In the last five decades, literacy has evolved and shaped India in many facets – be it industrialisation, per capita or even the standard of living, literacy takes the credit. When you examine the literacy graph of India and compare numbers, the gradual developments bring a smile – thanks to the government benefits and donations for education in India. While there are many factors that play a role in achieving 100% literacy rate, a children’s NGO, Akshaya Patra, is focusing on enabling a student’s academic performance through food for education initiative – the Mid-Day Meal Programme.
Implemented in 2000, Akshaya Patra’s Mid-Day Meal Programme (food for education initiative) is now the world’s largest NGO-run feeding initiative based out of Bengaluru in Karnataka. Every day, over 1.6 million children are benefitted through this programme which prepares and delivers fresh-nutritious food to 13,260 schools at lunch time.
Here’s a quick look at two main factors that affect a student’s academic performance:
Learning facilities and environment: It’s rather difficult to expect a child to learn in a classroom without sufficient study materials (text books, notepads, pen, and etcetera) and grasp lessons. It’s more problematic if the school is set up in a noisy surrounding and the exchange between teacher and students is put to a stop. While the government is making continuous efforts to provide provisions to children and build better infrastructure, many NGOs, with the help of education donations, have sprung to lend help to the government in ensuring children excel in their academics.
Socio-economic status: In many scholarly articles and research studies, it has been proved over and again that the socio-economic status of a family is an integral criterion for student’s performance – this includes the family members’ occupation and revenue which defines the economic condition. Akshaya Patra enables many families by providing a resource to their children – mid-day meals – which in turn lessens the strain of feeding a stomach in the house. To ensure the child does not have to bear the responsibilities of earning, the Foundation through its programme encourages every child to attend school and also be assured to eat healthy meals.
Why are Mid-Day Meals a boon to children?
It is a resource that stabilises education. But along with it come nutrition, good health and well-being, academic achievement and quality performance. Akshaya Patra, with its dynamic initiative to provide food for education, has reached the milestone of serving more than 2 billion meals in the last 16 years. This milestone is a greater encouragement for the Foundation to continue its mission.
Yes, mid-day meals are a boon to children and for the nation. Here’s why:
– More children enrol in schools
– Promotes socialisation among children
– Reduces classroom hunger
– Enhances a student’s performance (academic, sports and cultural)
A quick thought for the mind: Post-independence, India faced many challenges in the field of Growth and Development. However, through numerous benefit schemes and opportunities, we as nation, are witnessing change in every field. Akshaya Patra’s initiative too intends change.
We believe every child deserves a fair chance and there is nothing more important than imparting education. Donate for education in India by joining Akshaya Patra in making every school a model of literacy development.


Content matters : a disciplinary literacy approach to improving student learning
- Stephanie M. McConachie, Anthony R. Petrosky, editors ; foreword by Lauren B. Resnick.
- 1st ed.
- San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass, c2010.
- Physical description
- xxiv, 248 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
- Jossey-Bass education series.
Education Library (Cubberley)
|LB1576 .C64 2010||Unknown|
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-239) and index.
- Foreword (Lauren B. Resnick). Preface. Acknowledgments. The Editors. The Authors. 1 Engaging Content Teachers in Literacy Development (Stephanie M. McConachie, Anthony R. Petrosky). 2 Disciplinary Literacy: A Principle-Based Framework (Stephanie M. McConachie). 3 Disciplinary Literacy in the History Classroom (Anita K. Ravi). 4 Disciplinary Literacy in the Mathematics Classroom (Victoria L. Bill, Idorenyin Jamar). 5 Disciplinary Literacy in the Science Classroom (Samuel A. Spiegel, Jody Bintz, Joseph A. Taylor, Nancy M. Landes, Deborah L. Jordan). 6 Disciplinary Literacy in the English Language Arts Classroom [SM1] (Anthony R. Petrosky, Stephanie M. McConachie, Vivian Mihalakis). 7 Embedding Disciplinary Literacy: Leadership and Professional Learning (Stephanie M. McConachie, Rosita E. Apodaca). Appendix A: Disciplinary Literacy Design Principles by Core Academic Area. Appendix B: Disciplinary Literacy Lesson Observation Protocol. Appendix C: Selected Disciplinary Literacy Tools. References. Index.
- (source: Nielsen Book Data)9780470434116 20160528
- Publisher's Summary
- An authoritative guide for improving teaching, learning, and literacy in content area classrooms, this book introduces teachers to the Disciplinary Literacy instructional framework developed by the Institute for Learning, University of Pittsburgh. Grounded in the Principles of Learning developed by acclaimed educator Lauren Resnick, the framework is designed to prepare students, grades 6 and up, to master the rigorous academic content learning required for college success. Unlike 'generic' teaching models, the framework is specifically tailored for each of the content disciplines. Highly practical, the book shows teachers how to integrate literacy development and thinking practices into their routine content instruction, with separate chapters devoted to math, science, history, and English/language arts. The book also: shows how school instructional leaders can support teachers in learning and using this instructional approach; offers an innovative approach for improving literacy, thinking, and content learning in secondary students; includes detailed instructional guidance plus numerous classroom examples of lessons, dialogs, and teaching routines; features chapters on each of the content areas-math, science, language arts, and social sciences; and, provides leadership guidance in implementing the method. Foreword is written by internationally acclaimed educator and cognitive scientist Lauren Resnick.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)9780470434116 20160528
- Publication date
- The Jossey-Bass education series
- 9780470434116 (pbk.)
- 0470434112 (pbk.)
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Quality education helps give children the best possible start in life.
Every day thousands of teachers are working in schools, child care centres, universities, training organisations, early childhood learning centres, preschools, kindergartens and with other institutions from the cities and suburbs to the remotest reaches of Australia.
Thousands more are in training to become the type of teachers that students remember years later as the ones who inspired them, and encouraged them to follow their dreams.
Quality education relies upon quality teaching, which is why the Australian Government is investing in not only schools, but also specific measures to raise the quality of teaching and the status of the teaching profession.
The Australian Government is investing a record $69.5 billion over the four years to 2018-19, a 27.9 per cent increase across all schools from 2014-15.
As the recently released Educational Opportunity in Australia 2015 report acknowledges, funding alone is not the answer.
That is why, through our Student First policy, the Australian Government has introduced measures to:
- Improve teacher quality, including through a national Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students from 1 July 2016;
- Ensure the national curriculum is robust, relevant and up to date
- Promote greater school autonomy; and
- Encourage greater parental engagement in their children’s education.
We want teaching to be a profession of choice for our best and brightest and for all Australians to recognise the work teachers do to inspire children and to set them up for a life of learning, exploring and discovery.


Cross-curricular workshops at Oxford Castle Unlocked offer a mix of activities including evidence handling, role play, literacy development and practical problem solving. Enrich your guided tour of the Castle and Prison with a hands-on workshop delivered in The Key Learning Centre which focuses on your learning objectives using the castle’s 1000 year history as a tool to further understanding in a range of topics.
Suitable for KS1 – KS5, sessions can be linked to national curriculum history, geography, citizenship, literacy, design technology, art and much more.
For more information about our workshops and to find out about the resources and opportunities for schools email us at firstname.lastname@example.org.
To make a booking, please call us on 01904 261262, or email us at email@example.com,


Hope for the Impossible to Achieve the Extraordinary
Those were the words Cleveland Orchestra director Franz Welser-Most used at the City Club to describe his vision of Cleveland as the “Music City of America.” One week later in the same venue, Mayor Jackson said he wanted the Cleveland Schools to be on par with the Cleveland Clinic and the Cleveland Orchestra. Few cities have the remarkable concentration of music resources than Cleveland. The Mayor and the Maestro recognize this as Cleveland’s niche above other cities. “Cleveland cannot compete with the masses of India, China and Japan…where you can compete is you have to find niches and you have to be the best in that niche.” The challenge for the school board and superintendent is to harness that niche and bring it to scale so all children can “Make Music!” Done properly, Cleveland schools could be extraordinary and unlike any district in the country.
One promising example is a foundation supported pilot between the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the New York-based Education Through Music. ETM has a simple mission: “forming long-term partnerships with inner-city schools to help principals establish and sustain school-wide music education programs that reach every student.” Our trustees support this goal because we can no longer understand how any school cannot include music as a core curricular discipline. Our challenge to the Cleveland leadership is to create a school system where every school has a trained music education professional on staff and that music is valued for the fundamental contribution it makes to student learning.
Ray Kurzweil’s book How to Create a Mind – The Secret of Human Thought Revealed explains that the human brain has developed a unique capacity to recognize patterns and recall sequences of patterns, “…however, we are not born with a neocortex filled with any of these patterns. Our neocortex is virgin territory when our brain is created. It has the capacity of learning and therefore of creating connections between the pattern recognizers, but it gains those connections from experience. This learning process begins even before we are born, occurring simultaneously within the biological process of actually growing a brain.” By the third trimester “…the fetus is having experiences, and the neocortex is learning. She can hear sounds, especially her mother’s heartbeat, which is one likely reason that the rhythmic qualities of music are universal to human culture. Every human civilization ever discovered has had music as part of its culture which is not the case with other art forms, such as pictorial art. “
Nationally, schools have embraced STEM and virtually all the K-12 STEM curriculum have as their core the ability for students to “recognize and analyze patterns and trends, and to sequence events.” In large measure, those same schools have eliminated music as a core curriculum and effectively, “outsourced” music training to institutions like the Orchestra and the Rock Hall, as well as many excellent nonprofits that succeed often by finding the one teacher in the one building who will invite their programming into the schools. Philanthropy has enabled this travesty by supporting the programs –which though excellent, are considered by the schools an “add-on.” With a human phenomenon so fundamental to human brain activity why on earth would schools not include music as a core curricular standard thereby ensuring access and exposure for every child?
The Mayor and the Maestro have set the bar high. Perhaps now is the time to reach for what may be considered impossible and to leverage the excellence in human capital coupled with unparalleled technology used at many of our music institutions and bring to scale the efforts that ETM and Oberlin have piloted to ensure that each school will have paid full-time staff to teach music to every child. In that kind of district, visits to the Orchestra, the Rock Hall or any other musical event will magnify a child’s experience of life. Aristotle said of teachers, “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”
Living in a city where that happens would indeed be Extraordinary.


GoldieBlox hopes young girls find playing engineer ‘just right’
Meet Goldie, a female-engineer character who invents, designs and builds to inspire young girls to be scientists or engineers.
San Jose Mercury News
Move over, Barbie; there’s a new girl in town.
She goes by GoldieBlox, and unlike her namesake, Goldilocks, she doesn’t get into mishaps with three bears. This Goldie is a female engineer character who invents, designs and builds to inspire a future generation of women engineers.
GoldieBlox is the brainchild of Stanford University graduate and engineer-turned-entrepreneur Debbie Sterling. She created GoldieBlox — which includes a construction toy set and storybook starring the tool-wielding Goldie — to teach girls basic engineering skills and open more pathways for women to pursue jobs in the male-dominated industry.
“I’m trying to give girls something more than just dolls and princesses,” she said.
Sterling, 30, hopes that the soon-to-be-released GoldieBlox will teach more girls to love tech-heavy disciplines and open their minds to engineering. And if it can shake up the old-school toy industry, which for years has offered girls little more than busty dolls and pink Legos, all the better, she said.
But this isn’t just a plug for girl power. Oakland, Calif.-based GoldieBlox has caught the attention of researchers and educators across the country who say the toy could help engage more girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, an education priority for the Obama administration.
The GoldieBlox book, written and illustrated by Sterling, follows Goldie as she invents machines and solves problems with a cast of animal friends that includes a Spanish-speaking dog, Nacho, and a tutu-wearing pink dolphin.
The pegboard and tool kit allow kids to build whatever Goldie is building in the book, and to learn engineering concepts, like how a wheel and axle work and the basics of tension, force and friction.
“I can’t wait to have her sitting there on store shelves in her overalls and her tool belt, because I think that that sends a strong message,” Sterling said.
The message is this: Engineering isn’t just for boys.
Toys are a crucial entry point for kids to get exposure to STEM disciplines, and girls miss out on some of the early playtime experiences necessary to develop those skills, said Yvonne Ng, who heads St. Catherine University’s National Center for STEM Elementary Education.
“We’re not engaging girls. We’re still thinking in very male terms,” Ng said.
Sterling, who earned her engineering degree in 2005, developed GoldieBlox with help from Kickstarter, an online crowd-funding platform for creative projects. She raised $286,000 — almost twice her goal — in about a month.
After her fundraising video went viral on social media, she received about 22,000 online pre-orders for the toy, which brought in money to start production.
According to studies by the American Association of University Women, about 87 percent of professional engineers are men.
Sterling hopes GoldieBlox will change that statistic. The toy, which sells for $30, lands on store shelves next month, but the first 18,000 pre-ordered copies are set to be delivered this week.
Already, Sterling has plans to make GoldieBlox into a series and says she’s set to launch an interactive digital version for the Apple iPad late this year.
The successes, or failures, of GoldieBlox will be carefully tracked by a Pennsylvania State University professor and graduate student. Lynn Liben, a distinguished professor of psychology who is leading the research, said GoldieBlox is one of the few toys that breaks the gender stereotypes reinforced by the toy industry.
“Many toy companies are still marketing to boys versus girls,” Liben said. “It tells people that boys and girls are different when it comes to playing or building or getting dirty. That can be problematic because not every kid fits that gender tendency that might be typical.”


I’d like to share with you this sixth grade project that I’m featuring, but before I do, I think a little of my philosophy of art education is in order: I believe that my job as an art teacher is to teach my students to see the world not as objects with familiar names (rocks, trees, rivers, clouds, etc.) but rather as objects created from a combination of line, shape, value, form, texture, space, and color. I call this the Genesis approach to art, and suggest that it is the way that Adam first saw the world when given the task of naming the animals.
With sixth graders I focus on one of those seven visual elements at a time starting with LINE. After presenting the vocabulary of line, I challenge them to begin an abstract composition by placing one horizontal line on an 11 x 14 piece of card stock. The rule is that every line must begin and end on another line. Therefore, these first horizontal lines must begin on the edge of the format since the four edges are the first “lines” in the composition. I then encourage them to study the resulting two shapes and consider where they would like to add another three horizontal lines. Following the horizontal lines I tell them to place seven vertical lines any place in the composition as long as they start and stop on a line, but they can cross a line. We then go back and add another 3-5 horizontal lines before placing 11 right diagonals followed by 11 left diagonals, and finally 11 curved lines. They should end up with about 45 spaces that are no smaller than their thumb nor bigger than their fist.
This project has allowed the students to review and use the vocabulary of line while exploring the process of visualizing and designing compositions. It is also the beginning phase of a project that we come back to when I teach color theory.
After reviewing the basics of the Prang Theory of color mixing, I give the students red, blue, and yellow tempera paint and guide them through the process of actually mixing their own green, violet, and orange paint. They are amazed to see this process actually happen even though they have heard about it before. The students then paint two shapes on their linear abstracts with each of the six colors. Following that, with sixth graders, I have them make tints by adding a little of each color to white, and then they make shades by adding a little of the complimentary color to the three primaries and three secondaries. After painting shapes on the linear abstract with the tints and shades, I let them mix anything to finish painting the abstract. After it has dried, they go back over their lines with a black marker. The results are quite stunning, don’t you think?
When I’ve had more time and/or more experienced students I also explore color temperature and intensity with them, but the above exercise lays a good foundation for both line and color.


Literacy development that began in Preschool is continued throughout the Lower School utilizing the SRA/McGraw-Hill Imagine It! language arts and reading curriculum. In addition, teachers supplement curriculum materials with the use of trade books and other resources to teach reading and language arts skills. Handwriting is taught following the Handwriting Without Tears method. Teachers lead students in a variety of constructs designed to increase reading fluency and comprehension: direct, explicit, sequential instruction, a combined phonics and whole-language approach, decodable books, partner reading, responding creatively to literature, and of course, reading for pleasure. Cursive writing is introduced in second grade with mastery by the end of third grade. Formal keyboarding instruction through UltraKey begins in third grade.
With a focus on real-life application, math instruction is based on the Everyday Mathematics curriculum published by the University of Chicago. This curriculum features numerous hands-on activities using a variety of manipulatives and fun games. GSL also utilizes IXL, an online math program, which assesses a student's understanding as they practice and generates detailed performance reports to give teachers insight into a students’s abilities. IXL allows teachers to differentiate math assignments based on ability and offers algorithmically generated questions, real-time analytical reports, and dynamic scoring to encourage mastery.
The FOSS (Full Option Science System) curriculum breaks the mold of traditional instruction, offering a discovery-based approach to learning about science by doing science.
Our social studies curriculum helps students gain awareness of the increasingly global world in which we live. While students are learning about the United States and foreign countries and studying the continents, they will also be developing the 21st century skills needed for them to become relevant and productive citizens of the larger community. Each unit of study will finish with a culminating experience aimed at pulling students’ learning together.
Students attend co-curricular subjects with trained teachers in the disciplines of art, music, science, computer, library, Spanish, and physical education.
Character development is a part of everyday life at GSL, and intentionally taught through weekly chapel "Tips for a Happy Life" talks based on the Middle School’s Traits for Success program.


A clear link between informal voting and low adult literacy and numeracy levels is denying thousands of Australians their democratic right to vote, says leading education expert Barry Golding.
Professor Golding, president of Adult Learning Australia, says research has directly linked the number of informal votes (incorrectly completed ballot papers) to low literacy levels.
Election officials fear a record three million Australians either won't vote or will cast an informal vote on September 7.
Figures show 900,000 people did not vote at the last federal election and about 700,000 spoiled their ballot papers resulting in informal votes.
“Australian Electoral Commission research(1) shows that two of the major sociological and institutional factors that influence informal voting are not being ‘fluent in English’ and having ‘low education attainment’, which is hardly a surprise when one considers that 44 percent of adult Australians are considered to be functionally illiterate(2),” Professor Golding says.
Only a very small proportion of voters cast informal ballots as a protest, with the majority of informal votes due to a lack of understanding of the voting process or difficulty interpreting the ballot paper instructions(3).
Functional illiteracy is defined as not having the literacy or numeracy skills to cope with everyday living - such as being able to read the instructions on a medicine bottle, follow a recipe or navigate the Internet.
Low adult literacy levels have a great impact on the lives of almost half the Australian adult population.
More funding for grass roots adult education is urgently needed to address Australia’s unacceptably high level of functional illiteracy, Professor Golding says.
“A strong democratic nation needs much better informed and literate electors, and the start point for this is addressing our extremely high levels of functional illiteracy,” he says.
“With the election result predicted to be incredibly close, there would be a certain irony if the predicted high number of informal votes were to impact on the outcome.”
With the federal election coinciding with Adult Learners’ Week, Professor Golding is urging both major parties to boost funding for adult education in a bid to improve literacy levels in Australia.
“There is a much bigger issue than the problem of adults with such low literacy skills that they cannot cope with the complexity of the election process,” he says.
“Even more Australians who are able to lodge a formal vote have such low prose and comprehension skills that they may not be able to read, properly access, or comprehend the media or make rational judgements about each party’s policies.”
On a brighter note, Professor Golding says there will be much to celebrate during Adult Learners’ Week, with about 1.6 million people starting or continuing their learning journey through 2,800 adult and senior education organistations nationally.
Adult Learners’ Week is the ideal time to explore the numerous educational alternatives on offer with events, information seminars and practical demonstrations taking place around the country from 1 to 8 September.
‘Learning Pathways’ is the theme for Adult Learners’ Week, which is held in more than 55 countries and coordinated nationally by Adult Learning Australia.
(1) Medew R, 2003. Informal Vote Survey for the House of Representatives 2001, Australian Electoral Commission
(2) ABS, 15 February 2013. Australian Survey of Programmes for the internatinal assessment of adult competencies.
(3) Crikey Clarifier, 25 August 2010. The history of the informal vote in Australia
Harness Racing Victoria
The Trots is the traditional name for Harness racing, evoking memories of a sentimental era of success. In recognition of this fact, Harness Racing Victoria is bringing back The Trots under the "Hot to Trot" banner. Hot to Trot signals the start of a more youthful and dynamic era for harness racing in Victoria.
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Secondary schools in Wales are today urged to raise standards in maths, which are proportionately the worst of all the home nations according to a new report.
Education watchdog Estyn said maths is the lowest performing core subject at Key Stage 4 (GCSE) level in Wales and many employers are concerned by the lack of numerical skills demonstrated by employees.
According to the report, attainment in GCSE maths at grade C and above in Wales is the lowest in the UK.
There was an 11% gap between England and Wales last year and the proportion of pupils attaining higher grades at key stages 3 and 4 in Wales is lower than those attained by pupils in both England and Northern Ireland.
Chief inspector Ann Keane cited a CBI survey of employers, conducted in 2011, which highlighted the level of challenge facing schools and colleges in Wales.
She said: “Many Welsh employers are concerned at the lack of mathematical skills demonstrated by employees. Research shows that about 44% of employers have had to invest in numeracy skills training for school and college leavers. The Pisa results in 2009 also confirmed that attainment in Wales was significantly behind the rest of the UK in mathematics.
“Although standards in mathematics are disappointing, it is encouraging to see pockets of good practice in our secondary schools. With good teaching and planning in place, schools can help pupils to achieve their full potential.
“I encourage all teachers and headteachers to read our report and case studies, as part of their drive to raise standards and improve mathematics teaching.”
Try your hand at some GCSE maths questions: click here.
Inspectors said there are important areas for improvement in leadership in a few schools, where self-evaluation activities lack a sufficient focus on the standards of pupils’ work in lessons.
They added: “Very few schools have made successful links with other schools to improve the quality of mathematics teaching. Overall, there is too little support for the professional development of teachers of mathematics whether it be from other schools, local authorities or regional consortia.”
The report recommends that more support, advice and professional development opportunities are provided for schools.
Dr Philip Dixon, director of teachers’ union ATL Cymru, said: “This Estyn report tells us once more that we need to look again at the way in which maths is taught in our schools, but also at the support that is given to maths teachers. Maths is essential for life in the 21st century and we need to give our children the best start we can.
“This is more than a schools issue however. We need to tackle the lazy and complacent thinking that allows adults, even in responsible positions, to wear their innumeracy as a badge of honour.”
Education Minister Huw Lewis told delegates at NUT Cymru’s annual conference that improving standards in maths was a priority for the Welsh Government.
He said the fact that nearly half of employers in Wales have had to invest in numeracy skills training for school and college leavers was “not right” and cannot be allowed to continue.
A spokesman for the Welsh Government said: “This report shows where we have been successful in developing mathematics in our schools at Key Stage 4, and where we need to sharpen our performance.
“We have clear evidence that, at an operational level, the best results in mathematics teaching at Key Stage 4 are achieved where schools and regional consortia work together, and where teachers have opportunities to share best practice and benefit from appropriate professional development and regular network opportunities.
“Where pupils are well supported, well motivated and apply themselves conscientiously to learning activities set by teachers who have high expectations and set appropriately challenging tasks, good practice will flourish.”


What would happen if the face value of a coin was worth less than the metal in the coin itself? Over the history of our country, this has happened several times: first with silver in dimes, quarters and half dollars, and later with copper pennies, in the 1970s and early 1980s. Each time, the Treasury was forced to change the metal make-up of coins making way for some cool science for kids you can do at home with spare change and common household ingredients.
Cool Science for Kids with Pennies
There are only a handful of academic moments that stand out from my childhood that I remember as though they happened yesterday. One of them was this science experiment we did in my sophomore chemistry class with 1982 pennies and hydrochloric acid.
Even I am not crazy enough to use that with preschoolers… but guess what? It even works with regular, everyday lemon juice. But before we get to the cool science for kids at home, let’s have a little history and metal markets lesson.
The Value of a Penny
How much is a penny worth? One cent… right? But before 1982, pennies were made of brass, a metal composed of 95% copper and 5% zinc, weighing in at just over 3 grams. In the late 1970s, worldwide inflation caused the price of all commodities, from oil to metals, to spike, making the value of the metal in a penny worth more than its one cent face value.
People started hoarding pennies or melting them down for their metal value instead of using them as money, resulting in coin and money shortages. This had previously happened with silver dimes, quarters and half dollars in the 1960s. The Treasury, after a few trials and errors, changed the metal make-up of a penny. Today’s pennies are now made with a 99% zinc core, plated in pure copper.
Want to test some pennies to expose what they are made of???
Exposing the Insides of a Penny
Now for the cool science for kids… you only need a few very basic supplies for this simple science experiment.
First, have an adult take the needle-nose pliers and pinch a small notch in the edge of each penny. Then, place each penny in the bottom of a glass.
Again, ask a grown up to cut the lemon in half. Then squeeze the juice from one half of the lemon into each glass. Be sure to wear safety goggles when you juice the lemons as the juice can burn your eyes.
What now? Wait and watch.
What Cool Science is happening?
Little to nothing will happen to the pre-1982 penny. It is solid copper and while any oxidation on the exterior may react with the citric acid in the lemon juice, leaving your old penny bright and shiny, it will remain whole.
The post-1982 penny will begin to bubble – a sign of a chemical reaction. There are actually two reactions happening. The citric acid, made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, will cause the zinc core to oxidize – you may see small, solid black particles floating in your lemon juice, zinc oxide. This process releases hydrogen from the acid, forming the bubbles you see collecting on the surface of the lemon juice.
Hydrochloric acid is much stronger than citric acid and can hollow out the zinc core of a penny, leaving only the thin, copper shell over 24-48 hours. Citric acid will do the same thing, but is a much slower process. We left ours to sit for several days, and it hollowed about 1/4 of the zinc core. But my preschool scientists were still duly impressed!
Rinse your pennies and let your scientists carefully observe them. Be careful, as the copper shell can be sharp.
You can also test pennies from 1982. The Treasury was finalizing the precise formation of pennies that year, and different mints began making the zinc core pennies at different points during the year – so some 1982 pennies were still solid brass, while some have zinc cores.
Want to try some more preschool STEM activities with coins? Test their fine motor skills with Drops on a Coin, or try some more quick STEM activities featuring coins and chemical reactions by Cleaning Coins. These are great activities to coincide with a no-cost school fundraiser, Coin Wars!


The Ryarsh Primary School Curriculum is all the planned activities which we organise in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. It includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum (DfE,2014) and Early Years Foundation Stage (DfE,2012), but also the additional elements that enable us to develop our learners in line with the values and ethos of school. This ensures that, as well as meeting current aims and statutory requirements, we are developing children for a brighter future. This is in line with our school motto of:
“Forward thinking for a brighter future.”
Although our curriculum is underpinned by the aims of the National Curriculum, there are other planned opportunities that make up the wider school curriculum. These reflect our children at Ryarsh and allow us to develop a personalised approach to learning, which is continuously evolving in line with our children’s needs. With our school environment, we aim to develop our setting so it captivates our children and gives us a platform to strengthen and deepen learning. We provide our educators with the opportunity to drive the highest standards, whilst at the same time promote a creative approach. This develops a love of learning in our children, as well as preparing them for the next stage in their education. At Ryarsh, we understand and appreciate that all of our children are unique and we aim for our children to leave Ryarsh Primary School with lifelong happy memories.
Throughout our curriculum we aim to develop the core skills of reading, writing and mathematics. Where links can be made, subjects are taught creatively in a cross curricular thematic manner. Where this is not achievable, subjects are taught discretely. Running through all our teaching is our aim to develop life long learning skills through a focus on ‘growth mindset’ to allow the children to grow as both a learner and a person. We want our children to be comfortable in learning from their mistakes and seeing the value in failure.
Our curriculum is designed to be:
At Ryarsh, we aim to constantly inspire our children to order to develop ‘awe and wonder’ moments. We want our children to be captivated by their learning and believe that learning is stronger when emotional links are made. We aim to provide inspiring learning opportunities which allow the children to take ownership of their own learning. Through developing creative and open-ended activities, we are able to give purpose to learning and achievements. We also aim to inspire children beyond the classroom through providing a variety of extracurricular opportunities.
Our curriculum aims to equip our children with the vital knowledge and skills they will need to succeed in the future. We strive to personalise our curriculum for our children in order to make purposeful links with the real world. This allows us to help our children bridge the gap between the known and the unknown.
Our curriculum aims to promote excellence and encourage children to reach the highest standards possible. There is a strong expectation placed on the children in the school that ‘nothing but their best will do’. Through delivering engaging and challenging learning experiences, we are able to provide the best possible platform for our children to succeed. We celebrate excellence both in terms of the quality of children’s learning outcomes as well as children’s approach to learning.
Our curriculum also links to our school values which can be seen on the Ryarsh Value Tree below:


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Reedmakers for Bassoon
TUTOR CHART ETUDE
Edited and with a foreword by James B. Kopp
Whitehall Press, 2012
Click here to order.
How did the early bassoon evolve, and how did early players go
about learning it? Written tutors, finger charts, and etudes reveal
the instrument’s design, capabilities, and performance practice
during a period of more than 200 years.
William Waterhouse spent decades accumulating information on
these works, and the full results of his researches are published
here for the first time. More than 120 documented publications
are described here, along with long-vanished publications and
helpful modern writings.
This handsome publication, illustrated with 13 facsimile drawings
of bassoons dating between 1780 and 1879, is essential for persons
studying the history of bassoon pedagogy, music education, or
early bassoon performance.
44 pages, 13 full-page illustrations, secondary bibliography;
29 x 15 mm.
William Waterhouse (1931-2007), one of the most respected
bassoonists of his generation, was a principal player in the London Symphony
Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Melos Ensemble.
Also a much admired teacher, mentor, organologist, collector, and writer,
he was the author of Bassoon (Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides), The
New Langwill Index, and many articles on the bassoon and its makers,
players, and composers.


Through the development of Munsell color space, A.H. Munsell kept color education at the forefront of his work. So in 1902, with much of his color theory developed, he began to consider tools that would facilitate teaching the Munsell color space to children in grades 1-9. He had already developed the color research and was exploring additional tools such as a color sphere, which was the precursor to today’s Munsell color tree and color plates, which represent the predecessors to today’s Hue Value Chroma Charts.
Turn of the Century Color Education: Munsell Color Space (Circa 1902)
In his diary, Albert Munsell describes working with Miss Peterson, who was the superintendent of Drawing for Boston Schools—clearly art education in the early 1900’s was an important part of the teaching curriculum. There didn’t appear to be a good method for teaching children about color and Munsell aimed to change that with his teaching aids and the help of a publisher. Munsell’s diary describes the challenge of teaching color to school children as follows, “No teacher understands the subject of color, but everybody has interest in it. It is now THE subject uppermost.”
Munsell Color Space Believed to Cross a Chasm between Art and Science
As Munsell pursues how best to teach color, he continues to consult with scientific authorities to ensure that his work was grounded in scientific principles. On April 8 1902, Munsell describes a meeting with Professor Dolbear (believed to be Amos Dolbear, who served as Tufts University astronomy and physics professor and a pioneer of telephony). Munsell quotes Dolbear, “Says I may furnish a track across what is now a desert between practical and scientific color work.”
Returning to art and the practicality of his color work, Munsell finds references to the book Music and Musicians, which he used to suggest potential names for what would later become A Color Notation. In particular, Munsell fancied the book’s section titles, “A Study of Musical Sound,” “The Materials of Sound,” “Grammar of Music,” and “Esthetics,” from which he considered the following for his book of color: “Grammar of Color,” Esthetics of Color,” and “Materials of Color.”
Munsell Color Space: Teaching the Teacher
Munsell continued to work with science and academia on his book of color. However, in the meantime, and with the help of Miss Peterson, Munsell developed “The Munsell Color System,” a simple teachers’ handbook arranged for primary and grammar school teachers. The handbook included a review of color names that children learn in Kindergarten (red, yellow, green, etc.) along with what appeared to be rudimentary color charts to teach children how to order color. Of course Munsell’s hue, value and chroma attributes were taught early on in the curriculum as was the value scale. Munsell’s color sphere was an important teaching aid. The tools used to teach Munsell Color Space—color charts, color sphere and neutral value chart—remain staples in today’s Munsell Interactive Learning Kit. Learn more about Munsell Color Space.
- H. Munsell Color Diary, 1908-1918, Volume A Part 8. Courtesy of Rochester Institute of Technology, Munsell Color Science Library.


During their gardening unit, kindergartners work in a neighborhood garden. Jobs include digging, weeding, watering, planting and tasting herbs and vegetables, and even hunting for bugs! Students love the hands-on opportunity to build community and learn how to take care of their world.
In first grade, our entrepreneurs practice running their own restaurant, which is no easy feat! They design menus and advertisements, handle food prep and customer service, calculate checks and bills, and even clean up at the close of business.
From Caterpillars to Butterflies
In this unit of study, third graders learn about the anatomy and life cycle of insects – and butterflies, in particular. Each student practices the skills of observation, scientific writing, and diagramming as they study, and then release, their live butterflies.
After designing and drafting circuit diagrams, fourth graders build and showcase unique electric machines. Visitors love to test the machines in a hands-on gallery of lights, sounds, and complex machinery.
Together, second graders explore Fort Funston with their sixth grade buddies and examine sedimentary rock layers formed over millions of years. Upon closer inspection, students also discover fossils and volcanic ash.
In the Brainology unit, fifth graders learn about neuron function in two different learning environments. In a safe environment, neurons function like powerful learning machines. When you feel threatened or stressed, neurons don’t work as well. How do you move from a negative to positive mindset? Ask a fifth grader.
Tackling the Sierras
Although overnight outdoor education trips begin in third grade, only one grade takes on the Sierra Mountain range: our brave and resourceful seventh graders. Each year they diligently prepare by learning how to plan and navigate trips in the wilderness, perform first aid, and practice minimum-impact wilderness living.
Celebr8, the 8th Grade Culminating Experience Project, is not your typical end of the year activity. Students combine foundational skills built throughout their career at SFDS with personal interests, resulting in intricate projects that are both perceptive and well-informed. Past projects include a film festival, robotics demo, gender-stereotype inquiry, Shakespearean monologue, and a "paint for peace" social justice project.
During Greek Night, the entire sixth grade class performs an evening of skits based on Greek mythology. While staying true to the classic myths, students update each ancient story with a modern twist, demonstrating their insightful thinking and collaboration.


Cutting and Coloring Key to Future Abstract Reasoning Skills
My colleague Sarah Sparks has written a fascinating article about research that shows just what is going on inside a child's head when that child is doing tasks such as cutting out shapes or coloring on a page. Such activities are linked to higher "executive-functioning" skills, which are in turn connected to math and abstract reasoning.
Put yourself in the mind of a 4- or 5-year-old, and copying a shape on the blackboard onto a piece of paper is a much more cognitively complex task than it is for an adult: Understanding the design, then holding that shape in your mind and deciding how to start copying, requires working memory, one of the brain's executive functions. Gripping the pencil properly, applying the right pressure to avoid tearing the paper, and keeping the paper oriented on the desk all need fine-motor skills that also, at such ages, require focus and self-control.
The article goes on to describe a research project where young children were given exercises in handwriting and line-tracing, as well as time to play with clay, Lego blocks, fusible beads and stencils, among other toys that worked on visual-motor skills. The children showed significant improvement in math and executive-functioning skills. These foundational skills may be more important than subject-matter instruction in early-childhood classrooms, the researchers suggest.
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Child Development Child development is a varied and
Child development is a varied and complex subject. In this article, I will review the cognitive developmental stages formulated by Jean Piaget, a developmental biologist. These stages of cognitive development can help teachers understand the developmental stage of the students in their English classes and can help to make their teaching methods more effective. The first stage of cognitive development as defined by Piaget is the sensory motor period. This period happens between birth and twenty- four months. There are several sub stages, but most of them focus on motor skill development and reflexive response development. These skills and responses are the primary tools used to obtain and process information about the surrounding world.The preoperational period comes next and occurs between the ages of two and seven. From age two to four, the preoperational sub stage occurs. During this time, verbal speech is increased, but remains egocentric. The child has difficulty understanding life from any other perspective than its own. Egocentrism of the young child leads them to believe that everyone thinks as they do, and that the whole world shares their feelings and desires. Play becomes symbolic and imagination begins to form. Along with symbolic play, the ability to think about an object without the object being present begins to develop. The pre-operational child may have difficulty with classification.Between ages four and seven, the intuitive phase occurs. Speech becomes more social, less egocentric. Although the child is able to focus on things outside of themselves, they cannot focus on more than one aspect of an object at any given time. Logical thinking begins to develop in some areas, but reality is not firmly developed and the child will still believe in magical thinking.The next period is concrete operational thinking. This period occurs between the ages of seven and eleven. This stage is also characterized by a loss of egocentric thinking. Organized, logical thought begins to develop. The child begins to be able to do concrete problem solving. During this period categorical labeling develops and the child is able to sort unlike items into logical groups. Categorization was previously demonstrated on superficial attributes.The last period of Piaget's cognitive development is the period of formal operations. This period occurs between the ages of eleven and fifteen. During this time thought becomes more abstract and incorporates the principles of formal logic. Abstract and multiple hypothesis thinking develops. Formal logical systems such as algebraic calculations can be acquired during this period. The formal operational stage is characterized by the ability to formulate hypotheses and systematically test them to arrive at an answer to a problem.As we can see from these periods, the human brain is not fully developed until late adolescence or early adulthood. Often, we expect children to behave as adults, but as we can see in relation to these periods, it is physically impossible for them to be able to do thinking above their period of development. As teachers we must take our student's developmental stage into account when developing and implementing our lesson plans.


Initial Teacher Education..........
The Great Teaching, Inspired Learning Blueprint for action plan includes measures to ensure students entering teaching degrees are strong academic achievers, with an aptitude for teaching and initiatives for providing teacher education students with high quality opportunities to practice their teaching skills in the classroom. In addition the quality of initial teacher education in NSW will be assessed in a number of agreed priority areas. (Nswteachers.nsw.edu.au)
There are five major outcomes within this framework at the Initial Teacher Education level. They are:
1. Entrants into teacher education will be high academic performers, have well-developed literacy and numeracy skills and show an aptitude for teaching.
2. Teaching will attract more of the brightest and motivated school leavers and career changers.
3. NSW teacher education programs will produce high quality graduates with personal attributes suited to teaching.
4. All teacher education students will receive high quality professional experience as part of their teacher education programs.
5. The quality of the teaching workforce in NSW will be informed by a strong evidence base.
For details of the specific actions related to the outcomes listed above. See http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/great-teaching-inspired-learning/blueprint-for-action/initial-teacher-education/
For more information on the Professional Experience framework, visit: http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/taas--schools/principals-supervisors/professional-experience-framework/
Great Teaching, Inspired Learning Internship.........
The Department implements targeted recruitment programs and staffing initiatives to enhance the supply of quality teachers in NSW public schools. These programs and initiatives also help maximise employment and career opportunities. Click on the links below to find out more information.
· teach.Rural initiatives, including teach.Rural Scholarships
· Teacher Education Scholarship Program
· Sponsored Training Education Program


Expose children to good books to encourage reading, says visiting mentor
Award-winning books found in bookstores are choices that cannot go wrong.
So says visiting educator Dr. Daisy Lu as she shares her insights on how to teach reading effectively with teachers of Immaculate Conception Academy and graduating education majors of the University of Santo Tomas.
Cultivate good reading by exposing children to good books with multicultural backgrounds. The test of a good book lies firstly in the written language, according to Lu. In addition, the character develops. So does the plot. The author shows his/her message as the story unfolds and does not tell it, she says.
“When it comes to reading, motivation of children should be to the point of making the children reach the highest level of efficacy,” says the education specialist with at least four decades of teaching experience in the United States.
“Work at his/her highest potential. Try to raise the bar. Do not just have children emerge as simply good at repeating after you. Bring in the arts: Music, drama, poetry and storytelling.”
Gone are the days of just requiring children as readers to write book reports afterwards, she says, citing the American experience. Other activities requiring children to think creatively and even design, like producing a small play, have taken over. Teaching reading today is just like the Dalcroze method of teaching music, calling for improvisation all the time, she adds.
Nurture curiosity, Lu says. Letting growth prevail over security has to be encouraged. Having the courage to take risks takes the learner farther.
“Autonomy helps push children,” Dr. Lu tells her audience. “Give them freedom in putting together a play inspired by a storybook and they will achieve their goal with amazing results. Everyone wants to feel he or she is making a choice.”
Also important is openness toward what the kids can come up with. Their imaginative power goes to work. Wonderful ideas do surface.
“Charlotte’s Web,” a best-selling children’s book about friendship, was once turned into an entertaining play complete with music by her grade school class. The art teacher helped create the costumes for the spider and the pig, for example. Lu, who has music training, handled the music for the small production.
Critical thinking involving strategies has to be kept in mind when teaching. Teaching pedagogy by scaffolding means knowing how to zoom in by asking questions to keep stimulating more questions, according to the visiting lecturer from Seattle, Washington.
Lu describes a good reader as a person who shows selective attention. He does not read everything. He has self-regulation and demonstrates discipline. Metacognition is another indication of a good reader. This is “knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving.”
Content knowledge when teaching has to be advanced, she tells local teachers. Language and reading teachers should work with other teachers like those in science to improve a child’s learning, according to her. She says she herself has never stopped learning, enrolling in diverse courses in the university and traveling extensively to enrich her own knowledge.
Lu has a doctorate degree in Cognitive Psychology, Socio-Psycholinguistics, Literacy Development and Bilingual-Multicultural Education from the University of Washington.
She was a K-12 teacher and principal in Seattle before deciding to focus on teaching at the university level.
E-mail Dr. Lu at email@example.com.
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MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management
In this paper, I consider the impact of positive youth development in the lives of Black youth, in the Historic Near East Side of Columbus, OH. More specifically, I examine initiatives centered in cultural arts, holistic support, and African centered education in order to identify positive trends impacting urban Black youth. My research is guided by the question: How are Black youth impacted by urban development in a historic African-American neighborhood?
The Near East Side(NES) is a distinguished neighborhood, and in the past laid the foundation for some of the most prominent and successful African American owned businesses in Columbus, Ohio. In the present, it still holds onto its historical and cultural significance, it is home to one of oldest National Urban League affiliates and continues to host multicultural and renowned artists from all over the world at the Lincoln Theater. Similar to other historic African American neighborhoods across the country, the Near East Side was subjected to both racial and social exclusion in order to promote urban renewal projects, which played a large role in the destruction of the community (Columbus Urban League).
This research aims to provide examples of theories and practices grounded in cultural and historical preservation pedagogy by linking them to positive youth development trends impacting Black youth. The literature review is comprised of case studies, annual reports, community observations and an in-depth interview, as well as my personal experience working and serving as both a Program Coordinator at the Columbus Urban League and a community organizer.
African American Studies | Art Education | Art Practice | Creative Writing | Educational Psychology | Political History | Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education | Social History
Keflom, Fevean N., "My Neighborhood Is Changing: Positive Youth Development in the Historic Near East Side" (2016). Capstone Collection. 2872.
African American Studies Commons, Art Education Commons, Art Practice Commons, Creative Writing Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Political History Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons, Social History Commons


In this continuing series on sight-reading, I thought it might be interesting to look at some recent research published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, and consider a few practical ways to improve this necessary skill. In a 2004 study, conducted by Joyce Eastlund Gromko and titled Predictors of Music Sight-Reading Ability in High School Wind Players, the author’s stated purpose was to “investigate relationships among music sight-reading and tonal and rhythmic audiation, visual field articulation, spatial orientation and visualization, and achievement in math concepts and reading comprehension.” (Journal of Research in Music Education, Spring 2004, Vol. 52 Issue 1, pp. 6-15) While some of the educational terms are a little unfamiliar to me, I gathered that the gist of the study was to determine what effect both musical skills (tonal and rhythmic audiation) and non-musical skills (achievement in math concepts and reading comprehension) have on sight-reading ability. The author conducted her study at several Midwestern high schools with diverse populations. The results of the study include several tables of numeric data, which support the author’s conclusion, quoted below.
Based on the results of this study conducted with wind players (N = 98) from four midwestern high schools serving rural, suburban, and urban populations, music sight-reading ability can be predicted by a combination of cognitive abilities. The presence of reading comprehension in the model supports Kolers et al. (1985), who suggested that reading music may be like reading words because both symbol systems are rule-governed. The presence of rhythmic audiation extends previous research conducted in music education that found rhythmic sight-reading to be the single best predictor of music sight-reading ability (Elliott, 1982). The finding supports the idea that precise aural feedback is necessary when processing the rhythmic information contained in music notation. The presence of spatial orientation in the model supports the research of Sergent et al. (1992), who asserted that “the relevant information contained in musical notations is derived not through feature analysis of the notes but through analysis of the spatial location of the notes” (p. 107). This finding suggests that reading music is a spatial process that may be like the reading of two-dimensional architectural drawings that are comprehended as three-dimensional objects. In other words, when skilled musicians read musical notation, they may mentally represent the sound as an image with spatial and temporal dimensions. Finally, the scores of the visual field articulation test were negatively correlated with the Watkins-Farnum scores. Students who scored high on visual field articulation focused on each individual square; these students scored lower on music sight-reading, which researchers claim to require a focus on musical patterns rather than individual notes (Goolsby, 1994), and on the spatial location of the notes rather than a discrete feature analysis of the notes (Sergent et al., 1992). (Journal of Research in Music Education, Spring 2004, Vol. 52 Issue 1, pp. 6-15)
Pretty interesting, isn’t it? From this study I think we can point to a couple of things which could improve sight-reading.
1) Since there is a strong correlation (at least in this study) between reading comprehension and sight-reading, it stands to reason that improving your reading and comprehension skills could improve your ability to sight-read.
2) The author came to a conclusion with which many other musicians would probably agree: Good sight-readers must have good rhythm. The above conclusion notes that “The presence of rhythmic audiation extends previous research conducted in music education that found rhythmic sight-reading to be the single best predictor of music sight-reading ability (Elliott, 1982).” I think one way to improve rhythm in sight-reading is simply to practice reading rhythms, either by clapping and counting, or playing rhythmic patterns on a single pitch. I really like Robert Starer’s Rhythmic Training, which is basically a collection of rhythm studies, ranging from simple to highly complex.
3) According to the above conclusion, good sight-readers have well-developed spatial orientation and pattern recognition abilities. I’m certainly not qualified to offer any real suggestions on how one could improve spatial orientation and pattern recognition, but one idea which immediately came to mind was video games (!). In my limited experience, good video and computer games seem to require some of the same skills pointed out as predictors of sight-reading ability. Perhaps future research might explore these connections – I’d certainly be interested in the results.


Bedtime stories are posed for a resurgence armed with greater purpose, aside from simply stoking the fires of children’s imaginations with magical lands, beautiful fairies, and vicious dragons.
A recently established policy from the American Academy of Pediatrics, one of the foremost governing bodies concerning dependable pediatrics in Flint and elsewhere in the U.S., is encouraging doctors to stress upon parents the benefits of reading with their children. Speaking to a representative of the academy, The Courier Journal’s Darla Carter reports:
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently adopted a policy that early literacy development be promoted at health care visits, from infancy until at least when the children start school.
Reading regularly with young children stimulates the optimal patterns of brain development, which, in turn, builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime.
Some of the benefits of reading to children are further explained as follows:
Academic excellence – Reading to children early improves the latter’s aptitude for learning in general. Also, according to educator and book author Jim Trelease, reading to a child is vastly different from a typical conversation, as literature is much more educational than spoken language (which is often tainted). The premise here is fairly intuitive: greater vocabulary equals greater academic advantage.
Better communication skills – Toddlers who were read to tend to be much more vocal, expressing themselves and relating to others more readily than those who didn’t receive the same treatment. This is in part due to them having witnessed the interactions between characters in a story, as well as the parent-child contact during story time, and adopting what they saw accordingly.
Greater bonding – Reading with children is a way for overly busy parents to catch up and deal with the guilt they experience for missing special moments with their young ones. Also, reading gradually exposes children to more mature topics in a much safer space. In these situations, parents are often the clingiest ones, as they will forever remember the times when their babies were innocent little angels trying to make headway into the world.
Recognizing these benefits, it’s a no-brainer that the AAP is encouraging doctors from centers of pediatric care in Flint, like Michigan Health Specialists, to entice parents to read to their children. After all, they’re the ones next in line, and any nation could surely use an educated generation taking over the reins in the future.
(Sources: Pediatricians to Stress Family Reading Time, The Courier-Journal, July 21, 2014)


Nashville, Tennessee is known as “Music City” in the United States. But on the west coast, some people might argue Silicon Valley is just as worthy of the name.
The valley is home to sound and music technology companies like Dolby Laboratories, Pandora and Smule.
And there is Real Industry, a non-profit organization to help techies get into the music industry. Priya Shekar is program director at the non-profit. She said, “Music technology is applications of STEM subjects like electrical engineering and computer science to music and audio applications.”
“That could be everything from designing new music apps, all the way to designing filters and effects that are used in audio production, to designing new instruments,” she added.
Through a series of workshops and online classes, Real Industry connects tech students, recent graduates and professionals with mentors in the music and entertainment industries.
The mentors come from companies like Sol Republic, Turtle Bay and Sonos. The students learn about the companies and their products.
More than 6,000 students from around the world have taken part in the online courses, and more than 200 have attended workshops in California.
Real Industry has also partnered with universities like Stanford in California as well as New York University and the University of Michigan. The schools hold classes like “Careers in Media Technology” on campus.
“I think a lot of jobs and responsibilities and careers go unexposed; they kind of stay behind the scenes of these companies,” said Shekar.
She is an electrical engineer with experience creating music education applications. “Having exposure lets [students] bring context to what they’re learning in school and all their other classes, but also helps them prepare for life after school.”
For industry leaders, the experience provides invaluable information.
“Industry folks are learning about what the next generation is learning, being able to tap into all of that fresh innovation and all these fresh ideas from these young kids who are users of products and fans of their products,” Shekar noted.
For Shekar, who is from New Zealand, the experience is not unlike her move to Silicon Valley. “It’s about knowing where to take that first step. A lot of people just don’t even know where to start.”
For music technologists hoping to break into the business, the answer might just be Silicon Valley.
I’m Pete Musto.
Tina Trinh wrote this report for VOANews.com. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Leave a message in the Comment Section or on our Facebook page.
Words in This Story
Silicon Valley – n. an area, in the state of California, where there are many technology companies
techie – n. someone who knows a lot about technology
application – n. a computer program that performs a particular task
STEM – n. short for science, technology, engineering and math
mentor – n. someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person
tap – v. to take or use money or knowledge from a source
innovation – n. a new idea, device, or method


This article throws light upon the top fifteen merits of basic education in India.
1. The scheme is financially sound and acceptable in a poor country like India where about half of the total illiterate people of the world reside.
It is helpful for rapid expansion of elementary education with less burden on the public exchequer.
Gandhiji himself attached great importance to the self-supporting aspect of Basic Education, since he wanted to find out a solution to the problem of introducing compulsory primary education for all children of school-going age.
The Zakir Hussain Committee observed after careful consideration: “We consider the scheme of Basic Education to be sound in itself. It should be accepted as a matter of sound educational policy and as an urgent measure of national reconstruction.”
2. It is also economically productive as it is based on the principle of work. Basic Education recognises the educational importance of work. The philosophy of Basic Education is essentially pragmatic and materialistic of which John Dewey, Marx and Engels spoke so high. Work occupies a central place in Basic Education. It is production-oriented and helps in the program of national economic reconstruction.
3. Basic Education is democratic and socialistic in nature. In it class and caste distinctions disappear. Thus, it helps to bring social solidarity and national integration. It trains the child in democratic way of living and prepares the path for equalisation of educational opportunity.
4. It removes the barriers between the educated and the non-educated, between manual work and intellectual work, between the poor and the rich, the village and the town.
5. Basic Education is based on the principle of activity in education. It is activity-centered education. Here, the child is not a passive recipient of knowledge but active participant in the learning process. It fosters learning by doing. Instruction is not passive, and the child learns through a productive and useful craft.
6. The curriculum in Basic Education is based on a proper understanding of the child’s nature. In framing the curriculum the child’s natural and social environment is also considered. Basic curriculum is essentially an activity curriculum.
7. Basic Education ends the divorce between the school and the community. Through Basic Education a bridge is created between the school and the community. Hence, Basic Education can be termed as community education.
8. Basic Education is child-centric. The child is the center of activity in Basic Education, and he learns by doing or through self-activity and self-study.
9. It is based on the cultural heritage and social values of our country. It inculcates certain social and moral values in the minds of the pupils.
10. Basic Education is based on the sound educational principle of co-relation. All educational activities and lessons are correlated to a basic craft. Correlation also takes place among physical environment, social environment and craftwork.
11. It recognises the dignity of labor. It helps the rich and intellectual classes to appreciate the dignity of labor.
12. Economically, it aims at rural reconstruction and silent industrial and agricultural revolution, and proposes to solve the problem of unemployment.
13. It is creative and helps to develop the total personality of the child.
14. Basic Education recognises the importance of mother-tongue as the medium of instruction at the elementary stage.
15. Basic Education aims at citizenship training. It fosters a sense of duty, responsibility, cooperation and fellow-feeling in the minds of the pupils which are essential for proper functioning of a democratic social order. It acts as nourishment to democracy.


Imagine living in a place where the temperature never rose above 50 degrees. You wouldn’t need flip flops or shorts and your mom would probably never buy popsicles. You’d spend your days wearing sweaters and boots. In the tundra zone of the polar climates, winters are long and dark. When summer arrives, though, plants grow quickly and animals, such as moose, birds and fish, arrive to feed on the plants. Summer doesn’t get very warm and it doesn’t last long, so animals make the most of the time they have.
Head further north (or south) and you arrive at the ice cap climates. Not much lives here, because the temperature hovers at a balmy 0 degrees year-round. The ice is so thick that it reflects the Sun’s light. Even in the summer, the ice doesn’t melt. You’d think that this area would be very snowy, but parts of the ice cap rarely get snow or rain. In fact, Antarctica is the largest desert on Earth, with an ice cap a mile thick. The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on the whole of Earth.
Fun Facts About Polar Climates for Kids
- Few people live in the tundra zone, although they sometimes migrate during the summer to hunt.
- Researchers and polar bears and penguins are among the only beings who venture to the ice caps.
- Antarctica has the lowest temperature ever recorded: −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) at Vostok Station.
Polar Climates Vocabulary
- Tundra: Cold windy areas with few trees. Low-lying plants and wildflowers grow here
- Hover: stays, remains
- Balmy: mild and warm
- Reflect: mirrors back
All About Polar Climates Video for Kids
Here’s a great video for kids on Polar Climates:
Polar Climates Q&A
Question: What kinds of animals live in the tundra?
Answer: The tundra supports an amazing diversity of life, from wolverines to snow geese, marmots, insects and white fox.
Question: Are the tundra regions in danger?
Answer: As the Earth warms, the tundra areas are also warming. A thin layer of ice, known as permafrost is thawing. This warming is causing new types of plant life to grow there, potentially creating problems for the animals and plants that currently live there.
Cite This Page
You may cut-and-paste the below MLA and APA citation examples:
MLA Style Citation
Declan, Tobin. " Polar Climate Facts for Kids ." Easy Science for Kids, Aug 2017. Web. 19 Aug 2017. < http://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-polar-climates/ >.
APA Style Citation
Tobin, Declan. (2017). Polar Climate Facts for Kids. Easy Science for Kids. Retrieved from http://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-polar-climates/
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At Chesterton Montessori School our Upper Elementary Program (ages 9 to 12) allows the children to further their elementary education in a more abstract manner. All areas of the curriculum, math, language, science, history, and reading, are taught with the Montessori materials while adding a more abstract component.
The children will learn history, zoology, and botany through the use of individual and group projects. Research projects and the mechanics of designing and writing reports are a large part of the curriculum. Field trips are designed to aid the classroom lessons. A three day spring trip is taken that also promotes the classroom curriculum. The students earn the money for the trip through a bake sale, which they manage and staff.
Upper Elementary students are the leaders of the school, and as such are tasked with the responsibility of helping to keep the school beautiful. The students learn about community service and all sixth graders complete a community project before graduation.
Upper Elementary – ages 9 to 12 years
Monday through Friday – 7:45 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
“The first duty of an education is to stir up life, but leave it free to develop.”


Study: Teacher Stress Reduction Leads to Instructional Improvement
Mindfulness-based interventions and stress-reducing strategies can lead to improvements not only in teachers' social and emotional well-being but also in instructional climate and student engagement, according to a recent study out of the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education.
For the study, researchers examined the effects of teachers and students participating in "Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education" (CARE) for Teachers, a mindfulness-based professional-development program designed to help teachers reduce stress and burnout.
Patricia Jennings, associate professor of elementary education and lead author on the study, presented the findings at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference in April. (See slides below.)
"Today, many teachers are not well-prepared for the social and emotional demands of the classroom," Jennings said, according to a release on the study. "While spending a great amount of cognitive energy on the content of their lessons, teachers are also constantly managing a classroom of students, some of whom have difficulty attending to learning activities, sitting still or getting along with their peers."
The study is based on a classroom model theory positing that teachers' well-being promotes better teacher-student relationships, effective classroom management skills, and effective social-emotional learning.
The CARE program consisted of self-care and emotion-awareness instruction, mindfulness and stress-reduction practices, and empathy exercises, with applications to teaching explored through discussion and role plays.
The study followed two groups of 36 New York City public elementary schools—eight in the 2012-13 academic school year and 28 in 2013-14—including 5,036 students and 224 teachers split into an intervention group and a control group. The teachers in the intervention group participated in a series of five six-hour sessions with individualized phone coaching in between over two weeks.
Researchers found that the teachers who participated in CARE were more emotionally supportive and demonstrated greater sensitivity to students than those in the control group. Teachers made better use of instructional time, which in turn made students more productive and involved in learning activities. The findings are based largely on teacher self-report questionnaires, observational ratings of teachers and classrooms, teacher reports on students, and students' school records.
"Teachers who are able to reduce the level of stress they are experiencing have an improved ability to recognize a student's perspective and how their own judgments or biases are impacting their reaction to a student," Jennings said. "The findings definitely suggest that mindfulness-based interventions can have 'downstream' effects on the classroom environment and on the students."
To follow up on the study, Jennings is currently working on a two-year analysis of teacher outcomes and sustainability. For her next project, she wants to bring the CARE program to additional locations and make it adaptable for special populations, such as caregivers and special education teachers.
More on teacher mindfulness:


Teaching such economic concepts as specialization and opportunity costs has left many a Texas teacher struggling to keep students awake as they try to meet state rules for teaching the free enterprise system. To assist them, a San Antonio economics professor has been dispatching enthusiastic college students to enliven the subject for their younger counterparts in five area elementary and secondary schools.
The Economists in the Schools program at Trinity University sends economics majors into high schools to teach and teams them with elementary education majors to teach in grade schools. The goal is to improve the teaching of economics and to balance the subject knowledge with pedagogy. The college students earn course credits for their time in the classroom.
"Economics is difficult to teach because it's a dry subject and hard to make interesting," said Rachel Hays, a teacher at the Health Careers High School in San Antonio. She teaches two economics courses despite having had limited exposure to the subject when she was in college.
Created by Trinity's Richard Butler in 1993, the program builds hands-on group activities into the curriculum.
To explain the efficiency of specialization in mass production, for instance, small groups of students must reproduce a paper design using one stapler and one pair of scissors. The students then calculate how many more designs they made when they produced them as a group, each specializing in one task, as opposed to making them individually.
"We try to teach very important abstract principles with a lot of sugarcoating," Mr. Butler said. "These college students will take some of the dullest topics in the course and make it fun."
Emerging democracies around the globe will have a new resource for guiding their transformation with the planned development of a framework for democracy education.
The Calabasas, Calif.-based Center for Civic Education, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, is convening scholars worldwide to write the document during the next two years. The framework will assist nations in crafting their own civic education curricula and standards, said Charles F. Bahmueller, the project director of the center's international civic education exchange program.
The framework will include guidelines for use in schools, adult education courses, and other programs. After scholars review the draft, it will be posted on the World Wide Web at http://www.primenet.com/~cce for comment.
--KATHLEEN KENNEDY MANZO email@example.com


Lessons from Band Class
The clash of cymbals, the beat of drums, and the exuberance of horns. That’s what greeted students and staff at many of the schools I visited on our first day last month, as Baltimore County Public Schools’ marching bands sounded an enthusiastic welcome back for our learners.
Beyond what we could hear, there was an energy that was contagious. You don't just see and listen to a marching band. You feel it. You feel the energy, you feel the excitement, and most importantly, you feel the synergy.
Students working together through music and rhythm perfectly symbolize the ideal climate we strive to develop at each school. A common goal is achieved by playing the song together. Each instrumentalist makes a meaningful contribution through melody, harmony, and rhythm. There is a sense of belonging and a spirit of cooperation among peers and adults. Everyone has a place and a purpose.
I felt this connection while learning to play saxophone, trumpet, and drums in middle and high school band. In the band room, I was able to let my guard down and get to know my peers in a positive setting. Band brought young people together across the vastly separate spheres of adolescent life.
The sometimes-harsh clangs and clashes produced during practice sessions may have concealed the beauty of young minds developing what educators now refer to as 21st century skills. We communicated about pitch and pace. We used critical thinking to read and listen simultaneously. We collaborated across woodwinds, brass, and percussion. And, ultimately, we created one sound from many.
This holistic nature of music education celebrates the whole child as a learner in several dimensions. I led and I followed. I applied feedback intended for the wind section to better understand brass and percussion. I pursued my own interests, while contributing to something bigger than me. I expressed music as a second language.
In these ways, at an early age, band helped me understand the value and importance of multiple perspectives. Each band member felt passionate about their own instrument. We idolized professional musicians who represented our own section. We cherished moments in each song when our section took the lead. But we came together to make the kind of magic that’s only possible when people cross boundaries.
I rely now on the band known as Team BCPS including the voices of parents, students, and residents, and the expertise of teachers and leaders. My ability to provide well-rounded learning experiences for more than 112,000 students rests on understanding the concerns and priorities of a diverse community, establishing common ground, and directing this engagement toward supports that will benefit every student. This outreach is the foundation for our efforts to transform teaching and learning, raise achievement levels, and close gaps.
Promoting arts education is extremely important to me. It’s why I drop in on a school steel drum band and play a few bars. It’s why I invest in a permanent collection of student artwork for the school system headquarters and for my home. It’s why every systemwide event—from professional development to celebrations—is punctuated by a variety of student performances.
I appreciate all of the arts, but band has a special place in my heart. Band will always be the place where I learned how to listen, how to lead, and what can be accomplished when people from different walks of life come together around a common purpose.


En español los estudiantes usaron iPads para grabar un comercial inventado por ellos. Ellos usan una variedad de herramientas de efectos especiales disponibles dentro del software y disfrutaron la filmación y edición. Los estudiantes estaban involucrados en este proyecto que proporcionó la oportunidad de ser creativo y divertirse.
Third graders are using Class Dojo in a brand new way. Through videos and discussions, students are working on developing a “growth mindset." In 1978, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck made a profound discovery: children who believed their intelligence could grow did better in school, and better in life. She called this basic belief about intelligence “mindset.”
In 3rd grade, we are using iPads for spelling work and fluency in reading. Teachers are continuing to use Front Row for differentiation. Front Row is an app that allows teachers to create targeted practice sessions for students on specific domains and standards within Math and Language Arts. Students and teachers enjoy using the app.
We continue to document student learning in math and reading using iPads. Students solve math problems by explaining and illustrating their work using the app Screenchomp. They also record themselves reading and explaining reading comprehension strategies.
Fourth grade have been using the app ScreenChomp to document and assess student understanding in math. The students record themselves drawing and explaining a math problem.
Students have also filmed each other on the iPads reading a book of their choice. This allows teachers to document and assess their fluency; it also allows the students a chance to listen, watch and self-assess their reading.
Fourth grade has started an exciting unit on weather. Technology has really helped us enhance our lessons and bring the unit to life. We have been using satellite images of weather conditions and students are reading digital versions of newspapers to learn about weather in all parts of the world.
En español los estudiantes hicieron uso de la tecnología, en la materia de Geografía, con mapas interactivos de nuestro país para localizar los estados y aprender las capitales. También con ayuda del ipad jugaron memoramas de estados y capitales.
Third grade teachers are really starting to integrate technology into all subject areas. The newly started "Being A Writer" program comes with interactive whiteboard lessons that have been extremely helpful. Mentor texts are being projected and read aloud so that students can follow along to aid in comprehension.
Teachers are taking advantage of the Power Teacher app on the iPads, allowing them to quickly and efficiently assess students. A number of teachers took an iPad training session, which initiated some amazing new ideas for classroom use. Science and Social Studies curriculum is being integrated, right now during our "Animals" unit, using the Brain Pop website and iPads to really engage the learners.
Pre-First teachers are using technology in a number of new ways. Math and phonics lessons are now being projected using an iPad and Airplay. Students are more engaged with interactive lessons using Mimio whiteboards and projectors. The iPads are being put into students' hands, utilizing the numerous interactive texts on Raz-Kids. Students are able to read and listen to leveled readers on this site, using newly purchased headphone splitters.


Key Principles/Purpose of Study: At Littlegreen we offer a music education which engages and inspires pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.
Aims and Objectives:
Key Stage 2 Pupils are taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.
Pupils are taught to:
- play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
- improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music
- listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
- use and understand staff and other musical notations
- appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
- develop an understanding of the history of music
Key Stage 3 & 4 Pupils build on their previous knowledge and skills through performing, composing and listening. They develop their vocal and/or instrumental fluency, accuracy and expressiveness, and understand musical structures, styles, genres and traditions, identifying the expressive use of musical dimensions. They are taught to listen with increasing discrimination and awareness to inform their practice as musicians. They use technologies appropriately and appreciate and understand a wide range of musical contexts and styles.
Pupils are taught to:
- play and perform confidently in a range of solo and ensemble contexts using their voice, playing instruments musically, fluently and with accuracy and expression
- improvise and compose; and extend and develop musical ideas by drawing on a range of musical structures, styles, genres and traditions
- use staff and other relevant notations appropriately and accurately in a range of musical styles, genres and traditions
- identify and use the interrelated dimensions of music expressively and with increasing sophistication, including use of tonalities, different types of scales and other musical devices
- listen with increasing discrimination to a wide range of music from great composers and musicians
- develop a deepening understanding of the music that they perform and to which they listen, and its history
Links to Useful Resources:


Hazelwood Outdoor Kindergarten is an urban “forest kindergarten” that celebrates the many benefits of outdoor learning. Forest kindergartens began in Denmark in the 1950s, and are steadily growing in popularity across Europe and the United States. The growth of this movement is fueled by a wealth of research proclaiming the many benefits of free play in nature. Studies note increased cognitive flexibility, use of imagination, emotional capacity, creativity, self discipline and much more.
Perhaps more important are the observations, by parents and teachers alike, of the emotional and spiritual rewards of fostering a deep connection with the natural world. We find that when the children in our care are spending significant time outside daily, they are more harmonious, cooperative and imaginative. They also have improved motor skill development and sensory integration. In short, they are happier and healthier!


When one considers the term, “community service,” food collections, fundraisers, and rebuilding houses are charitable activities that often come to mind. These stereotypes are not incorrect; much of what many non-profit or charitable organizations strive for is to make sure that all humans have the “essentials” to survive. However, we often overlook one of the most basic and inalienable rights of humans: creation. Creation should never be a privilege, yet it is an absolute right and an absolute need. While the mediums of art and creation may vary, we must survive through perfecting our own “art”. While one may have to sift through various files, online searches, contacts, and references, there are indeed non-profit organizations in existence whose goals are to educate, liberate, and inspire through art. These organizations give their participants the opportunities to learn and grow as artists. They also give them a “safe space” and a warm artistic playground to discover themselves and learn to safely observe, appreciate, and embrace the world around them. These organizations prove that art is a viable method of outreach, and that this method is essential to continue to increase the quality of life for people young and old alike.
In recent years, arts programs are being underfunded or not funded at all at public schools. This is detrimental to both the future of the children that do not experience arts education, and the future world as a whole. In my paper, I want to examine the effects of a lack of art education, what organizations are doing now to improve or reinstate art programs, and/or how art can be used to reach out to the underserved. What is the effect that art has on those that cannot speak for themselves because of their financial situation, race, gender, or (dis)ability?


Can visual art be taught through radio? The producers of WHA’s “Let’s Draw” program thought so. Through pioneering on-air lessons, "Let's Draw" brought art education to schoolchildren throughout Wisconsin from 1936 to 1970. This exhibit combines a look at the historic "Let’s Draw" program with the work of six contemporary Wisconsin artists who have very diverse approaches to drawing: Emily Belknap (Cedarburg), Tony Conrad (Appleton), Nina Ghanbarzadeh (New Berlin), Lee Mothes (Kaukauna), Zach Mory (Milwaukee), and Katie Ries (Manitowoc). Their work ranges from tightly drawn realist landscape imagery (Mothes and Belknap) and loose "field note" sketches (Ries) to finely textured, large-scale abstraction (Conrad and Mory) and fluid images built up with calligraphic script (Ghanbarzadeh).
Presented by the James Watrous Gallery in partnership with Wisconsin Public Radio, Let’s Draw includes archival photographs, transcripts, teachers’ guides, drawings, and an interactive station where visitors can listen and follow along with an original Let's Draw lesson. Several of the artists in the exhibition will script and record an audio art lesson of their own with the help of Wisconsin Public Radio producer Erika Janik. These lessons are available to hear in the gallery and below:
Let’s Draw is sponsored in part by Dane Arts, with additional funds from the the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation; The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times; the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation; and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation. The James Watrous Gallery also receives ongoing support from the Wisconsin Arts Board, with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts, and from donors and members of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.
Our Let's Draw Exhibition Partner
Our Let's Draw Exhibition Sponsor


Students Marked Speech Sounds Faster After Music Training, Study Says
By guest blogger Liana Heitin
Cross-posted from Curriculum Matters
Elementary students who participated in a music enrichment program for two years showed improvement in their ability to process speech sounds, according to a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
The study adds to the body of research suggesting that playing music helps students' cognitive development.
Forty-four students, ages 6 to 9, who attended music training through the Harmony Project, a nonprofit music education program serving low-income students in Los Angeles, participated in the study. At the beginning of the after-school program, students received two hours per week of instruction on pitch, rhythm, notation, and other fundamental music skills. Several months into the program, or more, depending on the availability of instruments, students began receiving at least four hours per week of instruction and learned to play music.
The researchers, led by Nina Kraus, a principal investigator at the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University, used a neural probe to test the speed of students' auditory processing when hearing two consonant-vowel pairs: \ba\ and \ga\. "What we want to know is, how does the brain automatically respond to speech sounds?" Kraus said in an interview. "We're able to capture neural timing on the order of microseconds. It's very precise." Students were tested before the program began, and at the end of one and two years.
After two years of participation in the program, students "showed a marked improvement in the neural differentiation of the syllables," according to the published study. Researchers also found that students with more hours of instrumental training showed larger improvements. "Certainly, it is the act of making music that is important for these changes," said Kraus. "Just listening to music, you won't see these kinds of changes in people."
Those students who only participated in the program for one yearand therefore got less instrumental trainingdid not demonstrate similar neural changes.
Another recent study of primary students in Germany found that faster auditory processing was associated with better spelling and reading skills, my colleague Sarah Sparks wrote in December.
The new study "has shown us it is possible to see some fundamental biological changes that are tracking with music experiences that were delivered in a group and community-based environment," said Kraus.
Below is a segment PBS NewsHour posted in January about the Harmony Project and Kraus' preliminary research.


We've been busy in the garden so far this Easter Holidays with the children planting seeds (mixed flowers, pumpkins for the biggest pumpkin competition and sunflowers for the tallest sunflower competition!).
If you are avid gardeners as part of BBC’s Dig In series, you can get some free seeds. The aim of the series is to introduce the joys and benefits of growing your own. It’s easy to get some free seeds - you’ll be sent tomatoes, squash, beetroot, lettuce and carrots by filling in a simple form on their site. Smaller gardeners (under the age of 16) can get their own seeds from the CBeebies website!
Letting children help to grow their own food is an fabulous learning experience for them, which teaches so much. Planting seeds involves literacy skills - reading growing instructions and writing identification labels, numeracy skills - counting the seeds and sharing them between pots, and the digging, sowing, watering involved is great for gross and fine motor skill development.
Are you going to grow your own this year? Do comment and us know what are you growing and your top tips!