Fuel the little brains with good breakfast
A growing child needs a nutritious breakfast that provides the sugar, starch, protein, and fat - elements necessary for children to ensure a sustained release of energy and a delayed onset of hunger. A sensible diet from practicing healthy cooking will ensure the little brain is fueled and the child is able to focus and concentrate on learning better in school, thus develop educationally.
A child who is hungry can be apathetic, disinterested, and irritable when confronted with difficult tasks. This affects the development of non verbal aspects of his growth, socially and emotionally. So, take care of your child’s physical need of hunger, then this can lead to better health, learning, and behavior - all keys to success at school - and in life.
Filed under learning | Comment (0)National Geographic Kids
If you are a fan of the colorful monthly magazine that captivated the World’s one million readers for more than 20 years, you might be interested to know they have created a children version especially for curious kids.
The National Geographic Kids contains the World’s features that encourage its readers to protect the planet’s resources. Children get to learn more about geography, adventure, wildlife, science, and youngsters of special distinction from around the world without leaving home, no traveling nor travel insurance is needed. :-) The National Geographic Kids is just like the adult version, but it also contain novelty and hands-on learning, colorful games and puzzles.
Filed under learning | Comment (0)Worst after school activities for children with ADHD
Watching excessive television especially a lot of violence and advertisements can hurt a child with ADHD. There children are ill-equipped to filter through messages to choose which to pay attention to. Most of all, plugging in the HDMI wall plate and start watching television after school is a passive activity, it takes time away from activities that can help to develop learning skills and social interaction. And from physical activities that children need to grow into healthy adults.
Research shows that video games reduce baseline brain activity in children with ADHD, causing them to continue to seek the reward of doing well in the game to compensate for the diminished dopamine levels in their brains that give them a sense of well-being. This may explain why some children with ADHD often become addicted to video games and have trouble stopping it.
In fact, any game or activity that involves long periods of inactivity, or a long sequence of steps to complete, can be tough for children with ADHD who just don’t have the patience necessary to succeed at these games. Common examples include standing in long lines at amusement parks, complicated card and board games, or physically demanding games where your child is on one of many teams who must wait long periods of time before starting to play.
Filed under Learning problem, Parenting, learning | Comment (0)Computers in the Classroom
It worries me to see preschools start offering computer classes or claim that they use multimedia for teaching. And in my opinion, the computer classes they now offered in all Malaysian primary schools are just a business opportunity for a few people to get rich.The New York Times just recently published an article titled “Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops“, which doesn’t come as a surprise to me. But at least there is transparency in the system that allow this to be told in a major newspaper. An average parent in Malaysia will never know who are the people who set the curriculum for the computer classes, who are the people the school hired to teach the classes, what/how do they teach (what approach, which curriculum, which learning theory)?
I think this is a very revealing article. It shows how little educational establishment understands about learning and how to support it — and how little they understand the nature of computing technology. Note the reasons offered for the failure of these laptop programs: technical difficulties, bad children, soaring costs, teachers who don’t know how to integrate computing technology into their curricula, teacher’s resistance. What a list!
IMHO, the real reason these programs failed is because the people who implement the program do not fully grasp the nature of the computer and how it interacts with the nature of the human being.
Computers by nature reflect and amplify our thinking habits and consciousness. Yes, that’s what computers are: amplifiers of thinking. All tools amplify human ability in some way, like glasses help us to see clearer, telescope helps us to see further, but only the computer has such ability to reflect and amplify the mind. The trouble is that computers amplify ALL the thinking habits and consciousness of their users, the bad along with the good, the primitive along with the refined. The computer is like those magnifying mirrors they have at the cosmetic counter - you can see yourself a little too clearly, every pore, every hair, every blemish. :-)
The computer can only transform the thinking of the user, and the thinking itself has to be built the “old-fashioned” way, by many years of self-construction in a developmentally appropriate environment. By just having “computer skills”, let alone just owning a computer, will never be a substitute for the discipline and conscious efforts it takes to build a well-trained mind.
Filed under Education, learning | Comment (1)The 3-period lesson
Introduction of a Three Period Lesson
(1) First step…associates the name of an object with the abstract idea the name represents…this is blue, this is red.
(2) Second step…test to see if the name is still associated in the child’s mind with the object…which is red…which is blue?
(3) Third step…the child is asked to pronounce the appropriate vocabulary himself/herself…what is this…what is this?
Maria said this about repeating a lesson:
“But when the child has failed, we should know that he was not at that instant ready for the psychic association which we wished to provoke in him and we must therefore choose another moment.”
Maria said “..In such cases, the children experience a joy at each fresh discovery. They are conscious of a sense of dignity and satisfaction which encourages them to seek for new sensations from their environment and to make themselves spontaneous observers.”
Filed under Education, Montessori, Uncategorized, learning | Comments (2)Development Required Before a Child Can Read
What is developmental appropriate activities? Making 2-3 years old holding a pencil with the wrong grip is setting her up for lifelong hatred of writing. Flashing cards to wigglers who can’t sit still for 20 seconds is setting ourselves for frustrations.
Parents came to me and said their 4 years old is “slow” because the academic progress is not as satisfactory. Usually, almost everytime, it’s because the developmental needs of the child were not addressed. If a child can’t concentrate for 20 seconds, he won’t be able to read and sit still to learn, and that is the underlying reasons why he is not “performing” academically.
In an authentic Montessori classroom, we prepare the children by allowing them to develop the right skills required for academic success, namely: ability to focus/concentrate and love of learning.
What are the developmentally needs and how do we prepare them?
Developmental Preparation
1. Sensorial development to receive information
2. Perceptual development in order to organize, understand and integrate information.
3. Neurological(tactal, stereognostic, etc) to utilize information in a physical manner.
4. Social development of interpersonal relationships to relate to people and events.
5. Symbolic development in order to decode.
6. Concept fromation
7. Verbal language
8. Visual language reading
Development Needed
1. Gross motor control
2. Fine muscle control
3. Eye-hand coordination
4. Ability to perceive figure in space (walking on line, etc)
5. Directionality (top-bottom, right-left, etc)
6. Ability to organize a temporal, spatial relationship (understanding, difference between in and on)
7. Ability to differentiate contrasting symbol and sound i.e. “a” and “t” is a good contrast in sound and symbol “b” and “p” are too similar .
8. Ability to classify
9. Ability to udnerstand conceptions presented in text (content meaning)
10. Well developed auditory discrimination
11. Ability to focus and listen to verbal instructions
12 General ability to focus on the task on hand.
Reference: “what’s involved in being Able to Read” Ellen de HArt Young Children, March 1968
Some of the activities and games that we used in the Montessori classroom to help to aid this developmental needs and develop the necessary skills.
http://joymontessori.blogspot.com/2007/01/sound-cylinders.html
http://joymontessori.blogspot.com/2007/01/visual-discrimination-cards.html
http://joymontessori.blogspot.com/2007/01/pre-reading-exercises.html
Filed under Pre Reading Activities, learning | Comment (1)
