'Thing One'

As children jump into their summer reading programs – whether reading on their own or being read to – challenge them to model structures that visualize characters or objects from the stories.

Building models of structures is one of the tools that scientists and engineers use to test their ideas and students better understand ideas through hands-on concrete models that clarify their understanding of what they read and how things are put together.

Facilitate this process can by challenging young children to create models based from the books they read such as Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham, Cat in the Hat, etc.

Green Eggs and Ham

Ask them to build a representation of Max or a sailboat. Try Thing 1 and Thing 2 or green eggs and ham. Celebrate Dr. Seuss’s creativity by asking children to replace green eggs and ham with a food that they alter the color of. Then have them build models of their foods to share with their friends or classmates. Take a poll to see who would try the foods that are built.

Visit LittleEdventures.com to find innovative hands-on projects for early childhood learning in the classroom and after school.

Make EVERY day Earth Day!

There are so many ways to contribute to earth day, but is one day enough?  Try and pick something that you do on a regular basis and make it a “green” habit instead!

Suggestion:  Give up bottled water.

TED Prize winner Dave Eggers co-founded the nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization in San Francisco and it has since expanded to 8 cities throughout the country.

Usually pictures are a thousand words, but one really must listen to Dave Eggers as he tells the story of how a writer founded 8 tutoring centers and a list of over 1400 volunteers to help a local school.   Dave tapped his passion of writing to help create  tutorial centers to help students for free!  However he soon found out that he couldn’t do that without “selling something” in the space he was renting…so, he invented a store that ended up paying for the rent of the center!  The stores vary in every city from Pirate Supplies, Super Hero Supplies,  and a Boring Store.  All products in the store are handmade and profits go to fund the tutorial centers.

Click on the link below to listen to Dave describe how his wish came true through creativity and a community that was ready for magic!

Here is the link to the presentation by Dave Eggers: 2008 TED Prize wish: Once Upon a School

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching.  The stores have quickly replaced Christmas merchandise with everything red, pink and heart shaped.  There is chocolate at every turn.  I admit that I love holidays, but Valentine’s is especially close to my heart since my oldest daughter repeated my words to me…”Let’s make something for our friends and family Mom.  You always say if you really love someone then you should take the time to make them something thoughtful, since you can’t buy time.”  Children have a remarkable talent for remembering things at the most inconvenient times.

My daughter happened to remember this particular jewel when I was traveling between twenty-one childcare centers and teaching part-time for a local community college.  Time!  I didn’t have time!  However, you do miraculously find the time when your child quotes something you said and they are watching to see if you can walk the talk.   The end results were outrageously fun and beaming with love all over them.  We handmade Valentine cards and made chocolate goodies for friends and families.  So take the time to show your child you love them and make them special something or help them to make tokens for friends and family.

For fun holiday and craft ideas go to Family Fun. The Ipod Valentine and Conversation Fudge recipe can be found on their website.  Just click on Holidays and browse through the Valentine ideas.  Enjoy!!

I just finished revisiting research from an article on edweek.org entitled Prekindergarten (September 21, 2004). There seems to be a lot of buzz surrounding stimulus funding in education and where it is best spent.  It is interesting to me that third world countries are now recognizing the best investment in the future are it’s young children and yet we seem to be focusing on more advanced courses for high school students in math and science.  It only seems logical that everything relies on a strong foundation.  Whether we are talking high rises or education.

In looking for quality care for our children do we consider it the type of decision that will effect their reading and mathematics scores, earn $2,000 more per month, lessen the chance of divorce or be arrested and be more likely to enroll or graduate from college (High/Scope Perry Preschool Project-Schweinhart, Barnes, and Weikart, 1993 and The Porter Graham Child Development Center, 1999).  All of these things are influenced by the foundation that is laid in quality early childhood education programs according to studies such as the Abecedarian Study and High Scope/Perry Preschool Project.

So, what type of foundation are you building?

All of the new brain research is both exciting and confusing for educators.  It seems like every time I look there are several new publications out.  Teaching with the Brain In Mind is a resource that I would like to  share with you. It is an an older publication that I still pick up and reread. The information isn’t overwhelming and it gives straight forward ideas to try in the classroom or with your own children.

Teaching with the Brain In Mind by Eric Jensen

“It’s now understood that environmental events at one level of an organism (molecules, cells, organs, systems, individual behavior, society) can profoundly influence events at other levels (Cacioppo, Berntson, Sheridan, & McClintock, 2001). This finding suggests that your experiences and the actions you take can lead to changes in your brain. These changes, in turn, change you. We also know that your life influences your genes at the same time that your genes regulate your life. Researchers have found evidence of social influence on both genetic constitution (Reik, Dean, & Walter, 2001; Wilson & Grim, 1991) and genetic expression (Suomi, 1999)—meaning the substance of the genes and how the genes function. New evidence suggests that environmental triggers, even things like stress (Foster & Cairns, 1994), can “reprogram” our genes. In short, we can and do influence our own genetic material; this is a profound revelation!

Simple bricks can be used to build anything!

You wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first createuniverse.
Carl Sagan

In ExchangeEveryDay, Roger and Bonnie Neugebaur talked about the importance of quality play for young children.

“What happened to good old blocks and balls?  So we are pleased to share with you the Infant & Toddler Play, Toys & Media ACTION GUIDE developed by Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE).  The guide spells out why quality play is so important and what types of toys support healthy play.  And, it includes some specific recommendations of toys for infants and toddlers.  The introduction describes how creative play is being challenged today:

• Infants and toddlers are spending many hours in front of a screen.
• Many toys are marketed as educational when in fact there is no evidence to prove it.
• The increasing n umber of electronic toys, games, and DVDs often turns our infants and toddlers into passive players whose main activity becomes pushing a button.”

The following information is directly from The Girl Effect website.  It will move you to do more than just acknowledge the situation.  It will move you to see the difference one girl can make and help her.  Click on this link to see the video:  TheGirlEffect

Why Should We Pay Attention to Girls?

Little research has been done to understand how investments in girls impact economic growth and the health and well-being of communities. This lack of data reveals how pervasively girls have been overlooked. For millions of girls across the developing world, there are no systems to record their birth, their citizenship, or even their identity.  However, the existing research suggests their impact can reach much farther than expected.

The Ripple Effect

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.  (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881  [Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)

• Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers.  (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)

• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.  (Phil Borges, with foreword by Madeleine Albright, Women Empowered: Inspiring Change in the Emerging World [New York: Rizzoli, 2007], 13.)

Population Trends

• Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world. Girls Count, 14 (Population Reference Bureau, DataFinder database, http://www.prb.org/datafinder.aspx [accessed December 20, 2007].)

• More than one-quarter of the population in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa are girls and young women ages 10 to 24. Girls Count, 15  (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision,” http://esa.un.org/unpp, and “World  Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision,” www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005WUP_DataTables1.pdf.)

• The total global population of girls ages 10 to 24—already the largest in history—is expected to peak in the next decade.  Girls Count, 14  (Ruth Levine et al., Girls Count: A Global Investment & Action Agenda [Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development, 2008].)

Educational Gaps

• Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school.  (Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries [Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005].)

• Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls.  (Human Rights Watch, “Promises Broken: An Assessment of Children’s Rights on the 10th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,”  http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/education.html [December 1999].)

Child Marriage and Early Childbirth

• One girl in seven in developing countries marries before age 15.  Girls Count, 41  (Population Council, “Transitions to Adulthood: Child Marriage/Married Adolescents,” http://www.popcouncil.org/ta/mar.html [updated May 13, 2008].)

• 38 percent marry before age 18.  Girls Count, 41  (Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries [Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005].)

• One-quarter to one-half of girls in developing countries become mothers before age 18; 14 million girls aged 15 to 19 give birth in developing countries each year.  Girls Count, 3  (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 2005, http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005.)

• In Nicaragua, 45 percent of girls with no schooling are married before age 18 versus only 16 percent of their educated

counterparts. In Mozambique, the figures are 60 percent versus 10; in Senegal, 41 percent versus 6. Girls Count, 44  (International Center for Research on Women, Too Young to Wed: Education & Action Toward Ending Child Marriage,  http://www.icrw.org/docs/2006_cmtoolkit/cm_all.pdf [2007].)

• A survey in India found that girls who married before age 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped, or threatened by their husbands as were girls who married later.  (International Center for Research on Women, Development Initiative on Supporting Healthy Adolescents [2005], analysis of quantitative baseline survey data collected in select sites in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand, India [survey conducted in 2004].)

Health

• Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. Compared with women ages 20 to 24, girls ages 10 to 14 are five times more likely to die from childbirth, and girls 15 to 19 are up to twice as likely, worldwide.  (United Nations Children’s Fund, Equality, Development and Peace, http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/pub_equality_en.pdf [New York: UNICEF, 2000], 19.)

• 75 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds living with HIV in Africa are female, up from 62 percent in 2001.  Girls Count, 48  (Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, Keeping the Promise: An Agenda for Action on Women and AIDS,  http://data.unaids.org/pub/Booklet/2006/20060530_FS_Keeping_Promise_en.pdf[2006a].)

girleffect.org

Holidays are a wonderful way to involve your children in creating new traditions and memories that will last a life time!  Here are a few pictures of ideas to decorate cupcakes and doughnut holes.  I purposely am leaving out an ingredient list because half of the fun is exploring fun ideas on your own!

The brain is fascinating.  The last five years have revealed a tremendous amount of information for educators to sift through and make sense of for their professional and person use.  Here is an interesting factoid from the book, The Growth of the Mind by Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D.:

Recently it has been found that in order for neurons to make connections through the use of a neurotropic factor, they must be activated through experience.  The Growth of the Mind: And the Endangered Origins of Intelligence. Stanley I. Greenspan, Beryl Lieff Benderly, Published: September 1998

This simple sentence struck a chord in me.  Basically the more explorations we have that are tied to emotions, the better our recall and ability to apply these experiences in the future.  Words by themselves have no meaning unless it is connected to an image in our brain that comes up when we read it.  It makes sense when we reflect on favorite experiences in school.  They were experiences…not our favorite worksheet or flash cards.

Experiences in the school setting are the modern day “project approach” or “project based learning.”  It allows students to explore, discover and connect to what they are doing while they are learning.  Intrinsic motivation is created and naturally propels students into higher levels of thinking that we often limit them from.   For example, “grade leveling” too often decides instead of guides what students can do.  So what experiences are we giving our children?