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Sunday, February 21, 2010
Teaching Art
As we're facing the elimination of art and music education in our school district next year, I've been looking for ways to teach it at home. Here are some art lesson plans from the Denver Museum of Art aimed at K-5.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
A modest proposal
At the risk of looking like a sock puppet for the New York Times, here's an interesting proposal about the ideal elementary school classroom, a day based on immersion rather than memorization and rote exercises, a schedule that can only be supported in a less test-dependent environment. What do you think?
Monday, February 1, 2010
Math series at The Opinionator
Steven Strogatz, a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell, is blogging at the New York Times' Opinionator about math for the next several weeks. In today's post, he talks about his plans for the series:
His first post starts with preschool and includes a video from Sesame Street that addresses the question, "Why do we need numbers?" You can read his post here
I’ll be writing about the elements of mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, for anyone out there who’d like to have a second chance at the subject — but this time from an adult perspective. It’s not intended to be remedial. The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it.
His first post starts with preschool and includes a video from Sesame Street that addresses the question, "Why do we need numbers?" You can read his post here
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sciency things
I've been collecting links for a post on science resources that I haven't had time to write. But we've been stumbling on some great websites lately. Here are a few to get you started. What are your favorite science sites for kids?
General Science
Watch They Might Be Giants science videos. We like "Meet the Elements" the best.
Cosmography
The Scale of the Universe. Use the slider to compare the sizes of things from quantum foam to the universe itself. (Courtesy of Green-eyed Siren)
Physics
A spectacular Rube Goldberg device with everyday objects. (via Dedicated Elementary Teacher Overseas)
A stylish simple machines game from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
General Science
Watch They Might Be Giants science videos. We like "Meet the Elements" the best.
Cosmography
The Scale of the Universe. Use the slider to compare the sizes of things from quantum foam to the universe itself. (Courtesy of Green-eyed Siren)
Physics
A spectacular Rube Goldberg device with everyday objects. (via Dedicated Elementary Teacher Overseas)
A stylish simple machines game from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Into the Abyss
I got a call back from the headmistress of one of the school’s I’d contacted. It would take a miracle for this school to work out, but if I could design my own school, it would be pretty close to this one.
The school is K-8, with one class per grade, each of which Is 16-18 kids. They have Spanish twice a week starting in kindergarten and then every day in middle school. They have music twice a week and one long art class per week. This is all fairly standard for private schools.
The school sits on 50 acres of forested land, with ponds and streams and they take full advantage of it. Kids spend hours a day outdoors, not just for gym and recess but for classes. The school emphasizes environmental studies and science classes often take them to explore the land around the school. The various subjects are integrated into general units. When they are studying the Civil War in history, they will be reading novels about the Civil War in English. There is also a character-building curriculum. While that name gives me pause and suggests several big brother-like ideas. But what it means is that they talk about philosophy and ethics and ask a lot of why questions. In that Civil War unit, for example, they also talk about whether there is ever a good reason to have a war, why wars happen, what are some alternatives.
Although this school is not for gifted children per se, the headmistress spent most of her career as a gifted teacher, first as a homeschooler of her own large family, then as a professional. We talked about the pros and cons of homeschooling for a while as well. A number of her articles appear on Hoagie’s. And interestingly, she used to be the gifted teacher at AJ’s current school. We talked about that too.
Mr. Spy and I are making plans to go visit the school, although I really think the chances of AJ being able to attend it are nearly zero. But I'm curious too about how such a school works. I'm excited by the idea of a place that uses its own environment as a catalyst for learning.
If you could design your own school, what would it be like?
The school is K-8, with one class per grade, each of which Is 16-18 kids. They have Spanish twice a week starting in kindergarten and then every day in middle school. They have music twice a week and one long art class per week. This is all fairly standard for private schools.
The school sits on 50 acres of forested land, with ponds and streams and they take full advantage of it. Kids spend hours a day outdoors, not just for gym and recess but for classes. The school emphasizes environmental studies and science classes often take them to explore the land around the school. The various subjects are integrated into general units. When they are studying the Civil War in history, they will be reading novels about the Civil War in English. There is also a character-building curriculum. While that name gives me pause and suggests several big brother-like ideas. But what it means is that they talk about philosophy and ethics and ask a lot of why questions. In that Civil War unit, for example, they also talk about whether there is ever a good reason to have a war, why wars happen, what are some alternatives.
Although this school is not for gifted children per se, the headmistress spent most of her career as a gifted teacher, first as a homeschooler of her own large family, then as a professional. We talked about the pros and cons of homeschooling for a while as well. A number of her articles appear on Hoagie’s. And interestingly, she used to be the gifted teacher at AJ’s current school. We talked about that too.
Mr. Spy and I are making plans to go visit the school, although I really think the chances of AJ being able to attend it are nearly zero. But I'm curious too about how such a school works. I'm excited by the idea of a place that uses its own environment as a catalyst for learning.
If you could design your own school, what would it be like?
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