Fun Classroom Exercises For A Quick Energy Boost

This is a guest post by Rachel Jacquest
 

Image by Earl53

Every teacher has, at some point, stood up in front of a class and been greeted with a plethora of sighs, but that doesn’t mean you’re boring your pupils! School is very demanding, and children do not have the stamina of adults, so they may well flag. If you see this happen to your students, don’t panic! Their attention can easily be brought back with a few short exercises to get them energised. Here are some examples: 

Copying Games

There are two basic forms of copying games. One is to do an action and ask your pupils to repeat it back to you; it works well to go around the class asking everyone to come up with an action to be repeated, making sure everyone has a go. Try to use actions that involve the whole body.

The other is a classic: Simon Says. The leader (I would suggest the teacher leads, as you will judge fairly) states, “Simon says sit down”, and the children sit. But if a command is given without saying “Simon says”, for example, “stand up”, pupils must ignore the command. If anyone stands up, they’re out! This is great for getting children to concentrate and obey your commands.

Stretches and Jumps

When anyone has been sitting in the same position for too long, they get very uncomfortable and stiff, so some jumps and stretches will loosen up your students. Full body stretches are great, starting with the neck and stretching each part of the body individually down to the ankles. If you want a quicker version, get your pupils to do some star jumps, and then do a concentration exercise, so that they don’t get silly. Perhaps ask them to try to pat their heads and rub their stomachs at the same time – it is really quite tricky!

Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

A quick game of heads, shoulders, knees and toes will energise your class and increase their concentration. It can also be used for educational purposes, which is a massive bonus! Try translating the lyrics to a foreign language (if your pupils are learning one), or use medical terminology like “cranium, scapula, patella, phalanges” for a fun way to teach. Make sure you don’t try to teach your students anything above their skill level, though, as it will confuse them and they may well lose focus.

Heads Down, Thumbs Up

This game is a bit of fun and is great for stress relief if pupils have been working hard. Pick a few people from the class to stand at the front and ask the remaining children to close their eyes, put their heads on the desk and place their hands by their sides, thumbs up. The students at the front each have to put down the thumbs of one person, as quietly as possible. When everyone has finished, the people who had their thumbs moved must guess who it was who did it. After a couple of rounds of this, your class should be relaxed and ready to work again!

Keep these exercises in mind – when you see your students starting to struggle, you know what to do! The most important thing is to keep them motivated, perhaps with some pupil rewards, and maintain their concentration levels so that they learn loads! Do you have any exercises that work well with your class? Go ahead and leave a comment!

 

Rachel Jacquest is a blogger who has a lot of experience in the education of children and plans to become a teacher. She hates nothing more than seeing a struggling pupil! She writes for School Stickers.

43 Activities for Kids to do in Summer

Here’s my list of things to do with kids this summer. Be sure to add your ideas in the comments field.

1.  Have a water balloon party
2.  Camp in your yard overnight
3.  Go geocaching or letterboxing
4.  Visit museums (my daughter told me to add ‘interesting, hands-on ones only”)
5.  Learn a new hobby
6.  Go cycling in a nearby park or on a trail
7.  Have a movie marathon
8.  Travel … Even if it is just somewhere close by
9.  Attend a camp
10. Volunteer at your local food bank, homeless shelter, animal shelter etc
11. Get a job (even younger kids can do pet sitting etc)
12. Clean out closets
13. Participate in a summer reading program
14. Start learning a new language. (Duolingo App is free and gets thumbs up from my son)
15. Play board games
16. Make jigsaw puzzles
17. Go bowling – you can get free bowling for kids in many areas now – read it about on this blog post.
18. Play putt putt
19. Play frisbee golf
20. Go to free or cheap movies (Regal is now $1 per movie for their summer kids program)
21. Go to a play
22. Go to the pool
23. Make a movie and upload to YouTube (WeVideo is a cool free tool they can use)
24. Tie dye tshirts
25. Play four square
26. Go to laser tag
27. Go to a concert
28. Go hiking
29. Do craft projects
30. Go canoeing or rafting
31. Go go kart racing
32. Attend programs at your local library
33. Visit an amusement or water park
34. Do a mall scavenger hunt
35. Have a picnic in a park
36. Go ice-skating
37. Bake cookies
38. Play educational apps and video games (find ones that aren’t obviously educational eg Angry Birds)
39. Learn a computer language – great ones for all ages of kids
40. Attend a baseball game
41. Enjoy fruit-picking at a local farm
42. Plany a flower or veggie garden – or just a pot or two.
43. Hold a garage sale (after doing no 12). A way for the kids to earn some money.
Your turn now. Add your ideas in the comments.

Review: Chronicles Timer & Stopwatch App

This timer and stopwatch app can be used for anyone, but as I blog about children and education, I will focus my attention on how it can be used in this area.

The app can be used on any IOS device. I installed it on my iPad and played around with it a bit and then gave it to my 13 year old with instructions on what I wanted her to time. I told her I would show her how it works, but when I went to ‘help’ her a little later, she was already using it and told me it was completely obvious what one had to do. So – there is the first positive – it is very easy to use.

Another positive is that there is a ‘light’ version which is free, so you can try it out before you decide if you want to buy the full version. The light version does contain some advertising and limits you to 2 users and 5 activities

So – what did I get my daughter to do? I asked her to time herself doing her math and literature homework. I was interested to see exactly how long it actually took. So, how can this help? Well, I have seen that students working at home get distracted very easily and stop to check Facebook, Instagram, text their friends etc. Timing work reminds them to focus on the work. And if the amount of work is about the same each day, but the time taken varies a lot, parents can take a look at why that is the case. It could also indicate a student is struggling with a new area they are studying.

Recording the time taken to do work can also add a bit of gamification to doing work – students can see if they can beat their previous time to finish work (accurately of course!)

And being able to look back over weeks and months can give a good picture of what progress is being made. For instance, if every time a child has reading to do, you get them to record how long it take to read a certain number of pages (keep this number the same), then over the weeks you can see if reading speed has improved (I know not all books have the same words per page but it will give a general picture).

In all the above examples I have used the ‘Timer’ on the app. But with one swipe you can select to use the ‘Stopwatch’ instead. (This is the only non-intuitive thing in the app – I had to read the ‘help’ to find out that swiping toggles between the 2 modes).

How can you use Stopwatch? You can use it to limit the time a child spends on an activity ie tell them to work on math until the alarm goes off (can also be set to vibrate). Or you can set it to let them have some fun on their iPads, Facebook etc until the alarm goes off and then they have to get back to work. Of course, anything that has an alarm can achieve this, so I think the Timer function is the more useful part of the app.

One more way this app can be used that will benefit seniors applying to colleges / for scholarships. If you use this app throughout your high school career when you do community service work, you will have accurate totals to give when forms ask what community service you did and how many hours you spent. It would be great to be able with one touch to look back over the 4 years and see how much time was spent on each volunteering opportunity. You can even go into ‘Settings’ and choose to export the the calendar in CSV format if that would help.

If you student does 4-H and is in a state like ours that uses portfolios to evaluate what they have done in their projects, once again, this would be a great tool to record the time they spend on activities.

With so many different applications, it is probably worth trying out the free version of Chronicles and then if you find it useful, you can migrate to the full version.

 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

The Calculator: An instrument of math destruction?

This is a guest post from Joshua Foster, one of my speech students this past year. He originally presented this as a speech and I really liked what he had to say and asked him to turn it into a blog post. Enjoy!

In an age where technology can be found everywhere, it is not hard to find useful applications of technological advances. However, not all of these changes are for the better. Integration of calculators into classroom settings has been one major challenge facing the world, and more directly, the United States. When is the proper time to introduce children to calculators?

The answer can be derived easier through the use of an analogy.

When a child is taught to walk, he is placed on his feet and shown how to take his first steps. Then, given that there are not any disabilities, he continues practicing until he has both mastered walking and is able to extend it into running. It is not until much later that he is given a tool to make mobility easier. These tools come in the form of bikes and cars. If the child were to be given a car before he could walk, it would severely limit both his mobility and his access to various locations, since he would only be able to travel main roads.

Similarly, a student is taught first to count. When he is able to count fluently he then learns to add and subtract these numbers. These basics must be drilled, and each set of problems memorized before he can progress further.

Once adding and subtracting have been mastered, he can be taught sequences of adding called multiplication and then, inversely, division. Once multiplication and division are mastered, the child is given a tool to enhance their capability and make the processes easier and faster. Unless these fundamentals are taught in order and in proper depth, though, the child will be severely impaired when trying to apply these basics to more advanced thinking and problem solving.

David Gelernter  (see footnote for article referenced) quotes the principal from a school in Kentucky, saying “Drilling addition and subtraction in an age of calculators is a waste of time”. This school’s scores on computation tests have subsequently dropped ten percent.

Gelernter then continues to quote a Japanese professor “Calculators are not used in elementary or junior high school because the primary emphasis is on helping students develop their mental abilities.”  Is it purely coincidental then that Japan’s 4th and 8th grade test scores are among the highest in the world (Brunette)? The different test results are derived from different teaching styles. Japanese students master fundamentals and then are taught to apply them in various forms, whereas American students are given a calculator and expected to figure out application themselves.

If this is the case, then is it strategic to ban usage of calculators from school in general? According to Waylon Brunette, “Calculators should only be allowed on a regular basis in elementary schools after the student has mastered the basics”.

Elementary school might still be early for students to use calculators, however. Calculators may serve better if they are only used during situations requiring integration of the basics in a more advanced scenario.  If a student is in the middle of a complex algebra problem and finds himself needing to accomplish long division, he would have to break his thought process, complete the calculation, and then attempt to regain his thought-process. This is where a calculator can reach its full potential. It allows a student to apply a concept he has already mastered into a problem much faster and more precise than he could have originally. This enables the student to progress further and faster than without the calculator.

Since calculators are a very useful tool in advanced math, why is it that they are so harmful when learning the basics? Brunette explains this phenomena in great detail: “Students become dependent on their calculators and have difficulty doing math problems when they don’t have a calculator available… students leave as much as work as possible for the calculator… skills learned through practice in the lower grades are no longer being carried through by the student into college level math. This makes math more challenging for students later on because they do not possess the natural intuition and skills needed to approach a hard symbolic problem.”

These hard symbolic problems require more than the answers to addition or multiplication problems. They require an understanding of the basics and an ability to integrate those basics into more complex scenarios. It would be equivalent to showing a child a video of a virtuoso pianist, and then expecting that child to be able to play the same piece the same way. This expectation is completely unrealistic and embarrassing. In order to succeed at anything, whether mathematics or the piano, one must first understand the basics and drill them.

Every student is different, and from these differences a difficulty in finding teaching patterns arises. There is no way to create a course that is perfect for every student that will take it. Calculators have served to inflame this problem further. With the integration of calculators into grade schools to replace the basics, the teacher has not only attempted to bring every student’s mathematical thinking and competency in the class to the same level, but also that of every student in every grade using calculators.

If this trend is allowed to continue, it could bring about disastrous results as the next generations grow older, mentally unprepared.

Works Cited:

Waylon Brunette’s article “Computers in Education”

Gelernter, David. “Computers Cannot Teach Children Basic Skills.” in The Bedford Guide for College Writers. Ed. X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Marcia F. Muth.

What makes a great teacher?

What makes a great teacher? With Teacher Appreciation Day falling this week, I decided to ask a number of people who their favorite teachers were and why. I asked family, friends and the Work At Home Moms Google + community I belong to. The people who responded were of all ages – some were at school a long time ago, but still had memories of their favorite teacher.

The answers fell into 3 main categories:

1. Great teachers care about their students

 

My favorite teacher was my German teacher. Her teaching style wasn’t amazing BUT we all knew she cared about each of us as people. While I was at college, I would go back and visit her during summer vacations. Here is what other people had to say.

Jennifer F shared: “A great teacher is one who takes the time to really know your child, what makes them tick, their interests and worries.”

Jessica K’s favorite teacher was one of her college art professors because “he cares so deeply about his students and invests in who they are as people and doing that creates better students and better artists.”

Stephen T chose his math teacher: “He took me ahead in math, teaching me separately to the rest of the class, taking extra time to prepare lessons, tests and do marking (‘grading’ in American English) for me, and as we got closer to my exams he gave me extra lessons during his free time at school.”

And Jenna R summed it up by saying, “My favorite teachers are the ones that saw my interests and used them to help me grow academically.”

2. Great teachers make learning fun

 

Chloe T picked her science teacher and had this to say:” I loved him because he understood children and the way we think. Some days he would just tell a joke for the whole lesson instead of teaching. He was hilarious, and made every single lesson fun, no matter if you liked science, or not. “

Yelena M chose her 6th grade teacher because “she was fun and very on it. She was
strict but maintained a level of likeability. She pushed you really hard. High standards but not rude if you weren’t doing well.”

Stephen L’s favorite was his English teacher  because “she was a wonderful teacher, and always had fun and educational classes.”

Lydia M’s said this about her 3rd grade teacher: “She had fun lessons and she was super awesome.  She made learning more fun. I knew she cared about me. It was like she wasn’t just my teacher, she was my friend too.”

Josh W loved his 5th grade teacher who “thought outside the box and engaged us and let us learn in a different way.”

3. Great teachers get students to do their best

 

Photo by Jose Kevo

Jackie L said : “My favorite teacher was the one who inspired me to learn more about what I was interested in. She also encouraged me to keep learning even when things were hard for me, she made sure I knew I could do anything I set my mind to. “

Sabrina T : “My favorite teacher was my choir teacher, who celebrated being different, had high expectations of every single one of us, was demanding of our best, but also treated us as friends before or after class.  Many of us stayed friends with him for years after graduation.”

Rachel V loved her 7th grade teacher ”probably because she saw each students’ individual potential and expected nothing less from us”.

If your children have a special teacher this year – encourage them to show their appreciation this week. Great teachers, who embody the characteristics mention here, end up putting in much more time into their job than they are paid for. They do it because the students matter to them. This week show these great teachers that they matter to you.

And please share in the comments who your favorite teacher was, and why.

Disclaimer – the ‘I love my teacher’  and ‘Peace, Love Teacher’ images are from Cafe Press and do contain my affiliate link. This a great place to buy cool products for a favorite teacher!

Science Fair Projects: Tips to do your best

Today we have a guest blogger, Madeline Binder, who has years of experience with science fairs. If your children have taken part in one, please share their experiences in the comments below.

There is a lot of pressure on today’s kids to be the best, whether it is the best in sports, the best in academics or the best in some other skill. While this demand for being the best can be overwhelming to many students and deplete their enjoyment of their school years, science fair projects can be used to give kids the chance to develop their science skills and their desire to be the best scientist that they can be in a very fun way. To help students do well in a science fair a few simple concepts need to be integrated into their project.

Innovation

One of the most important characteristics that science fair judges look for in winning science fair projects is innovation. Innovation is important in science fair projects because it is the driving force behind the science industry. Innovation in science fair projects can be demonstrated through unique takes on common science fair project topics, through unusual project topics and through creative experiment designs. Think out of the box!

Topical

Another important characteristic that science fair judges want is a topical project. To be topical a science fair project has to explore something that is relevant to today’s issues. Projects that explore out-dated or overworked science topics that have little impact on modern life are not going to be scored as well as projects that explore topics and science concepts that have a large impact on modern life. Example: global warming, global water supply, energy conservation.

Valuable

The value of the science fair project will also impact the score that a project receives from science fair judges. Value can be based on a number of factors including relevance to modern problems, the discoveries that were made by the student and the implications that are drawn from the project. To get the best score possible students need to make sure that their project contributes something to some field within the science community.

Complete

While all of the above characteristics will improve a student’s chances creating a winning project, your project must include all the 6-steps of the scientific method. A complete science fair project will have a well defined hypothesis, an experiment design that tests specifically for the variables identified in the hypothesis, results will need to be collected and analyzed and conclusions will need to be drawn. Furthermore, the project will need a well designed display board that clearly details the progression and findings of your experiment.

The Step-by-Step Infographic Cheat Sheet outlines every step you will need to do a winning project.

Conclusion

Winning at the science fair may not provide students with an automatic get into college free pass, however, it provides them with a prize that is far more valuable. Just doing a science fair project will teach you a process that you will be able to incorporate throughout your life: encouragement to continue the development of your science skills, spurs on your thirst for knowledge, ignites your competitive nature and it provides you with the confidence required to reach for their dreams.

Madeline Binder, often referred to as the SciFairLady, has been helping kids complete a successful science fair project since 2004.

Main Photo by C.C. from Flickr courtesy of terren in Virginia 

Will Knowing Become Obsolete?

The man who dreamed up the Hole in the Wall project

Image courtesy of Campuspartybrasil.

When you think about the future of education, have you ever considered that ‘knowing’ could become obsolete? This is one of the startling statements Dr. Sugata Mitra makes in his riveting TED talk.

Dr. Sugata Mitra won the TED2013 TED Prize of the year because of his vision for a new type of learning – one where teachers ‘let learning happen’ and then stand back and encourage and praise as it does. This vision was born out of Hole-in-the-Wall experiments he did with children in the slums and rural areas of India – children who could not speak English and had never seen a computer. He left them with a computer (built as a kiosk into a wall) for a few months and on returning discovered they had achieved what most of us would think was impossible. They learned English in order to operate the computer and through trial and error learned how it worked.

He also learned the importance of ‘grannies’ in education – they don’t need to be literal grannies, though those are very successful, but they do need to apply the ‘granny’ technique of admiring and encouraging the work of children as the children teach themselves.

This is a video you need to watch – it will probably be the most exciting 15 minutes of your day. My daughter sent me the link and called it ‘incredible’. She was right. So here it is. I look forward to hearing what you think about it in the comments below.

So, what do you think? I am excited and definitely plan on implementing the SOLE system both in my home and in the classroom. Will you try it? You can download the SOLE Toolkit here.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Time for Learning: A review

I’ve been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Well – here is my review – at last! Life has been busy and I struggled to find time to actually try out this program (no pun intended).

If your children enjoy using the computer for learning, this could be a great fit for them. Not only can they learn new material, but they can also check they have remembered and understood the material by taking quizzes and playing games.

 

Time4Learning offers courses in Math, English, Science, Social Sciences and now also Art. You can select the grade level as well as the subject.

 

And you can see how your child is progressing by looking at their portfolio. As all the grading is done instantly, you don’t have to do anything but check on their progress and you can assign extra practice in areas they are struggling.

Is this program right for your children? That depends on how they enjoy learning. My children prefer books, in particular ‘living books’ so this isn’t the best fit for us but I can see that this could be perfect for many families. I suggest you view a demo to see for yourself. Here is an example of part of a learning session for science:

The program costs $19.95 per month (additional $14.95 for additional children) and you get all the subjects on offer available for that price. You pay per month – no contracts – so it isn’t a big risk to try it out for a month. After you have been on the program for one month you also get access to an online Art Program from Creativity Express. My daughter did this program a few years ago and LOVED it. It combines art history, art theory and the chance to actually ‘do’ art either online or offline. It has cute animations and really is very engaging and informative.

If this review has piqued your interest, hop on over to Time4Learning.com and take a look around. And if you are a Time4Learning user, please leave a comment about how you like the program.

10 New Year’s Resolutions for Teachers

New Years Day

These resolutions are for each and every person who has the privilege of being a teacher in some way – whether you are a teacher in a school, or at a club for kids or a ’24/7 teacher’ i.e. a parent.

1. Make Education Fun

Need ideas? Well, that’s what this blog is for. In my years of teaching both my own kids and groups of kids and have noticed that when they are enjoying themselves they remember what they are taught without even trying. And, I like having fun and I like watching kids having fun. Works all round!

2. Make Education Relevant

How often did you sit in class wondering why on earth you had to learn something? Make sure your students know why you are teaching them what you are. Make it applicable.

3. Teach children to teach themselves

This is a biggie! Don’t spoon feed.Yes, I know it is quicker but if you keep providing all the answers, how will children ever develop into lifelong learners? Don’t be afraid you will make yourself redundant – they will still need advice and someone to bounce ideas off of.

4. Challenge your students

I see mediocrity in most students I come into contact with. And it makes me sad. I know each child has so much potential but they need someone to nurture it and encourage it. On the other hand I have seen ‘average’ students achieve amazing things when their teacher, coaches or parents believed in them.

5. Be passionate about what you teach

Recently I watched a 60 Minutes segment where author David McCullough suggested people who want to be teachers should rather study the subjects they are passionate about than study how to teach. And I agree. If you love a subject you will most probably convey your excitement to your students. I won’t teach anything I can’t get excited about.

6. Allow each child to be an individual

A 17 year old student, Nikhil Goyal, has just published a book titled “One Size Does Not Fit All” about how the American education system is churning out ‘cogs’ to fit into the ‘machine’ of our society. I haven’t read the book yet, but I do agree with his premise that we should see the uniqueness in each student and encourage each one to walk their own path.

7. Encourage creativity

This takes time. It is far quicker to just tell kids exactly what to do. And some students will be scared to break away from the mold and do something different from their peers. So you will need to encourage and praise and foster each little spark. But do it. It is so worth it.

8. Remember – what we are doing matters

New Year’s Day is a good day to reflect on the fact that what we are doing is very very important. We are not teaching so that students can pass a test and move on to the next grade. We are preparing them for life. And the future. Do your best so that they will be the best they can be.

9. Keep learning yourself

It is so important that you both keep up to date with what is new in your field, and also that you get re-inspired on a regular basis. I know this is hard to do. But make the time and your students will benefit.

10. Have fun!

I know this was also number 1 on my list … but to me this is such a key concept that I need to be doubly resolved to be sure teaching and learning is as much fun as it can be!

 

I didn’t include ‘love your students’ on this list as I hope that everyone who does teach, really does love their students. If you don’t, none of the above will be easy to do because your heart won’t be in it.

Any extra resolutions you can add to this list?

Funglish: A Fun Guess-the-Word Board Game

 

How good are you at giving clues? And at guessing them? Funglish is a really fun word game that gives you a chance to try your hand at both.

Players take it in turns to take a card with 6 different terms listed on it. They have a 3 minutes to describe as many of those words as possible using the words provided on 120 different tiles. These word tiles are adjectives and nouns that put together well can lead the guessers to the correct term – or not! The player who is providing the clues selects relevant words and puts the on the board under the headings ‘Definitely’, ‘Kind of’ and ‘Not’.

For example, to describe the word ‘kitten’, a player could select ‘small’ and ‘furry’ and put that under ‘Definitely’ and select ‘scaly’ to put under ‘Not’.

The player providing the clues scores a point for every word that is guessed. The successful guesser also scores a point.

As everyone guesses simultaneously it means everyone is playing simultaneously. No boring waiting for your turn to come around. It is fast-paced and SO much fun. We played it with 6 people ages 12 to adult and it took us about an hour for everyone to have 2 turns at giving the clues.

The game can be bought at Amazon and possibly also at local stores. If you have played it, let us know in the comments what you thought of it.

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