So You Want to Do a Project about Sky Measurement!
To use your hands to measure sky distances.
- Your hands
- Stand outdoors in a clear area so that the horizon, where the sky appears to touch Earth, is visible.
- Measure the distance from the point directly overhead to the horizon. Do this using the following steps:
- Make a fist with one hand and hold this hand at arm's length over your head.
- Make a fist with your other hand and put this fist under the first as shown.
- Keeping your arms extended, lower your fists to the horizon by moving one fist under the other, counting each one until the bottom of one fist appears to touch the horizon. How many fists did you use?
Nine fists are generally needed to make the measurement.
You used your hands to measure the angular distance from the zenith (the point directly overhead) to the horizon (an imaginary line where the sky seems to meet Earth). Angular distance is the apparent or observed distance between distant objects, usually measured in degrees. For measuring angular distances in the sky, the width of a person's fist held at arm's length measures about 10°. A person with longer arms generally has wider hands, so generally everyone's fist measures an angular distance of 10°. Thus, a measurement of nine fists from the zenith to the horizon is an angular measurement of 90°.
For Further Investigation
Other parts of the hand can be used to measure larger or smaller angular distances, such as distances between stars. Do the distances between stars in a constellation (a group of stars that form a pattern in the sky) change? A project question might be, How do the distances between the stars in the Big Dipper (part of the Ursa Major Constellation) compare from one hour to the next during the night?
Clues for Your Investigation
- On a clear, moonless night, and as early in the evening as possible, use the hand measurements shown here to measure the angular distance between the end stars of the Big Dipper or between any two stars. Decide on a consistent method of measuring. For example, you may wish to measure the distance between the centers of the stars, as shown here.
- Repeat the measurement every hour for 3 or more hours.
- For the most accurate results, make four or more measurements, recording them in an Angular Distance Data table like the one shown. Average the measurements for each observation time and compare them.
- You may wish to make a drawing indicating the stars and hand measurements used, similar to the figure shown for clue 1.
References and Project Books
- Berry, Richard. Discover the Stars. New York: Harmony Books, 1987.
- Couper, Heather, and Nigel Henbest. How the Universe Works. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest, 1994.
- Dickinson, Terence. Exploring the Night Sky. Buffalo, N.Y.: Firefly Books, 1987.
- Estalella, Robert. The Stars. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron's, 1993.
- Rey, H. A The Stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. Ridpath, Ian. Stars and Planets Atlas. New York: Facts on File, 1997.
- VanCleave, Janice. Janice VanCleave's Constellations for Every Kid. New York: Wiley, 1997.
- janice VanCleave's Solar System. New York: Wiley, 2000.
- Wood, Robert W. Science for Kids: 39 Easy Astronomy Experiments. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Tab Books, 1991.
Warning is hereby given that not all Project Ideas are appropriate for all individuals or in all circumstances. Implementation of any Science Project Idea should be undertaken only in appropriate settings and with appropriate parental or other supervision. Reading and following the safety precautions of all materials used in a project is the sole responsibility of each individual. For further information, consult your state’s handbook of Science Safety.


The art of teaching requires many careful balancing acts, and implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for literacy offers an opportunity for one more. We’ve heard a lot about the CCSS’ focus on complex texts; however, this doesn’t mean texts matched to students’reading levels aren’t still important. It takes both to build competent and fluent readers.
Elementary classrooms and libraries across the country are filled with leveled readers, or books categorized into reading levels. During literacy blocks, many teachers carefully and systematically ensure that each student is assigned to a reading group or given a selection of texts for independent reading based on his or her assessed reading level. This is common practice in reading instruction and is, in fact, the centerpiece of popular curricula such as Lucy Calkins’ Reading and Writing Project.
On the other hand, Reading Standard 10, which underlies all of the reading comprehension standards in the Common Core, expresses an expectation that all students comprehend complex texts on a continuum that leads to college readiness by the end of high school. This expectation certainly is a shift—not because college readiness and reading comprehension weren’t previously our goals, but because many of us thought that we could achieve higher student reading comprehension scores solely by enticing students to read more.
In my own teaching practice, I felt that if I coaxed a non-reader to pick up a magazine or graphic novel or just about anything, I was succeeding. I tried to get them to fall in love with reading and learning by allowing them time to read whatever they wanted. I still believe offering such choices is important, but I have now come to understand that a balance is needed.
The Common Core’s Publishers Criteria states that scaffolding reading instruction should not include using easier versions of the same text (pp. 8–9), but rather teachers should model reading strategies and provide other supports, like guided questioning and vocabulary development, when students struggle. However, the CCSS also state in the K–5 domain for Reading Foundational Skills that students need to build fluency—which comes as they read self-selected texts and texts matched to their level.
Research doesn’t offer much clarity on the effectiveness of either. In a recent blog, Timothy Shanahan, a literacy professor and researcher, notes the surprising lack of research proving the effectiveness of using leveled readers: “Research shows that matching kids to books does not guarantee big learning gains. In fact, in the two best and most recent studies on the topic, one study found minor benefits of a good book match on one measure only, and the other study actually found that kids made better progress in the frustration level books!” (For a rebuttal on the research on frustration level books, read this blog by literacy consultants Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris.)
I advocate for the middle ground. We do not need to take all of the choice out of classroom literacy instruction in order to meet the Common Core’s expectation for text complexity, but we do need to deliberately guide student reading so that all students have supported opportunities to engage with rich literature and build complex knowledge with informational texts. Sometimes the best thing to do is not to listen to all the hub-bub about the standards and just read the standards themselves:
Students need opportunities to stretch their reading abilities but also to experience the satisfaction and pleasure of easy, fluent reading within them, both of which the Standards allow for (The Common Core State Standards, Appendix A, p. 9).
A former English language arts teacher, Susan Ryan is a standards consultant at McREL and co-author of Common Core quick-start guides published by ASCD on English language arts and mathematics standards at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.


Editor’s note: CEI’s Myron Ebell is at the 19th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Warsaw, Poland. Below is his first report.
Tuesday was one of the special theme days at COP-19 in Warsaw. It was Gender Day. I couldn’t go to many of the gender-related events because there were several important sessions that were part of the official negotiating process that I wanted to attend, but I was able to attend the high-level event organized by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The UNFCCC has adopted several resolutions on gender equality and women’s participation beginning in 2001. Last year at COP-18 in Doha, Qatar, they committed to gender balance in the Secretariat and member delegations.
The gender event on Tuesday was moderated by the executive director of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres. She began by saying that we should keep our feet on the ground but raise our eyes to the stars. She asked the speakers to tell the audience (of several hundred people) what their dreams were and to talk from their hearts and souls rather than their minds.
Bianca Jagger’s remarks were low key and modest. She said that her dream was ending violence against women. Lakshmi Puri, deputy director of UN Women, said that women were more adversely affected by climate change, but could do more to stop it than men. Helen Clark, the head of the UN Development Programme and former prime minister of New Zealand, seconded that and said that the climate justice agenda included universal access to sustainable energy.
Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and former UN high commissioner on human rights, noted that there were more than a billion people without access to electricity and more than two billion whose meals were cooked, usually by women, on open fires. She somehow thought that “doing the right thing on climate” will somehow relieve this widespread energy poverty by creating a more just world with less inequality. She added that fossil fuels are a stranded asset as people have come to realize that, “like asbestos, they are too dangerous to use.”
Tara Holonen, the former president of Finland, introduced the new Environment and Gender Index. It ranks 72 nations according to six performance categories. The gender equality measurements don’t seem to have any connection to the environmental quality measurements, so the index makes little sense. The index was produced by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which was once a respectable science and conservation group. The IUCN now describes itself as “a leader on gender issues in the environmental arena.” (www.EnvironmentGenderIndex.org)
A young Australian climate activist was invited from the audience to join the panel when one of the speakers was unable to attend. She said that the sole reason she fights for climate justice is to improve the lot of poor women in the developing world.
The highlight of this gender event, which was only one among many held on this special Gender Day, was the singing of a song composed especially for the event. It was sung magnificently by Elizabeth Njorge, who heads a foundation in Kenya that is dedicated to bringing art and music education to some of the poorest children in Kenya. Titled Vision 50/50, the song’s chorus reads: “We have a dream, a dream of hopes to turn a page that marks a golden age, A greener course, a greener course for planet Earth.” Note that the lyricist refrained from calling it Mother Earth, although the word “sustainable” is used in one of the verses.


How to Become a Bank Teller in 5 Steps
Learn about the day-to-day responsibilities of a bank teller, and see what education and training are required to work in this profession. Get information on professional certification and learn what you can do to advance in your career. Schools offering Accounting & Finance degrees can also be found in these popular choices.
What is a Bank Teller?
A bank teller is an entry-level clerk who conducts routine cash transactions face-to-face with a bank's depositors and customers. The transactions you handle include deposits, withdrawals, loan payments and check cashing.
Your specific duties include verifying signatures, dates and numerical amounts on checks, as well as account solvency before processing withdrawals. Other duties generally include entering transaction information, filing checks and deposit slips, balancing cash deposits and sorting disbursements.
Step 1: Earn a High School Diploma
A high school diploma or GED is typically enough education for you to become a teller. O*Net OnLine reported in 2011 that around 83% of tellers had a diploma or the equivalent (www.onetonline.org). Math courses can develop your numeracy skills, which are relevant for tellers. Classes in accounting can also help you if your school offers them.
Step 2: Consider Formal Training
Completing a teller certificate program could potentially improve your job prospects. About 17% of tellers have some college education, according to O*Net. Program courses prepare for your duties by covering topics such as business math, banking fundamentals, money handling procedures and customer interaction.
Step 3: Obtain a Job
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicted that tellers would see an employment growth rate of six percent between 2008 and 2018 (www.bls.gov). The BLS noted that factors for this growth might include banks maintaining longer bank hours, as well as the establishment of branches in grocery stores and other non-traditional locations. The average annual salary for tellers was $24,980 in May 2010, according to the BLS.
Step 4: Consider Certification
Although certification is voluntary, by obtaining the Certified Bank Teller (CBT) credential from the American Bankers Association (ABA) you can demonstrate your competence to your current employer or future employers (www.aba.com). Consisting of 75 multiple-choice questions, the CBT exam tests your knowledge of banking fundamentals, teller duties and customer service. To be eligible you need six months of experience and a letter of recommendation from a senior manager.
Step 5: Advance Your Career
You could try to advance by rising through the ranks with your present employer or by pursuing higher positions with other banks. With enough experience you could become the head teller. Completing an in-house training program could open the way to a position as a loan processing clerk or bill and accounts collector. Finally, you could become a manager or supervisor of administrative support workers.
To continue researching, browse degree options below for course curriculum, prerequisites and financial aid information. Or, learn more about the subject by reading the related articles below:


Purpose of collection:
The collection must support geography courses with atlases, books, and online databases. Current atlases, and selected bibliographies are non-circulating in the Reference area. Other print materials are in the circulating collection.
User population including curricular and program needs:
There are two faculty teaching Geography courses. A degree is not offered, but students in the Social Studies may minor in geography by completing 15 hours of geography coursework. Elementary education students are required to complete one course while secondary education students, with an emphasis in social studies, are required to complete two courses.
Geography courses often cross disciplines in the requirement for library resources. As an example, World geography requires library resources for economics, history, science, applied science, political science, sociology, religion, and computer applications.
There are 23 undergraduate courses. (One 100, one 200, twelve 300 and nine 500 level)
There are 6 seminar courses (five 700 level and one 800 level) available to those doing Master's Degrees in other subject areas.
At one time the University offered both an MA and BA in geography, so the collection was built up to support the program. Selection of material, albeit that the amount of funding has decreased, has continued for this area. The 2002-2003 acquisition is $1,000. The 2001-2002, one of the two geography faculty members received funds from the Major Fund for the purchase of personal research materials to add to the collection. The addition of online databases, such as, Expanded Academic, InfoTrac and JSTOR has greatly increased the Library's ability to support of the geography.
Strength is the atlases, periodicals and monographs for geography and related fields. Weakness is the inability to fund all the library monograph resources required to support the diverse academic reach of geography
Specific selection guides
Geography journals may be consulted for books.
Publishers to be aware of for this subject
Walter de Gruyter.
University Presses. An example is the University of Texas Press which distributes their own catalog, titled 'Geography and Environmental History.'


The Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC) has released a cyberbullying study about elementary school students that calls for a change in the way states, districts and schools address online bullying and its prevention.
According to Anne Collier of The Christian Science Monitor, the study is one of the first to research elementary school-aged youth. Collier said she believes that study’s results demonstrate the need for social-emotional learning and media literacy education starting in even lower grades.
The MARC surveyed more than 11,700 students in third-, fourth- and fifth-graders in a variety of schools in New England between January 2010 and September 2012.
Most elementary cyberbullying occurred in online games. Over 90% of third graders reported playing interactive games online, while just 35% of subjects reported owning a cellphone — the device most widely-considered to be a major source of digital bullying. Children at the highest risk for repeatedly cyberbullying others were the most likely to report problems on Facebook, email, or through text messaging.
Cyber education needs to begin well before middle school as students begin using a range of mobile and online devices, according to the study.
MARC suggested that elementary cyberbullying education should probably include lessons relevant to online game-playing dynamics. Also, when a child aged 8 to 11 reports a problem on Facebook, email, or messaging, that should be regarded as a possible warning sign of higher-risk online involvement, MARC said.
Data shows that Facebook use is increasing among elementary school-aged students. The use of Facebook increased among third, fourth, and fifth graders between 2010-2012 especially among girls, according to the study. In 2010, 19% of girls were using Facebook and now this number rose to 49% in 2012.
According to MARC, cell phone ownership increased in every grade. Among fourth graders, 26% owned cell phones in 2012 and increased to 35% in 2012. The study found that 52% of fifth graders and 22% of third graders reported owning cell phones by 2012.
In every grade, smartphone ownership increased and non-smartphone ownership decreased between 2010 and 2012.
Owning a smartphone was a significant risk factor for both being a cyberbully and being a cyberbullying victim. 12% of fifth grade non-owners, and 18% of smartphone owners, admitted being a cyberbully. Similarly, 12% of fifth grade non-owners, and 34% of smartphone owners, reported being a cyberbullying victim. Similar numbers were found for third and fourth graders.
MARC suggested that parents who are considering buying their elementary-aged child a smartphone should be educated in both the benefits and the risks associated with children’s usage.
According to the study, traditional in-school bullying and cyberbullying both increased across the three years. Being a victim actually decreased from third to fifth grade., but the percentage of children who both bully and are victims increased from 15% in third grade to 21% in grade fifth, MARC found.
According to the study, cyberbullying education seems to be having a positive impact in Massachusetts. The study found that the proportion of children who could not define cyberbullying declined from 24% in 2010 to 10% in 2012.
Non-bullies were more likely than bullies to report that their class had been offered education about bullying and cyberbullying (especially among fifth graders). Children who were repeatedly mean online reported the lowest level of education.
MARC suggested that elementary education and awareness about cyberbullying is necessary for school safety and that it can be implemented successfully.


The Philharmonic Orchestra of England has a fabulous music education web site. One of my favorite pages is one called Discover the instruments. If you follow this link, you can access a page on each instrument of the orchestra. Each page has about six videos about that instrument, including videos on instrument construction, performance techniques and repertoire.
For example, on the double bass page, there is video called range which explains the “extension” on a double bass that lowers the lowest string four additional half-steps.
Check it out!
P.S. Listen to the Symphony today (Sunday, August 5) at 2 p.m. in the next in a series of 10 concerts on KPAC 88.3FM. Today’s concert features Ken-David Masur, conductor and Nancy Zhou, violin.
For more blogs by Jack Fishman visit: www.sasymphony.org/blog


Day of the Dead Skulls: Free Lesson Plan Download
Grade Level: 3-5 Art Education Lesson Plan
Art Elements: Line, Shape, Form
Art Skills: Drawing, Clay Construction
Making Connections: Day of the Dead, Social Studies, Spanish
* Get more free lessons like this, on our Lessons Page
The colorful nature of Day of the Dead makes it a great holiday to learn about in the art room. If you have students that study Mexico in Social Studies or in Spanish Class, this lesson is a natural cross-curricular fit. I like that the silly and beautiful skulls seen during Day of the Dead immediately engage students and that because of their interest, they work extremely hard to create their own unique designs. You can create skull tracers to complete this project in a scale that works for you. I generally use a skull shape about eight inches tall.


Evaluating music teachers
As New York City revamps the way it evaluates the work done by public school teachers, staff who teach in areas without an annual standardized test are wondering what sorts of criteria will determine into which of the four categories they may fall — highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective. They may also ask themselves about the training and expertise of the supervisor who makes that determination.
Self-assessments may not have a the same value as students’ scores on a standardized test, but for a classroom music teacher, this kind of systematic evaluation (along with peer observations) can make a powerful difference in students’ success.
“Evaluating teacher effectiveness in music” is a short article from the Spring 2008 issue ofÂ American Music Teacher, and while it’s written largely from the perspective of private instructors, it contains valuable ideas on different methods and problems of self-evaluation.
The author, Kathleen S. McAllister, is a professor of piano and piano pedogogy at Baylor University in Texas. She argues that watching video of one’s own teaching is essential to any serious self-evaluation. Even a simple audio recording for later review can provide tremendous insight into the “the gap between how we think we are teaching and our actual behavior during lessons.”
Another resource is Music Teacher Self-Assessment: A Diagnostic Tool for Professional Development available from Edwin Gordon‘s GIA Publications. Authors James Froseth and Molly Weaver include a DVD that lets users examine behaviors in a teaching sample before creating their own assessment videos.
The GIA book is an outcome of a collaboration between the University of Michigan and the Flint, Michigan Community Schools during the 1991-1992 school year, part of their national music education research project.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in (a) social communication and (b) restricted and/or repetitive behaviors or interests that varies in severity of symptoms, age of onset, and association with other disorders. Although motor impairment is not a part of the diagnostic criteria for ASD, research suggest that many children with ASD experience delays in motor development. Gross motor skills are fundamental skills necessary for movement competence and considered the basic building blocks for more complex motor skill development. When present, gross motor problems may interfere with performance in many developmental and functional domains across home and school contexts. Consequently, researchers are increasingly considering the importance of motor function in the assessment and treatment of children with ASD.
A study published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior focused on assessing the gross motor skill performance of 21 children with ASD (M=7.57 years) and 21 age matched typically developing children (M=7.38 years) using the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 (TGMD-2). The TGMD-2 is a norm and criterion-referenced test that measures performance of 12 gross motor skills. Scores are recorded on two subtests, locomotor subtest (run, gallop, hop, leap, jump, and slide) and object-control subtest (strike, dribble, catch, kick, throw, and roll), An overall gross motor quotient score (combination of all 12 gross motor skills) can also obtained. Scores are described as very superior, superior, above average, average, below average, poor, and very poor. The researchers hypothesized that children with ASD would show motor delays in overall gross motor quotient scores, and locomotor and object control standard scores when compared to their age matched typically developing children as measured with TGMD-2.
Statistical analysis revealed a significant performance difference between children with ASD and typically developing children on the TGMD-2. For the locomotor subtest, 67% children with ASD received poor standard scores and 40% of scores were very poor. Approximately 60% children with ASD had poor standard scores and 33% of scores were very poor on object control skills. For overall gross motor quotient scores, 81% children with ASD were below 79 and classified as poor, and approximately 76% children scored below 70 and received very poor ratings. Children scoring at or below the 30th percentile were considered developmentally delayed as indicated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Based on this criterion, 91% of children with ASD in the current study were considered developmentally delayed in terms of their gross motor skill performance and in need of early supportive interventions. In contrast, the majority of typically developing children’s standard scores (96%) fell in the average or higher range
According to the authors, the results of this study have several important implications for educators, therapists, and practitioners and the design of effective early intervention programs for children with ASD. For example, locomotion and object control skills are fundamental motor skills in which children interact with their environment and other children. Developing a therapeutic intervention that includes these gross motor skills may have a positive effect on children’s cognitive functioning, language development, social communicative skills, and contribute positively to daily life skills. Consequently, it is vital that we understand the gross motor performance of children with ASD. Finally, the significance of motor proficiency for children with ASD should not be overlooked in assessment practice. Clinicians and practitioners should give increased attention to the assessment of motor skills and their impact on the adaptive behavior and well-being of children with ASD. A comprehensive discussion of assessment domains (e.g. communication, social, motor, sensory, academic) can be found in A Best Practice Guide to Assessment and Intervention for Autism and Asperger Syndrome in Schools.
Liu T, Hamilton M, Davis L, ElGarhy S (2014) Gross Motor Performance by Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developing Children on TGMD-2. J Child Adolesc Behav 2: 123. doi:10.4172/jcalb.1000123
Lee A. Wilkinson, PhD, CCBT, NCSP is author of the award-winning book, A Best Practice Guide to Assessment and Intervention for Autism and Asperger Syndrome in Schools, published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. He is also editor of a new Volume in the APA School Psychology Book Series, Autism Spectrum Disorder in Children and Adolescents: Evidence-Based Assessment and Intervention in Schools.
If you enjoy reading my articles, you can click on "subscribe" at the top of the page to receive notice when new ones are published. You can also follow me at http://bestpracticeautism.com.


The Fine Arts
The Fine Arts (music and theater) provide a powerful form of expression for the human spirit which brings great rewards to every person's life. The unique combination of intellect, artistry, and feeling required for artistic expression distinguish it from other human endeavors, and rank the arts among the highest of cultural accomplishments. Music and theater have been an important part of education since at least the time of ancient Greece, and they continue to be central subjects in school curricula. In many countries, the compelling need for music in schools, as in life, is widely recognized. At Rumsey Hall, we recognize that need and endeavor to create an atmosphere where music and theater are available to every student regardless of their level of experience or talent.
In the Upper School classes are offered at every grade level in both music and theater; two theatrical performances, five musical concerts and AirBand are produced every year. The finale for the year is Rumsey's annual Talent Show where students and faculty come together to create an evening of comedy, skits, dance, and music. It is one of the highlights of the year, giving our Seniors a final opportunity to be on stage before saying goodbye at graduation.
Creativity forms the basis and emphasis of the visual art program at Rumsey Hall
School. In reflection of the School’s mission, the Art department values Effort
as well as technical skill.In an effort to educate the “whole child” the Art
department strives to balance the development of creativity with basic
instruction in principles of design. The art course offerings stress discovery
and self-expression though media including: painting, drawing, printmaking,
clay and multi-media three-dimensional construction. The art room is open to
students during the academic day and two evening each week. Interdisciplinary
projects are coordinated with the academic disciplines. Student art work is
displayed throughout campus, themed exhibits are on view in the Finkelson
Gallery. Students also have the opportunity to visit local art galleries and
art museums in Manhattan.
Lower School Music
The Lower School Music Program at Rumsey Hall School infuses each child with a well rounded and practical grounding in music literacy, appreciation, and performance, through adherence to the MENC National Standards for Music Education. Based on the Kodaly methods of teaching, where music is seen as a necessary part of a child's development, the program immerses each student fully in their musical experience to become musically literate and confident in their performance skills by the time they leave Lower School. The Lower Schoolers have ample opportunity to explore their musical talents through their daily classes and Rumsey's Afternoon Enrichment Program. Some of the musical offerings provided include musical theatre productions, handbell choir, recorder class, African drumming, Little Clef Club, and karaoke. Each Spring Term, Form III (Grade 5) writes,composes, and produces their own musical theatre production which is performed In the Maxwell A. Sarofim '05 Performing Arts Center (The MAX). The Lower School also has their very special Winter Concert and Grandparents' Day concerts when they showcase their talents. Each year the Lower School improves and expands their music program, as they prepare to matriculate into the Upper School music program.


The Fargo Air Museum will host a NASA workshop for participating educators to gain a perspective on
the role of the international space station as one of mankind’s most exciting and challenging endeavors.
The teachers will leave with a 3-2-1 Lift Off teachers guide emphasis on hands-on involvement, data
collection, observation, exploration, prediction, interpretation, problem-solving and development of
The purpose of this workshop is to provide awareness of NASA educational resources and
how to access them online. Participating educators in Elementary Education will be introduced to the
International Space Station and the role rockets play in its construction. The workshop uses these topics
as the basis for interdisciplinary activities for the early learner. The activities integrate mathematics,
technology, and English language arts skills.
Susan Kohler has more than 20 years of progressively responsible K-12 educational leadership
experience. She has served as an Assistant Principal, Principal, Curriculum Director, Math/Science
Consultant and Director of Educational Outcomes. She currently works for NASA and The Pennsylvania
State University as the Aerospace Education Service Project education specialist for Glenn Research
Center in Cleveland Ohio.
The Fargo Air Museum is one the region’s unique educational treasures. The museum’s
mission is to provide education through restoration and preservation. Take a mini-school tour while
you are here and learn more about our “hands on” military history, aviation and science & technology
school tour options available throughout the year.


Band For Today has been providing area schools with band and piano programs for twenty five years. Band For Today teachers have instructed more than twenty thousand students during that time. We offer schools a full range of music education services including band lessons, concerts, solo contests, honors ensembles, field trips, and… Click here to continue reading.
Use Your Method Book as A Reference Guide
There is a whole bunch of great information in your method book which you should use as a learning tool.
Here are a couple of main tools:
The Fingering chart
Fingerings for most of the notes you’ll need.
The Play-A-Long CD
Playing along with your CD is one of the best ways to practice.
A Glossary of Musical Terms
A quick way to learn musical terms… Click here to continue reading.
Life Skills Learned in Music
Patricial Shehan Campbell, Claire Connell, and Amy Beegle (2007), “Adolescents’ Expressed Meanings of Music in and out of School,” Journal of Research in Music Education, 55(3), p. 229.
In discussing life benefits of music study, the authors report, “The most heavily reported life preparation skill was self-discipline, with respondents acknowledging that the hard work and dedication that are integral to participation in school music groups teach the… Click here to continue reading.
Overview and History of Piano
The piano is still one of the most diverse instruments today. Technically a percussive instrument, the piano is incredibly melodic and beautiful in sound. An all encompassing instrument that has been a major part of every musical movement since its invention in 1780, new and veteran players alike benefit by being able to accompany themselves in the style of their choosing.
Check out the… Click here to continue reading.


The Early Learning Foundation works with schools, community agencies, and parent organizations to help give every child the opportunity to have a successful early learning experience.
We offer training to support every aspect of early development, including language and literacy, numeracy, sensory-motor skills, behavior and self-regulation. Our publications include best-selling children’s books on bullying and empathy, activity books for math and motor skill development, and professional books to support systems change and building an effective early learning initiative.
We offer long-term training contracts to school districts interested in using a competency based learning model for students in preschool through grade three. The Early Learning Success Initiative is research-proven to dramatically improve student learning outcomes, can be developed for use with any high quality curriculum and instructional materials, and can be used in affluent communities, or with students living in poverty.
Bob Sornson, Ph.D. is the founder of the Early Learning Foundation. He is a best-selling author and international speaker, trainer, and consultant.
As a teacher and school administrator, Bob recognized the importance of early learning success in the development of patterns of learning success which affect students for life. In Northville, MI he developed a model which decreased the need for special education placement and saved millions of dollars each year for the district. After founding the Early Learning Foundation in 2001, he developed a comprehensive early learning success model which includes identifying essential skills in each of the domains of early childhood, systematically measuring progress towards competency, and giving each child the time and instruction to develop essential skills.
The Early Learning Success Initiative begins by identifying essential early learning outcomes in each domain of early childhood. We help teachers learn to systematically measure progress toward these outcomes. We help teachers learn to give each child the time and instruction needed to become fully competent in each crucial outcome. By achieving competency in these skills, students have a real chance to become successful lifelong learners who can learn and compete in the information age.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 66% of American children are scoring below proficient reading levels at the beginning of fourth grade. 83% of children in low-income families (Hernandez, 2011) have reading skills below the proficient level. We are allowing the vast majority of our kids to disengage from learning, which severely diminishes their chances for economic and social success.
One of our sites of practice exemplifies the turn-around that is possible for many schools. Simpson Central School is a rural school in Pinola, MS with approximately 500 students from 20 small surrounding communities. It is a Title I school, with 77% of the students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. In 2008-09 only 24% of students achieved Proficient status in language arts on the MCT2 state standardized test, and only 6% were rated as Advanced. In May of 2012, the first class of students who benefited from the Early Learning Success Initiative at Simpson Central School since Kindergarten took the MCT2 at the end of their third grade year. 53% achieved Proficient status and 29 were rated Advanced. Overall, 82% were proficient or advanced in language arts.
The Early Learning Success Initiative seeks districts, consortia, or foundations with leadership that is ready to redesign the delivery of instruction from curriculum-driven to competency based in the early years of school. We design training to meet the needs of individual organizations, and give a free license to use the Essential Skill Inventories to participating schools.
Preschools and elementary schools are potential users of the very simple methodology used to identify essential early learning outcomes, systematically track progress, and help teachers learn to give each student the time and instruction needed to develop competency in each skill. The Essential Skill Inventory can be used with any high-quality curriculum or instructional materials. Any school that wants to offer instruction that meets the specific needs of each child can benefit from this system of assessment which leads to high quality instruction.
Students who are non-proficient readers and mathematicians at the end of third grade are likely to remain unsuccessful learners for life. By helping most students, from any economic background, become successful in the early years we increase the rates of long-term learning success, decrease rates of criminal and dangerous behaviors, and improve the future for our children and for society. The Early Learning Success Initiative has proven that the cycle of poor performance can be broken. We are dedicated to working with schools and parents so that every child can have the experience of early learning success, which is the necessary foundation for a life of learning and success.


Baby Music: Will Mozart Make Your Baby Smarter?
Filed under: Babies
You've got the car seat installed, the diaper bag packed and the nursery is finally painted and decorated. But have you been busy introducing your baby to classical music?
Studies have found playing your baby music composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may help elevate spatial reasoning during fetal development and in children up to 3 years old. But can showering the womb and your newborn with "Symphony No. 40 in G minor" and "The Magic Flute" really help start your child on a path to genius?
And what about The Beatles? Many consider the Fab Four to be musical geniuses in their own right. Could a serenade of "Blackbird," which incorporates elements of Bach's "Bourree in E minor," have a similar effect?
The so-called Mozart Effect was first conceived at the University of California, Irvine, in 1993 during research on Mozart's effect on college students taking the Stanford-Binet IQ test. Those results showed a temporary improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning by students who listened to Mozart compositions for 10 minutes prior to taking the test. The results sparked a phenomenon of Mozart baby music and government programs designed to expose newborns and infants to classical music.
However, other research, such as a recent University of Vienna study, has concluded that playing your baby music by Mozart, Bach or even Pearl Jam to increase intelligence simply may be a myth.
Yes, some studies have shown increased performance by rats in mazes after listening to a few Mozart sonatas, and plants have behaved differently when exposed to classical and rock music. But babies are neither rats, nor plants.
Parents should be cautious of over-stimulating fetuses and newborns when exposing them to music, some experts warn. Baby development studies have stated that over-stimulation can have a negative effect by interfering with sleep and causing an overabundance of stress hormones in the brain. And, as in most things in life, moderation is recommended.
And, if you like your Beatles and Bach and hope your baby will too, although there is no definitive agreement on the positive aspects of playing your baby music during fetal development, scientists have yet to prove that slipping some headphones on your tummy for some soft in-utero lullabies is damaging.
Experts suggest the best approach may be to just relax and enjoy music as you normally would and let your relaxed state carry over to the baby naturally. Avoiding loud volumes and long listening situations is advised, though.
What seems to be more definitive is an accepted agreement by researchers on the positive effects of music exposure, as it relates to overall brain development. Long-term studies have shown that music education and participation over time have resulted in higher verbal, math, reading and science scores on tests, better overall emotional development and an increased ability in dealing with anxiety issues. Music exposure may even help contribute to your child having a better chance at being accepted into medical school.
Cue "The Marriage of Fiagro." It couldn't hurt.
Ask Us Anything About Parenting
Start by teaching him that it is safe to do so.


- Inducted in 1991
- Design, Education
- Born September 24, 1936
- Died May 16, 1990
Jim Henson brought a fresh new approach to the world of art direction and design, film and television with Sesame Street and the Muppets, and was one of the most important communicators in the last hundred years.
Henson began his television career in 1954 as a puppeteer on a local television show in Washington, DC. The following year, he went on to create Sam and Friends, a nightly five-minute show that won a local Emmy in 1959 and introduced Kermit the Frog.
During the 1960s, Henson and the Muppets made regular guest appearances on The Jimmy Dean Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Steve Allen Show, The Hollywood Palace, and other variety programs. In 1969, Children’s Television Workshop’s new show, Sesame Street, introduced a new cast of Henson’s characters to the nation’s children. Twenty-plus years and many awards later, Sesame Street is now seen in more than 80 countries.
In 1976, Henson introduced The Muppet Show. The show was a phenomenal success, reaching an estimated 235 million viewers each week in more than 100 countries including the Soviet Union. During its five-year run, the show earned three Emmys, a Peabody, a Writers Guild of America award, and numerous other awards and honors. The Muppet Show is now seen domestically on TNT.
Three years later, Henson brought the Muppets to the big screen in the feature film, The Muppet Movie, followed in 1981 by The Great Muppet Caper (Henson’s directorial debut) and in 1984 by The Muppets Take Manhattan. The fantasy films, The Dark Crystal (1982), co-directed with Frank Oz, and Labyrinth (1986) directed by Henson, introduced a host of new characters to the screen. The Witches, a feature film based on the Roald Dahl children’s classic, with Henson as executive producer and Nicholas Roeg directing, was released in 1990 to wide critical acclaim.
That same year, Henson directed a short 3-D film attraction, Jim Henson Presents Muppet Vision 3-D. It is shown 24 times daily in its custom theater at Walt Disney World’s Disney/MGM Studios and has been hailed by many as the finest example of 3-D moviemaking ever produced.
During these years, Henson continued his innovative work in television. His first animated series, Muppet Babies, which won four consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Animated Program 1984-88), will soon begin its eighth season on CBS Television.Muppet Babies is also in domestic syndication and airs internationally in more than 50 countries.
Henson’s award-winning live-action puppet series, Fraggle Rock, HBO’s first original children’s program, is now shown on cable network TNT and broadcast internationally in more than 40 countries including the Soviet Union and Japan. An animated version of Fraggle Rock was telecast on NBC in 1987.
The Storyteller, an Emmy Award-winning contemporary anthology of traditional folktales, starring John Hurt in the title role, premiered on NBC in 1987. The Jim Henson Hour, an innovative family entertainment series, aired on NBC in 1989 to critical acclaim, winning Henson an Emmy for Outstanding Directing.
In 1989, The Ghost of Faffner Hall, a children’s show focusing on music education, was created for HBO. Jim Henson’s Mother Goose Stories brought L. Frank Baum’s Mother Goose in Prose to life for The Disney Channel in 1990. Dinosaurs, a television series originally conceived by Henson, premiered on ABC in 1991.
Henson received a second Peabody Award in 1986 in honor of “30 years of good, clean fun and outstanding family entertainment” and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987. His positive view of life is seen in every aspect of his work. His creativity and imagination enabled him to reach audiences of every age around the globe with entertainment that also conveys inspirational values.
Jim Henson died on May 16, 1990. The worldwide outpouring of love and expressions of the importance of his work since then is a tribute to his magnificent and continuing legacy.Please note: Content of biography is presented here as it was published in 1991.


master ’s degree. Even the best undergraduate or graduate education program cannot fully prepare teachers for the complex process of teaching reading and the diverse needs they will face in their classrooms.
Reading is a complex process and to deal with it, teachers must have a strong background in cognitive behavioral and social sciences as well as in the humanities. Specific pedagogical knowledge and skills must be built from this base. Primary grade teachers must know a great deal about children’s development, how they learn, and what they can do. They must be able to see students’ strengths and weaknesses. They must plan good lessons to help students progress. And they must have a huge array of teaching techniques in their toolboxes in order to meet the vastly different needs of their students. In addition to all this, they must have content knowledge in literature, math, and science.
Teachers need to be knowledgeable about the scientific foundations of reading. Beyond this, a critical component in the preparation of primary grade teachers before they begin their careers is supervised, relevant, field experience in which they receive ongoing guidance and feedback. A principal goal of this experience is to achieve the ability to integrate and apply the knowledge learned in practice. Collaborative support by the teacher preparation institution and the field placement supervising teacher is essential. A critical component for novice teachers is the support of mentor teachers with excellent records of success in teaching reading that results in improved student outcomes.
It is absolutely essential that teachers at all grade levels understand the course of literacy development and the role of instruction in optimizing it. State certification requirements and teacher education curricula should be changed to incorporate this knowledge base, including, at a minimum:
information about language development as it relates to literacy;
information about the relationship between early literacy behavior and conventional reading;
information about the features of an alphabetic writing system and other writing systems;
information about both phonology and morphology in relation to spelling;
information about comprehension and its dependence on other aspects of reading and on language skills;
information about phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, and writing development;
procedures for ongoing, in-class assessment of children’s reading abilities;
information on how to interpret and modify instruction according to norm-referenced and individually referenced assessment outcomes, including both formal and informal in-class assessments and progress-monitoring measures used by specialists;


What strategies and topics of literacy are important to you and your teaching?
Tell us below in the Comments section!
A Look at Reading Research
from NCTE INBOX 6-12-12
In celebration of NCTE's 100th birthday, the editors of Language Arts invited three prominent scholars in the field of literacy, Ken Goodman and Yetta Goodman, from the University of Arizona, and Bess Altwerger, from Towson University, to discuss important issues including the history of reading theory, the evolution of reading, the importance of constructivism, progressive education, and whole language. Read more in their article, "Conversation Currents: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times?" or listen to their podcast (available as a free subscription through iTunes!). Read more about some of the topics and strategies they mention in their interview:
The May 2011 issue of Talking Points has several articles on kidwatching, including "Preservice Teachers as Kidwatchers: Learning to Observe and Document How Children Read" and "Kidwatching with a Critical Eye: The Power of Observation and Reflexive Practice."
The November 2011 issue of Research in the Teaching of English, themed "100 Years of Research," includes the article "Reflections on Making the Progressive Vision a Reality: Commentary on 'A Journey through Nine Decades of NCTE-Published Research in Elementary Literacy.'" In it, the authors reviewed elementary-level research in NCTE's journals. They found both continuities across decades as well as clear and important social and cultural shifts that influenced theory, methods, and practice in the field.
"Remembering Critical Lessons in Early Literacy Research: A Transactional Perspective," an article co-written by Yetta Goodman, synthesizes the vast body of literature about how young children develop literacy and is organized around critical lessons from early literacy research that delineate a transactional perspective on early literacy development.
Jerome Harste in "What Do We Mean by Literacy Now?" shares his thoughts about literacy informed by insights into "multiple literacies" and "literacy as social practice." He states that a good ELA program for the twenty-first century continues to be composed of three components -- meaning-making, language study, and inquiry-based learning.
The authors of "Reframing the Reading Process through EMMA (Eye Movement and Miscue Analysis)" look at EMMA as a way to help preservice and inservice teachers transition from a more traditional view of reading to one of reading as meaning-making.
Sign up now for an RSS feed of each week's INBOX Ideas!


With approximately 473,000 public school students, Kansas has plenty of work to go around for educators. The Sunflower State has seen roughly a $10,000 salary increase for classroom teachers in the last decade alone. Becoming a teacher in Kansas is a process much like those found in other states. For instance, as in other states, a Kansas certified teacher must order, complete, and mail back a fingerprint card, a law that has been in effect since August 2011.
To obtain a Kansas teacher certification, students must complete a teacher preparation program in the area they want to teach. Those interested in teaching pre-K through elementary school, for example, need to complete a program that focuses on elementary education. Future middle and high school teachers, on the other hand, must first receive a degree in the subject matter they wish to teach, like math or science, before completing a teacher preparation program approved by the Kansas State Board of Education.
Kansas Teaching Certification
All Kansas educators need a state-issued certification to teach. To qualify for licensure, Kansas candidates must have a bachelor’s degree, complete an approved teacher preparation program, pass the required tests for their licensure area, and submit all necessary licensure forms and fees. Kansas also offers an alternative teacher certification program called Restricted Teaching License Alternative Pathway, which provides accelerated training to college graduates and professionals seeking a career change.
To obtain an initial teaching license in Kansas, all candidates must complete a content knowledge assessment in each subject or endorsement area you plan to teach, as well as a pedagogy or teaching skills assessment called the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PLT). Kansas educators must receive a passing score from one of the four PLT tests and the content assessment to obtain licensure.
State Certification Reciprocity
All out-of-state applicants who want to teach in Kansas must hold a valid full or standard out-of-state license or certificate and have completed a state-approved teacher preparation program. Licensure to teach in Kansas depends on the applicant’s experience and/or qualifying out-of-state tests. Teachers from all other states will be considered, but additional testing and training may be required beyond a one-year comparable certificate.


Games to support learning. A List of 16 Websites Every Teacher should Know about. As part of their preparation for the new school year teachers try to look for new web resources and materials they can use to help them with their teaching.This is definitely not an easy task for one needs to live online in order to be able to keep up with the new releases and sift through the tsunami of web tools available online.
In this regard, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has recently started posting a series of articles featuring some of the best free web resources for teachers across different educational spectrum. We have already published lists of free websites for teachers of ; Math, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies , Music Education , Economics, and Physical Education and Health, ESOL and today we are going to provide you with another list of great websites where teachers can find lesson plans, teaching tips and many more. Check out the list below and let us know what you think. 4 Great Free Educational Power Point and Slideshow Resources for Teachers to Download. Presentations and slideshows are important elements in the digitisation of your teaching.
Sometimes playing a slideshow for students can do a better job in conveying the ideas you want to communicate to your students. Probably all of you have had an experience with the creation of a presentation somehow Anyway the purposes of this post is not to provide you with a list of the best presentation making tools ( we have already done this in an earlier post ) but share with you some great resources where you can find and download educational PowerPoint presentations to use in your classroom with your students.
Game Templates. 5 Digital Field Trips For Your Class. Field trips allow students to learn while engaging all of their senses.
Although some districts may lack the funding to afford students these valuable educational opportunities, you can bring the field trip to the classroom with modern technology. Here are five virtual field trips that are a must-see for any grade level: 1. Google Earth. SideVibe. Teachers Notebook.
My Standards Alignment | ReadWorks.org. Measuring Learning Outcomes. Educators at colleges and universities use many tools to assess their students’ grasp of academic subjects, including traditional paper-and-pencil quizzes and tests taken in the classroom.
Now a number of computer software and Web-based programs have been added to teachers’ tool kits for evaluating learning outcomes, whether their classes are conducted in person or online. These programs all offer reporting and analytics tools to help educators gauge the status and level of students’ comprehension. Armed with a comprehensive set of data, instructors can modify their teaching to help those students who need assistance to succeed academically. Best Websites for Teaching and Learning. Best Websites for Teaching & Learning honors websites, tools, and resources of exceptional value to inquiry-based teaching and learning as embodied in the American Association of School Librarians' Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.
Best Websites for Teaching & Learning foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. The Landmark Websites are honored due to their exemplary histories of authoritative, dynamic content and curricular relevance. They are free, web-based sites that are user-friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover and provide a foundation to support 21st-century teaching and learning.
Must Have PDF Tools for Educators. I love PDFs and I favour them over the other document formats and I am pretty sure many of you love then too.
There are many things we can do with them apart from just viewing and reading them. Web 2.0 technologies have provided us with some free awesome tools to interact with this document format. Portfoliogen - Free Customized Portfolio. Clipart | Free Icons | IconBug.com.
The Differentiator. Try Respondo!
→ ← Back to Byrdseed.com The Differentiator. 15 Sites for Classroom Management Templates & Forms. Behavior Management Forms- from TeachervisionBookmark Calendar- 2011CalendarsClassroom Helpers- from ABC TeachClassroom Forms- very extensive listing includes passes, lesson plan, parent-teacher conference forms, behavior management formsClassroom Forms for 1st Grade- Mrs.
Perkins' list includes ABC cut-out flash cards, calendars, 100s chartClassroom Management Forms- covers K-12Classroom Organization -templates for kindergarten, including book basket labels, center rules, large center signsClassroom Organizer Templates- miscellaneous items include monthly planning guide, syllabusClassroom Seating Chart- from Microsoft.comClass Set-up Tool- interactive program allows you to design your classroom; from ScholasticEducation World- parent-teacher communicationKeyboard Template- great for tech teachers Microsoft Templates Templates/Resources- covers elementary, middle and high school; nice size list.


Teachers: Kelly Lewis, Justin O'Toole, Becky Weiler
Project Children L.E.A.D. Director: Dr. Vincenne Revilla Beltran
Subject Area: Diversity
Grade level: Preschool (3 and 4 year olds)
Length of Lesson: 45-75 minutes
Early Childhood Learning Continuum Indicators
Reading, Analyzing, and Interpreting Literature
1.3E Re-enact or dramatize stories or parts of stories.
PA Early Learning Standards
2.5 Initiate and responds appropriately in conversation and discussions with adults and children.
Develop Social Interactions
3.11 Show increasing abilities to resolve conflicts with peers.
2.19 T-P-K Children have varied opportunities to learn how to interact with others positively, respectfully, and cooperatively; how to learn from and with one another; and how to resolve conflicts in constructive ways.
High/Scope Key Experiences
Language and Literacy
Initiative and Social
The students will be able to:
Begin to negotiate conflicts by using words.
Participate in a puppet show that dramatizes a story recently read in class.
Respect the feelings and belongings of other children.
MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT:
When I Feel Angry by Cornelia Maude Spelman
The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle
Assorted colors of felt
ADAPTATIONS AND ACCOMODATIONS TO DIFFERENTIATE INSTRUCTION:
Complete the entire lesson with a small group of five to six children. The benefit of small groups is to give individualized instruction to the children. Still continue to ask open-ended questions.
Have all the children gather to a large area.
Ask the students what they should do if they their friend is doing something they don't like.
Discuss that when our friends make us upset or angry we should use our words.
Read When I Feel Angry.
Perform a short skit with puppets, giving the children an example of how to use their words when a conflict arises.
Explain to the children that they will be making puppets and performing their own puppet shows about using their words and not their hands.
Invite the students over to the tables to create their puppets.
After the students are finished with their puppets invite the children to the large area again.
Remind them of how we use our words when we get angry or upset.
Read The Grouchy Ladybug.
Break the children up into groups of four or five children and have a teacher or aide facilitating each group.
Ask the children to think back to The Grouchy Ladybug and have the children perform a puppet skit (with the puppets they made) of the story.
After they perform the skit, ask the children, "What should the grouchy ladybug have said to her friends instead of wanting to fight?"
Have the children carry out the skit as if they were the ladybug using her kind words.
The students will be assessed through observations, anecdotal records, and open-ended questions. The assessment is based upon how the children communicate and interact with each other through the puppet skits. Record the ways they use their words during the puppet skits and how they answered the open-ended questioning.
In their small groups remind children of ways to communicate feelings by using words instead of using physical ways.


This is the time of year many of us will reflect on our lives in terms of family, friends, employment, etc. Perhaps because of all of the tragedies, especially the most recent in Newtown, Connecticut, we as a country need to pay attention to the measures children are taking to resolve their problems.
Having taught Pre-Kindergarten, I witnessed many occasions of seeing how small children handled conflict, isolation, success, as well as failure. It was apparent many times of what kind of problem solving skills were being used in their home environment. Not to say that all children duplicate exactly what they see, but most do. As a parent of a pre-kindergarten student, I am able to see the positive benefits of Early Childhood Education. She is being exposed to sight words for her language/communication development, number recognition for mathematical thinking, and foundational skills for appropriate social and emotional development, to name a few. These skills will be invaluable to not only my child, but all children that have the opportunity to participate. Please visit www.fldoe.org to see what is expected of your child/children because it really has changed since you were in school.
I recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with some colleagues. In the conversation was input from a 30 plus year seasoned teacher, 2 fourth grade teachers, and a first year 5th grade teacher. We all agreed that there is no doubt that we would protect our student’s, even if it were a life or death situation. The issue of appreciation and respect from the public is lack luster at best and we hope that the government, parents, and students begin to understand the sacrifice educators and school staff members make daily. We shared stories of some of our former teachers, both positive and negative and overall there is an appreciation of the past. Taking those experiences we have had, molds what type of educators we have become, but we often wonder if parents of our students do the same.
Reflection and research is an important part of making sound decisions for the future. Let’s take a deeper look on how educational matters are being handled and should be approached for our student’s sake.


Rhythm Band NoteKnacks
- Write a Review
45 day price guarantee, 45 day return policy, 100% secure shopping
Music education system for young children.
Note Knacks are an interactive, hands-on teaching tool that allows children to create their own compositions as early as preschool. Children draw their music on paper, perform their composition and have a visual, self-created manuscript that they can sing or play as often as they wish. Combine your student’s work to create a whole class composition!
NKT - Note Knacks Teacher Set
Music notation manipulatives developed by Kristin Pugliese. Includes 4/4, 3/4, 2/4 time signature frames, 31 note tiles and 25 lesson plans on CD. Explains notes and rests simutaneously through tactile and kinesthetic learning. Ideal for Pre-K - 2.
Kristin Pugliese, the creator of Note Knacks, has been an educator for more than 15 years. She began her career in early childhood education and soon moved into the music classroom. She has worked almost exclusively in Title 1 Schools in various states including Rhode Island, Georgia and Massachusetts. As part of the Music Department Leadership Committee, she helped create music standards for the Cambridge Public Schools System.
She has given workshops to various groups of teachers, including presentations at the Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Florida Music Educator's Conferences. Kristin is passionate about how knowledge is acquired and believes it impacts how children will view learning later in their lives. Following her beliefs, Note Knacks is dedicated to providing music educators with the tools needed to make music more accessible for young children.
- Teach Music Standards while encouraging creativity
- Engage multisensory learning
- Instill meaning behind music notation
- Promote subject integration
- Foster confidence
Give your young students a head start on music understang.


As a child, Natasha Bedingfield went to a small community school in a rough area of East London. Fortunately, she had plenty of access to musical instruments and instruction, and today she’s an international pop star on the verge of releasing her third album.
“You can find trouble everywhere,” she says. “I feel like music was a way that I could channel frustration and energy. I had teachers who made it very accessible. Learning music in school is so important as a life skill. People can be one dimensional if they don’t have music in their lives.”
Indeed, numerous studies have shown that music education offers a bevy of benefits even for children who don’t grow up to be Natasha Bedingfield. The College Board reports that students who study music outscore peers who don’t by 43 points on the SAT math section and 57 points in verbal (a perfect score in either category is 800). Research by Stanford scientists has shown that musical training improves how the brain processes spoken words, and could lead to improvement in reading ability for children with dyslexia and other problems. The list goes on.
Bedingfield grew up in the U.K., but across the pond the future of public school music programs is looking murkier than ever. In the wake of last week’s Tea Party election victories, incoming Republican speaker John Boehner is already pledging to cut $100 billion in annual spending, which could shrink or eliminate scores of already-depleted programs across the country. That means schools may have to rely more than ever on charitable grants.
“If we want to ensure that the U.S. is going to be competitive in the 21st Century, we need to be sure that our students can think creatively, competitively,” says Paul Cothran, director of the VH1 Save The Music Foundation. “Our schools were once the gold standard. There was at least somewhat-equitable, somewhat-comprehensive access to instruments. We need to get back to that.”
Save The Music was founded in 1997 as an initiative of the VH1 Network, which is owned by Viacom. The charity has doled out $47 million to 1,750 schools since its inception, thanks in part to the help of artists like Bedingfield, John Mayer, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend. Schools selected for a grant can choose between four packages containing about $30,000 worth of musical instruments: a strings program, a guitar lab, a band program, or a keyboard lab. The district must then commit to hiring at least one certified instructor to oversee the program.
“The reason we want to partner with districts in this way is to ensure that they’re going to keep the teacher,” says Cothran. “If you have an outside funding source covering a teacher, that funding may go away.”
Indeed, the recession tends to adversely affect charitable giving much as it puts pressure on school budgets. Saves The Music has been taking in $2-2.5 million in recent years, down from $3 million before the bust. There are others—The Fender Music Foundation, Ear Candy, and The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, to name a few—but all are subject to the same macroeconomic headwinds.
Bedingfield, for one, is still hopeful.
“In times of great need, people have been inspired to be even more creative just to find a way to deal with adversity,” she says. “I feel like that’s going to be the reaction of the next generation, and they’re going to need to be heard.”
For more on the business of music, subscribe to The Beat Report’s RSS feed — and check out my Jay-Z biography, due out this winter from Penguin, for an inside look at the rapper’s rise as a businessman.


It is my sincere desire that if you have a struggling reader or your child is beginning to learn to read you will read through this entire blog post.
If you have been keeping up with the latest news in education reform you’ll most likely have “Common Core State Standards” buzzing around in your head. CCSS, a U.S. education initiative, is or will be affecting the way your children learn core subjects like reading and math. So what are the Common Core State Standards and are they beneficial to our children? Well, an alarming number of parents have little knowledge of them and even fewer know the research and principles that are behind them.
The lack of understanding has brought some doubts about whether this initiative will bring positive change in education. To be honest, since the beginning of an organized system of schooling many initiatives for education reform have been proposed and implemented with the majority having less than satisfactory results. It is no wonder parents and the public are a little hesitant of another initiative. Now parents, before you tune out and say there is nothing to learn from the CCSS initiative, I’d like you to hear me out.
Common Core State Standards and other learning initiatives we’ve seen in the past all have or had the intent of bettering education in some form. They’re typically backed by extensive research and assessment, and a lot of time is dedicated by professionals to figure out what makes education effective. It isn’t my goal to determine why these reforms sometimes fail despite the efforts made. I’d rather focus on the research and assessment that’s done in the name of these initiatives, particularly the research done on reading instruction, and see what we can learn from them.
In 2001, Reading First (another initiative) had high hopes of changing education for the better. A body of professionals was gathered, called the National Reading Panel, and they set out to find the most effective ways to teach reading. The panel’s research did in deed find out the most effective approaches to reading instruction, but like CCSS, parents knew very little about the approaches and how to apply them.
What is known by the panel and those who created the CCSS, but not to parents and the general public, was that five key skills largely predict reading success. Those skills are: phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension; which the panel dubbed, “The Five Pillars of Reading.” The research the panel gathered showed that to effectively teach the five pillars, instruction needed to be taught in an explicit, systematic way. Students who saw the greatest success in reading were taught in a sequence that allowed them to understand more fundamental parts of language first (phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency) and then build an understanding of the more complex parts of language (vocabulary, grammar, and full-text comprehension). The research gathered by these initiatives show a consistent pattern of instruction that creates strong readers, regardless of ability or age.
This wasn’t the first time professionals gathered this information and had an “Ah-ha!” moment. Nearly a hundred years prior, an approach was created from extensive research on children with reading disadvantages. This approach, called the Orton-Gillingham Approach, not only used that same consistent pattern for successful reading instruction, it has been effectively helping the most struggling readers for over 75 years. The Orton-Gillingham approach is the most well-known and used approach for struggling readers. However, it’s used largely in remediation programs instead of a standard approach to teaching reading.
If we’ve known what works for so long, why haven’t we been able to improve our illiteracy rates and reading scores? The answer is that research done by these large initiatives is unknown to most parents and the principles found in the Orton-Gillingham approach are mostly used in remediation. Parents are lacking the knowledge of key principles of effective literacy instruction and how to apply them. This lack of understanding isn’t something we can quickly fix, but as parents we can make an individual effort to learn more about effective reading strategies. There are so many resources available to learn these principles. Reading Horizons has several free resources and there are plenty more available on the web and at your local library. To start, get to know what the Common Core State Standards are for Reading. Last month we had a webinar on the grades K through 3rd standards. Take a look at the webinar here. Kathy Muncy, who is very knowledgeable on the subject, gives some great information and ways to apply foundational reading skills.
If you’re interested in learning more or you have questions, leave a comment or email me, I would love to help or direct you to some resources.


11 Most Endangered Historic Places
Year Listed: 1990, 1991
Location: St. Helena Island, South Carolina
The historic buildings at the Penn Center are located on 50 rural acres along the Sea Island coast in Beaufort County, South Carolina. This site of 17 original buildings was one of the first locations of a school for formerly enslaved Africans, built in 1862. The campus consists of multiple-use facilities, including a museum, an archives, an administrative building, a maintenance shed, an early childhood learning center, and seven other buildings for use by the public for meetings or overnight accommodations. The majority of the buildings are wooden structures that face deterioration from age and weather. Conditions range from water damage to roof areas and interior spaces, to rotted siding, inadequate or antiquated HVAC systems, lack of security/fire suppression systems, termite damage, inadequate alterations for handicap accessibility, poorly constructed roadways that have not been upgraded to accept current traffic, damaged and diseased 100-year old oak trees surrounding the campus.


These Educational and Fun Activities for 1-Year-Olds will help your toddler learn valuable skills while having a good time.
This easy chalk recipe is a fun craft activity for young kids. Plus, it's a great way for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade children to practice writing.
Yes, you can make homemade lick and stick stickers. If you want to make some too you will need gelatin, light corn syrup and flavoring extract. We used
Easy to follow tutorial showing you step-by-step how to arrive at printing from recycled foam or polystyrene.
Make a volcano in the snow. Fun science for kids and super easy.
Spring break is upon us and even though ours is super short this year with only 5 days off, I know I have to be prepared for the kids to need direction, a long list of things to do, and
It's been a frigidly cold week. And though we do enjoy playing outside in winter, we don't appreciate the kind of cold that instantly bites our skin the moment it's exposed. Needless to say, we've ...
Great Magic Tricks #2 If you missed #1 Great magic trick you are in luck. I posted it a bit ago so you can be the coolest magical mom too!
An ocean small world play made with edible ingredients so young children who put everything in their mouths can play. It build imagination, and is a sensory experience as well


|Suggested Websites & Reading|
Research shows that a child’s brain development is most dramatic during the early years of life. As a parent, you have the opportunity to have the greatest impact on your child’s development during this time. Your every day interactions can increase your child’s learning and social skills, helping to provide him or her with building blocks to support future learning and development.|
Below you will find excellent resources and articles to help you be your child’s guide in early learning.
BornLearning.org is a campaign that helps parents, grandparents, and caregivers to turn everyday moments into fun learning opportunities. On this website, you can check out Ages and Stages to find out what is happening at each stage of your child’s development, find specific information for Dads, or find simple ideas for helping your child to learn anywhere.
Zero to Three
Zero to Three is a national nonprofit organization that informs, trains and supports professionals, policymakers and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers.
Getting Ready to Read
This booklet provides a breakdown of strategies for facilitating your child’s early literacy development from birth to age 5.
A Scribble or a Masterpiece? Your Toddler’s Developing Writing and Art Skills
A description of how your child’s early writing skills develop
Dual Language - Double Benefit
Discusses the benefits of exposing your young child to more than one language
Jumpstart (www.jstart.org) is one of the nations leading non-profit organizations in Early Childhood Education.
Printable Family Resource Book
A book full of activities to help children develop language, literacy, & social skills
Learning Every Day
Simple ways to incorporate learning into every day activities
The Early Literacy Crisis
A look at why early intervention is so important
In addition to being home to Parenting & Babytalk Magazines www.parenting.com has information for parents with children of all ages. Expecting parents can even receive a free one year subscription to Babytalk Magazine full of about pregnancy and early parenting.
The Early Literacy Crisis: A Mom Congress Special Report
A bigger look at why early intervention is so important
Preschool: An Inside Look
A glimpse of a typical preschool day
Get Ready to Read Program
The Get Ready to Read Program (www.getreadytoread.org) is part of NCLD’s initiative to provide information to help build early literacy skills by integrating emergent literacy screening and learning activities into routine early childhood education, child-care and parenting practices."
Use the 20-question research-based Get Ready to Read Screening Tool with your 4-year-old. The score will show if a child’s pre-reading skills are weak, strong, or somewhere in between. Activities and resources to improve those skills will be provided.
First 5 California
First 5 California (www.ccfc.ca.gov) is dedicated to improving the lives of California’s young children and their families through a comprehensive system of education, health services, childcare, and other crucial programs. The First 5 California Parents’ Site offers information on health, education, and support services for parents of children ages 0-5.
School Readiness Tips
A look at how your child develops and tips for making learning fun


A Timeline History of Movable Books
by Ellen G.K. Rubin
Matthew Paris (1200-1259) English historian, artist, and Benedictine monk
used gatefolds to map pilgrimages from England to the Holy Land and Jerusalem. He is the first known paper engineer, devising volvelles to determine the dates of Easter and other Holy Days.
Ramón Llull (1235-c1316) mystic from Majorca, Spain sought to collate all areas of man’s knowledge and used volvelles as the organizing tool.
Johannes Gutenberg creates movable type and prints the Bible opening the doors for the proliferationof literacy.
Petrus Apianus, aka Peter Bienewitz(1495-1552), printed the Astronomicum Caesareum (The Emperor’s Astronomy) for Charles V in Ingolstadt, Germany using volvelles to portray the movement of the heavenly bodies (sun, planets and the moon).
Robert Sayer (England) Produced the first true movable for children, generically called a Harlequinade, after a popular character of that time. Illustrated paper flaps were folded up or down to change the illustration and thereby, change the story.
The First Golden Age of Pop-ups
Beginning with paper dolls (The History of Little Fanny, S.J. Fuller-1810), the use of movable paper proliferated as elements in books, especially in England and Germany.
The Industrial Revolution is underway creating a leisure class with money to spend on expensive books and the time to read them to their children. In 1870, the Elementary Education Acts in England/Wales provided for compulsory elementary education creating a more literate society.
The best-known publishers through the turn of the 19th century were:
- Ernest Nister (England & Germany) (animate Nister's movable!)
- Raphael Tuck (England & Germany)
- Dean & Sons (England) (see Dean's movable!)
- McLoughlin (USA)
The printing for most of these books was done in Germany where the chromolithography was best.
Lothar Meggendorfer (1847-1925-German) invented rivets for multiple action with one tab. He is considered the genius of all time for paper engineering. (animate Meggendorfer's movables!)
WORLD WAR I (1914-1918)
Production of movable books drops off due to scarcity of hand labor, paper, and access to German printing.
S. Louis Giraud (1879-1950 England) begins publishing books with true pop-ups, activated by turning the page. The series, The Daily Express, was then followed by the Bookano Books. (Theodore Brown is believed to have been the inventor and shares the patent.) The pop-ups were referred to as ‘spring-ups’. The last edition was published in 1949.
Blue Ribbon Press (Chicago, Ill.) copyrights the term ‘pop-up’ and produces a series of books of cultural icons (Mickey Mouse, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy) as well as classical fairy tales.
Vojtěch Kubašta (1914-1992) begins making pop-up books and ephemera in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Read more about Kubašta.
The Second Golden Age of Pop-ups
Waldo ‘Wally’ Hunt (b.1921) sees the work of Kubašta, and forms Graphics International to use pop-ups for advertising. Bennett Cerf’s Pop-up Riddle Book is used as a sales premium for Maxwell House Coffee. Cerf, editor of Random House Books, uses the pop-up format for children’s books. Hallmark Cards buys Graphics International and produces its own series of children’s pop-up books. In 1975, Hunt forms Intervisual, the largest packager of pop-up books in the US.
Ann Montanaro (b.1942) forms the Movable Book Society for collectors, artists, librarians and packagers and publishes a quarterly newsletter, Movable Stationery. She also has published two bibliographies of movable books, both entitled, Pop-up and Movable Books; Scarecrow Press, Lanham, MD, 1993, 2000.
Robert Sabuda (b.1966) wins the Movable Book Society’s first Meggendorfer Prize (1998) for his The Christmas Alphabet (1994-Orchard Books).
Go to top


Leadership in elementary education is currently recognized as a political imperative in Papua New Guinea (PNG), as the nation develops strategies towards equitable access to schooling. One recent initiative aimed at building educational leadership was an intensive Australian Leadership Award Fellowship (ALAF) program funded by AusAID, involving a group of 10 teacher trainers from PNG. As part their involvement participants completed self-authored journal entries at the beginning and end of the leadership program. Participants were also involved in focus groups after completion of the initiative. Referring to the experiences of these teacher trainers, this paper draws on Nancy Fraser’s (2005, 2008) social justice framework to examine participants’ views of what constituted effective leadership in elementary education in PNG and how these views may have changed throughout the ALAF program. Key findings of this study included participants’ emphasis on relationships and valuing people in elementary education leadership contexts, participants’ concern about economic/financial barriers to effective leadership in the PNG context and participants’ perception of research as a way to support leadership roles.
& Cook, D.
Learning to Lead: A Social Justice Perspective on Understanding Elementary Teacher Leadership in Papua New Guinea.
Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 37(4).


Teaching & Instruction
Teaching and effective instruction for students with learning disabilities requires specialized knowledge in the areas of spoken language, reading, writing, and math. This section contains readings that reflect knowledge of best practices and evidence based instruction within each area.
There are 187 articles in this section.
Sort by: | Date | Title |
Diane D. Painter is a former special education teacher who radiates when she talks about her role in developing teacher- researcher models of training in the Fairfax, Virginia Public School system. Diane has her BS in Elementary Education from George Mason University, her M.ED. in Perceptual Impairments from the University of Maryland and her PH.D. in Special Education Technologies from George Mason University.
It's much easier to differentiate instruction if we are experts in four areas: our students, the curriculum, cognitive theory, and differentiated instruction practices. All four must be in play if we are to teach effectively.
How does the mind work — and how does it learn? Teachers' instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such gut knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on?
How do you choose the best method for measuring reading progress? This brief article describes which assessments to use for different reading skills so that you can make sure all students are making progress towards becoming readers!
Dr. Edwin S. Ellis is a professor of Interdisciplinary Teacher Education at the University of Alabama. He teaches graduate courses in special education and undergraduate courses in the Special Education Collaborative Teacher Program and the Multiple Abilities Program (MAP).
Research-based information and advice for sizing up reading programs and finding the right one for your child with a learning disability.
With so much required of high schools today, there is little time or money to spend on the students who lack basic skills. This article presents important factors leading to success for struggling adolescent readers, taken from successful reading programs.
Students: Are you interested in starting your won business? This article will provide resources and ideas to assist you. Educators: read how to include students with disabilities in entrepreneurship programs. When you participate in these programs, their interest in college increases 32 percent.
Children use executive function to plan, organize, strategize, pay attention, manage details, and schedule themselves. Read this fact sheet from the National Center for Children with Learning Disabilities for helpful strategies.
For students with learning disabilities (LD), a sense of competence and ability (also known as self-efficacy) plays a vital role in their social and emotional development as well as academic achievement. Discover how educators can adapt their teaching style to support social and emotional development (including self-efficacy) in students with language-based LD.
Teachers: How do you convince your principal, fellow teachers, and other school staff to help the student in your class who has a learning disability? Rick Lavoie, world-renowned expert, speaker, and author on teaching children with LD, tells you how to get your voice heard. Learn how to handle common road blocks and become a proactive and successful advocate in the hallways, the teacher's lounge, and the administrative suite.
Many students with learning or reading disabilities find homework challenging. Here are five research-based strategies that teachers can use to help students.
Rick Lavoie brings teachers information on how to integrate children with special needs into their mainstream class. The Council on Exceptional Children asked students with good social skills for their suggestions to school staff. Here are some of their requests: a) time to "hang out" with peers with disabilities, b) taking a stand against bullying and teasing of students with disabilities, and c) choosing peers to work with students with disabilities carefully.
The SETT Framework aids in gathering, organizing, and analyzing data which can be used to make collaborative assistive technology and programming decisions.
In this article, the leaders of nonprofit organization All Kinds of Minds provide thumbnail case studies of how brain differences affect learning in reading and writing. The article also describes how teachers can use nuerodevelopmental knowledge to help each student learn in the most efficient way.


- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
On Reading Books to Children: Parents and Teachers brings together in one volume current research on adult book reading to children. The authors, drawn from around the world, are key researchers and eminent scholars from the fields of reading and literacy, child language, speech pathology, and psychology, representing multiple perspectives within these disciplines.
Chapters on the effects and limitations of book sharing are integrated with chapters discussing promising programs on storybook research. The reality of reading to children is more complex than it appears on the surface. The authors discuss some effects of and suggestions for reading to children that have emerged from the research. The ideas set forth in this volume will stimulate new lines of research on the effects of storybook reading, as well as refinements of current methods, yielding findings that enrich our understanding of this important arena of literacy development.
Contents: A. van Kleeck, S.A. Stahl, Preface. Part I:Book Sharing in Families. A.G. Bus, Social-Emotional Requisites for Learning to Read. J. De Temple, C.E. Snow, Learning Words From Books. E. Reese, A. Cox, D. Harte, H. McAnally, Diversity in Adults' Styles of Reading Books to Children. A. van Kleeck, J. Vander Woude, Book Sharing With Preschoolers With Language Delays. Part II:Storybook Reading in the Classroom. D.K. Dickinson, A. McCabe, L. Anastasopoulos, A Framework for Examining Book Reading in Early Childhood Classrooms. W.H. Teale, Reading Aloud to Young Children as a Classroom Instructional Activity: Insights From Research and Practice. L.M. Morrow, R. Brittain, The Nature of Storybook Reading in the Elementary School: Current Practices. M.G. McKeown, I.L. Beck, Taking Advantage of Read-Alouds to Help Children Make Sense of Decontextualized Language. A.A. Zevenbergen, G.J. Whitehurst, Dialogic Reading: A Shared Picture Book Reading Intervention for Preschoolers. Part III:Storybook Sharing as Cultural Practice. J. Anderson, A. Anderson, J. Lynch, J. Shapiro, Storybook Reading in a Multicultural Society: Critical Perspectives. V. Carrington, A. Luke, Reading, Homes, and Families: From Postmodern to Modern? R.B. Barrera, E.B. Bauer, Storybook Reading and Young Bilingual Children: A Review of the Literature. Part IV:Where Do We Go From Here? A. van Kleeck, Research on Book Sharing: Another Critical Look. A.D. Pellegrini, L. Galda, Joint Reading as a Context: Explicating the Ways Context Is Created by Participants. D.B. Yaden, Jr., Parent-Child Storybook Reading as a Complex Adaptive System: Or "An Igloo Is a House for Bears." S.A. Stahl, What Do We Expect Storybook Reading to Do? How Storybook Reading Impacts Word Recognition.


An overview presentation on Community empowerment for fisheries co-management dealt with a generic model of community empowerment from a practitioners' point of view as well as a review of experiences gained from level interventions. Empowerment of fishing communities means enabling resource poor, marginalised, isolated and unexposed groups to enhance their capacities in order to cope with changes, undertake economic and social development, ensure greater community cohesion, perceive mutual interests in sustaining fisheries resources and regulate fishing.
Since empowerment is a process, and grows over time and in different but mutually reinforcing dimensions, it needs to be fostered through holistic approach. Community issues and action areas such as gender inclusiveness, additional and alternative income generation, primary health care and sanitation, nutrition, elementary education, disaster preparedness, legal literacy, confidence building and visioning all need to be addressed in addition to those of conservation and fisheries resources sustainability.
Community empowerment is encouraged through networking of local organizations at village, district, provincial, regional and national levels. The empowerment process needs to draw energy both from "outside" and "inside" sources. Outside agencies may serve a catalytic role, promoting an enabling environment by facilitating policy, legal and institutional reforms, for example. But empowerment depends essentially on energies generated from within the community, through self-help projects and other stakeholder initiatives that both reflect and reinforce a sense of unity and common purpose.