KARACHI: With more than 22 million children out of school, Pakistan urgently requires efforts to design and implement flexible and alternative models of curriculum and education delivery to engage the hardest-to-reach children, particularly girls and overage dropouts in the marginalised communities.
This point was raised at a seminar held on Friday at the Aga Khan University-Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED) to disseminate findings of a year-long study which examined efficacy of non-formal basic education (NFBE) curriculum and materials for quality teaching and learning processes.
The AKU-IED carried out the study in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) in the 16 newly established NFBE centres set up by Jica and NGO World, a non-governmental organisation, in Korangi.
‘The need for non-formal education has arisen because the formal system has been unable to cope with the demand of basic literacy’
Under the research project, eight centres, for a comparison, were categorised as intervention centres which followed specially designed accelerated primary school curriculum for NFBE, textbooks and guide and their teachers received professional development support whereas eight others were categorised as non-intervention centres.
The latter followed the mainstream primary curriculum and textbooks published by the Sindh Textbook Board.
All the 16 centres catered for 7-16 years-old out-of-school children [both boys and girls], who either had never been to school or had dropped out early from school.
The baseline assessment results of 460 learners’ basic literacy and numeracy skills revealed an overall average score of 30.4 per cent.
Similarly, average scores of learners in the intervention centres and non-intervention centres were 34.3pc and 26pc respectively.
Learners with prior experience of education up to classes two, three and four from formal schools secured 70-90pc marks.
The baseline assessment was followed by an intervention period which required both the groups to implement their respective curricula in their eight focused centres.
The comparative analysis of both groups revealed that all the learners had improved their overall scores, especially the intervention centres’ learners. They performed better in subject-wise scores for mathematics, Urdu and English and the scale of this difference was found statistically significant.
“The need for non-formal education in Pakistan has arisen because the formal system has been unable to cope with the growing demand of basic literacy education in the country,” said project lead, AKU-IED Dr Dilshad Ashraf, while giving a presentation on the study’s findings.
The study’s findings provide evidence to the usefulness of NFBE curriculum, textbooks and teacher guide in helping teachers to create an enabling environment for better learning outcomes, she added.
The idea of non-formal education, she pointed out, was not new and several such programmes were launched in the country over the decades. Unfortunately, however, these programmes couldn’t be sustained and institutionalised.
She also appreciated the directorate of literacy and non-formal education which approved the NFBE curriculum in 2016 and said that it’s a flexible curriculum and supported teachers to provide learning environment that satisfies intellectual demands of learners.
Giving recommendations, she called for extensive and consistent use of NFBE curriculum and curriculum materials, tailor-made professional development of teachers, community-led NFBE provision and active partnership between researchers and development practitioners for generating evidence for effective implementation of NFBE curriculum.
Earlier, chief adviser Jica-Advancing Quality Alternative Learning Chiho Ohashi, presented an overview of the project.
The speeches were followed by a panel discussion which was participated by Ghulam Asghar Memon, the director general, directorate of curriculum, assessment and research, school education and literacy, Fouzia Khan, head of curriculum wing, school education and literacy and senior educationist Sadiqa Salahuddin, among others.
Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2019


The Reading Game was created by Kenneth Hodkinson, author of the “Wordly Wise” series. It is a fast-action memory card game that will get your kids reading.
The Reading Game is a supplemental learn-to-read program that correlates with most standard curriculums. It also meets the criteria of the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts, Foundational skills, and Reading skills needed for both kindergarten and first graders. The Reading Game consists of six illustrated storybooks: Skunk, Snake, Bear, Penguins, Unicorn, and Zebra. Each book comes with a color coded word matching card game. The memory games are played in six stages for each book, learning five words in each stage. By the end of your first book your student will be able to read 30 words.
Frequent exposure through play hard-wires these words into long-term memory. The card game requires two players, the student and a tutor. By transforming rote learning into a fast paced game where there is a winner every few seconds, learning to read becomes fun.
The first story is told using just those thirty words. It tells of a skunk without a stripe who is rejected for being different but finds acceptance among a group of cats and becomes their defender. Each subsequent game in the series adds a further thirty words for a reading vocabulary of 180 words by the time the complete series is finished. Of the twenty-five most commonly used English words, twenty-two are on that list; of the forty most commonly used English words –thirty. The multi-sensory teaching approach – through the card game play and the storybooks – works well for retention and student enjoyment. ~ from the website
The Crewmembers received a copy of The Reading Game which retails for $24.95.
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Special thanks to Jacquelin from A Stable Beginning for writing this post.


Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) in junior cycle education supports the personal development, health and well being of young people and helps them create and maintain supportive relationships. The aims of SPHE are to enable students to develop skills for self-fulfilment and living in communities, to promote self-esteem and self-confidence, to enable students to develop a framework for responsible decision-making, to provide opportunities for reflection and discussion and to promote physical, mental and emotional health and well-being.
The SPHE programme in the school will reflect the unique ethos of the school. To be effective, a positive school climate and atmosphere must support it. A supportive whole school environment is one where people feel valued, self-esteem is fostered, fairness and tolerance are evident, high expectations are the norm, those having difficulty are supported, communication is open, effort is recognised, difference is valued, conflict is handled constructively, initiative and creativity is stressed and social, moral and civic values are promoted.
The curriculum for SPHE in the junior cycle is presented in ten modules, each of which appears in each year of the three year cycle. The ten modules are
- Belonging and integrating
- Self-management: a sense of purpose
- Communication skills
- Physical health
- Relationship and sexuality
- Emotional health
- Influences and decisions
- Substance use
- Personal safety
SPHE is not formally assessed in the Junior Certificate examination. However, as part of the school curriculum with stated aims and outcomes, SPHE is open to assessment and evaluation. Assessment and evaluation in SPHE falls into three broad categories:
- Student self-assessment and peer assessment: student self-assessment is seen as an integral part of teaching and learning in SPHE. Peer assessment can be used by groups of students to review their learning and is facilitated by the teacher
- Assessment of students: assessment of students’ work and skills through specific tasks, homework and project work
- Programme evaluation: continuous evaluation of the SPHE programme’s structure and materials in a school.
SPHE in junior cycle has been introduced on a phased basis since September 2000. SPHE in junior cycle builds on the experience of all children at Primary level. (SPHE is a core part of the new Primary school curriculum). All second level schools are required to offer SPHE in each year of junior cycle. The NCCA is currently developing the curriculum framework for SPHE in senior cycle education.


Trisha Moquino, Olivia Coriz, and Mara Matteson describe the philosophy and practice behind the new Keres Children’s Learning Center
All 19 Indian pueblos of New Mexico have an understanding that we are at a critical point in our long history — that critical point being the difference between language loss and language maintenance and revitalization. Many Pueblos still feel it is the responsibility of the family to give language, and in families where language remains strong, this is still being done. With this understanding and the desire to support families in maintaining their children’s language in the crucial early childhood years, the Keres Children’s Learning Center (KCLC) opened at Cochiti Pueblo in September 2012 after six years of preparation: researching related endeavors, developing the model, shoring up financial support, and laying the groundwork in the community.
Co-founded by Trisha Moquino and Olivia Coriz, the school begins as a preschool, serving children from ages two and a half to four. The pedagogical approach is Montessori, and the language of instruction is Keres, the unwritten language of the Cochiti people. As the children matriculate to ages six and older, the school will evolve into a dual-language Montessori school, and an English language teacher will join the team.
The school was created to address the critical language loss being experienced at Cochiti Pueblo and to give Cochiti parents the opportunity to educate their children in a manner that is in line with traditional practices and where they know their children will hear Keres in an immersion setting. Parents and families are supported through weekly evening seminars in which we discuss their responsibility to pass on the Keres language. In passing on the language, values, beliefs, and a worldview like none other are also transferred to the next generation.
At KCLC, children receive lessons that are culturally appropriate as well as lessons that will prepare them for mainstream education. KCLC emphasizes creating self-motivated learners through meaningful everyday lessons and activities, such as washing dishes, cleaning windows, setting up snacks for classmates, grace and courtesy, caring for the self, and learning the foundational skills for future literacy, numeracy, and the humanities.
The ultimate goal is to have our students be truly bilingual. With families and KCLC working together to reclaim the children’s education, we put our faith and our hearts into this effort. KCLC is independently funded. While it is a struggle to raise the necessary money, it gives KCLC freedom from the many early-childhood English-oriented policies that would interfere with its primary purpose. KCLC is grateful to everyone who has supported and contributed to our efforts.
Trisha Moquino and Olivia Coriz are co-founders of KCLC, and Mara Matteson is a teacher at the school. This article originally appeared in Soleado, published by Dual Language Education of New Mexico — www.dlenm.org. For more articles from Soleado, please visit www.soleado.dlenm.org.
To catch a glimpse of day-to-day life at KCLC, please visit the Keres Children’s Learning Center Facebook page. For more information on KCLC, visit www.kclcmontessori.org.
The languages spoken by the Pueblo people of Acoma, Cochiti, Laguna, San Felipe, Santa Ana, Santo Domingo, and Zia Pueblos are so closely related that linguists usually consider them dialects of a single language, known as Keres or Keresan. This Keresan language is not related at all to the Kiowa-Tanoan languages spoken by most of the other Pueblo people of New Mexico. Keres is spoken by nearly 11,000 people in the American Southwest today.
There is some disagreement among the Keres people as to whether Keres should be a written language or not. Some Pueblo elders feel that their languages should be preserved by oral traditions alone. However, many Keres speakers have decided that literacy is important for passing the language on to children. The Keres-speaking pueblos have developed their own orthography for their language, and today there are programs teaching Pueblo children to read and write in five of the seven Keres-speaking pueblos.


The Montessori Materials
The Montessori method promotes hands-on learning. “Doing” helps children internalize concepts and ideas. Maria Montessori defined the hand as “the organ of intelligence” and she invented a series of useful objects to aid learning. The following is a sample list of learning materials used in a the various areas of a Montessori classroom:
Sensorial: Long Red Rods—Ten solid rods made of red wood, that are constant in height and width (2.5cm) while graduated in length from 10cm to 1 meter, demonstrate the concept of length differences. Other manipulatives focus on sorting geometrical shapes, comparing weights, learning colours, etc.
Mathematics: Spindle Boxes—Two wooden boxes divided into five compartments each, with the numerals 0-9 printed above each compartment. The child uses wooden spindles to practice counting and to develop quantitative concepts. Hands on math activities progress to arithmetic operations, fractions, etc.
Language: Sandpaper Letters—The tactile alphabet is used to develop a neuromuscular impression of the letter shapes and to promote letter-sound association. This is a multisensory approach where visual and directional memory (shape of letters and direction of writing) is reinforced by the tactile and kinaesthetic experiences. Language activities also include manipulatives that promote writing and understanding punctuation and sentence structure.
Botany and Geography: Map, Plants and Animal Puzzles—Small wooden puzzles help child conceptualize the whole vs. parts while also promoting observation of nature, and understanding of topographical concepts.
Practical Life: Dressing Frames—Hardwood frames holding cotton material are used for practicing various fasteners and to develop eye hand coordination, concentration and independence.
Young children, and particularly children between the ages of three and six years, are naturally capable of absorbing a great deal of information and acquiring many skills primarily through the senses. As they progress in their exploration of classroom materials, children learn about their environment, identify its characteristics, conceptualize categories and gradually develop abstract thinking skills. Children gradually organize the world around them into ordered categories thus creating a springboard for further exploration and discoveries. Children explore qualities such as shape, size, density, weight, sounds, taste and smell in order to grasp concepts involving measurements, comparison of similarities and differences, gradation and equivalence.
The teacher introduces and demonstrates how to use Montessori materials. Then materials are ready for individual use and children are autonomous to explore and to monitor their own progress and mistakes.
A good example for the application of Montessori materials is in the development of mathematical concepts. Numbers are everywhere and math is essential for everyday life. Moreover, independent mathematical thinking is closely linked to problem solving skills in general as well as attention and organizational skills, coordination and general independence. A sensory-based approach to the development of mathematical thinking is highly effective in promoting enthusiastic learning of math. Children are able to observe and explore how numbers increase, decrease, change and relate to each other using multisensory manipulations. They are not hurried or pressured to produce “results” during their exploration. Montessori materials help children build a solid foundation for grasping abstract concepts and the learning process is engaging and enjoyable.
Children are free to choose materials and activities based on their genuine needs in any particular moment. There is no pressure to move on to the next thing. Children are free to repeat tasks and, in fact, repetition is encouraged as a way to strengthen and refine foundational skills. As children freely choose and practice with materials and activities, teachers can observe students’ preferences in and patterns of learning.


Problems in Indian Education System
Presented by – Praveen Srivastava
Indian Department of Education : Ministry of
Human Resources Development .
Headed by : Shri M.M. Pallam Raju
National Budget : 52,057 crore
Total Male Female
74.04% 82.14% 65.46%
National Council For Education Research
Training is the apex body for Curriculum
NCERT provides research and Training and
Research assistance to various Schools.
ICSE (Indian School Certification
National Institute for Open Schooling
NCERT is an autonomous body fully funded by the
Ministry of Human Resource and Development
The NCERT was established in 1961.
India's higher education system is the third largest
in the world, after China and the United States.
The current scheme for universalization of
Education for All is the SARVASHIKSHA ABHIYAN
which is one of the largest education initiatives in the
1.Work Force Quality
25% of the Public Sector teacher and 40% of Public Sector
Medical worker were absent.
Absence Rate ranged from 15% in Maharashtra to 30% in
59% of the school had no drinking water and 89% had no
3.5% of primary schools in Bihar and Chhattisgarh had toilets
only for Girls
The number of secondary School is almost half the number of
upper primary School in the country
Lower secondary level enrolment rate is 52%
Senior Secondary level it is 28%
Preschools is merely is 18%
48% drop-out rate in elementary education
Rote learning rather than problem solving
5.IES ‘over-regulated and under-governed
The Centre’s budgetary allocation is up 6x in the 11th Plan; the GOI spends a
whopping $30bn on education (3.5% of GDP, at the global average) AND YET
1. India has one of the lowest GERs (general enrollment ratios)
2. 40% of the total student base is enrolled in private schools – 7% of
3. 0.85% of the $30bn spend is on capital expenditure and 80% spent
on teacher’s salaries .


I recently published a post about teaching phonics. Phonics is the building-blocks of language, and most often the first thing taught to children. In ESL education, phonics is often taught to help second-language speakers learn to produce the sounds in English. Students are typically taught to produce sounds, and break up words into syllables before they are taught to read.
There is another approach to teaching reading called the “Whole-Language Approach“. Whole-language is a constructivist approach to education; constructivist teachers emphasize that students create (construct) their own knowledge from what they meet. Using a holistic approach to teaching, constructivist teachers do not believe that students learn effectively by analyzing small chunks of a system, such as learning the letters of the alphabet in order to learn language. Constructivist instructors see learning as a cognitive experience unique to each learner’s own perspective and prior knowledge, which forms the framework for new knowledge.
The whole-language approach focuses on making meaning from the text, rather than focusing on the individual sounds and syllables. Students are taught to read whole words and develop their pronunciation skills through this manner. It puts an emphasis on cultural integration, diversity of literary genres and styles, as well as use content from other areas such as science, social studies, or math (sometimes you gotta learn to run before you can crawl, right?). Whole-language instructors also encourage a love for reading, and focus on guided reading activities, and reading aloud. Students are encouraged to participate in group reading sessions, as well as individual reading time.
Writing also plays a large role in whole-language instruction. Teachers who use this approach exclusively do not place heavy emphasis in the early grades on spelling and grammar. The whole language approach emphasizes children’s efforts to make and seek meaning in language; correcting errors places the focus on technical correctness, which is not where whole language teachers believe it should be. The effective whole language teacher “hears and sees through” the child’s errors, using the information gained for formative assessment, then creates experiences that help the child to acquire the correct structure and form.
There is some debate among educators and researchers about whether phonics or whole-language is better to teach reading. While it may seem like a good idea to teach children to read whole words, it overlooks spelling, basic pronunciation and does not help students who are dyslexic. Students with dyslexia and other language processing disorders need explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, and decoding in order to improve their reading skills. The whole language approach works for many students, but explicit and systematic phonics instruction works for students of all levels (and greatly decreases spelling and pronunciation errors).
In 1997 the National Reading Panel held a debate to settle the disagreement. In 2000, the Panel released its findings, stating that there are five essential components that must be taught in an effective reading program: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension.
Which approach do you think is more effective?


Original articlesInvestigation of Primary Teachers Views on Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Bayram Ali Çalışkan, Çağatay Ergan, Özge Erva Uzunlar, Sanem Tabak
pp. 1 - 19
This research is designed with a basic qualitative research design in which the pedagogical content knowledge of the primary teachers is examined in terms of curricular knowledge, knowledge of instructional strategies, knowledge of the students and knowledge of assessment & evaluation information. The study group was determined by convenience sampling method. In this respect, there are 6 primary teachers in the study group; 2 primary teacher having professional experience between 0-10 years, 2 primary teacher having professional experience between 10-20 years and 2 primary teacher having professional experience 20 years and over. In this study, semi-structured interview form developed by researchers was used as data collection instrument. The data obtained from the research were analysed by content analysis method. When the results obtained from the study were evaluated and the primary teachers’ curricular knowledge is examined; it is concluded that the primary teachers examined the primary school curriculum, used the teaching materials, developed teaching materials in order to enrich the content, and integrated technology into teaching. When primary teachers’ instructional strategies knowledge is examined; it is seen that the classroom teachers placed drama, brainstorming, question-answer, project-based learning methods in their lessons, placed especially "the principle of relativity to students" from principles of teaching often included in teaching. When primary teachers’ student characteristics knowledge is examined; it is concluded that the primary teachers paid attention to developmental characteristics of their students, teach lessons base on their students’ prior knowledge, use their students’ oriented attitudes and motivations of the students to the lesson, paid attention to individual differences in their classes, they provided teacher-student and student-student interaction effectively. When primary teachers’ assessment and evaluation knowledge is examined; it is concluded that the primary teachers chose oral examinations, written exams and multiple choice tests according to levels of the students and they made generally assessment and evaluation activities end of the lessons.
Keywords: Pedagogical content knowledge, professional competence, primary teacher
A Review of Educational Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation Course Syllabi
Burak Aydın, Murat Kaşlı
pp. 20 - 29
This study investigates a sample of syllabi for educational measurement, assessment and evaluation course offered in several high-rank universities. A total of 16 syllabi from 12 countries are accessed through universities’ websites and via e-mail to course instructors. Employing a descriptive research framework, the content of available syllabi is summarized based on covered topics, required and recommended readings and student assessment strategies. A total of 35 topics were identified and listed. Findings showed that graduate level courses mainly used academic articles as reading materials whereas undergraduate level courses generally required a textbook. Assessment strategies included assignments and essays as much as midterms and final exams. Attendance and active involvement were also included in student assessment strategies. Even though based on a small sample, the findings of this review are expected to help instructors who are developing a new course.
Keywords: Assessment and evaluation course, Educational measurement, Higher-education curriculum, Syllabi review
Teacher cognition and teaching grammar at tertiary level
Bekir Canlı, İsmail Çakır
pp. 32 - 45
This study aims to investigate the teacher cognition and teaching grammar at tertiary level. For the purpose of the study, a qualitative research was carried out. The study utilized a purposeful sampling and three experienced EFL instructors participated in this study. Data were collected by means of semi-structured pre-observation interviews, classroom observations, and semi-structured post-observation interviews. The study results revealed that EFL instructors’ cognition and teaching grammar are strongly related to their own experience and circumstantial factors. Although the instructors were aware of the current ELT teaching methods, they had to teach English grammar by traditional methods for a number of reasons. The results of the study suggested that EFL instructors might update their existing grammar knowledge and teaching methods in the light of recent development in the field. Also, the instructors need to benefit from the professional development opportunities in order to reconsider their current teaching practices and modify them with more effective teaching activities. This may enhance the teacher cognition and teaching grammar.
Keywords: Teacher Cognition; Teaching Grammar; Grammar Teaching Practices


This program gives the student the skills and occupational competencies necessary in the industry today based upon the Ministry for Children and Family Development approved curriculum.
Students will develop a broad range of skills through the study and practice of our certified and approved courses so they will be able to develop and lead daily activities for children. They will be able to carefully select age-appropriate materials for young children and develop programs and activities for the important early years of learning.They will become nurturing and understanding Caregivers/Educators, along with positive guidance and caring, will implement these carefully selected materials and activities to help promote the social, emotional, physical, cognitive and early literacy development in each child. Some of these exciting activities include storytelling and fingerplays, music and movement, songs and games, creative arts and crafts, science and nature opportunities, along with many other activities that support children's development and learning through play. They also observe children and communicate professionally, when appropriate, children's progress and/or needs with parents, other staff members and individuals involved with the child's development. They attend meetings, workshops and professional development opportunities to continue their learning and progress as competent and qualified Early Childhood Educators. They may also supervise and coordinate the activities of other Early Childhood Educators and ECE Assistants.
At the end of this program the student will have developed a broad range of skills through the application and understanding of the following learning outcomes:
- Cultural, economic, and generational influences on development
- Main categories and methods of observational recording
- Current licensing and registration regulations, development of policies and procedures, floor plans, and child care center design
- Development of partnerships with parents, colleagues, and other service providers
- Positive contemporary child guidance practices, causes and characteristics of inappropriate behaviour
- Planning and implementing comprehensive program plans, focusing on social, emotional, cognitive, physical, language and cultural development.
- Activities to facilitate diversity and multi-cultural experiences and concepts to enhance curriculum
- Creating a positive learning environment that includes fun and engaging music and movement activities, enhancing other learning such as language and language skills
- The use of concepts and activities from LEAP BC 2010 Resource Booklet and recognizing movement categories and motor skills
- Creativity and open-ended, process-oriented creative art activities and experiences
- Verbal and non-verbal communication skills and techniques.
- Design newsletters and communication tools for parents, children and staff
- Signs and symptoms of common communicable childhood illnesses
- Goal setting, note taking, problem solving, and team work
- Interview techniques and creating an employment package
- Family Child Care
- Young Parent Programs
- Recreational Programs
- Cruiseships and Resorts
- Group Child Care
- Before & After School Care
- Foster Parenting
- StrongStart Facilitators
- Supported Child Development
Minimum Entrance Requirements
- Grade 12 / GED or mature student status. Applicants must successfully complete the admissions interview and entrance assessment.
Note: English level assessment will be required for International students.
Last updated October 29, 2015


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This issue brief focuses on the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to wellness that includes attention to social emotional health as well as healthy eating and physical activity.
The Science of Learning and Development (SoLD) Alliance is exploring ways to strengthen systems and support for whole child learning and development.
This issue brief highlights the challenges English language learners (ELLs) face in developing literacy proficiency and articulates how afterschool programs can play a central role in providing the supports to help ELL students thrive in school, work, and life.
This issue brief provides an overview of the prevalence of mental health issues for children and youth. It explores how schools are often the de facto mental health system for children; therefore, schools could be a first step for afterschool programs wanting partnerships for support on mental health needs.
This issue brief describes the importance and impact of involving families in youth development programs. It presents examples of how programs that are part of the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development have used three strategies to engage families: communication, participation, and partnerships.
This brief outlines the "soft skills" that are needed to be successful in the workplace in the 21st century, and how Out-of-School Time (OST) practitioners can be more proactive in supporting the development of these employability skills. This resource may be especially useful to those OST practitioners working with older youth.
This issue brief provides an easy-to-understand overview of the research on the development of social and emotional competencies in youth. It includes work done on how to define the concepts, research on how Out-of-School Time (OST) programs contribute to growth, and recommendations on next steps for practitioners and researchers.
This issue brief includes helpful facts on literacy rates among underserved youth. It identifies ways afterschool and summer programs can contribute to literacy development. It includes program examples and ideas for advocacy.
This issue brief provides a summary of evaluations on the impact of after school programs on the children who participate, their parents, and their communities.


Fun Ben Carson Quiz – FREE General Knowledge Quiz for Kids
Enjoy this Easy Science for Kids Ben Carson Quiz – you’ll get your quiz score after completing this free general knowledge quiz with answers. You need to answer all the questions to be able to get your score. You can do this fun quiz about Ben Carson again, till you get the perfect score and become a quiz champion!
Tip: To get it right the first time, read the page with fun facts about Ben Carson.
The Ben Carson Quiz & our FREE Science Quizzes
Our easy science quizzes are a free general knowledge quiz resource for teachers and educators of kids in elementary school, grammar school and preschool. This fun Ben Carson quiz helps your kids learn fun facts about Ben Carson while enjoying these FREE science quiz questions for kids.
If your kid is being home-schooled, or is doing after-school education, then this is a fun science activity, with reading comprehension benefits for first graders all the way to fifth grade kids. Kids will enjoy competing against their classmates and friends, to see who gets the best score, doing this general science quiz about Ben Carson.
As a reading comprehension fun activity for your kids, you can set a timer to encourage kids to do the reading comprehension in a faster and more efficient manner as they train to remember what they read, or set a limit on the number of times your kids can read about the Ben Carson quiz topic, before they do the actual general knowledge questions for kids.
Younger kids who cannot yet read or write, such as Pre-K kids, Kindergarten kids or Preschool kids, will benefit from doing this Ben Carson quiz and our other fun kids quizzes, as a listening comprehension activity; you read out to them about the topic and then read the easy quiz questions and answers. You will select the Ben Carson quiz answer they think is correct, and at the end you get the quiz score. Your child can try doing this fun quiz for kids again, till he or she gets the perfect score faster, as he or she learn to listen more carefully and develop a better memory and attention span!
Cite This Page
You may cut-and-paste the below MLA and APA citation examples:
MLA Style Citation
Declan, Tobin. " Fun Ben Carson Quiz – FREE General Knowledge Quiz for Kids - ." Easy Science for Kids, Feb 2020. Web. 21 Feb 2020. < https://easyscienceforkids.com/fun-ben-carson-quiz-free-general-knowledge-quiz-for-kids/ >.
APA Style Citation
Tobin, Declan. (2020). Fun Ben Carson Quiz – FREE General Knowledge Quiz for Kids -. Easy Science for Kids. Retrieved from https://easyscienceforkids.com/fun-ben-carson-quiz-free-general-knowledge-quiz-for-kids/
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Implementation of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
The Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is the designated scheme for implementation of the Right of the Child to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009, with the aim of universalizing elementary education. National University of Educational and Planning and Administration (NUEPA) annually collects information in the form of Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) on various educational indicators. SSA has made significant progress in achieving near universal access and equity. As per UDISE 2015-16, enrolment in elementary schools has increased from 18.78 crore in 2009-10 to 19.67 crore children. There has been a significant reduction in the number of out of school children in the 6-14 years age group, from 134.6 lakh in 2005 to 81 lakh in 2009 and further to 61 lakh in 2014. The annual average dropout rate at primary level has come down from 9.11% in 2009-10 to 4.13% in 2015-16. The transition rate from primary to upper primary has gone up from 83.53% in 2009-10 to 90.14% in 2015-16. The Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) has improved from 32 in 2009-10 to 24 in 2015-16.
SSA aims to universalize access to elementary education by providing financial support for the creation of school infrastructure as per the norms and standards specified in the RTE Act, 2009. Since the inception of SSA in 2001 till 2016-17, sanction has been given for opening of 3,64,155 new elementary schools, construction of 3,11,622 school buildings, and 18,73,415 additional classrooms, 2,42,198 drinking water facilities and 10,36,470 school toilets. States and UTs have reported that 3,59,826 new elementary schools have been opened; construction of 3,02,919 school buildings and 18,37,445 additional classrooms have been completed; and 2,33,088 drinking water facilities and 9,88,449 toilets have been constructed as on 30.09.2016. Out of 19.49 lakh post of teachers sanctioned, 15.75 lakh teachers have been recruited by States and UTs as on 31.12.2016.
Further, under the Swachh Vidyalaya initiative, 4,17,796 toilets were constructed in 2,61,400 elementary and secondary government schools in a period of one year from 15.8.2014 to 15.8.2015, thus ensuring that every government school has a separate functional toilet for girls and boys. With this, about 13.58 crore children in 11.08 lakh government schools were given access to gender segregated toilets.
The Central Government reviews and monitors implementation of the SSA periodically with the States and Union Territories at different fora, including the State Education Ministers’ Conferences. It is reviewed twice every year by Joint Review Mission (JRM) comprising independent experts and members of external funding agencies, covering all States by rotation. The status of these evaluations and monitoring is placed in the public domain on the Ministry’s website.
This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Shri Upendra Kushwaha today in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question.


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This infographic lists the 10 categories of the NAA (National Afterschool Association) core knowledge and competencies (CKCs). The CKCs articulate what professionals need to know and be able to do for a program to be considered high quality. This infographic presents the 10 core knowledge areas in an easy-to-read-and-remember format.
This special report focuses on the potential of afterschool and summer programs to support families living in communities of concentrated poverty. It outlines both benefits of Out-of-School (OST) programs and barriers to enrollment for families from resource-poor backgrounds. It offers recommendations to system builders and providers.
This issue brief includes helpful facts on literacy rates among underserved youth. It identifies ways afterschool and summer programs can contribute to literacy development. It includes program examples and ideas for advocacy.
This National Afterschool Association (NAA) brief summarizes the research on the afterschool workforce. It explores the conditions and barriers to building and sustaining a quality afterschool workforce, including pre-service requirements, core knowledge and competencies, provider registries, and credentials/certifications.


About Open Access
The role of musical identities in the changing face of music education: How our learners can surprise us!
Lookup NU author(s)
Dr Anne Preston
Preston C, Preston A
Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Centre for Learner Identity Studies (CLIS) Fourth Annual Conference on ‘Learner Identity’: Identity, State, Education
Edge Hill University, UK
Year of Conference
11-13 July 2012
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
The recently published National Plan for Music Education states that, “When young people make music together, they work toward a common goal that has the potential to change lives profoundly for the better” (2011:4). The plan supports this vision by proposing a more centralized approach where arts organizations, classroom teachers, specialist teachers and professional performers work in partnership for the good of ‘high quality’ music education provision. This aim encompasses a more specific emphasis on the importance of the socio-cultural context of music education and the significance and transferability of values acquired through music classroom ‘academic’ work in the broader framework of music in society and lifelong learning. Traditionally, approaches to music education have been based loosely around 3 distinct camps: what was practically possible within the context of the classroom; musical knowledge as a product in terms of underlying structures of music and a more holistic perspective, where the acquisition of relevant musical knowledge took place by treating the classroom as a microcosm of music-making practices and values present inside and outside the classroom walls (Swanwick, 1999). A recent addition to this third perspective, and one which has similarities to the national plan, is the Musical Futures model (Green, 2002, 2006, 2008). It is based on an understanding that a student can gain more from musical participation when given greater control over his or her learning. A central challenge is how to integrate such models into everyday classroom practice. This paper explores the micro-macro dimensions of school music in terms of exploring the relationship between the broader framework of music in society and lifelong learning and existing practices in the music classroom. It takes a learner-centred approach and probes the nature of musical knowledge through the co-construction of musical identities. In doing so, it shows how pupils working unsupervised demonstrate a whole range of musical skills and knowledge. It also shows how identity can be used a methodological tool more specifically for uncovering often surprising findings. The extent to which current learner-centred music classroom practices reflect the broader aims of the National Plan for Music Education will be explored by posing two research questions: 1. What can localized formations of learner musical identity reveal about the acquisition of musical knowledge in the music classroom? 2. What can localized formations of learner musical identity reveal about how this musical knowledge is co-constructed in classroom activities? In order to address these questions, the research draws on a micro-analytical framework to studying identity-as-context (Zimmermann, 1998). This approach treats identity as a socially constructed phenomenon rooted in the moment-to-moment dynamics of human interaction. It draws on the notion of ‘discourse identities’ to show how identity is activated, displayed, negotiated and processed in situated experience through discourse. The ‘identity-as-context’ framework enables a view of the development of musical identity during unsupervised collaborative activities in the music classroom. A discourse analysis approach is taken to analyse selected episodes from a series of group work activities. This analysis involves the identification of different ‘discourse identities’ which are then mapped onto the construction of specific roles and relationships in the discourse reflecting different musical identities Findings from the analysis point to a range of unexpected musical identities related to informal musical contexts outside the classroom. The findings also reveal how music collaborative contexts can foster localized identity formations that can extend to broader social relationships and values beyond the classroom. These findings can be used to support the notion that a lot of what already happens in the music classroom reflects the aims and objectives of the New National Plan for Music Education
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Compass: Adventures in Tech, Math, Social Studies & Science!
Welcome to an energized hands-on approach to elementary education. When students at each grade level visit our library and check out books, they will also explore high interest academic lessons that make real-life connections to a vibrant social studies curriculum.
Every class in the school (grades 1-5) attends Compass every 4 days for 45 minutes (kindergarten classes visit on half days). The first ten minutes of Compass allows for students to return and check out books. The remaining time is spent in the Compass centers. When a new unit is introduced, the first week or two is spent in whole group instruction, introducing the key concepts, a brief history of what is to be explored, and a video or keynote is shared to get students enthusiastic about the learning to come. The next week is spent reviewing procedures and expectations for all centers. Task cards are used at each center to guide students to completion of the center. Then, for the next four weeks, students rotate through the four centers.
Our Compass program strives for 100% ative student participation at all times. Enrichment teachers emphasize higher order thinking skills like application, synthesis, and evaluation, as they design and implement rigorous student learning centers. These centers introduce and reinforce important learning in technology, math, social studies and science. Teachers divide their class into four “number groups”: 1-4 and rotate through these four centers.
Ms. Amanda Hunt
Mrs. Lorelle Leonard


I often think that for primary teachers whose pre-service education has been dominated by Whole Language-based ideology and pedagogy, exposure to the scientific evidence on what works (and who gets left behind) with respect to reading instruction must feel somewhat akin to losing a belief-system like the idea that a fat jolly bloke in a red suit flies around the world bringing presents to all of the children of the world (well, to those of a particular belief-system, and even then, not in an equitable fashion....let's not try to untangle those loose ends today).
There's a number of challenges in having discussions about evidence-based practice with teachers, and none of these reflect on teachers, per se. They do, however, reflect on teacher training.
- While systematic synthetic phonics instruction is strongly favoured by the cognitive psychology literature as a basis for early reading instruction, some children, notably those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, derive particular benefit from such approaches. Teachers who work in communities characterised by high levels of economic, social and human capital will likely find that many (but by no means all) children will make the transition to literacy almost irrespective of the instructional focus, because their classrooms have more "high readiness" than "low readiness" children with respect to learning to read. This is somewhat akin to the fact that doctors who work in such areas may see lower rates of illnesses in children that are due to air-borne pathogens, because such illnesses are more common where living conditions are over-crowded. Our everyday experiences are a powerful driver of what we see as "normal" and "abnormal".
- If teachers accept, in spite of their pre-service education, that Whole Language based approaches such as expecting children to memorise lists of commonly occurring words, and the use of three-cueing strategies are not optimal, what do they do then? Become overnight experts on delivering systematic synthetic phonics instruction? Not easy.
- Teachers are typically not taught the skills of reading and critically appraising scientific research. The power of anecdote and personal experience prevails when such a skill vacuum exists.
- Teachers have been sold a crock in so-called "Balanced Literacy". This is a slick attempt by some teacher educators to pay lip-service (no pun intended) to phonics-based early instruction, through pitches such as "Oh it's OK. We've moved on from the reading wars now. Now we teach Balanced Literacy, so phonics is in the mix".
Let's consider the so-called "Five Big Ideas" in literacy education (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, comprehension, and reading fluency). How much emphasis on the first two is enough? And when should phonemic awareness and phonics be introduced and called upon in the learning process? You might think you'd find some answers in the Australian document entitled "The Place of Phonics in Learning to Read and Write" by Emmitt et al. (2013). Instead, this document takes a perversely undermining position with respect to the importance of phonics instruction. The purpose of this blogpost is not to deconstruct the work of Emmitt et al., but rather to use it as an example of a modern guide for teachers that promotes what I've come to think of as homeopathic doses of phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. Sure, they're in the mix, but in doses that prevent systematic skill acquisition by early learners. Effective phonics instruction requires specialist knowledge of the structure of the English language, and this unfortunately has been shown to be significantly lacking in the teacher workforce - again, no fault of teachers, and something I will come back to in a future blogpost.
In the meantime though, we need to think long and hard about what it means for children to be receiving patchy and often weak instruction in phonics. Phonics is not a stand alone. It's necessary but not sufficient in order to get beginning readers off the blocks and into the transformational world of deriving meaning from written text. But it needs to be taught well if early inequities in reading readiness are to be removed in the critical first three years of school.
I do wonder though, how we can move from our current impasse. Four decades of Whole Language dominated teacher education and classroom practice stands between today's children and exposure to evidence-based reading instruction. Maybe I need to believe in one of these:
(C) Pamela Snow 2015


Contact: Science Press Package
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Burn extra calories without 'exercising'
This person is modeling the special clothing the participants wore beneath their normal clothes. This Physical Activity Monitoring System (PAMS) includes six sets of posture and movement sensors. You can see sensors attached to the sides of the thighs, to the low back and below the arm pits. Every 24 hours, study staff removed the sensors while the subject showered for 15 minutes.
Image © Science.
Click here for the big picture.
It's no secret that physical activity and eating a balanced diet are important for maintaining your weight at a healthy level. So what counts as physical activity? Swimming, running and playing most sports are obvious examples. But what about activities that don't seem like exercise? Is walking to school physical activity? What about washing the dishes? Mowing the lawn? Going grocery shopping? Standing at the bus stop? Training your dog? Cleaning your room?
A new study shows that the amount of time you spend moving around (but not officially exercising) may be important for maintaining your weight. To keep your weight steady, the amount of calories you consume roughly equals the number of calories you burn. This is knows as "energy balance."
James Levine and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota report that "non-exercise" activities that involve standing and walking are an important way to burn calories and maintain your energy balance. They also say that your tendency to walk more and sit less might be related to your biological make up.
The researchers continuously measured the amount of time 20 "couch potatoes" spent walking, sitting, standing and lying down for 10 days. Half the people were lean and the other half were mildly obese. Everyone had jobs that kept them sitting for much of the working day.
The scientists found that the lean people stood and moved around about two hours longer each day than the obese people.
Next, the scientists helped the lean people gain weight be overfeeding them. They also helped the obese people lose weight. They repeated the experiment to see if the lean people would move around less after gaining weight or if the obese people would move around more after losing weight.
The study participants maintained their original movement habits after they gained or lost weight.
Even if you're one of those people who naturally tend to sit more and move less, you can consciously add more movement to your, Levine said. He thinks modern societies as a whole should dance more and watch less television. He also suggests walking instead of driving whenever it's safe to do so. This research, and a related "Perspective" article, appears in the 28 January, 2005 issue of the journal Science.
Back to Science for kids
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Tuesday, July 29, at 7:30 pm
Smith Memorial Student Union 238
1825 SW Broadway
Free & open to the public
Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy-king of ancient Egypt, stunned the world with its treasures. Although most of the historical focus is on the famous golden treasures found in the tomb, not to be overlooked are the precious finery—the belts, collars, head coverings, gloves, and garments embellished with embroidery, beads, and woven bands—that were indicative of the life and times of the Pharaoh.
Described by Howard Carter as “…a gala robe,” the splendid linen Tunic of Tutankhamun – after three thousand years -- still bears traces of once-colorful embroidery and woven embellishments. Handwoven replicas of the patterns (illustrated below) depict that “In their pristine state they must have been gorgeous pieces of color.”
The cloth and clothing of New Kingdom Egypt flourished with new, unusual techniques and material that distinguished them from the plain linens of earlier times. These textiles suggest that other cultures, through contact and conquest, influenced the weavings. From her research at Cairo’s Egyptian Museum and other world-class museum collections, Ms. Hoskins presents the art, craft and meaning of the textiles that existed in Tutankhamun’s world. .
Nancy Arthur Hoskins is author of three books on textiles, including “The Coptic Tapestry Albums and the Archaeologist of Antinoé, Albert Gayet,” as well as numerous articles; and chapters about Egyptian textiles contributed to four other books. She is a frequent lecturer for national and international guilds and conferences; in 2009-10, she led a Textiles of Egypt Tour. In 2011, the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt published her paper, Woven Patterns on the Tutankhamun Textiles. She holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts/Weaving, Art Education, and Art History from the University of Oregon and taught college weaving from 1981 to 1996.
The Oregon Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt is a private, nonprofit organization that supports research on all aspects of Egyptian history and culture, fosters broader knowledge among the general public, and strengthens American-Egyptian cultural ties.
The Middle East Studies Center at Portland State University promotes understanding of the people, cultures, languages and religions of the Middle East. As a National Resource Center for Middle East Studies under the U.S. Department of Education's Title VI program, the Center serves as a resource on issues pertaining to the Middle East through activities that reach students and scholars, as well as businesses, educators, and the media. The Middle East Studies Center supports academic conferences, workshops, cultural events, lectures, and a resource library.


Sunday, July 17th: 8:30 am – 9:30 am
Ken Olsen Science Center, Room 127
Teaching in an urban environment with a large English as a Second Language population can be challenging, yet any music teacher equipped with the right motivational ideas and strong musical foundation can motivate even the most challenging classroom. This session will provide attendees with tools for successfully implementing lessons in an urban classroom using aspects of Conversational Solfege as well as the Orff approach. The presenter will demonstrate a lesson that uses a single folk song to practice past and prepare future music literacy objectives using Conversational Solfege techniques and create a student generated performance including an Orff arrangement, percussion ensemble, improvisation, and movement. The presenter will share successful strategies for differentiating activities to reach the varied skills of a classroom including students who have been through years of Conversational Solfege and students who have recently entered the country as refugees. Connections will be made to the National Core Arts Standards processes of creating, performing, responding and connecting that are achieved through this lesson.
Participants will be able to create lessons that use a single folk song to practice past and prepare future music literacy objectives using Conversational Solfege techniques and create a student generated performance including an Orff arrangement, percussion ensemble, improvisation, and movement using the Orff Approach. Participants will be able to identify successful strategies for differentiating activities to reach the varied skills of an urban classroom including students who have been through years of training with Conversational Solfege, English as a Second Language students, and a transient population. Participants will leave with an example lesson that is ready to use in the general music classroom.
Since 2012, Cori Patterson has been teaching general music, grades prekindergarten through fifth, in the Syracuse City School District. She previously taught first through sixth grade general music in the Harlem Consolidated School District in Rockford, Illinois for five years. Cori holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from St. Olaf College (2005) and a Master of Music degree in Music Education with a Kodaly Emphasis from Silver Lake College (2014). While at Silver Lake College, Cori studied First Steps in Music and Conversational Solfege with Dr. Feierabend. She is certified in Kodaly (Levels I-III) and Orff (Levels I-II). Cori is a founding member of the Central New York Orff Club. Cori presents regularly in Central New York on the Kodaly method, the Orff Approach, solfege and music literacy, and the new National Core Arts Standards. Her classroom teaching is rooted in the Feierabend Approach to Music Education and the Kodaly Method. She also incorporates Orff activities into the “Doing” part of her lessons. She received grants for her projects “Creativity and Movement in Music” and “A Journey from a Picture Book to a Musical.” Cori lives in Syracuse and performs trumpet with the Syracuse University Brass Ensemble.


Why is music so important to our children's education?
Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.
The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:
By the end of key stage 1
Pupils should be taught to:
Pupils at Foundation Stage can actively engage with the core musical activities: composing, performing and listening.
Music enables them to express their thoughts, ideas and feelings through sound. It gives them rich opportunities to develop their creativity. Singing assists in the development of their linguistic skills, while performing with simple instruments begins to develop their manipulative skills. Listening and responding to their own and others’ music-making are also important musical activities, helping pupils to develop focus and concentration.
Charanga Musical School
At St Teresa's we use the Sefton 'charanga Musical School' programme to support the teaching of music at both foundation stage and key stage one.
Through the Musical School programme the children develop their understanding, make musical judgements, apply their new learning, develop their aural memory, express themselves physically, emotionally and through discussion and create their own musical ideas. The wide range of core resources have been developed specifically to motivate and capture each individual’s personal interest.
The children not only learn about music; they become musicians who are able to share and perform using their new skills.
There are 3 main resource areas: Units of Work, themed Topic songs and activities and instrumental Courses. The Units of Work are the main focal point for the music curriculum whilst the Topics and Courses provide a wealth of extension, enhancement and cross-curricular possibilities and experiences.


Resources › For Educators Bathroom Pass System for the Classroom Minimize lesson disruptions with this easy tracking method Share Flipboard Email Print Zachary Scott/Stone/Getty Images For Educators Teaching Tips & Strategies An Introduction to Teaching Policies & Discipline Community Involvement School Administration Technology in the Classroom Teaching Adult Learners Issues In Education Teaching Resources Becoming A Teacher Assessments & Tests Elementary Education Secondary Education Special Education Homeschooling By Melissa Kelly Education Expert M.Ed., Curriculum and Instruction, University of Florida B.A., History, University of Florida Melissa Kelly, M.Ed., is a secondary school teacher, instructional designer, and the author of "The Everything New Teacher Book: A Survival Guide for the First Year and Beyond." our editorial process Melissa Kelly Updated August 31, 2018 Covering all of the points in a planned lesson often takes every moment of class time. Students who interrupt you to ask for permission to use the restroom throw you off your tight schedule and disrupt their classmates' attention. You can minimize the distraction with a bathroom pass system that allows students to excuse themselves, giving them some limited autonomy. Take time at the beginning of the year to explain your rules about appropriate and inappropriate times to use the restroom. Remind students that they have the preferred time before school, between classes, and at lunch to use the bathroom. While you can never deny a student access to the toilet, you might set a rule that no student can sign out during the first or last 5 minutes of class or during lecture. This allows enough time for you to complete a mini-lesson or giving directions. Set Up Your Bathroom Pass System Some teachers use clipboards holding a paper that has columns to record the student's name, destination, the time out and the time back. Students fill out each column independently and take the generic bathroom pass to their destination. This system records daily activity by all students. Another bathroom pass system suggestion uses a plastic index card holder and 3x5 index cards, one per student. At the beginning of the school year, pass out 3x5 index cards and ask students to write their name. Then have them divide the flip side of the index card into four equal areas. In the upper right corner of each quadrant, they should put a 1, 2, 3 or 4 to correspond to the four grading quarters. (Adjust the layout for trimesters or other terms.) Instruct students to label a row across the top of each area with a D for Date, T for Time and I for Initial. File the cards alphabetically in the plastic holder grouped by class periods and find a convenient location near the door to keep it. Ask them to return the card to the holder in a vertical position so it stands out from the others; you will go through after class or at the end of the day and initial them. This system records daily activity by individual students. Explain Your Bathroom Pass Tracking Method Let students know that your system allows them to excuse themselves from class for a few minutes when they really need to go. Tell the students that if they want to use the restroom, they should quietly fill in the chart or retrieve their card without interrupting you or their classmates and enter the date and time in the appropriate place. Monitoring the Restroom Pass System Whatever the system you adopt, whether it is a sign-in/sign-out sheet or index cards, you should make sure that all students are following the system.You should also look for patterns. For example, is a student leaving at the same time daily? Are the restroom visits having a negative impact on academic? Does the student make poor choices about when to leave? If you notice any of these, you have a discussion with the student. While some teachers dangle prizes for not using bathroom passes, there can be some health issues associated with students ignoring their bodies' signals. There are also medical conditions, including pregnancy, that increase trips to the restroom. Teachers should always be aware of any medical conditions listed on a students individual educational plan (IEP) or 504. Tips You could also Include trips to the locker, other classrooms, etc. in the bathroom pass passes.The index cards are inexpensive to use and to replace, which makes them more sanitary than other objects.If your school uses physical hall passes, keep those near the card file so students can grab one on their way out of the door.


Emojis . . . avatars . . . icons . . . Our world is becoming increasingly reliant on visual communication. Yet our classrooms still heavily focus on traditional oral and written instruction.
In this webinar, Dr. Susan Daniels, author of Visual Learning and Teaching
, explores creative and practical strategies that enable educators to work with the foundational skills of visual learning in the classroom. Attendees build a “visual toolbox” for use in visual learning and teaching. Based on the visual triad model, Dr. Daniels:
Looks at how we can use the images we see, imagine, and depict while teaching and learning visually
Examines research based on dual-coding theory, which illustrates how students learn best and have greater retention when working both visually and verbally
Explores instructional strategies that are part of a “visual toolbox” teachers can use in K–8 classrooms


During the month of March, I presented a webinar titled, “Seesaw, STEAM, and Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM™): Elementary” for Seesaw in celebration for the National Association for Music Education‘s MIOSM. I felt that this would be a wonderful topic as when elementary music educators think about integrating STEAM into the classroom, their main goal is to keep the music making and music instruction intact.
Seesaw can be a game changer in your elementary music classroom. With emphasis being placed on incorporating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) across the curriculum, Seesaw can enhance the STEAM philosophy in the music classroom as well. In this webinar, I explore various STEAM activities that can be incorporated into your next music class or joined into a project-based learning activity. This webinar is appropriate for teachers who already know the basics about using Seesaw.


Hand In Hand Early Learning Program is a program for children from 6 weeks to 4 years of age. The program’s name reflects total environment rich in unique learning experiences. It is a place where children play, learn and grow together. Children of all abilities develop understanding, acceptance and compassion – a great foundation for future success.
Why Hand In Hand Early Learning is Different
Imagine a place where every child is nurtured with respect and is a treasured resource. Creativity is valued and expressed through play, art, dance and music. Technology, nature gardens and outdoor experiences are an integral part of the learning experience. Children from all walks of life learn together simply as friends.
Hand In Hand reflects more than just a state-of-the art early learning program for children and families. It is a place where children of all abilities learn, play and grow together to develop understanding, acceptance and caring for one another. Developing the foundation for future success, children from 6 weeks of age to five years who have delays in one or more areas of development and those who are typically developing learn side by side in 10 spacious classrooms.
Hand In Hand Early Learning Offers:
- Teachers with Degrees in early childhood education or a related field
- Low teacher to child ratio
- Developmentally appropriate curriculum augmented with computer and technology use, literacy experiences, math and science readiness and music education
- Classrooms that are large and spacious
- Nutritious hot meals and snacks
- Indoor activity area for play, assemblies art and theater programs and extracurricular activities
- Professionals such as staff nurse, physical, occupational and speech therapists who work with children and teachers
- A fully accessible facility to you at all times
Fully Accessible Environment
Both the indoor and outdoor environments work together to provide a variety of opportunities and experiences all children deserve. Each aspect of the building, the program and the environment has been carefully designed to promote healthy, safe and happy setting in which children can grow. Our state-of-the-art 41,000 square foot facility features:
- State-of-the-art playground
- Covered and shaded play areas
- Spacious areas for children to learn within a totally accessible environment
- Multi-sensory gardens
- Nature trails
- Sports activity areas.
The early learning program is fully licensed by the Department of Human Resources and nationally accredited by NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children).


Steve Jobs did not allow his kids to own and use an iPad at home. He feared that the iPad would turn his kids into addicts of the device. He should know. After all, he was the founder of Apple Inc. and the father of the digital revolution. Most, if not all, Silicon Valley techs and engineers limit and shield their kids from technology and prefer to send their kids to schools where the focus is on hands on learning and computers are not easily accessible.
Why do the people at the pinnacle of digital change shield their kids from this technological marvel? The reasons are too many and varied, but everyone agrees on some common pitfalls of early exposure to technology.
Children learn better from real life experiences rather than screen time. It is more so if activities involve moving and doing. Various surveys and studies show that on an average 12-month-old baby is exposed to up to 2 hours of screen time a day.
Young age (< 2 years) is very critical for learning of new concepts. Most of the learning involve 3 dimensional Sensory- motor experiences which cannot be replicated on a 2 dimensional screen. Active play involves better hand – eye coordination , fine motor skill development.
Example: Compare a ball in real life and a ball on Screen.
Infants are still developing concept of 3 dimensional vision. For a small baby watching on screen a BALL is just a flat, shaded circle. In real life if we roll a ball across floor it proceeds in a single motions and gradually slows and stops finally. But on Screen same action cannot be done; it will be broken up. Small babies may stare at bright colors and motions on screen but their brain is not capable of making sense or meaning out of these amazing pictures. By the age 2 years brain has developed enough and baby can understand things better. Due to all this confusion it is better to avoid screen time in small babies.
Distorted sense of reality:
Early exposure to technological marvels such as tablets, smart phones and computers are detrimental to the physical and mental growth of children. They give children a distorted view of reality and interfere with the natural development of the child’s brain
Co-ordination and dexterity:
Children as young as 3 and 4 when exposed to the iPad may become experts at swiping the screen, but lag behind in developing dexterity in their fingers that comes by playing sports or musical instruments.
Concept of space:
Young children have still not developed a sense of space and each new walking, bending and climbing experience helps to develop a sense of space. Early exposure to the iPad interferes with this development and gives children a distorted sense of depth and space.
Various studies have shown that children growing on iPads or other similar screen devices tend to lag behind in development of real time social skills. Regular activities such as developing social skills and making friends become a task for such children. Such children do not spend time with their own thoughts and imagination and require constant stimulation.
Development of internal mechanism of self-regulation is an important milestone in a child’s emotional development. Constant and continuous use of such devices to distract and control the behavior of children impedes their ability of self-regulation.
Maths and Science:
Playing with blocks in real time develops visual-motor skills and sensorimotor skills in children that are the base of all learning. Application of maths, science and logic in the classroom and outside comes naturally for kids whose basic skills are well – development. Playing with real blocks and puzzles is frustrating for young minds who are used to manipulating objects by swiping the screen.
The list of the evils of early exposure to screen only gets longer with time. There has been very little systematic research and the technology is still quite new to fully understand its complete effects. For now, the safest thing to do is keep that tablet away from your kids or at least stop using it as a baby sitter.


GROSS MOTOR SKILLS DEFINED
Motor skills are defined as movement skills, and gross motor skills are defined as large movement skills. This means that the large movement skills not only are big in size, but they also use large muscles in the body. Usually these skills result in locomotion, coordinated movement of the whole body which travels across the floor. A baby milestone is the average age at which a baby acquires a particular motor skill, which pediatricians monitor during baby’s first year. Examples of gross motor skills in babies include:
- lifting the head
- belly crawling
Excellent gross motor skill development results in the abilities to maintain balance, move with coordination, sit in class with alertness, and master mechanical control of a pencil for handwriting. On the other hand, a child with poor motor skills may be perceived as clumsy since he has difficulty with balance and coordination, essential components of movement activities.
Read stellarcaterpillar.com and learn how to guide your baby to master the milestones for skilled gross motor development, giving him a great start!


K427 – Development of Cognition, Language, and Play II: Language Development
3 Credit Hours
This course promotes students’ understanding of typical and atypical language development in the first eight years of life. The language learning process (oral, written, bilingual and second language learning) is studied as an integral part of the development of thinking and development of the child’s sense of self in home and community settings, including school. Students learn how factors such as age, language competence and performance. Alternative communication systems for young children are explored. The role of play – particularly with language itself an in conversations with adults, peers, and siblings – in fostering language development is examined. Students learn how group experiences and well-chosen children’s literature can be used to maximize language and literacy development.


In last week’s blog I set out the programme presented by Ely St Marys C of E Junior School’s Yr3 String Orchestra (scroll down for this).
Since the beginning of the school year ‘Cambridgeshire Music’  has provided an ensemble music making programme making this possible. Specialist teachers have visited the school on Monday mornings when pupils have been taught class by class and in instrumental sections. This has been complemented by String Orchestra time on Friday afternoons.
A principle of such First Access programmes  is that while the year’s work is of immediate and longer term musical value, it is at the same time a basis for on-going progression in instrumental learning. The string players of St. Mary’s may, if their parents choose, continue with small group lessons. (Across Cambridgeshire the continuation rate is about 25%.) For those pupils continuing there are opportunities to further develop ensemble music making, firstly in their immediate vicinity and then county-wide and for some wider still. In this way wider opportunities are created, in theory for all children.
But taking a step back from musical progression thought of in this way, the question in need of attention is, how does First Access fit into conceptions of a general music education for all pupils at the primary stage? After all the majority of pupils will not be on the flight path to wider opportunities.
St Mary’s is fortunate in having its own specialist music teacher able to build on the musical knowledge, skills and dispositions established through the String Project.
So what might these be?
Most fundamentally these pupils are learning how to think and feel music (often more weakly expressed as the development of aural skills). While I haven’t observed the Monday morning sessions, I know singing, moving and playing is integral, and this involves the imaging and imagining (thinking and feeling) of music whether it be absent or present.
A highlight of the Ely Cathedral performance was Concertino requiring pupils to count, listening, and play together whilst other parts were being played, a process of de-centering musical thought and a significant step in a child’s musical development.
The capacity to differentiate between musical stimuli simultaneously presented, the capacity to attend to one in the context of another is an example of what Charles Bailey refers to as a ‘serving competency’. This is a capability that enables future ‘knowledge, understandings, makings and doings to be valuable in themselves.’
Charles lists seven dispositions that enable in this way.
(i) attend to something or somebody,
(ii) concentrate on something,
(iii) cooperate with others,
(iv) organise time, thought and actions,
(vi) imagine possibilities, and to
(v) inquire – try to understand
So, we can say that here in Ely St Mary’s Year 3, soon to be Year 4, the pupils’ music education is serving the future flourishing of musical makings and doings, musical knowledge and understandings and greater fulfilment as part of a broad and balanced musical education. The pupils of St Mary’s are fortunate in having a music curriculum on which First Access can build.
While First Access is not designed to offer a complete music education, it can assist in contributing to a comprehensive music education that is worthwhile in itself, a music education that reveals music’s significance in human life and culture. And this will be much more than learning to play a musical instrument.
 Cambridgeshire Music ‘Music Explorers’ programme embodies the principles of First Access and is targeted at the primary age range. (See http://www.cambridgeshiremusic.org )
 See Bailey, C. (1982) ‘Beyond the Present and the Particular: A Theory of Liberal Education’. Routledge & Kegan Paul: London.
 Ibid page 113.
Below the children of Ely St Mary’s String Orchestra with thanks to the Ely Standard.


Examines the roots of dance forms from baroque to Latin to pop music.
Bridge Sessions easily intersect with state standards for music education, as well as standards for many other classroom subjects. Although no advance preparation is necessary to attend, we encourage teachers to connect Bridge Sessions back to your classrooms. Please contact us if any additional information would be helpful.
Classical, Latin, pop
Violin, cello, berimbau, pandeiro, percussion
Music You’ll Hear
Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1 (J.S. Bach)
Invention No. 14 (J.S. Bach)
Alma Llanera (traditional Venezuelan)
Brasileirinho (Brazilian choro by Waldir Azevedo)
Dance of the Elves (David Popper)
Magalenha (Sérgio Mendes)
Manhã de Carnaval (Luiz Bonfá and Antônio Maria)
Michael Jackson medley (Jackson 5, Michael Jackson, Black Eyed Peas)


Last month June and I had Japanese house-guests, and as they had visited us before (three years ago), we wanted to find some different places to take them. So we made a day trip to Topeka.
One main reason for going to Topeka was to see the tulips. That city is well known for its “Tulip Time” every year in April. Because of the cool spring, many of the tulips were not in full bloom, but we still enjoyed the beauty of those that were blooming, as well as the daffodils, at the 2.5-acre Botanical Garden in Old Prairie Town at the Ward-Meade Historic Site.
Then we visited the state Capitol building, which is so impressive that June and I wondered why we had not gone there before since it is so close to Kansas City. We enjoyed the old-fashioned (employee-operated) “cage elevator,” and when we stepped off on the second floor we were face to face with the huge John S. Curry mural depicting the wild-eyed abolitionist John Brown.
Later, although we did not have time to go through it, we drove by the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, which is in the old Monroe School, where Linda Brown and other African-American children had to attend because they could not go to white schools. That segregation was challenged by Oliver Brown, Linda’s father, and 12 other plaintiffs.
I did go inside briefly, and picked up a leaflet titled “From Brown to Brown: Topeka’s Civil Rights Story.”
In 1856, John Brown (1800-59) commanded forces in battles at Black Jack and at Osawatomie against the Border Ruffians, the pro-slavery activists from Missouri who crossed the state border into Kansas Territory to force the acceptance of slavery there. And the leaflet explains that “Brown’s involvement in Bleeding Kansas set the spark that ignited the Civil War that freed millions of enslaved human beings.”
Then on May 17, 1954, in ruling on the case known as “Brown v. Board of Education” the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” As a result, racial segregation of public schools was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Even though that historic Supreme Court decision was made the month I finished my junior year in high school, I don’t have any memories of it from that time. Separate but equal schools was not an issue where I grew up in north Missouri, for there were no African-American school-age children in the county.
But it made quite a difference in Liberty, where June and I were students at William Jewell College from 1957 to 1959. June was an elementary education major, and she did her practice teaching in the recently-integrated Garrison School, which was founded as a school for African-Americans in 1877.
Garrison School, however, had only provided education for its students through the 10th grade, and the “separate but equal” laws barred them from attending Liberty’s white high school. During the 1953-54 school year, Garrison students rode buses into Kansas City to attend the all-black Lincoln High School. Then, as a result of the Supreme Court decision in May 1954, that fall the Liberty School District began to integrate its African American students.


Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (French: [mɔʁizo]; January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.
In 1864, she exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. Sponsored by the government, and judged by Academicians, the Salon was the official, annual exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris. Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until, in 1874, she joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. It was held at the studio of the photographer Nadar.
She was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet.
Morisot was born in Bourges, France, into an affluent bourgeois family. Her father, Edmé Tiburce Morisot, was the prefect (senior administrator) of the department of Cher. He also studied architecture at École des Beaux Arts. Her mother, Marie-Joséphine-Cornélie Thomas, was the great-niece of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, one of the most prolific Rococo painters of the ancien régime. She had two older sisters, Yves (1838–1893) and Edma (1839–1921), plus a younger brother, Tiburce, born in 1848. The family moved to Paris in 1852, when Morisot was a child.
It was commonplace for daughters of bourgeois families to receive art education, so Berthe and her sisters Yves and Edma were taught privately by Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne and Joseph Guichard. Morisot and her sisters initially started taking lessons so that they could each make a drawing for their father for his birthday. In 1857 Guichard, who ran a school for girls in Rue des Moulins, introduced Berthe and Edma to the Louvre gallery where they could learn by looking, and from 1858 they learned by copying paintings. The Morisots were not only forbidden to work at the museum unchaperoned, but they were also totally barred from formal training. However, the museum served another key purpose, because it enabled them to get acquainted with young male artists, such as Manet and Monet.
He also introduced them to the works of Gavarni. Guichard later became the director of École des Beaux Arts where Morisot's father earned his degree. In 1861 Guichard introduced Berthe to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a French painter, who influenced her early landscapes.
As art students, Berthe and Edma worked closely together until 1869, when Edma married Adolphe Pontillon, a naval officer, moved to Cherbourg, and had less time to paint. Letters between the sisters show a loving relationship, underscored by Berthe's regret at the distance between them and Edma's withdrawal from painting. Edma wholeheartedly supported Berthe's continued work and their families always remained close. Edma wrote “… I am often with you in thought, dear Berthe. I’m in your studio and I like to slip away, if only for a quarter of an hour, to breathe that atmosphere that we shared for many years…”.
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Future ActivityThespianz would like to initiate this project in Future.
Basic Problems and Needs:
In essence, the role of primary education is to ensure the broad-based development of pupils. This in turn means ensuring development of their cognitive, social, emotional, cultural and physical skills to the best of their abilities preparing them for their further scholastic career. As you, may have witnessed firsthand during your visit to some of the government run primary schools in Sindh, many government schools across Pakistan unfortunately lack some of the most basic facilities; the dearth of which stagnates the grooming and nourishing of these pupils. The government though has strived hard to overcome these issues but the stagnancy of funds proves to be the primary hurdle in creating and providing the said facilities at these schools. This finance dearth fails to allow appreciable room for the proper nourishment and grooming of the students in question.
Whilst Global Warming is an international concern, tropical regions such as Pakistan, suffer soaring temperatures specially during summer. It’s really painful to see such young kids weathering these extreme conditions just to earn as basic a right as Primary Education.SEEMA ZAHID – HEAD OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS, SINDH
Why Not Getting Enrollments:
As a starter, schools of this particular region lack some of the most basic necessities in boundary walls, cleaner maintained restrooms, basic furniture, lack of clean drinking water deteriorating/unsafe building structures and shortage of electricity. It is of critical importance to provide these fundamental facilities to these innocent affected to build a good creative learning environment. The situation also greatly contributes to the dearth of fresh enrollments. These schools generally lack clean drinking water and power supply while loose electric connections and the deplorable condition of water tanks add to the misery. It’s only barely imaginable how this water is being consumed by these innocent pupils? Due to lack of finances only a single electricity connection was established, leaving the remainder of the school buildings to suffer. All buildings require maintenance of electric wires.
Everything regarding primary school education is required. There are hardly any desks and chairs. We have some furniture but most of it either needs to be repaired or replaced. I think the furniture requirements should be specific. The nursery & kindergarten class furniture needs to be distinct when compared to the elder classes. You may well see that the provided chairs are not suitable for schooling; but rather for domestic use. To make matters worse, there are no separate restrooms for teachers as the rest rooms are common.REHANA YASMEEN – GOVERNMENT SCHOOL TEACHER
A Student’s Statement!
While attending my class, a stone fell down from the roof injuring my forehead.
It is through play that children organize and makes sense of the world. Play also helps children work through tensions in their lives. Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them. And yes, games play an important role in the lives of children as they enter school. Without play and recreational activities it is very difficult to ensure upbringing of healthy minds and bodies of pupils. Unfortunately! We do not have sufficient funds to buy sports goods
In recent years, education all over the world has shifted heavily towards the common core subjects of reading and math, but what about arts? Although some may regard art education as a luxury, these simple creative activities are some of the building blocks of child development. Learning to create and appreciate visual aesthetics may be more important than ever to the development of the next generation of children as they grow up. But we have no art & fun related materials in colors, pencils, markers and charts etc.
If we provide these facilities at the schools there can be a major turnaround in enrollment and quality education. According to recent surveys, researches have noticed that Sindh is declining in education. If the quality of education could be improved at these schools, we could build a responsible futuristic society.
I honestly believe that by donating you can save a life today to save yours’ tomorrow. We really do not know what tomorrow brings and our efforts as donor today can save a child from becoming a criminal tomorrow.


POLAR Time Interventions
Our reading intervention during POLAR Time targets 3 different areas of reading: phonics, fluency and comprehension. Each child works in one of the above areas until they reach grade level expectations. Phonics and fluency are building blocks to the ultimate goal, which is grade level reading comprehension. Each area is described in more detail below.
Reading Recovery (grade 1 only)
A short-term, one-to-one, intervention for first grade students who struggle to learn to read and write. Children have daily 30-minute lessons with a trained Reading Recovery teacher for 12-20 weeks with the goal of accelerating learning to reach the class average.
Leveled Literacy Intervention (K-5)
The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI) is a small-group, supplementary literacy intervention designed to help teachers provide powerful, daily, small-group instruction for the lowest achieving students at their grade level. Through systematically designed lessons and original, engaging leveled books, LLI supports learning in both reading and writing, helps students expand their knowledge of language and words and how they work. The goal of LLI is to bring students to grade level achievement in reading.
Guided Reading (Small Group Instruction)
Small group work where the teacher supports each reader’s development of effective strategies for processing new texts at increasing levels of difficulty. The teacher carefully groups children according to need, selects a book to introduce, and works with individual students as each reads the book in its entirety. Discussion, focused teaching, and optional word work complete the lesson.
Phonemic Awareness and Phonemic Decoding (Fundations)
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. This understanding improves students’ word reading and comprehension and helps them learn to spell. To decode words, learners must recognize the letters in the word, associate each letter with its sound, hold these sounds in sequence in memory, blend these sounds together to determine the word and retrieve the memory of the words. Together, phonemic awareness and phonemic decoding are key foundational skills for beginning readers.
Explicit Instruction of Fluency
A fluency intervention is selected based on student’s area of need and is taught through modeling, guided practice, group practice, and independent application. Growth is monitored to determine the impact whereby strategy is continued or abandoned.
Explicit Instruction of Comprehension
A comprehension intervention is selected based on student’s area of need and is taught through modeling, guided practice, group practice, and independent application. Growth is monitored to determine the impact whereby strategy is continued or abandoned.
Our math intervention during POLAR Time targets 5 different areas of math: forward and backward number sense, structuring, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division and place value. Each child works in one of the above areas until they reach grade level expectations. These math interventions are game based and are developed by teachers that have specialized training in Math AddVantage. Each area is described in more detail below.
Forward and Backward Number Sense
Students learn the names of numbers (number words), symbols for numbers (numerals) and the forward and backward sequence of numbers starting with single digits and moving up as grade level expectations require.
Students work on combining and splitting apart numbers without using counting by ones. Students develop their understanding of doubles and the five and ten as reference points. Example of work in structuring: Break 5+7 into 5+5+2.
Addition and Subtraction
Students build off of the understanding of the structure of numbers (see above) and develop a range of strategies in which to add and subtract.
Multiplication and Division
Students work to conceptually understand multiplication (equal groups or repeated addition) and division (sharing or repeated subtraction). Students develop a range of strategies in which to mulitply and divide.
Students develop a sense of the relative size of numbers and know the difference between 10 and 1. They learn ways of relating multi-digit numbers to each other, as well as learn about decimals and how to organize numbers based on their grade level expectations.


Whole Class Ensemble Tuition (WCET)
Every child should have the opportunity to learn an instrument, for a minimum of 10 weeks weekly tuition. Most programmes are for 30 weeks between the ages of 5-11 years. In most schools the pupils learn the instrument as a whole class with their class teacher and a visiting instrumental specialist/Accredited teacher. We strongly believe that this should be available for all regardless of circumstance or background.
In line with the National Plan for Music Education, programmes are available which are high quality, inspiring and an ideal platform for the pupils to continue their instrumental learning.
‘Our Whole Class Wider Opportunities programme at Littlecoates Primary is a totally inclusive experience which engages all pupils in high quality music making. The pupil’s enjoyment is visible when they are both learning and performing.
This programme has given the pupils at Littlecoates Primary the opportunity to broaden their life experiences.’
Rosalind Smith– Head Teacher
Whole Class Ensemble tuition (WCET)programmes are delivered through a range of styles and genres, these include:
- Strings – violins, violas, cellos
- Woodwind – flutes, fifes, clarinets
- Brass – trumpets, cornets, trombones, horns
- World Music – Samba, Djembe
As well as the important musical benefits of the WCET programme, it is also recognised that there are many further opportunities for developing skills such as:
- Increased focus and concentration
- Working as a team
- Commitment and motivation
- Greater independent learning
- Enhancing critical thinking
- Managing behaviour problems
- Emotional development
The provision consists of weekly 45 minute lessons for one term (10 weeks) and is delivered by a specialist instrumental tutor. The most successful programmes are where the class teacher is integral to this delivery and approach.
Instruments are loaned to schools/academies for the duration of their WCET programme from Mapas.
All of these programmes are delivered within a school setting. Contact MAPAS for more information 01472 323113