adoption of certain popular music practices could improve music education altogether. Although many music teachers are not philosophically opposed to using popular music in their teaching—after all, it is what’s on their iPods—they have little experience actually doing it. Their own musicianship may lack certain skills important in vernacular music making. These critical skills include playing by ear, improvising, composing original music, and creating music collaboratively with others.
This session will survey recent research on vernacular musicianship while simultaneously applying its findings to music instruction. Those in attendance will learn how to broaden their teaching approaches to make classroom activities and curricular offerings more inclusive and better representative of the musical world that today’s students live in. An underlying message of this session is this: An ultimate goal of music education is to equip children with the skills needed for participatory involvement with music for the rest of their lives. Developing the skills of vernacular musicianship may be an important step in realizing this.
* * *
Research to Practice: The Psychology of Music Performance
(Friday, February 17, 8:00am)
Ideally our students approach music making with the goal of performing heartfelt expression that will emotionally move their listeners. Truth be told, however, this probably happens too infrequently in our rehearsal rooms and school auditoriums. Sometimes the only emotion student musicians bring to a performance is fear, as stage fright takes hold. Can teachers do more to encourage expressive musicianship and stave off the onset of anxiety in performance situations?
Whether student performances are marked by moving expressivity or debilitating stage fright can be influenced by the way we teach music to them. This session will consider the interrelated nature of motivation, performance anxiety, and expressive performance. It will draw from the research in these areas and apply it in practical tips for teaching and learning. During this session, attendants will have a chance to clarify their own musical motivations, and receive recommendations for capitalizing on student motivational patterns. Also, the audience will learn the keys to managing stage fright and ways to structure music performance activities to help avoid anxiety altogether. This session will illustrate that a learning environment that taps students’ intrinsic motivation for music is crucial in efforts to teach toward expressive playing and singing, and away from the conditions of performance anxiety.
Handout for The Psychology of Music Performance


Manufacturing and other jobs in the U.S. will continue to be offshored to low-wage countries. In our new economy, the future of middle-class work will have to rely on uniquely human brain strength. The next generation of students will need to learn the foundational skills in problem-solving and communication --- skills that computers don’t have.
Well before the Great Recession, middle class Americans questioned the
ability of the public sector to adapt to the wrenching forces re-shaping
society. And as we’ve begun to see a “new economic normal,” many Americans
are left wondering if anyone or any institution can help them, making it
imperative that both political parties re-think their 20th century
How do we ensure American middle class prosperity and individual success in an era of ever-intensifying globalization and technological upheaval? It’s the defining question of our time and one that, as a country, we’ve yet to answer.
In Dancing with Robots Frank Levy and Richard Murnane make a compelling case that the hollowing out of middle class jobs in America has as much to do with the technology revolution and computerization of tasks as with global pressures like China. In so doing, they predict what the future of work will be in America and what it will take for the middle class to succeed. The collapse of the once substantial middle class job picture has begun a robust debate among those who argue that it has its roots in policy, versus those who argue that it has its roots in structural changes in the economy.
Levy and Murnane delve deeply into structural economic changes brought about by technology. These two pioneers in the field argue that the human labor market will center on three kinds of work: 1) solving unstructured problems, 2) working with new information, and 3) carrying out non-routine manual tasks.
The bulk of the rest of the work will be done by computers with some work reserved for low wage workers abroad. They argue that the future success of the middle class rests on the nation’s ability to sharply increase the fraction of American children with the foundational skills needed to develop job-relevant knowledge and to learn efficiently over a lifetime.
As for the state of our schools, Levy and Murnane point out something quite profound, “American schools are not worse than they were in a previous generation. Indeed, the evidence is to the contrary. Today’s education problem stems from the increased complexity of foundational skills needed in today’s economy.”
With the constant upgrades in computer speed and capacity, Levy and Murnane point out that computers will ultimately perform nearly all tasks for which "logical rules or a statistical model lay out a path to a solution, including complicated tasks that have been simplified by imposing structure."
They posit that the future of middle class work will necessarily have to rely on uniquely human brain strengths: “flexibility—the ability to process and integrate many kinds of information to perform a complex task, [such as] solving problems for which standard operating procedures do not currently exist, and working with new information—acquiring it, making sense of it, communicating it to others.”
For sure, over the past decade we have lost millions of manufacturing jobs to China. But we have probably reached the end of that story as Chinese wages continue to rise. Yet we have lost the airline ticket salesperson to a kiosk; the check-out clerk to the scanner, and the factory floor worker to the machine. Each year, computers simply get better, faster, and more powerful.
Meanwhile, both political parties profess an undying commitment to the middle
class. But is either party proposing anything remotely close to preparing the
current and next generation for solid work in the midst of technological
In order to prepare young people to do the jobs computers cannot do we must re-focus our education system around one objective: giving students the foundational skills in problem-solving and communication that computers don’t have.
As the authors of Dancing with Robots illustrate, these skills are not just the skills of professionals with advanced degrees. What computers have done is to make even traditional blue collar jobs like auto-mechanic—dependent upon one’s ability to problem solve and to communicate. These insights are critical to thinking creatively about the challenge of job creation in the 21st century.


Larkspur, CA (PRWEB) March 13, 2014
This edition is directed to the Spanish speaking and reading community. It brings much needed Nutritional information to parents, children, adolescents, and young adults before the consequences of poor nutritional habits are formed. It is an illness PREVENTION book offering guidelines of how to avoid poor nutritional choices that lead to bad health, obesity, diabetes, early heart disease, and high blood pressure as well as the many emotional issues arising from poor nutrition practices. La Dieta De Marin County addresses the need for a practical nutrition book that contains evidence based information rather than “faith based” reasoning passed off as “science.”
This is a highly comprehensive nutrition book that contains an elementary education in nutrients-just the basics-that can help parents find their way through the thicket of good nutritional information, the hype and the misinformation that’s out there.
‘La Dieta De Marin County contains everything a parent needs to know to design optimal food choices for the well child. It is a veritable guide to healthy living.
For more information on this book, interested parties may log on to http://www.themarincountydiet.com.
About the Author
Although most of Dr. Goldberg’s suggestions and anecdotes come from his years of experience nurturing thousands of children (and their parents), he has recruited the experience of many other experts in nutrition.
For the past twenty five years the author has worked in countries such as Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Egypt, Honduras, India, Nepal, Philippines, Peru, Venezuela, and Vietnam, where poverty, ignorance, social disintegration and war have contributed to nutritional diseases, and he has brought back with him a keen understanding of the multi-cultural effects upon diet.In 2001 Doctor Goldberg was selected as one of fifty “Unsung Heroes Of Compassion” from around the world and was acknowledged personally by His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. He is a graduate of Muhlenberg College, Allentown PA, New York Medical College and received his pediatric training in San Francisco and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania. Doctor Goldberg is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
A pesar de que la mayoría de las sugerencias y anécdotas de Dr. Goldberg vienen de sus años de experiencia nutriendo a miles de niños (y a sus padres), él ha obtenido su experiencia de muchos otros expertos en nutrición. Durante 25 años el autor ha trabajado en países como Argentina, China, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Etiopia, Honduras, India, Nepal, Filipinas, Perú, Venezuela y Vietnam, donde la pobreza, ignorancia, desintegración social y guerra han contribuido con enfermedades nutricionales y él ha traído de vuelta consigo un profundo conocimiento de los efectos multiculturales sobre la dieta. En 2001 el Dr. Goldberg fue seleccionado como uno de los cincuenta “Héroes Anónimos de la Compasión” alrededor del mundo y fue reconocido personalmente por Su Santidad el Dalai Lama XIV.
LA DIETA DE MARIN COUNTY* by Albert C Goldberg, MD
Alimente Adecuadamente a su Niño desde el Nacimiento
Publication Date: December 27, 2013
Trade Paperback; $23.99; 465 pages; 978-1-4931-5043-4
Trade Hardback; $34.99; 465 pages; 978-1-4931-5044-1
e-book; $3.99; 978-1-4931-5045-8
Members of the media who wish to review this book may request a complimentary paperback copy by contacting the publisher at (888) 795-4274 x. 7879. To purchase copies of the book for resale, please fax Xlibris at (812) 355-4079 or call (888) 795-4274 x. 7879.
For more information on self-publishing or marketing with Xlibris, visit http://www.Xlibris.com. To receive a free publishing guide, please call (888) 795-4274.


Musicianship Basics 2.7.1
Musicianship Basics is music education software designed by music teachers for use in schools, private piano studios and for home learning.
Sixty graded activities cover basic music theory and ear-training skills for students of all ages in their first three years of training.
Specific skills include:
- Reading notes in the treble and bass clefs.
- Matching manuscript notes with keys on a piano.
- Aural recognition of melodies and rhythms.
- Aural recognition of scales and common intervals.
- Recognition of note names and their durations.
- Review of common Italian terms and music symbols.
- Recognition of common chords on a manuscript or keyboard.
- Aural recognition of major and minor tonality.
- Practical rhythm-tapping exercises.
The computer responds with the correct answer after an error. Students learn as they play in a positive and non-threatening way.


Getty Trust, in full The J. Paul Getty Trust, private operating foundation that was founded by the American oil billionaire J. Paul Getty in 1953 for the purpose of establishing the J. Paul Getty Museum, which opened to the public in 1954. The Getty Trust has become a multibillion-dollar philanthropic foundation dedicated to enlarging and exhibiting its deceased founder’s art collection in the Getty Museum. The trust also funds and operates ongoing programs of conservation, research, documentation, and education in the visual arts. It is headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif.
J. Paul Getty began collecting artworks in the 1930s and displayed them in his ranch house in Malibu, Calif. His museum occupied a wing added to the ranch house, but the collection eventually outgrew that space, so Getty built a new museum in Malibu that opened in 1974. This second J. Paul Getty Museum was a lavish re-creation of the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman villa uncovered in the town of Herculaneum, which had been buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ad 79. Getty died in 1976 and bequeathed the bulk of his fortune—about $700 million worth of stock in the Getty Oil Company—to the museum. Legal wrangles followed, but when the Getty Trust actually received the bequest in 1982, it had grown to $1.2 billion, making the Getty Museum perhaps the most richly endowed cultural institution in the world. The trust also received part of the proceeds from the sale of the Getty Oil Company to Texaco Inc. for $10 billion in 1984. The trust’s endowment totaled more than $4 billion by the late 1990s.
In 1983 the trust diversified its activities, establishing institutes specializing in art restoration, art historical research and documentation, and art education. The trust then decided to construct a complex of buildings to house a new, enlarged J. Paul Getty Museum as well as the other operating programs. After 14 years of planning and construction, the Getty Center, a six-building campus set on a hilltop in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, opened to the public in 1997. The buildings were designed by the American architect Richard Meier in a restrained modernist style.
The J. Paul Getty Museum occupies the largest building in the complex. The museum contains European paintings, sculpture, drawings, and decorative arts from before 1900, as well as illuminated manuscripts and photographs. The museum’s collections reflect Getty’s preference for Renaissance and Baroque paintings and French furniture. (Getty’s collection of Greek and Roman antiquities remains in the Roman villa in Malibu.)
The other buildings of the Getty Center house five institutes and a grant program. The Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities contains a large library and archives and supports interdisciplinary research in art history and the related humanities. The Getty Conservation Institute conducts and supports scientific research and training in the conservation of art, architecture, and archaeological sites. The Getty Information Institute develops computerized databases of art historical information. The Getty Education Institute for the Arts promotes art education in schools. The Getty Leadership Institute for Museum Management offers management training for professionals from all types of museums.
The Getty Grant Program supports projects around the world involving research in the history and understanding of art and its conservation.


2005 - Elliot W. Eisner
"The Arts and the Creation of Mind"
Dec. 1 , 2004
School districts around the nation are struggling to decide whether or not to continue funding arts education programs. Educator Elliot W. Eisner states that there really is no choice; cutting those programs will significantly hinder student development.
In his book “The Arts and the Creation of Mind,” Eisner states that including the arts in the curriculum is critically important to the development of thinking skills and a better understanding of the world. The work has earned Eisner, Lee Jacks professor of education and professor of art at Stanford University, the 2005 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education. The $200,000 award is one of the largest in the field of education.
Eisner disagrees with those who believe that the arts are secondary to education’s core curriculum and not intellectually demanding. He argues that the arts help students develop and refine different styles of thinking, which helps them confront ambiguities in life better than curricula focused on single correct answers.
Eisner says that schools rely heavily on standardized testing, which leads to uniformity among students while neglecting the concept of developing students to their fullest potential. He believes art teaches that variability in understanding is a natural consequence of learning and that not all situations have one right or wrong response.
Eisner says arts programs should follow five principles to enhance students’ overall academic achievement. Those principles include fostering the growth of artistic intelligence, learning how to create satisfying visual images and understand art’s place in culture, and helping students recognize what is personal, distinctive and unique about themselves and their work.
About Elliot W. Eisner
Elliot W. Eisner, Lee Jacks professor of education and professor of art at Stanford University, has been a champion of arts education throughout his career.
Eisner earned his bachelor’s degree in art and education from Roosevelt University in Chicago in 1954, a master’s degree in art education from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1955 and a master’s degree and doctoral degree in education from the University of Chicago in 1958 and 1962, respectively.
He began his career in 1956 as an art teacher at Carl Schurz High School in Chicago. In 1958, he taught art at the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School. After spending one year as an art education instructor at The Ohio State University, Eisner returned to the University of Chicago as an education instructor in 1961; the following year he was promoted to assistant professor of education. He left Chicago for Stanford University in 1965, where he has served as both associate professor and professor of art and education for nearly 40 years. He was named Lee Jacks professor of education and professor of art in 2000.
Eisner has written extensively on imagination and education and has authored books such as “Educating Artistic Vision,” “Cognition and Curriculum: A Basis for Deciding What to Teach,” “The Kind of Schools We Need” and “The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice.” His books have been translated for publication in Japan, Spain, China, Argentina and South Korea, among other countries.
He has received many honors for his work. His book “The Art of Educational Evaluation: A Personal View” received the 1987 Critics Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association. Another of his books, “The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs,” was selected as one of several “Books of the Century” in 2000 by The Museum of Education at the University of South Carolina.
In addition, Eisner received the 1989 Edwin Ziegfield Award from the United States Society for Education through Art and the 2004 Brock International Prize in Education. He was elected to The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in 1991 and to the National Academy of Education in 1996.
Eisner has served on the editorial boards of many educational journals.
He also has been active in the American Educational Research Association, serving as its president in 1992-93 and for several years as co-director of the AERA Institute on Arts-Based Educational Research. A former president of the National Art Education Association, the John Dewey Society and the International Society for Education through Art, he is a former member of the advisory board of the J. Paul Getty Center for Education in the Arts.


Help your child “step up” to math challenges with a fun game in your very own kitchen. Not only will this help your child learn basic addition and subtraction facts in an engaging way, it will also get her up and moving--with math!
What You Do:
- Before you start the game, write a complete math fact in large type on one side of a sheet of typing paper. If your child is struggling with early math facts, start with low numbers like 1+2=3. By second grade, however, most kids are working with number facts closer to ten, such as 9+8=17; or with subtraction. Wherever you start, write one math equation on one side of each paper, such as 6+6=12; and write just the question (such as 6+6) on the other side. Make at least 20 facts, and then mix them all up.
- Set up the challenge: tell your child that her mission, should she choose to accept it, is to cross the room without touching the floor, using only her knowledge of math facts. Tape a square of blank construction paper on one side of the room. This is "start." Explain that you will show her a math problem, and every one she gets right will become her next "step" allowing her to move across the floor.
- Stand in front of your child, and show her the question side of the construction paper. If she states the correct answer to the math problem, turn it around and tape down the answer side a good step-width away. Allow her to move one space forward. Guide your child through the problems as needed, so that she doesn't become frustrated if the math concept is new to her. If your child does not answer the problem correctly, she must stay on the same space. When your youngster gets all the way across the kitchen, she has successfully completed her mission!
In order to keep the Step Game a challenge, try using multiplication or division flashcards as your child advances in math.
Carrie Ann Cain has been teaching second grade for three years. She is certified in elementary education, special education, Spanish, and ESOL (teaching english to speakers of other languages).