Friday, May 29, 2009
Book Project for Summer for Elementary Kids
A great practically free activity for kids for the summer is the creation of their own book of their summer experiences and activities. When their teacher asks in September what they did on their summer vacation, it is all recorded for her and for a life time of memories for the child.
Pick up a hard cover composition book at your dollar store for a dollar or a spiral notebook along with glue stick, a small cheap rubber stamp set, some markers and the project is practically launched. All you need is the child's creativity mixed with your guidance.
Encourage the child to decorate and title the cover of the book. "Michael's Summer Adventures 2009." Have him create a title page and copyright page by observing these in another book. Work with him on a table of contents including a list of books read during the summer, pages for trips he takes, special and new experiences, new friends, favorite days, new things he learns. Discuss possibities for the contents. This will help him visualize the possibilites of this project and get excited about it. The ideas are endless.
Encourage the child to document each special day or experience with a story he writes himself and an illustration he creates. Yes, this is really just a journal, but for many children it will be their first journal and it also helps them understand the process of how books are organized and designed. If your child is not yet writing sentences then their primary documentation can be illustration.
You will share time with the child while he is working on his book; you'll get some quiet time while he is absorbed in the activity (especially nice when travelling); he will get practice writing, spelling, reading, observing and using his imagination in the design of each page.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Monday, May 25, 2009
Bullying Webinar Free
A free web seminar on Bullying is available at Education.com (a site previously reviewed on this blog) on their special edition page on bullying at http://www.education.com/topic/school-bullying-teasing/. This recorded session with Shelley Hymel, a world-renowned expert on bullying and an academic at the University of British Columbia, focuses on the who, why and how of bullying. The 60 minute long webinar also gives background on the phenomena in North America. It is a thoughtful source of practical information and tested advise for teachers and parents.
To check out the webinar from the Education.com's bullying special edition page and then click on the webinar box in the right side bar or click here to go directly to this webinar http://www.education.com/special-edition/bullying/web-seminar-archive/ . We recommend this free resource to teachers and parents.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Let's Eliminate Bullying at Education.com
Education.com a large free on-line educational resource has taken a bold step toward dealing with the age old problem of bullying. Bullying has gotten more and more attention in the last few years. Though it is hard to measure whether it is a growing problem, it is a changing problem with bullies using new technologies to reach their victim, ie. text messaging, social networking, email.
Education.com addresses both cyber bullying and school bullying on their site. At http://www.education.com/topic/school-bullying-teasing/ you will find an enormous variety of links to free resources to help parents, educators and children deal with bullying; such as "Five Actions Parents Can Take if Their Child has been Involved in Bullying," and "How do you Know When Your Student or Child is Being Victimized and How Can You Help."
Education.com's goal is not only to assist parents, teachers and students in recognizing and dealing with bullying. Like most of us they want to eliminate bullying and are dedicating a very well designed and easily navigable section of their website to that goal with information like "Ten Actions Parents can take to Eliminate Bullying," and "Helping School Staff Identify and Understand the Effects of Bullying," and their on site, "Quick Guide to Reducing Bullying." Their information is well researched and comes from respected educators and behavior specialist.
Check it out and share this information. Let's help eliminate bullying. http://www.education.com/topic/school-bullying-teasing/
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Education.com addresses both cyber bullying and school bullying on their site. At http://www.education.com/topic/school-bullying-teasing/ you will find an enormous variety of links to free resources to help parents, educators and children deal with bullying; such as "Five Actions Parents Can Take if Their Child has been Involved in Bullying," and "How do you Know When Your Student or Child is Being Victimized and How Can You Help."
Education.com's goal is not only to assist parents, teachers and students in recognizing and dealing with bullying. Like most of us they want to eliminate bullying and are dedicating a very well designed and easily navigable section of their website to that goal with information like "Ten Actions Parents can take to Eliminate Bullying," and "Helping School Staff Identify and Understand the Effects of Bullying," and their on site, "Quick Guide to Reducing Bullying." Their information is well researched and comes from respected educators and behavior specialist.
Check it out and share this information. Let's help eliminate bullying. http://www.education.com/topic/school-bullying-teasing/
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Free Quick tips for Fun Activities with Children
Parents and educators of pre-schoolers and young elementary, do you Twitter? If so a worthwhile twitter account to follow is that of Joy Anderson, pre-school teacher. Her messages are short tips on activities that can be fun and educational for use by teachers or parents. Example: "Do you have a path around your house? If so name it Quiet Lane and listen as you walk." Though she is a pre-school teacher often her free little jewels could also be used for elementary, and occasionally for middle school students. Find her at http://twitter.com/preschoolfun.
Joy is also promoting a how to CD, etc on starting and running a pre-school. If you are interested in her enterprise you can find that information on http://www.startapreschool.com/. Though she does offer some gifts with enrollment to her program, it is not free.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Joy is also promoting a how to CD, etc on starting and running a pre-school. If you are interested in her enterprise you can find that information on http://www.startapreschool.com/. Though she does offer some gifts with enrollment to her program, it is not free.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
HealthTeacher Great Site with 10 Day Free Trial
On the home page of HealthTeacher is this quotable quote; "Good health is contagious. You can pass it on." http://www.healthteacher.com/
According to their about us statement, "HealthTeacher was originally developed in 1999 by health educators and health professionals with the goal of providing a comprehensive online resource that would make it easy to teach good health habits to children."
On their site they offer K-12 lesson plans on a variety of health topics important to growing kids. Their curriculum not only enhances a student's understanding of the physical health, but helps develop their health consciousness. Their curriculum objective are stated as; 1) Build health literacy among those who teach health education. 2) Address the health and behavioral issues facing today's youth. 3) Help teachers overcome constraints that limit the provision of health education in the school setting.
HealthTeacher is not a free resource. They are an annual subscription information resource. Subscriptions run from $150 for individuals to $300 for schools. However, they do offer a ten day free trial with unlimited access to the site, its lesson plans and articles. Signing up for the free trial is easy and does not require credit card information.
The site is easy to navigate, very user friendly and the content valuable to classroom and alternative school teachers as well as homeschooling parents. Check out their 10 day free trial. You could get a lot of information and great ideas touring this site for 10 days.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
According to their about us statement, "HealthTeacher was originally developed in 1999 by health educators and health professionals with the goal of providing a comprehensive online resource that would make it easy to teach good health habits to children."
On their site they offer K-12 lesson plans on a variety of health topics important to growing kids. Their curriculum not only enhances a student's understanding of the physical health, but helps develop their health consciousness. Their curriculum objective are stated as; 1) Build health literacy among those who teach health education. 2) Address the health and behavioral issues facing today's youth. 3) Help teachers overcome constraints that limit the provision of health education in the school setting.
HealthTeacher is not a free resource. They are an annual subscription information resource. Subscriptions run from $150 for individuals to $300 for schools. However, they do offer a ten day free trial with unlimited access to the site, its lesson plans and articles. Signing up for the free trial is easy and does not require credit card information.
The site is easy to navigate, very user friendly and the content valuable to classroom and alternative school teachers as well as homeschooling parents. Check out their 10 day free trial. You could get a lot of information and great ideas touring this site for 10 days.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Monday, May 18, 2009
Reading Based Day Camp Register Now
Summer Book Camp Reading Fun a program sponsored by Fremont County Tutoring is gearing up for its first weeks of this reading based day camp. They run three-one week long sessions for 6-8 year olds and three-one week long sessions for 9-11 year olds. Not free....but reasonable and they barter. There is still time to register. Check out there program and schedule at http://bookcampsummerfun.blogspot.com/.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Public Library Programs Offer Free Enrichment Resource
I am sometimes asked to participate in the teen program at one of our public libraries as a writing coach. Each year the teens in this weekly evening program write a play, make costumes, scenery, act and direct themselves and then perform the play for the local K-2 kids who come to the library in the summer for story hour. This year I've been asked to coach the writing portion of the project. Typically they start work on the play about three months prior to the performance
While I was working with them recently, some of the kids were also stitching and gluing on quilt squares. These are no ordinary quilt squares. They are large and very artistic and also very diverse, sometimes with three dementional objects attached. I learned that each square represents a book and will be placed on a panel of cloth, with about four squares per panel. Each square is anchored to the panel at the top and can be lifted up to reveal underneath the name and author of the story the square represents. This is another project that they have been working on for several months. The panels will hang on the wall of the new library recently built in this community.
I love the multi-faceted aspects of this project. I think it could be used as a model for projects for alternative schools, enrichment programs and homeschoolers. First the student gets to think of a book they enjoyed, think about what that book meant to them, sketch a design that represents that book, see that sketch turn in to a piece of art via their own hand, then serve the community by providing not only art for the wall of the library, but provoking thought for decades of children to come through the puzzle of guessing which book each square represents. In thinking about that, I realized that the play project these teens work on each year is also a multi-diciplined project with several payoffs for the teen and the community.
As a former homeschooling Mom, I used the public library a great deal as a resource for materials. I know that no teacher or homeschooling parent is a stranger to the local library. The only resource program many public libraries offer is a story hour, however. If your library is one of those, then go a little farther. Check out the libraries in the region, particularly those at universities that have a school of education. You might stumble on to a little gem of a program that would enrich your teen or home schoolers life...or you might approach the library administrator about starting one. Hurray for the innovative educators who work at public libraries!
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
While I was working with them recently, some of the kids were also stitching and gluing on quilt squares. These are no ordinary quilt squares. They are large and very artistic and also very diverse, sometimes with three dementional objects attached. I learned that each square represents a book and will be placed on a panel of cloth, with about four squares per panel. Each square is anchored to the panel at the top and can be lifted up to reveal underneath the name and author of the story the square represents. This is another project that they have been working on for several months. The panels will hang on the wall of the new library recently built in this community.
I love the multi-faceted aspects of this project. I think it could be used as a model for projects for alternative schools, enrichment programs and homeschoolers. First the student gets to think of a book they enjoyed, think about what that book meant to them, sketch a design that represents that book, see that sketch turn in to a piece of art via their own hand, then serve the community by providing not only art for the wall of the library, but provoking thought for decades of children to come through the puzzle of guessing which book each square represents. In thinking about that, I realized that the play project these teens work on each year is also a multi-diciplined project with several payoffs for the teen and the community.
As a former homeschooling Mom, I used the public library a great deal as a resource for materials. I know that no teacher or homeschooling parent is a stranger to the local library. The only resource program many public libraries offer is a story hour, however. If your library is one of those, then go a little farther. Check out the libraries in the region, particularly those at universities that have a school of education. You might stumble on to a little gem of a program that would enrich your teen or home schoolers life...or you might approach the library administrator about starting one. Hurray for the innovative educators who work at public libraries!
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Friday, May 15, 2009
Summerbook Company
I like the looks of Summerbook Company's workbooks for kids for summer. This resource seems to be a dedicated to education, small Mom and Pop biz. The workbooks are graded and broken down into weekly lessons for the summer. They review what the child learned in the last school year in preparation for the next. Creative and fun for kids and will help them be at grade level in September. On their site they allow you to look at sample pages from the workbooks.
While this is not a free resource, they are quite reasonable at under $12 US per workbook. As a bonus they allow affiliate participation from schools, groups and the like, with easy sign-up. You can find them by going to http://www.fremontcountytutoring.blogspot.com/ and clicking on the summer book icon at the bottom of their page. Fremont County Tutoring are friends of mine providing educational programs in Colorado, who support the Summerbook Company. Purchasing from Summerbook Company looks like a smart way to provide quality hours of entertainment for your kids this summer. Purchasing through Fremont County Tutoring will help fund the enrichment programs they sponsor for Colorado kids.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
While this is not a free resource, they are quite reasonable at under $12 US per workbook. As a bonus they allow affiliate participation from schools, groups and the like, with easy sign-up. You can find them by going to http://www.fremontcountytutoring.blogspot.com/ and clicking on the summer book icon at the bottom of their page. Fremont County Tutoring are friends of mine providing educational programs in Colorado, who support the Summerbook Company. Purchasing from Summerbook Company looks like a smart way to provide quality hours of entertainment for your kids this summer. Purchasing through Fremont County Tutoring will help fund the enrichment programs they sponsor for Colorado kids.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Reading Based Summer Day Camps
Many schools will be dismissing for summer vacation as early as May 22 and parents are faced with providing not only safe activities for their youngsters, but also educational, enriching and challenging day camps or programs. For elementary age children, I love the summer programs that help support the child's reading proficiency from the grade level they just finish, while preparing them for the next school year and still making it fun!
If you are a parent looking for the right summer day camp experience for your child, check out the model at www.bookcampsummerfun.blogspot.com. If you are sponsoring a day camp program or you are a teacher or curriculum designer you may find some ideas and inspiration here.
Can't handle a reading based day camp for your child this summer? Maybe you could use the graded summer work books for children on this site, www.bookcampsummerfun.blogspot.com.
Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams
Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."
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