Does your child love space the space program? Does he or she dream of walking on the moon or exploring the final frontier?

If so, you’ll love the NASA Image of the Day. Imagine, every day, your child can receive an email from NASA. What a great way to learn about science! It is completely free to register your email address and receive daily photos of a star cluster, real and experimental space ships, planets, moons and more. There’s also an image archive, so you can print out pictures for school reports or to decorate your child’s room.

Here’s the link: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

Enjoy!

How to stay safe on the internet

NEVER download ANYTHING without a parents permission
BE CARFUL! Don’t give anyone your password, or your name, or your school, or your address, or your birthday. If you already gave your friend your password, make sure you can make a new password!

ONLY I.M, text, and email with people you KNOW!

I said to I.M, text, and email people you know. That’s because there are some VERY mean people out there! They pretend to be kids, BUT THEY’RE NOT!!! If there is someone you don’t know who is emailing, I.M, or texting you you,TELL A GROWN-Up and block them.

Viruses

Don’t open emails you do not recognize! They can give your computer a virus. A computer virus is a lot like flu virus. If you open an unsafe email, you can get a virus and accidentally spread it to other computers. So if you don’t recognize an address, DON’T OPEN IT!!!

Websites

Only go to websites you and your parents KNOW are safe! If you are going to play on a new website, show your mom or dad /mom and dad how it works and see if they think its okay.

Free Internet Safety Video

I learned a lot from a video I saw on Brainpop. You can watch it with your parents and learn a lot!

The End!

I hope you learned a lot! Have a great day!
Photo: Internet Safety Video on BrainpopJr.com

I remember how involved my elementary-school-aged daughter was in the Presidential Election last year. It was so exciting to see how she knew so much about all of the candidates, and how excited she was to vote in her class mock election. Now, on Tuesday, President Obama is going right into her classroom – via computer or television – to tell her and all of the millions of students watching – what they need to succeed.

Here is what parents can expect, as seen on Ed.gov, the Official US Department of Education Website:

At 12:00 p.m., Eastern Time (ET), September 8, 2009, President Barack Obama will deliver a national address to the students of America. (Please note that this is a change from the originally scheduled time.) During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.

U.S. Department of Education invites students of all ages, teachers, and administrators to participate in this historic moment by watching the president deliver the address, which will be broadcast live on the and on C-SPAN at 12:00 p.m., ET. We also encourage educators to use this moment to help students get focused and inspired to begin the new academic year. The Department of Education offers educators a menu of classroom activities—created by its teachers-in-residence, the Teaching Ambassador Fellows—to help engage students in the address and stimulate classroom discussions about the importance of education.

There are free discussion questions on the Edu.gov site for download for grades preK-6 and 7-12.

If you missed the video, or would like to see it again, here it is:

If the video (above) does not load for you, or if you’d like to see other Presidential speeches, here is a link for the White House videos: http://www.whitehouse.gov/mediaresources/. Don’t miss this special opportunity to see what the President has to say to our kids!

If you’ve read this blog before, you know I used to be an elementary school computer teacher for first through sixth grade. One of the skills I insisted that my students learn is touch typing. They didn’t have to master it, but they did have to try. The earlier a child learns to touch-type, the easier it is for them to complete their work without distractions as they get older. They don’t have to take their eyes off the page they are typing if their muscle memory tells them what buttons to push.

I introduced the concept of touch typing by closing my eyes and asking the children to tell me what to type. (Expect to type some silly things if you try this at home!) Young children in first or second grade were surprised I could do it, and older kids in fifth and sixth grade were amazed at the speeds I could reach typing when they intentionally talked faster and faster. Of course, with such a fun introduction, they wanted to try it, too, but were frustrated at the QWERTY keyboard layout.

When I discovered the Chester Creek Keyboard LessonBoard, I knew I found the best tool to help kids learn to type. There are a lot of children’s computer keyboards on the market, but this one is different because it is color-coded to match the fingers used for each letter. For example, the keyboard is blue where the index fingers are used, yellow for the middle fingers, green for the ring fingers, red for the pinky fingers, and purple for the thumb (spacebar). Look at pictures of other children’s keyboards and you will see that the most differentiation is between vowels and consonants. That’s a start, but it doesn’t tell the children where to put their fingers like this one does.

Computer Compatibility

The keyboard is configured for Windows computers (includes a backspace key and a few other differences) but it works on Mac operating systems as well.

Tested in an Actual Elementary School Computer Lab

The difference in children’s willingness to try to touch-type before and after we introduced this keyboard at my former school’s computer lab was night and day. Before, all of the keys were black and the children were frustrated trying to remember where to put their hands. Afterwards, it was intuitive for them to place their fingers in the right place, and the children were easily able to help each other.

An unexpected benefit of the keyboard is helping the children find letters on the keyboard. If a child said, “where’s the U?” all I would have to do is say “right hand, index finger in the blue and move up.”

Highest Recommendation

The LessonBoard exceeded all of my expectations. I would even go so far as to say that if you want to teach a child how to type, either at home or at school, this is the easiest way to avoid stress, tears and arguments. Use it with Dance Mat Typing, a free typing program, and you’re well on your way to having a child who can type with ease.

Disclosure: I paid for my own keyboard for home use, and my school purchased the keyboards for the computer lab. Since I like it, I have included an affiliate link in case readers want to buy one.

Here is a mother’s rant on yet another example of math taught badly in American public schools. It breaks my heart when something so logical – mathematics – is taught in a convoluted way that makes children doubt their abilities and makes parents pull out their hair to make their children understand simple concepts.

Today my focus is on the University of Chicago Math curriculum. It goes by the name “Everyday Math.” I really wanted to like this program, as I have nothing but respect for the University and the brilliant minds who attend the school. It’s won all kinds of major awards for effectiveness. Personally, I don’t see it.

One of the biggest selling points of the University of Chicago’s touted math program is it “spirals” throughout the years. The concept is that children are exposed to math ideas but are not expected to master them, and then the following year they revisit the concepts for a layered approach toward eventual mastery. “Spirals out of control” is more like it. Tell me, what possible good can it do for a child to be “exposed” to a math concept that is not fully explained or fleshed out, then dropped, then picked up the same time next year? By the time I have figured out what my child is expected to do, the unit is over and, since it wasn’t explained or taught properly in the first place, it leaves my child with lower self-esteem and a belief that she isn’t good at a given topic. I won’t have it, and my school district finally agrees.

Here’s a disclosure: as a child, I was math-phobic. I would avoid math at every turn. It ruined my chances at my post-college dream job to work at an advertising agency because the company wanted me to start with all the other recent grads in media buying. I turned down the job because I was afraid of the numbers. Sad but true. How many other opportunities had I missed out on by being math phobic?

Math Manipulatives that Actually Work, Please.

Finally, enough was enough. I enrolled in a Montessori teaching program after seeing the concrete math materials at my child’s preschool. A number squared actually looked like a square. A number cubed actually looked like a cube. Learning place values for ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands, hundred-thousands and up were easy for these children. They had concrete materials they could touch in their hands that allow numbers to make sense to them. Finally, the world of numbers made sense to me, too. These preschool kids took it for granted that numbers work in a logical order. It didn’t stop there. Fractions materials, geometry materials, equivalency and volume materials helped these kids understand concepts that many middle school children struggle with today because they are given concrete representations of math that they can hold in their hands instead of abstract ideas that make no sense on their own.

Karl Dahlke in Troy has written a complaint as well, and has linked to math teachers who are critical of this so-called“Chicago Math”. Take a look and see that there are numerous problems with this approach.

Parents, if you have the chance, take back your school’s math program. Tell them you want a curriculum and manipulatives that make sense. And by all means, if your school district is considering the University of Chicago Math program, make sure you make your voice heard. Tell them no!

Office software too expensive? Try this instead.

If you’ve recently purchased a computer, or if you find yourself trying to work from home or teach your child computer skills but the cost of business software is out of your family’s reach, you no longer have to worry. There’s a free, open source business software suite that won’t tempt you to copy someone else’s software, and it’s compatible with the software used by most businesses. It’s called OpenOffice.org, and it might be the answer you’re looking for.

OpenOffice.org is free and open source, and has been tested for the past 20 years. It is one complete package that includes the following:

• Writer is free word processing software
• Calc is free spreadsheet software
• Impress is free presentations software
• Drawis free graphics software
• Base is free database software

Granted, it’s clunkier to use than Microsoft Office or Apple iWork, and the graphics are a lot less polished, but the software can be saved in standard .doc, .xls, .ppt, etc. formats compatible with the software most businesses use. We haven’t tried it on a Netbook, but we have tested it on Windows XP and Apple OSX and found it to be stable and reliable. When I was teaching at a private school and was told “We don’t have the budget” for professional business software, even at a reduced educational rate, we started using OpenOffice.org and were satisified with the results.

Give it a try, and let us know what you think.

Typing is an essential skill for today’s kids. Touch-typing, or being able to type without looking at the keys, will help them complete their reports and assignments faster because, with enough practice, their hands can move at the same speed as their thoughts. Otherwise, they might forget what they are typing before they find all of the letters.

I discovered Dance Mat Typing from the BBC when I was a computer teacher. I was looking for an alternative to some of the boring, slow-loading programs in the computer lab. Immediately the children started laughing and smiling. Whenever a child types an incorrect key, the program shows a keyboard with the correct key highlighted, and a funny voice says “Type on me!.” It’s non-competitive, meaning the program does not keep score, so it is perfect for beginning typists and for children who are easily frustrated.

At the end of each stage, the animated characters sing a catchy song. If the child wants to hear the song again, he or she can repeat the stage, which is great practice to reinforce learning. At the end of each level, an award certificate pops up on the screen that you can print out as an incentive to keep going.

If you want your child to learn to type, give Dance Mat Typing a try. If your child is having trouble with a standard computer keyboard, try a learning keyboard made especially for children and beginning typists. Let us know what you think.