One fun activity that parents can do with their students at home is make play-dough! Don’t be scared of the word play-dough( I know it’s messy!). Play dough strengthens fine motor skills. Play-dough is a manipulative that children work and mold with their hands, strengthening pincer grasp to pick up and work with small pieces of play-dough and open hand grasp to hold and work large amounts of play-dough. Play-dough also requires control. If they are working to create a specific product, they must control the shape and movement of the play-dough in order to get to their desired outcome. Play-dough is also open ended art. Children can create with the play-dough until they are ready to be done. It a simple activity that parents can do with kids that positively affects their development. Below I have included ingredients and instructions to make play-dough at home with your child that is completely natural, safe and fun to make! Even though you can buy play-dough in the store, making a diy play-dough could save you money and give you the chance to spend extra one-on-one time with your child!
Here are the Ingredients and Instructions Provided by DIY Natural!“Ingredients
2 Comments
Homework is designed to reinforce what the child learned in class. The only problem is homework time can be hard for both students and parents. Two questions commonly asked about homework is “how long should my child spend on homework?” and “what is the parent's role during homework?”. When it comes to elementary school, the rule of thumb that I think is reasonable for time spent on homework is an extra ten minutes is added as you move up a grade(Jessica Hartshorn-Parent Magazine). For example Kindergarten/first grade should spend ten minutes on homework, second grade should spend twenty minutes on homework,etc. According to Hartshorn a parent’s role during homework time is to keep their child on track, encourage them to work through challenges, and mark any spots they need help with for teachers. To keep them on track set a specific time for homework. To encourage them, ask guiding questions when they get stuck. Lastly mark spots on their homework where they get the answers wrong or where they are struggling so teachers know where the child needs help. Homework is meant to be helpful not stressful. If you see your child getting frustrated, have them take a short break and come back to the work after. When they complete their homework or overcome a challenge, acknowledge their success and push them continue using this positive grit next time they do their homework! Resource:https://www.today.com/video/homework-tip-for-parents-don-t-help-your-kids-too-much-769366595509 Here are more great tips for homework!
I want to tell everyone about Choose My Plate! Choose My Plate is a website created by the United States Department of Agriculture. The goal of choose my plate is to “advance and promote dietary guidance for all Americans”(USDA). In order to achieve this goals choose my plate focuses on creating balanced and nutritious meals. A nutritious and balanced diet positively affects a child’s development. According to James Graham, “a freelance medical writer with a PhD in neuroscience”(Ausmed) “during childhood, under-nutrition causes children to have less energy and less interest for learning, which negatively influences cognitive development and academic performance. Under-nutrition will also affect physical growth and maturation, thus affecting growth rate, body weight and ultimately height”. Choose My Plate guides students in creating balanced diets that ensure they will have the energy they need to maintain healthy cognitive and physical development. On their website they educate you about each food group. For example one food group is fruit. Choose my plate tells you which foods are in the food group, how much fruit you need each day( one cup) and what you can eat to get your one cup of fruit each day. Choose my plate also gives the option to sign up for a choose my plate plan. “The My Plate Plan shows your food group targets – what and how much to eat within your calorie allowance. Your food plan is personalized, based on your age, sex, height, weight, and physical activity level” (USDA). One other awesome feature that Choose My Plate offers is a variety of print materials such as guides to school lunches and breakfasts, tips for making family meals, different ways to cook a variety of foods, physical activity and so much more! With the knowledge, guidance and materials Choose My Plate provides, students and families can achieve healthy and balanced diets that positively support development. Here is the link to choose my plate!: https://www.choosemyplate.gov/ Resources: Graham.J (2016). Nutrition and Health in Childcare and the Role of the Healthcare Worker. Ausmed. Retrieved from: https://www.ausmed.com/articles/nutrition-for-children/ Here are some of my favorite print materials!
When we integrate technology we need to do three things’ The first thing we need to do is is ask “why are we integrating technology into education?”. Mariana answers this question perfectly his article Digital Technology Nexus for a New Era in Education. He says we integrate technology “to solve problems in new ways in order to delight and engage users”. This means that we use technology to solve problems occurring in the classroom in a more innovative way. The second thing we need to do is decide what goals we want to achieve from integrating technology into the education. A couple goals every educator should want to achieve are to produce learning, improve the quality of learning, use technology to help create a powerful learning environment and have students of varying learning abilities be successful(Mariana 2018). The other goals can be decided by the educator and/or their students. The last thing educators need to do to is when deciding what technology to incorporate the into the classroom, not only should they consider the goals they set up but they need to consider student’s interests, learning preferences, learning styles, learning differences, and learning strengths and weakness(Mariana 2018). With this knowledge, educators can choose the best technology to fit their student’s needs.
Resource: MOCANU, M. mariana. mocanu@cs. pub. r., & NICHIMIŞ, C. cristinanichimis@yahoo. co. (2018). Culture - Digital Technology Nexus for a New Era in Education. ELearning & Software for Education, 2, 317–324. https://doi.org/10.12753/2066-026X-18-114 Technology today is accepted parents, teachers and the community to be as significant part of our lives, Technology is present in both our homes and our school. The increased presence of technology brings up the issue of internet safety for students. Internet safety deals with problems like cyber bullying, cyber related suicide, and harassment. According to Lauren and Nguyen online harassment has increased from 6% in 2000 to 11% in 2010. With these issues on the rise, it is the responsibility of the parents, teachers and the community to come together and create a plan to tackle these issues. In order to create an efficient and effective plan parents, teachers and the community need to consider the 5 P’s; people, places, programs,policies, and process.
People- Who is affected by these issues can we get them involved in the solution? Places- Where are students using technology? Programs- What are the different types of programs that are using technology ? Do we have to adjust our plan in any way to suit them? Policies-What policies do we currently have in place to support internet safety? Are these policies working? If not, what do we need to do to make them work if we decide to keep them? Processes- What activities,discussions, and workshops do we have to discuss and work on issues dealing with internet safety? Are they effective? If not, how can we make them more effective? Are there more activities,workshops, and discussions we would like to make create? Once the community answers these questions, they will have the information they need to create a plan that the community will embrace and effectively use to face the issue of internet safety. Resources: Mark, L. K., & Nguyen, T. T. T. (2017). An Invitation to Internet Safety and Ethics: School and Family Collaboration. Journal of Invitational Theory and Practice, 23, 62–75. Retrieved from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.lib.rivier.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1184559&site=eds-live&scope=site Permalink to Article: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.lib.rivier.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1184559&site =eds-live |
|