by Freda J. Glatt, M.S. With more and more Halloween celebrations taking place in the classroom, at home parties, or at community events, here are some cross-curricular Halloween activities for you to enjoy. 1. Read a Halloween poem or song and find rhyming words, similes, metaphors, nouns, verbs, onomatopoeia, and so on. 2. Find Halloween-related words in the dictionary by using guide words. Divide them into syllables, write the accent mark, tell the part of speech, give the definitio

   It is an age old question in math classes:  "Why do we have to learn this?  When are we ever going to use this in our lives?"      There is of course, a very fine answer to this that any teacher can be proud of.  It consists of something along the lines of :  What we are learning in class, whether it be how to factor a quadratic, how to graph a sine function, or anything else, is a building block to further education and to eventuall

  "Decipher That Code & Read!"    Part Four of Four: A Plan   Because of the failure of some reading programs and the bad report card the NCLB program received, recently, many people have become very, very skeptical of our education system, including teachers, in the US. Congress did also cut the NCLB budget due to budget constraints and controversies. (AP Nancy Zuckerbrod, 5/1/080). However, there is hope, but somehow the money must be found. Our coun

Georgia G. Markea Post-doc and PhD in Music Education, University of London, Institute of Education School Adviser for Music Education Based in Athens   Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Professor Graham Welch under whose guidance I conducted my post-doctoral research (Markea, 2005) at the University of London, Institute of Education. This research focuses on how a number of influential piano teachers in Greece define the meaning of talent in piano playing and how it is i

:"Decipher that Code & Read!" Part One Phonics, An Overview: With the “No Child Left Behind” Law in somewhat chaos, it underscores the problem of teaching reading. In any plan for Teaching Reading one must remember that there are only four ( 4) basic methods of teaching Children to read 1 Phonics,  Is the method by which children learn the letters and the sounds associated with these letters at the same time. Learning 1 letter per day or at a time cuts down on boredom 2&

                                             A Master Teacher Proves Phonetic Rock is the way!      Those of you who’ve read my other two articles, and follow the education paradigm  are aware of problems with No Child Left Behind. It’s been noted recently that the NCLB

  Decipher that Code & Read Part Two Phonics: We'll review Two important Reading Programs But first, a review of what is Phonics is appropriate at this point. What exactly is phonics? Phonics s the method by which children learn the letters and the sounds associated with these letters at the same time“ Phonics is knowing that sounds and letters have a relationship — it's that simple, and that complex. It is the link between what we say and what we can read and write. &q

Solar Energy with Kids Back in 1970, thanks to the Whole Earth Catalog, I discovered Farrington Daniel’s book Direct Use Of the Sun’s Energy which was first published in1964. It not only recounted solar energy history about turn of the century hot water heaters and distillation plants, but told how to make solar ovens, cookers and hot water heaters. I was worried about the greenhouse effect so it captured my imagination. I remember running down to the thrift store to buy an umbrella in July.

I have been studying the Reading Wars (phonics vs. Whole Word) for several years. The crime mystery of the century, if you ask me. One thing that makes research difficult is that educators in the USA slip around in secrecy. Remember, they’re embracing philosophies, and promoting policies, that nobody ever voted on or even discussed in public. If you look back over the last 100 years, you’ll see a sludge of bad ideas that seem to bob in on the tide. John Dewey set the tone around 1900 with his

One of the most rewarding activities I’ve done with young children is taking things apart. Together we have disassemble flashlights, record players, vacuum cleaners, faucets, blenders, drills, VCRS, drills and lawn mower engines--almost everything except television sets, which are quite dangerous. Little did I realize that what began as an attempt to entertain my son would evolve into teaching a “shop class” at Montessori school and woodworking for the local parks department. It was my son who f