Earth Science in Elementary Education
Earth Science in Elementary Education is the geologic content course in the integrated science teacher development sequence. The six hour combined lecture/lab course requires students to work in teams to solve problems and think critically and creatively to actively explore numerous materials and processes of the physical Earth while developing pedagogical techniques to transmit this content to K-8 students. Methods will include hands-on/minds-on experiences, inquiry-oriented investigations, constructivism, concept maps, group discussions, demonstrations, and student presentations. Students learn by doing hands-on, inquiry-based cooperative learning that will not be limited to scheduled labs and may also be done during lecture time. Students will work with a classroom earth science teacher in a clinical experience before preparing a detailed classroom lesson related to the course content. A two day field trip to the Canadian shield is required.
For Dr. Mattox's reflections on the course and its design, see Earth Science in Elementary Education: Role in the Program.
- Increase content knowledge about earth science.
- Increase confidence in presenting science in the classroom.
- Increase student knowledge of methods used to teach science and assess learning.
- Compile existing teaching resources and develop new inquiry-based classroom activities.
- Demonstrate fluency in Michigan science standards and familiarity with the MI Educational Assessment Program.
- Syllabus & Schedule (Microsoft Word 49kB Jan4 06) Listing of course requirements and timeline of course activities.
- Integrated Science Lesson Format (Microsoft Word 41kB Jan4 06) Format for student generated lessons program-wide.
- Scoring Rubric (Microsoft Word 60kB Jan4 06) Integrated science scoring rubric.


Albuquerque Preschool – 2 years old to 3 years old
Inventors. Problem-solvers. Discoverers. Dreamers. Children 24 to 36 months are opening their eyes to the larger world around them and taking an active role in it. They learn as they take things apart, put them together and ask lots and lots of questions. At ABC Preschool and Childcare, we encourage this development and give them the guidance and tools they need to explore and learn within a comfortable, secure environment.
- Motor Skill Development — outdoor games, dancing, movement
- Language Development — recognizing and forming letters, story time, speech
- Sensory Development — textures, understanding the senses, descriptive activities.
- Imaginative Development — arts and crafts, dramatic play, storytelling
- Social Development — large- and small-group activities, sharing, politeness
Sparking Curiosity, Interest and Independence of Your Child
All these areas of development are part of our curriculum, which was designed with the belief that all children are capable and talented, and that they learn in their own ways. This method even extends to how we organize our classrooms that are divided into distinct areas of interest that meet children’s need to move, explore and express and relax. For more information regarding our Early Preschool Room, stop in to any of our locations.


Parents and Teachers: Helping Children Learn to Read and Write / Edition 1by Timothy V. Rasinski
Pub. Date: 01/28/1995
Publisher: Cengage Learning
This textbook educates teachers and parents about the potential they have, when they work together, to improve children's literacy development. The book provides teachers with sound information that they can communicate to parents about literacy education that can be developed at home and in the schools. See more details below
This textbook educates teachers and parents about the potential they have, when they work together, to improve children's literacy development. The book provides teachers with sound information that they can communicate to parents about literacy education that can be developed at home and in the schools.
- Cengage Learning
- Publication date:
- Product dimensions:
- 7.52(w) x 9.04(h) x 0.34(d)
Table of Contents
Preface. Introduction. Teacher-Parent Partnerships, Timothy Rasinski. PART ONE: LITERACY LEARNING AT HOME. 1. Seven Steps to Creating a Literate Home Environment, Mary Steele Mastain. 2. About Play, Literacy, and Growing Up, Kathy Roskos. 3. Story Telling Connections: Ways to Catch Children''s Imaginations and Excite Them About Learning, Olga Nelson. 4. Children Never Outgrow "Read Me Another…", Karla Hawkins Wendelin. 5. It''s Not Just What You Do But How You Do It That Counts, David F. Lancy. 6. Hundreds of Books, Thousands of Books…Finding Good Books for Eager Readers, Barbara Peterson. 7. Linking Children to the Past Through Historical Fiction, Susan S. Lehr. 8. Paired Reading: A Positive Approach to Parent-Child Reading Time, Louisa Kozey. 9. Reading Aloud to Older, Independent Readers, Daniel Woolsey. 10. Becoming Readers and Writers Together, JoBeth Allen. 11. Demystify the Written Word and Make Writing a Lifelong Adventure, Sally Hudson-Ross. 12. The Role of Lists in Family Literacy, Nancy Padak and Timothy Rasinski. 13. Helping Develop Competent Spellers: Parents and Children Working Together, Jerry Zutell. 14. Using Computers to Promote Literacy, Linda DeGroff. 15. Television and Literacy, David Reinking and Douglas Parsdon. PART TWO: HOME AND SCHOOLS: WORKING TOGETHER FOR LITERACY LEARNING. 16. Understanding Changes in Beginning Reading (and Writing) Instruction, Susan Carey Biggam. 17. Nurturing Children''s Literacy Development Through Parent-Teacher Conferences, Anthony D. Fredericks. 18. Literacy Is for All Languages: Building Literacy In Nonnative English-Speaking Homes, Sally Nathenson-Mejia. 19. Reading, Writing, and Giftedness, Beverly Shaklee. 20. Parent Volunteers: Partners in Literacy, Elizabeth Gibbons Pryor. 21. The Problems and Promises of Dealing with Principals, Fredrick R. Burton. 22. Reading Instruction in the Intermediate Grades: Preferred Practices, Karen D. Wood and Robert J. Rickelman. 23. Parental Roles in Reading and Writing Evaluation, Jan Turbill and JoBeth Allen. 24. Parents and Schools Assessing Literacy Growth Together, J. Michael Ritty.
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Young people 'prefer to read on screen'
- 16 May 2013
- From the section Education & Family
Young people are now much more likely to prefer to read on a computer screen rather than a printed book or magazine, according to a UK survey.
The National Literary Trust studied almost 35,000 eight- to 16-year-olds.
Its findings suggest a picture of young people who are now immersed in a screen-based culture.
As well as social networking and browsing websites, the study indicates almost a third of youngsters read fiction on online devices.
The study suggests high levels of access to mobile phones, computers and tablet devices now mean that reading is an activity more likely to be on screen than on the printed page.
Of those surveyed, 52% preferred to read on screen compared with 32% who preferred print, with the remainder having no opinion or preferring not to read at all.
"Not only are children and young people more likely to read on electronic devices than they are to read paper-based materials but they also do it more often," said the study.
Researchers found that 39% of the young people read every day on computers and screens, compared with 28% who read each day using printed materials.
Technology is central to the lives of these youngsters - 97% reported having access to a computer and the internet at home, 77% said they had their own computer.
Much of this will be used for activities such as social networking websites, but there were also signs of a switch to the screen for other types of reading, such as fiction, news and information.
About a third were reading fiction on screen, with higher levels for those using tablet computers or e-readers.
And 23% of the youngsters read fiction on their smartphones.
But there has so far not been a complete shift to reading on screen, with 53% still reading novels in printed form.
The girls were more likely to read printed books than the boys - with both having similar levels of reading on screen.
Younger children who read printed books as well as used computers were more likely to have higher reading levels than those who only read on screen, the study said. Although this gap did not apply to those children who used tablet computers or e-readers.
A clearer pattern was visible with the readership of printed newspapers. This has tumbled from 46% in 2005 to 31% in this latest study. In contrast, there are now 41% of these young people who read news stories online.
National Literacy Trust director Jonathan Douglas said: "Our research confirms that technology is playing a central role in young people's literacy development and reading choice.
"While we welcome the positive impact which technology has on bringing further reading opportunities to young people, it's crucial that reading in print is not cast aside."


Every child in his or her developing years is a very keen learner. Children are curious about almost everything that takes place around them. Whatever they see, hear and smell are all like mysteries waiting to be uncovered. Curiosity is merely their natural desire to learn, explore, discover and understand things, which make them understand the world around them.
A curious child keeps exploring and learning, probably well into his adulthood as well. Hence, supporting your child's natural ability to be curious will help him become certainly a life-long learner. In addition, during the process of discovery, your child has ample chances to develop his creativity and also learn various problem solving skills on his own.
As a parent, you can provide opportunities and ambiance to help nurture your child's curiosity in following ways:
- Expose frequently your child to new knowledge and experience through reading books, listening moral stories, participating in outdoor activities and playing various games.
- Encourage your child to ask question if he has doubts or queries, and help him to finding the answers. Make sure to make your little learner not be afraid of asking and testing out new ideas.
Ways to Encourage Your Child's Curiosity and Learning
There are various ways in which you can encourage your child’s curiosity and learning. Few of them are as follows:
Nature: Take a walk along with your child in the park or a forest. Nature is one of the best schools, as it comprises natural teaching materials for example, plants, insects, flowers, trees, birds, fruits etc. that will set a child's curious mind clicking and desiring to explore them all and consequently learn through them.
Museums, zoos and aquariums: Visiting museums, zoos and aquariums and other such places have also great things like artifacts and creatures, dead or alive, which all can arouse a young child's curiosity and imagination. It is a very interesting way to learn about history and life sciences for children.
Question Games: Encourage your child to play games which offer them to ask a lot of questions. For instance, puzzle games, which comprise a lot of things like, fruits, vegetables, transport etc. this way they will not only learn questions about those things but also try to place them at right places in the puzzle, and hence develop their problem solving, analytical and fine motor skills.
Be Patient and Answer Calmly
While trying to encourage your child's natural ability to see, get curious and question, you may at times find those “why's” and “how's” annoying, particularly when you're busy. You may also feel uneasy answering some questions, or baffled if you don't know how to answer them.
Nevertheless, be careful not to kill his curiosity by shutting him up or brushing aside his questions. Those little out of curiosity questions can be killed very easily with responses, like “don't disturb me” or “don't ask”. Crushing your child's curiosity too often may hamper a very critical early childhood learning process.
There may be a reason behind those never-ending questions, such as trying to seek your attention, or not satisfied fully with the answer provided. Whichever reason it may be, following ways can be tried to handle the different situations and that too in a very positive manner.
- If your child frequently asks the same question, ask if he knows the answer. Your child probably will answer his own question and stop at it. He asks the same question many times as he just wants to have your attention or approval, so be patient.
- If you're busy, tell your child very politely that you will get back to him later. Simply ignoring your child’s questions often lead him to find his own answer in different ways and from different sources that may be misleading.
- Honestly admit if you don't have the answer for the question of your child, and tell him that you'll find out and tell the answer to him later. Always tell it in a proper manner; or your child will never stop asking.
- When dealing with difficult questions, ask for some time to think about it, this allows you to come up with the best age-appropriate response for your child. Don't lie to your child; if he finds out the truth he may not believe in you anymore.
- You can also persuade your child to find answers for himself by going to the library, or by getting help from other family members or school teachers.


National Adoption and Implementation of the Learning Resources Management & Development System (LRMDS)
The Department of Education (DepEd) advocates the adoption and
implementation of the Learning Resources Management and Development
System (LRMDS) pursuant to the implementing rules and regulations of
Republic Act No. 9155 and to support the organization of Key Reform
Thrust (KRT) 3 of the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA).
The LRMDS Framework serves as the policy instrument for the implementation and ongoing operation of LRMDS at all levels of DepEd. It is supported by guidelines and process documents for all sub-systems, a quality assurance framework, standards and specifications (e.g., educational, technical, intellectual property rights, accessibility, metadata), and training programs.
The LRMDS is a web-based catalogue and on-line repository of learning, teaching, and professional-development resources. It has four (4) integrated sub-systems, namely: (i) assessment and evaluation; (ii) development, acquisition, and production; (iii) storage and maintenance; and (iv) publication and delivery which are designed to support increased distribution and access to learning, teaching, and professional-development resources at the regional, division, and school levels. It includes the following:
information on quantity, quality, and location of textbooks and supplementary materials, and other teaching-learning resources;
access to learning, teaching, and professional development resources in digital format; and
standards, specifications, and guidelines for four (4) subsystem.
The LRMDS serves as a clearinghouse that provides information about the location of resources (hardcopy and softcopy) and allows users to directly access digitized versions of resources published and stored within the LRMDS repository. It is also a quality assurance system that provides support to DepEd regions, divisions, and schools in the selection and acquisition of quality digital and non-digital resources in response to identified local educational needs.
To ensure the smooth and sustainable implementation of the LRMDS, the Task Force that will serve as interim DepEd unit for the implementation of the LRMDS is organized which composed of the following members:
Directors of the Bureau of Elementary Education (BEE), Bureau of Secondary Education (BSE), and Bureau of Alternative Learning System (BALS);
Directors of the Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS), Educational Development Project Implementing Task Force (EDPITAF) and Information and Communication Technology Unit-Technical Service (ICTU-TS);
Technical Advisers provided by the Australian Agency for International Development (AUSAID) through the Support to Enhancement and Mainstreaming of Innovations and Technologies (SEMIT); and
LRMDS representatives from Regions VI, VII, VIII, XI and CAR.
The Task Force will perform the following functions:
develop a 2011-2012 detailed work plan based on the LRMDS transition plan to support phased implementation and operation of LRMDS within the DepEd;
determine the requirements (organizational, physical, infrastructure, capacity development, and advocacy) for phased national implementation of the LRMDS;
develop a detailed plan to operationalize the LRMDS nationally including the phased implementation of the four LRMD subsystems within all regions, divisions, and schools;
ensure access to the LRMDS repository by all fifty-seven (57) priority divisions; and
implement LRMDS within the regions and divisions provided with LRMD Centers under the Support to Philippine Basic Education Reform (SPHERE) grant by December 2011.
The LRMDS will be nationally rolled out to provide access to existing DepEd teaching, learning, and professional-development materials starting October 2011. Hence, the priority is to upload and publish all existing DepEd-developed materials and foreign-assisted project (FAP) resources for access by regions, divisions, and schools.
The DepEd officials and field personnel are enjoined to register at http://Irmds.deped.gov.ph in order to access the LRMDS portal. The Registration is authenticated within twenty-four (24) hours.


Art education for children had all but disappeared from most American schools. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, some well-intentioned (albeit misguided) and others simply unfortunate. Despite the waning exposure kids have to the arts at school, science continues to demonstrate the many benefits of arts-based learning beginning at a young age. If the future of education continues to deprive children of exposure to the arts, it is up to parents and caregivers to advocate for arts education while finding alternative ways to provide it.
The Changing Face of American Education
Several key developments in American education have nearly stripped art-related education out of schools. The most common reason cited is funding. A focus on standards has also been instrumental in reducing educational focus on the arts due to schools competing for high marks on testing. As the economy slowly recovers from the economic turmoil of the last decade, schools in many states have begun to rebound from a funding perspective. However, rather than restore arts programs, states and school districts are placed an emphasis on beefing up STEM programs, rather than art-related learning initiatives.
Types of Art Education and Their Benefits
Creativity and innovation, both traits highly valued by employers, are developed through arts-related learning. Creativity gives rise to critical thinking, engagement and problem-solving. At every stage of a child’s life, from early childhood through college, art-related exposure and learning has been shown to greatly improve physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. In addition to these proven benefits, arts-related education increases confidence in children as well as focus, perseverance and non-verbal communication. Children learn to better handle constructive feedback and to collaborate with others. Finally, the arts improve a child’s dedication, self-discipline and accountability. Each of these skill sets directly influences a child’s academic success as well. The research reflects a strong correlation between arts education and academic achievement.
The Push to Keep Children Balanced
Educational experts provide clear recommendations for an educational approach that incorporates the arts. The research leaves little doubt that kids need arts education as a part of a comprehensive and well-rounded education, and to guarantee their future success in life. Parents, caregivers and other family members can help by advocating for more art education programs in your school district. Meanwhile, experts advise not waiting for school programs to expose your kids to the arts. Dance, music, theater and the visual arts are all of equal importance and kids should be introduced to all four in early childhood.
Private teachers can provide beneficial learning opportunities however the research is clear that kids derive significantly greater benefit from group classes, lessons and programs. If your community has a children’s arts academy, enroll your kids as early as possible. There is no fear of starting them too early and professional arts educators can tailor classes specifically to a particular age group. Students with that level of involvement were four times more likely to participate in a science or math fair, win an award for writing an essay, or be recognized for academic achievement. Parents are always on the lookout for ways to help their children get ahead. Nothing is more influential and fun than arts-related education


SAT Calculator tips and tricks. Calculators can help on the SAT, but you still need to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it!
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- Learn 480 New SAT Vocabulary Words In Just 3 Months
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- “Official” SAT prep tips that you should NOT follow
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Christian has scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT.
He's personally tutored over 200 students in one-on-one lessons through his independent SAT tutoring company.
Although he's only 26 years old, his tutoring methods were an overnight local success in the Austin, TX area, and he started this website to share his tips worldwide.
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As Cajal matured, his artwork became more impressionistic. I believe this transition enabled him to accurately conceptualize the relationships between micro systems and macro systems in the brain.
McLean, VA (PRWEB) March 13, 2013
On March 5, Rebecca Kamen delivered a lecture demonstrating how Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a man known as the father of modern neuroscience, bridged the disciplines of art and science. The lecture at the Efe Ramón y Cajal Institute of CSIC in Madrid, Spain honored Cajal’s life work and captured the imagination of the 100+ neuroscientists who work at Spain’s oldest neurobiology research center. At the conclusion of Kamen’s lecture, Maria de Ceballos, a leading researcher in Alzheimer’s disease, told Kamen, “Thank you. Now we will see things differently.”
Kamen began researching the link between art and science two years ago. Her hypothesis: One can use art education to teach people to improve interpretation of research, and therefore enhance scientific discovery. Kamen has tested her hypothesis through relationships with George Mason University’s Aspiring Scientist Summer Internship Program (ASSIP) and the National Institutes of Health.
Kamen has been able to demonstrate that scientists and artists follow the same discovery process. They begin with intuition, observe the world around them, and then somehow depict the invisible world as they record their findings. Findings confirmed that the relationships among art, science, and discovery can be taught. The biggest challenge today’s scientists, face, however, is showing dynamic data sets in multiple dimensions. That’s where art education plays a role.
“Seeing the evolution of Cajal’s artwork first-hand further validated my hypothesis that one can use art education to improve interpretation of scientific research,” states Kamen. “The paintings he created during childhood represented what he saw in great detail. As Cajal matured, his artwork became more impressionistic. I believe this transition enabled him to accurately conceptualize the relationships between micro systems and macro systems in the brain. Cajal’s natural artistic ability enabled him to capture what he envisioned.”
“It is this relationship between observing two dimensional slides and the ability to visualize and create three dimensional representations that enabled Cajal to intuit how the brain functioned at a time when optics did not allow scientists to see the details fully needed to understand synaptic functions. Without a significant background in art that formed the basis of his intuition, Cajal might not have been able to make the connection,” concludes Kamen.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal is considered a national treasure in Spain. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1906.
About the Cajal Institute
The “Instituto Cajal” is a neuroscience research center assigned to the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). The Cajal institute is the oldest neurobiology research center in Spain. Along its more than 100 years of existence, renowned scientists and professionals have spread worldwide and contributed to the remarkable advancement of neurobiology. Today, the Cajal Institute is prepared to confront the future challenges and to maintain the leading role in neurobiological research in Spain, always keeping in mind that the final destination of knowledge is the wellbeing of the society.
About Rebecca Kamen
Rebecca Kamen, Professor of Art, has taught more than 300 classes at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) over the last 35 years. In 2011, Kamen was awarded a Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship by the Virginia Community College System, which has enabled her to work with leading academic and scientific research institutions in the United States including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Institutes of Health, and George Mason University. This work has contributed significantly to the STEM to STEAM initiative in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Kamen holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
Kamen has exhibited and lectured both nationally, and internationally. She has been the recipient of a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship, a Pollack Krasner Foundation Fellowship, a Strauss Fellowship, an NIH Artist in Residency, and a Travel Grant from the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Her artwork is represented in many private and public collections.


Fundamentals of XAML and Microsoft Expression Blend (cours 10553)
Cours disponible en français ou en anglais - Training available in French or in English
Durée: 3 jours
Objectifs du cours :
This 3-day course covers core and essential XAML skills. The learner will gain valuable experience developing XAML code in both Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend 4.
The course teaches the beginner and intermediate tasks that enable the learner to build the foundational skills required to develop professional Silverlight 4 and WPF applications (for the Web, Windows desktops, and Windows Phone 7 devices). The course will include hands-on labs that comprise approximately 50% of the classroom time and enable the student to learn the essential XAML programming tasks that are the building blocks of real-world applications.
Compétences acquises :
Les stagiaires seront à même d'effectuer les tâches suivantes :
- Describe the benefits of XAML-based applications.
- Explain the tools that can be used to create XAML-based applications.
- Describe the structure of a XAML-based application
- Create Vector Graphics with Expression Blend 4.
- Create Vector Graphics with Expression Design 4.
- Import Vector Graphics into Expression Blend 4
- Organize the controls used in the user interface of a XAML-based application.
- Add and manipulate the controls used in XAML-based applications
- Develop WPF applications.
- Develop Silverlight applications.
- Host a Silverlight application in an HTML web page.
- Debug a XAML-based application
- Create and use controls programmatically.
- Work with media files
- Use Resources in a XAML-based application.
- Work with Styles and ControlTemplates.
- Add and configure behaviors by using Expression Blend 4
- Apply transforms in your XAML-based applications.
- Create different types of animations in your XAML-based applications.
- Provide visual feedback to users based on the state of a control or a group of controls
- Implement property binding in XAML-based applications.
- Implement binding to external data objects in XAML-based applications
- Create application prototypes by using SketchFlow.
- Package prototypes for distribution to your customers.
- Review feedback on your prototypes from your customers
Connaissances requises :
Pour suivre ce cours, les stagiaires doivent disposer des connaissances suivantes :
- 1-3 months of professional programming experience with Visual Studio 2010.
- Some professional experience in developing either ASP.NET Web applications or Windows Forms desktop applications.
Copyright © 2012 Colombus.com - All rights reserved
Tel : +41 21 661 1675 - Fax : +41 21 661 1673 - Email : email@example.com


Free Uniforms and School bags:
Provision of free and compulsory Primary Education to all children up to 14 years of age is one of the Directive Principles of state Policy of the Constitution of India according to Article 45.Most importantly, the National policy on Education has given unqualified priority for achieving UEE by shifting the central thrust from mere enrolment to all three dimension of UEE namely enrolment, retention and quality in learning. In line with the constitutional directive, the successive plan of both the center and the individual state have given overriding priority for Universalisation of Elementary education subsequently, such plan efforts have resulted in some improvement in access at primary level.
Poverty and economic deprivation are those factors that are responsible for children’s non-participation in school. Those factors demand special governmental interventions to promote better participation of such children. Increased access to the schooling facility has increased number of children from even lower income families. Their retention in schools until compulsory stage depends upon effective programmes like mid day meal scheme, free supply of school uniform, text books, regular health check up etc,.
The main Objectives of distribution of Uniforms is :
- To provide free and compulsory education to all children up to age of 14 yrs.
- To retain the children enrolled in the schools until compulsory stage.
- To bring equality among all children in the schools.
The scheme of supplying free uniforms to children attending school existed even before independence. However deliberate and concerted efforts to introduce free uniform supply as an incentive system began in the year 1961, when the State Government promulgated the compulsory Primary Education Act.
Free Uniforms are distributed to all boys and girl students from class 1st to 10thstudying in Govt and Govt aided school. Uniforms with different size –size 1 for class 1st and 2nd std boys and girls, size 2 for 3rd and 4th std boys and girls, size 3 for 5th, 6th and 7th std boys and girls, size 4 for 8th,9th and 10th std boys and 8th std girls and next size for class 9th and 10th girls are distributed.


Constructing Melodic Jazz Improvisation - Bass Clef Edition
Trombone/Bass - Beginning and Intermediate
Composed by Brian Kane. Constructing Melodic Jazz Improvisation contains detailed explanations and analysis of the creative and improvisational techniques musicians use for style, phrasing, solo development, and motivic improvisation in an easy to follow step-by-step format. Jazz Improvisation Method Book. Book and CD. 168 pages. Published by Jazz Path Publishing (JH.JP-008).
Item Number: JH.JP-008
ISBN 978-0-97760977-7-8. Jazz Improvisation Method Book.
Ten progessively difficult chapters, containing dozens of improvisational exercises, explore jazz improvisation from creative, melodic and technical perspectives. The book is designed to meet all of the national standards and frameworks for music education and is a comprehensive improvisational curriculum for individual musicians or group classes. The book includes a 52 track play-a-long and demonstration CD. Readers will learn that improvisation is about more than technique, right notes, and playing patterns. Improvisation is about style, phrasing control, creative design and intent, and learning to speak the language of jazz.


This is an article called "The Laws of Cartoon Motion" adapted from the
book, Elementary Education by Mark O'Donnell.
The Laws Of Cartoon Motion
by Mark O'Donnell
Any body suspended in space will remain suspended in space until made
aware of its situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He
loiters in midair, soliloquizing fippantly until he chances to look
down. At this point, the farmiliar principle of 32 feet per second per
second takes over.
- Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon
characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or
an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac
Newton called this sudden termination the stooge's surcease.
- A body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming
to its perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the
specialty of victims of direct-pressure explosions and reckless cowards who
are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house,
leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony
often catalyzes this reaction.
- The time required for an object to fall 20 stories is greater than or
equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral
down 20 flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.
Such an object is inevitably priceless; the attempt to capture it,
- All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel
them directly away from the surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's
signature sound will introduce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a
chandelier, a treetop or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a running
character or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground,
ergo fleeing turns to flight.
- As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once.
This particularly true in tooth-and-claw fights, in which a
characters head may be glimpsed emerging from a cloud of altercation at
several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies
that are spinning or being throttled, and stimulates our own vision's
trailing retention of images. A "wacky" character has the option of
self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to
achieve the velocity required for self-mass-liberation.
- Certain bodies can pass through a solid wall painted to resemble tunnel
entrances; others cannot.
This trompe I'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at
least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to
trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical
space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow
into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not science.
- Necessity plus Will provokes spontaneous generation.
Dangerously palpable objects--such as mallets, dynamite, pies and
alluring female attire--can be manifested from what might previously have
been considered "thin" air, but only when the friction of immediate
jeopardy makes the object's appearance imperative. This controversial
"pocket" theory suggests these objects are drawn from unseen recesses of a
character's costume, or from a storehouse immediately off-screen, but this
merely defers the question of how any absolutely apt object is
- Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats possess more deaths than even the traditional nine lives
afford. They can be sliced, splayed, accordionpleated, spindled or
disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking
self-pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back or solidify.
- For every vengeance, there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
This is one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the
physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it
happen to a duck instead.
Back to my


Children's Day Craft Activity: Koinobori
Editor's Note: Celebrate Children's Day through performance and crafts making at Japan Society on May 6, 2012.
Celebrated May 5th, Tango no sekku (Boy’s Day) is among Japan’s most popular national holidays. Traditionally, this festival was a day to honor male children and express hopes for their future prosperity and strength. In 1948, however, the Japanese government renamed the day Kodomo no hi (Children’s Day) and it became a more general event celebrating the happiness of all children. Despite this change, traditions associated with this festival date back to its association with boys, and include symbols of strength -- particularly carp, samurai and oak leaves. As a result, on this day, families display kabuto (samurai armor), hang koinobori (carp streamers) from their homes, and eat kashiwa mochi (rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves).
This easy and fun activity allows children to make their own koinobori to hang.
Printouts (page 1, page 2, page 3)
Colored paper bags
1. Color and then cut out the shapes on printouts #1-3.
2. Paste the printouts on the paper bag (see image above).
3. Attach the string to the "mouth" of the koinobori, then tie the other end to the chopstick.
Tara McGowan is a professional storyteller, teacher, and visual artist, who incorporates story, song, and art to create multicultural programs for children of all ages. Tara has done teacher workshops and extensive residency work in the Tri-state area and has performed at the Japan Society and various other venues, including the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Her book, The Kamishibai Classroom: Engaging Multiple Literacies through the Art of "Paper Theater" is available through Teacher Ideas Press (2010). Tara is currently a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education’s Language and Literacy in Education division at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has also been teaching graduate-level elementary education courses on Children’s and Adolescent literature. Click here for Tara's website.


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What is Chicano Art? (To go after slide on Chicano Movement?)
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About the artist:
Born in San Diego, Calif. in 1942 - raised in Logan Heights.
Her grandparents fled Mexico to the U.S. in 1918.
López’s grandmother, a Native American, helped connect López with her cultural past at a young age.
Her artwork is inspired by her negative reactions to stereotypical images of Chicanos in the popular arts and commercial images in the U.S.
B. A. in painting and drawing from San Diego State University (1975)
M. F. A. in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego (1978)
he is associated with the San Francisco Chicano/a Art Gallery, Galería de la Raza.
Since 1996, she has worked as the official translator/interpreter for National School District in National City, Calif. and the City of National City and Chula Vista Police Department.
Virgen de Guadalupe
(1975-1978) is a set of three portraits featuring López, her mother and her grandmother – depicted as the Virgin of Guadalupe, but with a “modern woman” twist.
López’s self portrait “was López’s way of providing role models, while paying homage to working-class women.“
~Lili Wright in “Yolanda López’s Art Hits ‘Twitch Meter’ to Fight Stereotypes,” in The Salt Lake Tribune (1995)
By Chicano women for “sanctifying” average Chicanas or Mexican women and acknowledging their many responsibilities
By some members of the Catholic Church who objected to the series because they thought of it as the “debasement of a holy image.”
Popular and Controversial Works
“Who’s the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim?” Poster by López, featuring her version of an Aztec God with crumpled immigration papers
Created in 1978 during a period of political immigration debate in the U.S.
Suggests that white people are the true illegal aliens for coming to what is now the U.S. and taking the native peoples’ land.
Image/style borrows from “Uncle Sam Wants You” Army recruiting posters
Many Raza groups carry signs with this image on it while protesting immigration rights
“NAFTA: The True Goatsucker of Mexico:”Acrylic by Yolanda López.
Represents “the monster that North American Free Trade Agreement has become for Mexicans in Mexico. NAFTA, as a blood sucker exists to exploit and take advantage of Mexico’s workforce and resources.”
Erickson, Mary, and Gary Cárdenas. “Questions and Answers about Yolanda López.” A Thematic, Inquiry-Based Art Education Resource. 2001. Web. 19 Oct 2011. <
López, Yolanda. “NAFTA, Yolanda Lopez.”Flickr. 2011. Web. 19 Oct 2011. <
Chicana artist Yolanda López (Courtesy http://persimmontree.org
Present-day photo of López. (Courtesy http://latinopia.com)
“Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe.” (1975) .Oil pastel and pastel crayon portrait by Yolanda López. (Erickson)
One of three oil pastel and pastel crayon portraits in the series “Virgen de Guadalupe” by Yolanda López. López’s grandmother helped López’s single mother raise her. (Erickson)
One of three oil pastel and pastel crayon portraits in the series “Virgen de Guadalupe” by Yolanda López. López’s mother supported her family by working at an industrial sewing machine for 30 years, which is why she is depicted at a sewing machine. (Erickson)
“NAFTA: The True Goatsucker of Mexico,” acrylic painting by Yolanda López. (López)
“Who’s the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim?” Poster by López, featuring her version of an Aztec God with crumpled immigration papers (1978)
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What is education, Education Reform and what is education reform
Education reform is something that has been evolving for many years, and it is a way in which to make education better for everyone regardless of economic status, race, sex, or age. Reform of the education system has taken on many faces throughout the years and under different political administrations. The fact is that education is always progressing and one administration will add to its reform to better the current educational system for everyone.
Under President Obama’s education reform, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, there is quite a bit of monies that are investing in education to make it a better overall system. The very high dollar amount is an estimated $5 billion dollars that are being invested in early childhood learning programs, which includes programs such as Head Start, and programs that are specifically for special needs children.
Moreover, this new Act gives $77 billion to reform and strengthen both elementary and secondary educational programs. Of this amount, some $48 billion is to help with state budgeting as a way of helping states stabilize their educational systems. These provisions are a way to help attract and train highly qualified teachers as well as preparing students to continue on to college. Moreover, those schools that have been notoriously low performers will have money to help improve their performance through training and other necessary interventions.
In addition, the new education reform provides a whopping $30 billion dollars in order to make college more assessable and affordable to all students. However, the focus of the new Act is on early childhood education because this is the time in a child’s life that is very formative and without the proper education to guide them, they can easily fall by the wayside. However, with stronger education in the early years, it sets the stage for students to succeed in higher educational programs because it lays a good foundation to continue education.
In addition to the monies set aside by the new Act, the education reform of the 21st century is a way to create curriculum that makes education a time of critical thinking, problem solving, and other preparatory measures to help younger students prepare for college. The reform will also include top assessment tools and as well as accountability systems that can quickly gain information in the progress of each student.
Education reform is nothing new and under most presidents’ administration in America, there is always a need to help shape and reform the education system in American. One of the reasons for this is that America falls short in areas of math and science, which is an area where students need to excel, and by offering a more challenging curriculum, it can begin to bring about children that embrace these subjects rather than running from them for fear of failure. Setting the foundation of education with younger children in the key to seeing more of them attend college in the future.
what is education reform
News about what is education reform : Wyoming education reform bill up for haggling Billings Gazette


Parents Should Read to Kids Daily: Pediatrics Group
The practice should begin in infancy, American Academy of Pediatrics says, to prepare kids for school, life
By Dennis Thompson
TUESDAY, June 24, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- All pediatricians should encourage parents to read out loud to their children every day, beginning in infancy, to promote literacy and strengthen family ties.
That clarion call comes in a new policy statement issued Tuesday by the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Early Childhood.
The aim of the recommendation is to help parents "immunize their children against illiteracy," said statement author Dr. Pamela High, director of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, R.I., and a professor at Brown University.
In fact, literacy promotion should be part of residency training for any medical student entering pediatrics, the policy statement added.
"This is the first time the AAP has called out literacy promotion as being an essential component of primary care pediatric practice," High said. "Fewer than half of children are being read to every day by their families, and that number hasn't really changed since 2003. It's a public health message to parents of all income groups, that this early shared reading is both fun and rewarding."
The stakes are high. Every year, more than one of every three American children start kindergarten without the language skills they need to learn to read, a disadvantage from which it is hard to recover, High noted.
Reading proficiency by the third grade turns out to be the most important predictor of whether children will graduate high school and be successful in their careers, she said. About two-thirds of children in the United States and about 80 percent of those below the poverty threshold fail to develop reading proficiency by the end of the third grade.
The policy statement asks pediatricians to counsel parents about "developmentally appropriate reading activities that are enjoyable for the child and the parents and offer language-rich exposure to books and pictures and the written word."
The statement will be published in the August print issue of Pediatrics.
Research has found that children who are read to by their parents have a leg up when it comes to literacy, High said. Reading can provide even infants with spoken words and sounds that form the basis of future language and literacy development.


Aaaah, the Baby Lambs
Rationale: Children need lots of explicit and systematic phonics instruction in order to be able to read. Beginning readers need to know that words are made of sounds. They also need to know which letters make each sound. Because all words contain vowels, it is usually best to begin teaching vowels. It is easier to teach short vowels since they are found in words with only one vowel. This lesson will focus on a = /a/. Students will review the short a sound, and then the students will practice spelling and reading words with the /a/ sound.
Materials: Class set of Elkonin boxes
Class set of letter manipulatives
Overhead Elkonin boxes and letter manipulatives (a,b,c,d,g,k,l,m,n,p,r,s,t)
Class set of A Cat Nap by Educational Insights
Chart with tongue twister
One) Introduce the lesson: "Today we are going to be learning about the short vowel A and the sound that it makes. Every time you see an /a/ in a word, you will make the sound of a baby lamb. I want everyone to act like a baby lamb, ready, aaahhhh, Great! I will read a few words and you make the baby lamb sound when you hear our /a/ ok. Ready. Mop, Map(aaaaa), Nap(aaaaa) , Nip, Sat(aaaa) and Last(aaaa) Great Job.
Two) Introduce the tongue twister to the students. Put up the chart with the tongue twister: "Ok, now let's say the tongue twister together: Andrew and Alice asked if Annie's active animals were angry. Now let's say it again and when we hear the baby lamb sound we will make our aaaaaa sound. AAAAndrew aaaaand AAAAlice aaaaasked if AAAAAnnie's aaaaactive aaaaanimals were aaangry. Great Job Guys!!!
Three) Using the overhead and the letter manipulates, ask the students to name words with the /a/ sound in them and model the way to sound out the sounds in the words to the class. "Who can give me a word that has the sound of a baby lamb in it? Very Good. Nap. Now, if I was going to spell that word, I would listen to the sounds, /n/, /aaaaaa/ (there is our sound), and /p/." Practice more words using the Elkonin boxes.
Four) "Now I want all of you to get out your boxes and letters and we are all going to practice a few words." Have the students leave their letters on their boards and then check the spelling. Start with three phoneme words, then, move to four and five phonemes. [s] [a] [d] [l] [a] [p] [b] [a] [ck] [g] [l] [a] [d] [l] [a] [m] [p] [s] [t] [r] [a] [n] [d]
Five) "Now I am going to spell back a few words to you. If you know what word I am spelling, raise your hand and you can answer." Without using the boxes, spell out the words to make sure they can really spell them.
Six) With the book A Cat Nap, get into small groups or with a partner and have the students read the book aloud. They can assess each other by grading each other on reading speed, expression, and knowing more words
Assessment: For an assessment, have a picture sheet made out with lots of different pictures using different sounds and have the students circle the pictures with the /a/ sound in their name. Have pictures of apples, alligators, desks, lamps, shirts.
Eldredge, J. Lloyd. (1995) Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, 54-57.
Alison Bradley: Excellent E!!: http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guidelines.html
Jessica Evans: Aaa-Aaa-Aaa Apples: http://www.auburn.edu/reading_genie.html
Click here for the Awakenings index


posted on December 04, 2012 16:23
| Katie Ribstein, an art education major from Sioux Falls, observes the artwork of her fellow students. Ribstein developed a lesson for her class that used crushed aluminum cans.
Black Hills State University
art students in Desy Shoenewies’s classes took an interdisciplinary and environmental approach to their latest art project.
The students, elementary education and art education majors, included garbage items in their art as they developed and presented their lesson plans to their fellow classmates. The two art projects, now displayed on the third floor of Woodburn, both use recycled materials and teach a lesson beyond art.
“It is definitely important to teach the possibility of making something out of garbage – you don’t need a lot of expensive supplies to create art,” according to Katie Ribstein, an art education major from Sioux Falls.
Using famed artist Didier Triglia as an inspiration, Ribstein had her classmates create paintings out of crushed aluminum cans. Ribstein chose Didier because of his unique, colorful and chaotic designs as well as his use of recycled materials to create the art. Ribstein looks forward to incorporating sustainability into her lessons as a classroom teacher.
There are many ways to use recycled items through classroom instruction, she said noting the use of thrift store glass plates as paint palettes.
| Pictured from left to right, Sara Frasier, elementary education major from Spearfish, Valerie Samuelson, elementary education major from St. Onge, and Amanda Vottero, elementary education major from Rapid City, and Desy Shoenewies, assistant professor of art. Frasier, Samuelson and Vottero used recycled materials to teach a lesson on jellyfish.
Another classroom art lesson incorporated old plastic dome-shaped coffee lids, fishing line and plastic bags. Amanda Vottero, elementary education major from Rapid City, Valerie Samuelson, elementary education major from St. Onge, and Sara Frasier, elementary education major from Spearfish, used their art lesson to teach classmates about one of the ocean’s most fascinating creatures,the jellyfish, and make a project using some of materials that threaten their habitat.
Frasier said it was a way to integrate sustainability and science with an art lesson. Aimed at the fifth-grade level, Vottero said it is a great age to start teaching about recycling.


Out of School Programs
Empower. Create. Connect. These are the core values of the DreamYard Project. But for this nonprofit arts center, located in the South Bronx, those words are not just an empty slogan. DreamYard’s teaching artists see themselves as “social justice educators,” explains Robyne Walker Murphy, director of Out of School Programs. The organization’s aim is to help young people use the arts to explore their worlds, engage their imaginations, and create personal or societal change.
This social justice focus is most evident in A.C.T.I.O.N. (Art Community Teams in Our Neighborhoods), a multi-year program for high school students. Every year, participants select an issue and develop an arts-based campaign to raise awareness and spark dialogue. Concerned about the high rates of HIV/AIDS among young people in the Bronx, for example, participants interviewed HIV-positive youth and incorporated those stories into a documentary, as well as a theater and poetry piece that they performed on the streets of Washington, DC. The project culminated back in the Bronx at a party, where youth received free HIV testing.
Poetry also becomes a tool for connection and commentary in the hands of DreamYard’s students. After writing poems exploring their racial or ethnic identities, members of the Bronx Poetry Project sent a video of their poetry performance to students in Arizona, where some ethnic-studies classes had been cut from the curriculum. “It was an act of solidarity,” Walker Murphy asserts.
The organization also provides visual arts, creative writing, dance, and hip-hop instruction for adolescents and teens, as well classes where younger children work on arts projects with their guardians. This wide array of disciplines is designed to appeal to as many youth as possible in an economically distressed neighborhood, where many lack nurturing environments, Walker Murphy explains. “We can say, ‘You don’t like hip-hop? OK, we have theater. You don’t like theater? We have visual arts.’ ” All classes are free and held in the organization’s art center, on the first floor of an affordable housing complex.
In an area with high drop-out rates, 99 percent of DreamYard’s Out of School Programs’ seniors have graduated from high school, and 98 percent have been accepted into college. Walker Murphy attributes that “huge” accomplishment to the fact that DreamYard “is giving our young people the ability to imagine something new and to master some foundational skills that they can take anywhere.”
Artists can express their feelings or personal experience in their work and realize the pain they’re going through and think of a way to do something about it. Art helps to show people that they are not alone.Justin Cuevas Participant, DreamYard’s Bronx Art Collective


The Yellow Brick Road of Art Education
Metcalf, Suesi, Smith-Shank, Deborah L., Art Education
The imagination is at the root of all real achievement, in science as much as in poetry. If you are a girl, I hope you will always be as sweet and as brave as Dorothy, and if you are a boy, I hope you will
pursue wisdom as ardently as the Scarecrow did and be as kind as the Tin Woodman himself. All these people, and the cowardly Lion too, when they wanted something, they went out after it, and in the end they found it. And the Wizard himself learned that though you may fool people for a long time, in the end you get found out. (Baum, 1956, last page)
L. Frank Baum wrote the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. The edition we found was printed in 1956 to celebrate the author's 100th birthday, and as you can see from the quote written above "to the readers of this book," our culture has changed a lot since then. We find Baum's motive for writing the tale very interesting.
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out" (Baum, 1956).
Keeping both of these quotations in mind, it seems appropriate on the hundredth anniversary of the book to consider Baum's fantastic tale in relationship to art education practices and pre-service elementary teachers.
Good art education practices facilitate growth through experience in art in much the same ways that Dorothy and her companions grew in courage, kindness, wisdom, and tenacity as they experienced on their journey to Oz. Like Baum, we believe that wonderment is an essential ingredient in any tale-art education or Oz-and that heartaches and nightmares ought to be left out of education altogether. Unfortunately, nightmares and heartaches are frequently the result of poor judgments by art teachers who inadvertently cause their students to experience art anxiety (Smith-Shank, 1993).
When children begin making marks upon their world, they are delighted with what they have accomplished, but when they enter school, all too often something changes. The creation of art is no longer self-directed, but teacher-directed, and the chance of praise from significant adults diminishes significantly. Negative responses to children's art create nightmares and heartaches. The joy of artmaking is replaced with fear of failure. Children have learned that, in the eyes of their teachers, there is a right and a wrong way to make art Some children who receive negative responses to their art grow up with fear to show their artwork, to experiment with unfamiliar media, and to explore new ideas. Sometimes these children do continue to make art, but they have learned that home-not school-is the safe place to make art.
When Dorothy went on her quest for the Great Oz, she met three odd companions. One lacked a brain, one a heart, and one courage. The four of them, along with the dog Toto, journeyed to find the wise and wonderful Wizard who, they believed, would give them what they lacked. Of course we all know the end of the story. Each of them already had what they wanted. But they didn't know it any more than our students who suffer from anxiety because negative experiences have taken away their belief that they can learn about art and their courage to try.
Art anxiety is common among pre-service elementary students. We have found that along the road of art education, something often happens that encourages self-doubt and insecurity about art. After a discussion about our respective students and their fears and discomfort with art, we decided to find out more about how our students feel about art and deal with their negative emotions. Student journals and exit surveys during the Fall 1999 semester were collected with permission from students enrolled in the two authors' courses entitled "Teaching Art at the Elementary School." They provide the data for this study. …


>Please don't forget drama and dance...both of which teach critical thinking >and perspective, just for example. All the art forms can and should be
taught >as a cohesive program in Art Education. Each form feeds into and from the >others. For a truly well-rounded Art Education program, it is important >(especially in light of the multiple intelligences theory) to teach visual >art, music, dance and drama.
I always tell students that if their mind is dancing, their lines will
dance. And they need to let their pencils dance too.
I would suspect that this would be true for other subjects that benefit
from a bit of creative thinking.....


Young children are curious learners and therefore, natural scientists. They don’t walk into our classrooms with closed-minds and preconceived set-in-stone ideas. As teachers of young children, we should take the opportunity of these “wonder years” and provide our students with the chance to make discoveries, develop theories, and test their hypotheses. We must give them a safe environment with adequate materials to help them extend their understanding of the world around us. But let’s not be confused: Science isn’t just a set of experiments or a table in a corner that we fill with magnifying glasses and leaves. Science should be happening every day in most areas of the early childhood classroom. In the block area, children are learning about cause and effect, weight, balance, classification, and many other science concepts. The water and sand areas should be filled with items that support discovery: eye droppers, funnels, food coloring, ice cubes, spray bottles, soap bubbles, sink/float objects. In the art center, have students actually help you make play dough and clay and talk about the chemical reactions between wet/dry ingredients. Every cooking activity that you do can be a science activity! Get a class pet or at least a fish aqaruium to learn about animal life cycles. And let’s not forget those teachable moments; you know, those moments that are not planned, but present themselves as a chance to teach something: Outside on the playground, do you help the children notice the wind, a bug, rain droplets, or shadows? Have your students discovered that sometimes static electricity makes your hair stand up when going down the sliding board? Look around your classroom and see what types of science discoveries can be found; I am sure there are plenty!
Not surprisingly, science has a direct connection to literacy development. Science helps students with logical thinking, communication skills, making predictions, drawing conclusions, and interpreting information; all of these skills enhance literacy development for students of any age! Science also provides a spring board for reading and writing activities. So this week, I am taking a different turn for the Book of the Day. This week the books are not for children, but for teachers! I’ve listed my some of my favorite Science books for early childhood educators.
Science Resource Books for Teachers
Mudpies to Magnets Robert Williams, Robert Rockwell, & Elizabeth Sherwood
Science Arts: Discovering Science Through Art Experiences by MaryAnn Kohl
Science is Simple by Peggy Ashbrook
More Than Magnets: Exploring the Wonders of Science in Preschool and Kindergarten by Sally Moomaw and Brenda Hieronymus
The Kids' Nature Book: 365 Indoor/Outdoor Activities and Experiences by Susan Milord


The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of head teachers' leadership styles on their effectiveness in public primary school curriculum implementation in Bomet Sub-County, Kenya. A correlation research design was used in the study. A sample of 120 head teachers was selected from a population of 174 head teachers of public primary schools in the Sub-County using proportionate and simple random sampling techniques. Questionnaires for head teachers were used to collect data. Data were analysed with the aid of a computer programme, the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 11.5. Frequencies and percentages were computed to determine head teachers' effectiveness in managing curriculum. Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship between head teachers' leadership styles and their effectiveness in managing curriculum implementation. The study found that there was no statistically significant relationship between head teachers' leadership styles and their effectiveness in managing curriculum implementation in public primary schools. The author recommends that the government intensify school-based in-service trainings at the divisional level to benefit head teachers on the strengths and limitations of the various leadership styles in primary school management in order to realize good results among learners in national examinations. Education officers can utilize this information to intensify school-based in-service trainings at the divisional levels to benefit head teachers on the strengths and limitations of the various leadership styles in school management. Further, the Education Officers, among other stakeholders, may see the need of getting head teachers and teachers to undergo in-service trainings on their roles in managing pupils and curriculum implementation.
Keywords: effectiveness, head teachers, leadership styles, management curriculum implementation, public primary schools
This paper examines the role of head teachers in curriculum implementation in public primary schools, and the relationship between selected head teachers' leadership styles and their effectiveness in curriculum implementation based on a study in Bomet Sub-County, Kenya.
The Role of Head Teachers in Curriculum Implementation in Primary Schools
The word curriculum refers to all that is taught in a school, including the time table subjects and; all those aspects of its life that exercise an influence in the life of the school (Farrant, 2004). Curriculum for public schools in Kenya is uniform throughout the country, and the head teachers are expected to be aware of all policies that guide the management of curriculum (MOE & HR, 1999). Curriculum involves all subjects taught and all activities provided by the school and may include the time devoted to each subject and activity. Curriculum should be dynamic and impress on the philosophy and educational purposes of the school and the nation. Other considerations in the management of the curriculum are: allowing for Special Education Needs (SEN), providing practical experience and learning, taking into consideration culture, customs/traditions of the local people, soliciting support for implementation, the learning ability of the pupils, and gender issues pertaining to the community or school environment (MOE & HR, 1999).
Curriculum may be seen as the sum total of all the experiences the learner undergoes for which the school accepts responsibility. It includes both includes the planned academic programme and all co-curricular activities and other events, as well as that which pupils learn through the major and quality of the school ethos. The main task of the head of each school is to provide and deliver effectively and appropriate curriculum using all the resources, namely: human, material and financial resources, which are readily available. …


The Drawing Teacher Brochure (Partial Transcript)
The Drawing Teacher
A Little Folder of Teaching Projects for the Art Teacher
Harry W. Jacobs, Editor
Director, Art Education, Buffalo, N.Y.
Binney and Smith Co., New York
Each month we shall offer to the drawing teachers a complete lesson plan of an art project that has proved successful. These projects will place in the hands of each art teacher the method presenting art problems.
INTIMATE COMMENTS IN THE FIELD OF ART
In the development of design, plant form was the last to suggest motifs to the worker. The early designs were derived from animals and symbols related to their activities of home and life. To conventionalize nature is to adapt a nature-derived motif to the structural demands of the problem, keeping in mind the material, the tools and the processes involved in executing the problem. It is necessary that the pupil know some of the elementary laws of design before an attempt is made to adapt nature in a conventional form to various projects. In order to acquaint pupils with the many beautiful shapes found in nature, one must learn to express nature forms thru the mediums of crayon and water color.
LESSON PLAN, NO. 63, ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
1. PROJECT: Nature Drawing
2. AIM: To draw in pencil, crayon, and watercolor, plant and flower forms. In the primary grades draw in silhouette and color, emphasizing growth and arrangement. In the intermediate grades, draw in line and local color nature forms to illustrate growth and proportion of parts. In the junior grades drawing in the line and color emphasizing the decorative quality of nature and an appreciation of the beauty of form, line, and color in nature growth.
3. PREPARATION: Teacher: Ability to draw before the class to illustrate aim of lesson, examples of pupil's work. Working material: Pencil, perma or crayola crayons, artista water-color, manila or toned paper.


Parents' Questions About Two-Way Immersion
- What advantages are there for my child in a TWI program? Are the advantages the same for language minority and language majority students?
- How do students in TWI programs compare academically to students in other types of educational programs?
- When do students perform at grade level on standardized achievement tests in their first and second languages? Is the time frame different for 90/10 vs. 50/50 models?
- Within TWI programs, how does the academic performance of native English speakers compare to that of English language learners?
- What are the characteristics of students who are successful in TWI programs?
- How can TWI program parents help families who don’t have children in the program understand its benefits?
- How can TWI parents work with the school board and district administrators to help them understand the importance of supporting TWI programs?
- What should a TWI program do to promote home-school connections? What can I do as a parent to get involved?
- How can I help support my child in doing homework in the second language, particularly if I don’t know that language? What kind of homework support can the program provide?
- What resources exist for parents of TWI students? Are there conferences that I might enjoy attending?
8. What should a TWI program do to promote home-school connections? What can I do as a parent to get involved?
As in other education programs, strong home-school connections are essential to the success of TWI programs. There are many things that programs and parents can do to help foster these connections.
First of all, programs can promote positive home-school connections by ensuring that all communications with parents, oral and in writing, are in both languages of instruction. This accomplishes the dual goals of ensuring clear communications with parents and promoting the goals of the program.
Programs can also sponsor periodic meetings to educate parents on TWI related topics such as program design, language acquisition, helping with homework, biliteracy development, and assessment practices. In addition, programs may offer ESL classes for parents of English language learners and classes in the partner language (e.g., Spanish) for parents of native English speakers. Ideally, these language classes should be structured to bring the two groups together on a regular basis in order to allow parents to practice the second language with native speakers.
Finally, programs can foster good home-school connections by recognizing the skills and strengths that families bring to the school and by seeing them as valuable resources that provide critical information about their children. TWI teachers and administrators can visit students’ homes and communities, in order to develop firsthand knowledge of students’ funds of knowledge (Moll, 1992a, 1992b).
There are many things that parents can do to strengthen the home-school connection. Calderón and Minaya-Rowe (2003) provide a detailed list:
- Volunteer in the classroom.
- Share with students aspects of the home language and culture such as music, dance, literature, and foods.
- Attend parent education workshops on dual language programs.
- Participate in TWI family social gatherings.
- At dual language conferences and meetings, co-present with teachers, administrators, and students.
- Assist with ongoing recruitment for the program by sharing experiences with prospective parents and students.
- Contribute to the section of the school newsletter that deals with dual language issues.
- Serve as chaperons for program class trips, both domestic and international.
- Keep in touch with other dual language parents about program developments. For example, two volunteer parents (one representing each language background) can help get the word out to other parents about potential budget cuts or an important upcoming event. In some programs, parents have formed an electronic email list along with staff, and they use that forum to discuss all sorts of issues. Parents without home computers are able to use the school’s computer lab to join in on the discussions that take place bilingually. Parents help each other with the translations.
- Support their children’s language and literacy development in two languages, as well as their emerging cross-cultural appreciation. They can do this by exposing their children to books and movies in both languages; attending cultural festivals; and providing opportunities for authentic language exchanges.


Young Artists Blossom at the Worcester Art Museum This Spring
(WORCESTER, Mass., March 5, 2004) - Springtime classes, March 23 - May 22, at the Worcester Art Museum cultivate creativity in your children.
All youth, not just those with perceived talents, benefit from working with art materials, learning about self-expression, and exploring other cultures. The creative instructors at the Museum help kids tap into their talents and discover their own style.
Weekday classes highlight many varieties of art making, from drawing and painting to sculpting and cartooning. Children ages 3-5 with a caretaker can build their art vocabulary as well as their confidence in Art Together: ARTful Start. Kids 5-7 years old can experiment with paint, paper, and clay during a Sculpture Safari, or learn traditions of ancient cultures through stories and art making in Mixed Media: Stories in Art. Cartooning allows kids ages 8-10 to discover ways to bring characters and their stories to life on paper. Pre-teens learn to tell a story through pen and ink in Pen and Ink Drawing for ages 11-13.
Saturday classes for youth offer more ways to discover art and creative expression. Art, Movement, and Music offers a fun nurturing environment that complements learning with music, movement, and visual art for ages 5-7. A new program, Flash Computer Animation, allows children ages 11-13 to make their creative stories come alive using Flash, a web tool for animation and interactive media.
High school students ages 14-17 can participate in watercolor or figure-drawing classes. A special workshop, The Picture Book: How It Works, is also offered to help teenagers learn to communicate their fairy tale or novel story through pictures and words.
Pre-registration is required for any program. Find more information and register online at www.worcesterart.org or call the Museum at (508) 799-4406 ext. 3129. Space is limited and is available on a first-come first-served basis.
About the Worcester Art Museum
The Worcester Art Museum, which opened to the public in 1898, is world-renowned for its 35,000-piece collection of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photography, prints, drawings and new media. The works span 5,000 years of art and culture, ranging from ancient Roman mosaics to Colonial silver, Impressionist paintings and contemporary art. Dedicated to the promotion of art and art education, the Museum offers a year-round studio art and art appreciation program that enrolls over 6,000 adult and youth students each year. Public tours are offered Saturdays at 11 a.m. and Sundays at 1 p.m., September through May. Audio tours are also available in English and Spanish.
Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. (evening hours sponsored by Commerce Bank), and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and full-time college students with current ID, and FREE for Members and all youth 17 and under. Admission is also FREE for everyone on Saturday mornings, 10 a.m.-noon (sponsored by The TJX Companies, Inc. and Massachusetts Electric, a National Grid Company). The Museum is located at 55 Salisbury St., Worcester, Mass., easily accessible from the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90), Route 290 and Route 9. Free parking is available near entrances on Salisbury, Lancaster and Tuckerman streets. For more information, call (508) 799-4406.


Welcome to Music
We want children to experience learning through their entire body. Teaching to all seven intelligences, children will come to fully understand both musical as well as academic concepts. The students will participate in music through many facets: movement, voice, playing instruments, reading and creating to name a few. Children will feel welcome and comfortable to share their thoughts and ideas. We strive to give every child an overall appreciation of a variety of musical styles.
Students in grades 1-5 have music twice a week for 30 minutes in the music room. Our program follows the Loudoun County Elementary Music Curriculum, which is aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL’s) and the National Standards for Music Education.


Squish and knead your way to homemade play dough with your child and help her learn more about making natural dyes! It’s easier than you think, and this play dough beats that store bought stuff any day!
What You Need:
- 1 red beet (½ cup blueberries or ½ cup onion skins also create wonderful natural dyes)
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup salt
- 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- Small saucepan
- Medium saucepan
- Rubber spatula
What You Do:
- Help your child get started by simmering 1 cup water over medium heat. Invite your child to help trim and dice a small red beet and add to the hot water. Any fruit or vegetable of a dark color creates a vibrant natural dye. Your child can experiment with blueberries, and even onion skins, to create several colors of play dough!
- Now your child can set the kitchen timer for 20 minutes and watch as the clear water turns a deep red.
- Strain the red water over a medium saucepan, collecting all that wonderful red water! Your child can hold the strainer while an adult pours the hot liquid.
- Invite your child to measure and pour the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and oil in the saucepan along with the red water. He can use a rubber spatula to mix the ingredients together. The mixture will resemble thick pudding.
- Now turn the heat to medium under the saucepan and hold the warm pan while your child stirs and stirs. Within a few minutes, the mixture will begin to thicken and resemble play dough!
- Turn out the hot play dough onto a lightly floured surface and allow to cool for 1 minute. Now invite your child to kneed the play dough and then enjoy squishing and squeezing his colorful creation!
Sarah Lipoff has a K-12 Art Education degree and enjoys working with kids of all ages.


As we enter the twenty-first century, middle-level music education (grades six through eight or nine) remains in turmoil regarding appropriate curricular offerings for young adolescents. Should music offerings be primarily performance-oriented? Should music be required of every student? What level of performance should be expected of young adolescents? How is musical experience balanced with the developmental needs of students? Are there musical experiences outside of large-group performance experiences that would attract more students to musical learning? As the profession struggles with these issues, it is important to look back at nearly a century of experience with middle-level education for models of excellence to determine the factors that contributed to their success.
One such model was the operetta performance tradition at Ramsey Junior High School in Minneapolis, due in part to the large number of operettas presented, the commitment of two teachers to giving students abundant vocal performance opportunities at the junior high level, and the perceived success of the operetta performances by community members. Between 1932 and 1966, students at Ramsey presented more than sixty-seven operettas in addition to regular choral, oratorio, and cantata performances. The operettas were full-scale productions with lighting, scenery, and costumes, and in the early years it was not unusual for the students to present four operettas in one academic year. Quotes from the editorial staff of the student newspaper, the Ramsey Record, demonstrate the perceived quality of the operetta productions: "The operetta was very much liked by the students, teachers, and parents, and congratulations are given to all those who helped make the performance a splendid success." (1) "The success of the performance was evident as wave after wave of applause swept over the audience as the curtain closed." (2) This paper describes the development of the operetta performance tradition at Ramsey and examines the people and conditions that contributed to its success.
To fully appreciate the conditions necessary for the operetta program at Ramsey Junior High School to thrive, it is important to examine the historical environment in which the school opened. Especially important are a brief history of the Minneapolis public schools, the development of the junior high school movement in the United States, and the implementation of the junior high school system in the Minneapolis public schools.
A Brief History of the Minneapolis Public Schools
The first educational institution in Minneapolis was for children from Fort Snelling and the Mdewakanton Dakota and opened on the shores of Lake Harriet in 1834, about twenty years before Minneapolis was incorporated in 1854. (3) As more settlers moved into the area educational opportunities continued to develop. By 1874 there were six school buildings in Minneapolis with an enrollment of 2,907 pupils, and four school buildings in St. Anthony (part of Minneapolis since 1872) with an enrollment of 900 students. The first school board met in 1860 in the village of St. Anthony. (4) In 1878, legislation merged the two school boards of Minneapolis and St. Anthony into one Board of Education to manage all of the public schools in Minneapolis. Through the early-twentieth century Minneapolis and its schools continued to grow, and by 1933 the city served more than 85,000 students in its school system.
Development of the Junior High School Movement in the United States
The junior high school movement in the United States traces its history back to 1872 when the Kalamazoo Decision by the Michigan State Supreme Court first mandated tax-supported secondary education. (5) Secondary education evolved unevenly over the next twenty years, with inconsistent requirements among school systems. In the early 1890s, the National Education Association (NEA) Committee of Ten recommended standardization of the high school curriculum to prepare students for college entrance, and high school evolved into a six-year program. …


Society and Musical Development
Another Pandora Paradox
by Edwin E. Gordon
2010 GIA Publications, Inc.
What is the paradox of music in our society?
As renowned educator Edwin E. Gordon writes, "Music is considered a special mark of humanity." Indeed, our ability to make music helps to define what it is to be human.
Yet the study of how we acquire musical skills, and the emphasis music has in our schools, is often given short shrift. Why?
In this remarkable book, Dr. Gordon imagines conversations about music and music learning from the perspective of composers and conductors, professors and deans, school music teachers...even the parent and the bureaucrat.
In Dr. Gordon's view, everyone in our society has a role to play in the value we give music and musicianship. And yet as central as music is, the best of intentions sometimes result in the de-emphasis of music in our schools—another paradox.
This illuminating book is a great step forward in understanding our own roles in the great paradoxes of music and music education. And only through understanding these roles can we hope to change society...and ourselves.
Edwin E. Gordon is widely known as a researcher, teacher, author, editor, and lecturer. He and his work have been portrayed nationally on the NBC Today Show, in the New York Times, and in USA Today. Through extensive research, Professor Gordon has made major contributions in the study of music aptitudes, audiation, Music Learning Theory, tonal and rhythm patterns, and music development in infants and very young children.
Number of Pages : 168
Item #: G-7848
Price : $15.95
Please share Society and Musical Development with your Facebook friends.


Free Lesson Plan Download: Silly Line People
Level: K-2 Art Education Lesson Plan
Art Elements: Line
Art Skills: Drawing
Art History: Abstract Art
* Get more free lessons like this, on our Lessons Page
This is a great, one day lesson to introduce your kindergartners to the idea of line, or to review line with your older elementary students. You can keep it simple and introduce the idea of a portrait or connect it to the idea of abstract art. You may even want to look at some Picasso for inspiration! I find that starting with the whole group at the board and letting students come up and draw different kinds of lines is a great way to engage them from the beginning. Who doesn’t love to draw on the board!? As a bonus, your brainstorming can serve as a reference for students all class period long. This would also be a wonderful lesson to leave for a sub.


Fine motor skills are skills completed using the small muscles of the body. This includes those in the hand, mouth, and eyes. Most often, fine motor skills refer to those activities completed with hands and fingers, such as stringing beads, buttoning, holding a pencil, and tying shoes. Fine motor skill development begins at an early age. As a child develops strength and body awareness, the fine motor control becomes more refined. A child must have good strength and stability in his postural muscles and shoulder muscles in order to have mature, refined fine motor control. Additionally, for good fine motor control, a child must have efficient sensory processing in the proprioceptive and tactile sensory systems. These systems enable a child to use his muscles efficiently to complete fine motor tasks.
A child must know how and when to move his muscles in order to complete tasks. He also must have good awareness of touch in his hands to manipulate small objects. To create a similar experience to that of a child lacking fine motor skills, try to button small buttons while wearing gloves. Wearing gloves decreases your tactile awareness, which is needed for good fine motor control. This will decrease your ability to perform this basic task.
At Leaps and Bounds, when children exhibit poor fine motor skills, therapists assess the child to determine which foundational skills need support. It may be core/postural muscle strength, shoulder stability, finger and hand strength, tactile processing, or proprioceptive processing. Most often, there are several foundational skills that need to be addressed to improve fine motor skill development.


The Creation of Safe Spaces Through Art Education
Expression of any kind begins with an impulse. Impulses that have been nurtured within safe spaces flow with greater freedom. Those impulses that were squelched by unsafe spaces have difficulty finding expression. Today, we are increasingly aware of the need to find creative solutions to the difficult problems and various threats we face. Therefore, it is increasingly important to create and nurture safe spaces for the creative impulses to emerge and thrive. Mark and Humberto do this through the art of theatre. The original definition of the word “theatre” comes from the Greek, theatron, which means: the listening place. The listening place is not just a place of listening, but it is also a place of telling. Artists & educators make great partners in the search to create safe spaces. By applying a few of the tools handed down and refined by Humberto & Mark, participants can learn how to create the atmosphere and circumstances that give students and practitioners the courage to create.
- What is the process of creating safe spaces for dialogue, for learning, for failing, for excelling, for leading, for following, for questioning, for building trust in self, others, the world?
- How does the creative path parallel the “hero’s journey” depicted in stories and myths across the world?
- What do we know about the unknown?
- What are the questions we most deeply want to ask and how can Arts Education facilitate that inquiry?
- In what ways can Arts Education contribute to a sustainable trajectory for our species in the 21st century?
Humberto Perez Revolution Arte Productions
Show me another


© 2004 – Routledge
This volume--along with its companion Ethnolinguistic Chicago: Language and Literacy in the City's Neighborhoods--fills an important gap in research on Chicago and, more generally, on language use in globalized metropolitan areas. Often cited as a quintessential American city, Chicago is, and always has been, a city of immigrants. It is one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the United States and home to one of the largest and most diverse Latino communities. Although language is unquestionably central to social identity, and Chicago has been well studied by scholars interested in ethnicity, until now no one has focused--as do the contributors to these volumes--on the related issues of language and ethnicity.
Latino Language and Literacy in Ethnolinguistic Chicago includes:
*ethnographic studies based in home settings that focus on ways of speaking and literacy practices;
*studies that explore oral language use and literacy practices in school contexts; and
*studies based in community spaces in various neighborhoods.
It offers a rich set of portraits emphasizing language use as centrally related to ethnic, class, or gender identities. As such, it is relevant for anthropologists, sociologists, linguists, historians, educators and educational researchers, and others whose concerns require an understanding of "ground-level" phenomena relevant to contemporary social issues, and as a text for courses in these areas.
"Data is presented and analyzed clearly in each chapter, to such a degree that even those who are not versed in the fields of literacy studies, sociolinguistics, etc., can follow the argument and assess the findings. The clarity of the writing makes this book applicable for libraries whose clients include educators, including ESL teachers, school administrators, and social scientists. Recommended."
"Very timely and interesting…..Latino Language and Literacy in Ethnolinguistic Chicago is an excellent contribution to the published research literature on language socialization and language and literacy development and practices in the largest of U.S. language-minority groups….Unique in its focus on diverse language and literacy practices in a single city, it provides a model for the kind of in-depth research we need on Latino and other language minority communities…a guide to the richness of the field and to the kind of work that might be done in other cities."
University of Texas at San Antonio
Contents: Preface. Part I: Introduction. M. Farr, E. Dominguez Barajas, Latinos and Diversity in Global Context: Identities and Language Use at Home, School, Church, and Work. Part II: Within the Family Circle. M. Farr, ¡A Mí No Me Manda Nadie! Individualism and Identity in Mexican Ranchero Speech. E. Dominguez Barajas, "Como Dice El Dicho": Social and Cognitive Aspects of Proverb Use Among Mexicanos in Chicago and Mexico. T. DelValle, "Successful" and "Unsuccessful" Literacies in Puerto Rican Families in Chicago. Part III: At School. I. Olmedo, The "Bilingual Echo": Bilingual Children as Language Mediators in a Dual Language School. K. Potowski, Latino Children's Classroom Language Use: The Role of Identity Investments. J. Cohen, Global Links From the Post-Industrial Heartland: Language, Internet Use, and Identity Development Among Second-Generation Mexican High School Girls on Chicago's Southeast Side. M. Spicer-Escalante, Writing in Two Languages/Living in Two Worlds: A Rhetorical Analysis of Mexican American Written Discourse. Part IV: Within Community Spaces. J. Hurtig, Storytelling, or the Cultural Construction of Writers in a Mexican Immigrant Neighborhood. A.U. Colomb, Native Language Literacy: Readings With Mexican Immigrant Mothers: Expanding Our Horizons by Expanding Theirs. M. Farr, Literacy and Religion: Reading, Writing, and Gender Among Mexican Women in Chicago. R. Gelb, The Magic of Verbal Art: Juanita's Santeria Initiation. J.W. Herrick, What Does It Mean to Speak the Same Language? Variability Within Mexican Identity in the Multi-Ethnic Workspace. R. Cintron, Afterword.


The Tonette is a small, end-blown flute made of plastic, which was once popular in American elementary music education. Though the Tonette has been superseded by the recorder in many areas, due to their price, durability and simplicity, plastic Tonettes are still in use in elementary schools around the nation. The range of the Tonette is from C5 (C above middle C) to D6, although sheet music is notated one octave lower. Similar instruments are the Song Flute, Flutophone, and Precorder.
The Tonette was introduced in 1938. Designed as a pre-band instrument, the tonette was nearly unbreakable, chromatic, and tunable. It was easy to blow and the fingering was simple. By 1941 over half of the grammar schools (equivalent to UK primary school, not UK grammar school) in the United States had adopted the Tonette as standard pre-band equipment. The Tonette's pleasant flute-like sound was also used for special novelty effects in radio, television and film.
In World War II the armed services found the Tonette to be an inexpensive and entertaining way for idle troops to pass the time.
|This article relating to musical instruments is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|


Nursery rhymes are a classic memory from everyones childhood, and these simple songs can benefit students in many different ways. They can teach core early literacy skills such as rhyming, spelling, phonetic awareness and word recognition. They can also teach students to sing in rhythm, hand co-ordination with matching actions, and confidence to perform in front of others.
A new app from ABC Reading Eggs, Eggy Nursery Rhymes, uses traditional nursery rhymes to complement interactive literacy games. The app includes ten different nursery rhymes (including Baa Baa Black Sheep, Hey Diddle Diddle, Humpty Dumpty, and my favorite, Incy Wincy Spider), and for each rhyme there are five individual activities. Some of the activities focus on interacting with the song itself, and others help build reading skills. The activities include:
- Sing Along – The simplest of all the games involves singing along to the nursery rhyme with a bouncy ball (like karaoke). This is a effective way of teaching young children what words look like, and how words are sounds relate to each other. The activity also demonstrates word spacing and direction, which are fundamental literacy skills. The songs are complemented with colorful animations and each time the song is finished, the player is reinforced with applause.
- Make Your Own – This activity allows players to interact with the nursery rhyme screen. They can create their own animation to go with the song by dragging and dropping pictures from the edge of the screen. This is a useful task for teaching sequencing and comprehension skills.
- Find the Word – Another simple but effective interactive literacy game involves players selecting the egg with a matching word. It is a good method of teaching word recognition skills.
- Starts With – We particularly liked this activity which builds phonetic awareness and alphabetical ordering skills. Players have to focus on the first sound of each word, and find the letter through a letter wheel that makes the sound.
- Make the Word – A age old favorite of unjumbling letters to create a word that teaches word formation, spelling and letter recognition.
The app motivates players to continue playing by giving them eggy rewards to collect for their efforts. These then hatch into cute creatures. The screens and graphics that show the nursery rhymes are colorfully designed, and the music is catchy and clear. A nice feature the app uses is having the nursery rhymes in three different accents, UK, Australian and US.
We found that this app had more features and educational benefits that many similar apps of this type. A good deal of effort has been made by the developers to make the app long lasting and progressive. With so many songs and activities, the app can be replayed countless times, and players can build up their literacy skills over time by moving through the five different activities. This app is well worth the small cost not only because of its numerous activities and content, but also because of its understanding of how young minds progress. Its features support literacy development over time, and we would recommend this app for any parent or pre-school teachers app library.
Download the app here for £1.99.