jose's blog

Yeah this whole quarantine kinda sucks, but we don’t have to make it unproductive. There are many ways you can help your toddler, preschooler, kindergartner, etc. You get the point. There are tons of activities you can do to help them grow and gain knowledge. The learning doesn’t end at school. According to N.A.E.Y.C. (National Association for the Education of Young Children), play is of great importance to a child. The critical development of young children relies heavily on it. When one thinks that a child isn’t learning, or doing anything productive, that may be the opposite of what’s actually going on. Although sometimes they do get carried away and make messes, but what may actually be going on is science, technology, engineering or mathematics (S.T.E.M.). There are however, less messier activities we can do. An example is using balloons to showcase electricity.

Another one that is relatively cheap is testing surface tension of multiple coins, where you can teach the cohesiveness of water as well. Another activity that uses water and helps with problem solving skills is building a boat out of aluminum foil and trying to keep it afloat with more and more weight.

If you’re feeling adventurous you can make butter at home with your children too! It’s less messy than you think, I promise! (Personally my favorite thing we did in 1st Grade).

There are many reasons as to why we should integrate S.T.E.M. into our curriculum, and we should also encourage these activities, and the exploration that comes with it. We teach S.T.E.M. because

• It can build real world skills (butter making), and encourage growth in other areas such as literacy through reading instructions or manuals
• Promotes higher-order thinking skills and problem solving skills (boat challenge)
• Inspires deeper understanding, and keeps children motivated about how things work (why does the coin hold so much water?)
• Encourages innovation, creativity, and curiosity (what else can the balloon stick to?), (How can we make this boat hold more weight?)
• Promotes development of motor and perceptual skills
• Nurtures social and emotional understanding (school setting, or if they have siblings)
• And for us educators it supports or Educational Standards in Pennsylvania as well.

Overall I think it would be worth a shot to try some of these experiments with your kids, and you might even have some fun in the process as well, even a game of Chess will help your child grow cognitively!

Those are just some examples of ST.E.M. related projects you can do with your kids, here is a list of some more from Rasmussen College.

Sincerely,

 

Jose

“Hmmm… Whatdya think comes next?” “Let’s sing to find out”

I wonder to what extent music can be beneficial in the classroom? We’ve already proven that music can help with rote memorization. As educators, this can be used to our advantage. Music and movement is something we should consider when teaching young children. I’m currently in a class where we discussed the benefits of moving around frequently in class, and that we get more brain power by simply moving around. 

In fact, while in the field I have been witness to this when directing a free play type of station during our station rotation, which for the most part encourages movement when engaging in the next station. While working with various students in station rotation format I was able to use the alphabet song to guide a puzzle that students had chosen to participate in.

While students were engaged in finding puzzle pieces that matched with different pieces, I was able to direct the puzzle building in a more logical way. I asked students if they knew what the puzzle was. Their responses were “the abc’s”. While some students were actively trying a trial and error approach to whether the puzzle pieces would fit together, I simply posed the question “Hmmm… Whatdya think comes next?” Because not all of them were completely aware of the entire alphabet, they had enough knowledge to construe that there could be an order by matching certain pieces together. I then followed the question by saying “Let’s sing to find out”. While pointing, and having them point with me we sang the alphabet together and we were able to solve the puzzle through music. I would pause when there was a puzzle piece missing in the alphabet, and we continued to use the song, as well as the artwork on the pieces (starting sounds such as F for frog) in order to piece it together.

What else can we gather through the use of play? Play has already been proven to be one of, if not the best way children can learn. Can we use play to modify behavior in the classroom as well, can we use musically directed play? What possibilities exist within the domain of music and movement, just movement, or just music? Play is going to be the liaison to tie these questions together. Music therapy may be an option as well when helping students recollect themselves if they’re having a bad day.

Personally some of my educational gurus happen be Jean Jacques Rousseau, Howard Gardner, and just anyone progressive really. Jean Jacques Rousseau because he encourages free thinking, and escaping from societies impurities (A little bit of a stretch, some parts of society are very cool). He believed that everyone was born inherently good, but because of society we create constructs, and beliefs that can do harm.  I think that free thinking is an amazing trait to have. It can lead to higher-order thinking by asking larger questions. This then also spills a bit into Paulo Friere and his criticism of the banking method of education. We can’t just shove information down people’s throats, we must do more than just lecture, we must allow thinking and collaboration in our classrooms. Howard Gardner revolutionized education through his theory of multiple intelligence’s. When I first heard of this, I was astounded. It makes me wonder on questions such as “Why don’t we focus on honing these natural gifts that vary from people to people?”. In some ways I can see this being limiting, but that doesn’t have to transfer into a career path.

I really appreciate Howard Gardner because growing up I’ve seen some of my peers struggle through school, and while their GPA may not have reflected “intelligence”, they were very skillful in other areas. But in some public education settings, that doesn’t matter. I have a cousin who was diagnosed with ADHD. He tells me about history class from time to time. This year it’s his favorite subject because the teacher isn’t a banker. One activity that stuck out to me is the use of role-play in history by making a play out of a historical event. We recently read about something like this in another class. The effect it has on my cousin just gives me more reason to use some of these strategies. If I were in the shoes of Howard Gardner I would say my cousin’s strongest intelligence is bodily-kinesthetic. 

 

Overall, if we were to allow more student-centered learning in our classrooms then we can revolutionize the way we learn. Not just for those who can learn through the banking method, but if we hone higher-order thinking, and hands on learning we can help everyone in the classroom. Especially those who we categorize as “unintelligent”, it frustrates not just our students, but society as whole. We make lasting impacts on human beings, the best we can do is impact them positively.

 

I got paid Friday. So I bought a laptop for school

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