Digital Watch

Some Interested Scietific Experiments

Complete the Circuit

High Pitched Sound

Earth Movement around the Sun

Illumination

Pushing Register

An Innovative Program to Improve Physical Fitness of Young Children

The most important challenge the children of today are facing is lack sufficient physical activity. Even many of the emotional and mental problems children have are due to poor physical condition. Now is the time that proper attention is paid to children’s physical fitness during the school hours and at home too.

Preschool is a prime time of physical development and children must get proper exercise during these years in order to develop their physical abilities. For most adults, physical fitness was taken for granted, since they had open spaces, no TV and secures neighborhoods when they were a child. They could climb up a tree, run and do all kinds of activities for long hours.

Not any more. Children today won’t go out much for variety of reasons, including lack of good play grounds and security. TV and video games eats up much of their time. All these circumstances are making children unhealthy and unfit.

This physical weakness has multiple effects from head to toe. It makes children prune to repeated attacks of common ailments, as their immune system becomes weak. Children become overweight and they have their stomach getting upset very often.

Physical sicknesses are just one set of problems caused by the lack of physical fitness, as children suffer mentally and emotionally as well. They start losing their ability to concentrate on a task for a reasonable amount of time. They often feel emotional swings (feeling happy and grieved rapidly). Aggression is one thing we see in children today and much of it is due to poor physical training.

Most habits are transferred from adults to children. The two most important adults in children’s lives are their mothers and teachers. Children will not exercise if it’s not a priority for their mothers and teachers. Therefore it’s important for mothers and teachers of young children to know that physical fitness is a matter of great importance for the children.

Here are some of the benefits children will get if they start exercising regularly:

1. Children will be more relaxed.

2. It will increase their self image and they will think positively about themselves and others.

3. They will start looking forward to going to school, since physical weakness is one of the

....biggest causes of not liking the school.

4. An exercise program helps children to maintain an active weight. It helps them shed extra

....weight or gain extra pounds if they are under weight.

5. Improves their sleeping pattern as children start going to bed early and get up early.

6. Improved blood circulation, strengthens their bones and muscles, reducing injuries

....considerably.

These are important enough reasons for mothers and teachers to make exercise a top priority for the children. If not more, then physical fitness should be considered as important as feeding or educating the young children. Mothers and teachers will have to do exercise themselves as well to make children exercise. It is not like feeding or educating where child eats or does copy work without mother or teacher doing the same as well. Exercise always starts with the adults and then the children follow suit.

Here are few things mothers and teachers of young children should know about physical fitness.

There are three types of exercises that should be done on regular basis.

The first kind involves running and jumping. These exercises increase the heart beat and breathing. They improve stamina as well as blood circulation to all parts of the body. These exercises help children inhale more fresh air into their lungs and increase oxygen to all body organs and muscles.

The second type of exercises your child needs is stretching. It includes opening legs, bend backbone and extending hands. It stretches children nerves and muscles. It relaxes their body parts making them calm and composed.

The third type of exercise is done to increase your child’s muscular strength. Children do not need much of it at this stage. The first two types of exercises include sufficient amount of strength building exercises for young children.

Now a word about the amount of time that children should spend everyday exercising: Young children need approximately two hours of physical activity on daily basis.

This includes one hour of unstructured exercises where they just play, run, and do physical activities of their choice, and one hour of planned physical activities covering the three types of exercises mentioned about. This one hour of structured activities should involve the mother and the teacher as well.

Now the big question: what are the most suitable exercises we can do during this one hour of structured exercises?

After an extensive research in the area of children’s physical development, our research department has designed a set of exercises that cover all three types of exercises for young children. These exercises can be done easily by children and adults alike. They are designed while keeping in view the three well know physical fitness methods, which are: Aerobics, Yoga, and Tai Chi.

But that’s just one part of this unique exercises program. The other is the way you present this one hour of exercise program to children. These exercises are not done as exercises! They are the rhymes that children practice to learn the formation of English alphabets and numbers. In other words this exercise program is a part of English handwriting development. This makes exercise an integral part of formal education, since children are taught how to write English alphabets on daily basis in the classroom. Children never realize that they are doing exercises. They practice letter formation in the air, and physical fitness comes naturally to them.

These exercises can be done in open spaces. They are designed keeping in mind the space constrains; therefore, they can be done in a classroom as well. Children get sufficient practice of letter formation as well as three types of physical exercises by the time they complete an hour of fun filled exercises.

Most of these exercises have varying levels of challenge. The older children can exert more and get more out of each exercise. Younger children, on the other hand, do these exercises at their own level (they can do these using their hands only).

Each exercise is embedded in a rhyme with a nice tune to go along with it. Children can sing these rhymes as they do these exercises. That makes this physical fitness program lot of fun for young children.

These exercises should be done in an informal and relaxed environment. The exercises should not follow a certain sequence every time they are done. As we mentioned earlier, they should be initiated by an adult. The children might not get involve right away as they will observe the adult doing it for a while.

Physical fitness is very important for children’s holistic development. It can come only when children are offered one hour of planned exercise program and one hour of free play time. Now there’s an exercise program that covers all three types of exercises that children require regularly. This exercise program is offered to children in the form of rhymes that children sing and act to learn the formation of English alphabets and numbers. This enables the teachers and mothers to make exercise a part of formal education.

Making Children Intelligent

One of the most important objectives of education is the development of intelligence. The modern definition of intelligence is the ability to be creative, which means: we are as intelligent as we are creative. That has redefined the role of schooling. Now, a school is a place where children go to become more creative.

Creativity is developing new ideas or solving problems. The world, as we know it today, has turned out to be that way because of some highly creative people. They are the highest paid employees of a company and they are always in demand by the biggest corporations of the world.

Creativity is a very broad term and one can express it in many different ways. The world will always be indebt to Dr. Howard Gardner for telling us the eight different ways in which we all can be creative. In his book, The Frames of Mind, Dr. Gardner explains the eight ways in which individual can express creativity and make a lasting contribution. He recommends an educational program that can expose children to all the eight creative avenues and suggests that people should take up the profession in which they can be more creative.

Here is a brief description of each of these eight ways of creative expression:

1. Verbal linguistic Intelligence

It’s the creativity of words and sentences. This type of brain activity makes us to speak or write in a unique style.

2. Mathematical Intelligence

This is the logical or scientific way of doing things. People who act creatively in this area are able to come up new scientific ideas, computer programs, and hardware.

3. Spatial Intelligence

That’s the type of mental work that makes us to produce artwork of all types. It can be a new dress, an animation, an interior or a graphic design.

4. Intrapersonal Intelligence

The intelligence of self understanding or actualization is named as Intrapersonal intelligence. Setting objectives to overcome personal shortcomings is done with the help of Intrapersonal Intelligence.

5. Interpersonal Intelligence

This type of acumen helps us, first in understanding, and then helping others. We use interpersonal intelligence in solving others problems, leading, managing or teaching.

6. Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence

Creative use of our body requires this type of intelligence. It is something we need while playing, driving or acting.

7. Musical Intelligence

Creation of new music comes through this intelligence. Great musical geniuses make an abundant use of their musical intelligence.

8. Naturalist Intelligence

Mastery of nature, may that be of plants, animals or resources, is achieved with the help of this intelligence. Naturalist Intelligence is what geologists, biologists, and zoologist use quiet frequently.

The most important purpose of early education is to introduce all eight kinds of brain activities to children. By doing this we give children opportunities to get a ‘feel’ of all eight types of intelligence. This helps the weaker intelligence to boost up. Moreover, by involving children in activities designed around various intelligences, we help children to discover their true potential. It also helps the caregivers to identify the weak and the strong intelligence of a child.

All teachers should know the strategies used to develop each of the eight intelligences. A certain amount of time should be given in the classroom everyday for activities that develop these Multiple Intelligences.

Unfortunately, many times teachers are unable to conduct activities that can make children to express their creativity in various ways. A study was done to find out why teachers fail to incorporate activities around Multiple Intelligence into their daily teaching practice. This study identifies syllabus as the number one hindrance in doing that, since most syllabuses are not designed with Multiple Intelligence in mind.

Most books used in the classroom are focused towards building an understanding of a concept or practice of a certain skill. Development of intelligence is seen as an additional feature which is often missing in the books.

Children are unable to make a proper use of the skills and concepts acquired through formal education, because we fail to make children creative. In the classroom, children only ‘get a hang’ of a certain skill or a concept; there learning doesn’t enable them to think outside the box, therefore they are unable to make better use of newly acquired knowledge. Most children can’t create something new with the help of skills and concepts acquired since the intelligence required to do creative thinking is not developed at an early age.

Teacher’s performance is usually evaluated on the basis of the syllabus covered in the classroom. They are expected to test the learning of children in reference to the books subscribed. That narrows the task of a teacher towards making the best use of books and workbooks only. It is difficult to gauge a teacher’s performance around Multiple Intelligence if activities related to it are not part of the syllabus.

In order to solve this problem, we should adopt a syllabus that has activities around Multiple Intelligence, along with the exercises that develop age appropriate skills and concepts.

But if such syllabus is not available then all the efforts should be made to make these activities a part of the lesson plan. Annual assessments should also evaluate the amount of creativity developed in children in each of the eight areas of Multiple Intelligence.

Here are some of the activities around different intelligences that should be looked for when selecting a syllabus. These activities are in addition to the skills and concepts that children are expected to acquire through the syllabus. Teachers should make sure that these activities are done in the classroom beside the book related work, incase the syllabus used by the school does not include these activities.

Verbal Intelligence

There should be stories that can be read and narrated. Books should include creative use of common and environment related vocabulary. Opportunities should be provided to develop free creative expressions.

Mathematical Intelligence

Children should get a chance to compare things e.g. big and small, tall and short, hard and soft etc. They should be encouraged to find a logical conclusion to a story and asked to make prediction keeping in mind a given situation. They should be asked to think about the various color combination created by mixing basic colors.

Spatial Intelligence

There should be plenty of activities for children to draw and color creatively. Children should not be restricted to a certain space or choice of colors; rather they should have the opportunity to come with new color combinations and art forms.

Intrapersonal Intelligence

Children should be able to put themselves in place of a character and then think if they would have done things differently. They should be asked to make a plan for an activity given in the book. They should get a chance to speak, and make presentations as much as possible around the materials provided in the workbook.

Interpersonal Intelligence

The books should include positive interaction between different people. Children should be introduced to various professions and service providers around them. They should be taught how to ask questions and interact with people that they see in their books.

Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence

There should be activities in the books that can encourage children to move their bodies creatively. This is done with the help of rhymes. It is also done when children are asked to act like a specific character.

Musical Intelligence

Children should be asked to make tunes of the rhymes provided in the books.

Naturalist Intelligence

The books should include the natural elements as much as possible. Books should be based on animal characters found in the environment. There should be some exposure of plants, trees, and water bodies in the books. Children should be asked: a. about the behavior of different animals introduced in their books, b. children action in a specific environment shown in their books.

Conclusion

Teaching skills and concepts is a basic requirement of educational activity. Development of intelligence, however, does not come only through teaching of skills and concepts. It requires the development of Multiple Intelligence. The syllabus should include activities around Multiple Intelligence in order to make children creative.

Meeting Global Standards of Education

The world has turned into a global village in more ways than we can imagine. Beside industry and business, educational competency is envisioned at the village (global) level as well.

Let’s start with a brief description of competency. It’s a standard set by a professional body against which the achievement of a child is judged. Take reading for example. Previously, each school had the liberty to decide how much a child should be able to read at the end of an academic year. Over time this standard was set by the educational department of a country. But as the means of communication improved and the trade policies liberated, each country was forced to improve the skills of its workforce, just to remain competitive in the world.

There’s only one way to improve the quality of workforce by improving the standard of education. And to do that we need to have the educational standards first. From mathematics to information technology, what students will be able to do at the end of an academic year have to be elaborate in tangible terms.

This is not an easy task. Two things have to be kept in mind when doing this exercise. You need to know: a. what will be the needs of the world economy twenty years from now? b. how much a child can acquire at a certain age level.

Knowing the future helps to identify the skills required for the next generation. That helps in preparing them for the coming challenges. Without knowing the demands of the future, the whole educational process can turn into an exercise in futile. Huge amount of resources may be wasted without making a significant change in children. There can be a mass of freshly graduates without knowing what to do, incase the competencies are not defined for them before hand in a very professional manner.

That’s the macro level of the designing of the competency standards. Next you start from future and go backwards all the way to preprimary classes, breaking up of the end targets at micro level. Big targets are broken down into smaller competencies for class, turning the whole learning process into even sized stairs.

This has to be done correctly by ensuring the selection of appropriate competencies for each age group. Not giving children sufficient amount of learning at a certain level can make them fall behind. The end target won’t be achieved if that happens. It can go the other way as well. You can frustrate a child by selecting an over challenging competency.

Once again, let’s take reading as an example: you can’t expect 5 year old children to read a 100 words essay fluently. But then the same children have to be provided with the right exposure to reading: a right exposure of reading that can enable them to read an essay when the time comes. In order to head towards the development of the reading competency of five year old children, where they can read and comprehend a 100 words essay, we have to develop the basic reading competency at this level.

To understand the scale of the effort that goes into the development of competency standards, think of:

a. All the subjects that students have to study.

b. All the competencies that fall under each subject, then realize.

c. The break-up of multiple competencies of each subject into many more age appropriate ‘mini’....competencies.

You can well imagine that the total number of competencies goes well into hundreds, once experts get done with this activity.

And did we mention the cross curriculum integration of competencies? That’s where you try to develop a certain competency through various subjects. Creative writing is one such competency. It is a language competency that is also developed through social studies, science, and information technology. Making presentations is another one of those competencies that can be seen in language, science as well as social studies sections.

Now if you think you had enough competencies then wait, there’s more to come. The only development of competencies is the requirement set in the older version of the international competency standards. The revised versions call for the enhancement of thinking skills as well (to know more about these thinking skills please read “Making Children Intelligent’ in the Articles section of.That makes competency development more meaningful and effective for children. Thinking skills help children in making a better use of the competencies acquired.

The whole activity of competency development, starting from future need analysis to setting age appropriate competencies, is a tremendous activity requiring expertise in multiple disciplines. It can’t be done by a private organization rest alone by an individual. This type of work is better done at state level. Even at that level only a few countries have the capability to take up this task.

Once developed, these competencies are used by many. They are used by teachers to plan their teaching learning activities on daily basis. The assessments which check the amount of learning taking place within a span of an academic year are also developed with the help of these competencies.

Parents refer to these competencies to keep a check on their children’s progress. All they have to do is go the section dealing with the class (grade) their child is in and then look under a particular subject to find out how effectively their child is meeting with the international standards.

Teachers and parents get to use these competencies much later than the book developers, who employ these competencies in the development of the right set of books. In other words, the materials provided in a book are there to develop the specified competencies of that subject for that particular class. Competencies are the most important tool of book developers as they help the developers to focus their work in a particular direction. The skills and concepts given in a chapter are around these competencies as well. A book (or workbook), no matter how nicely designed, wont serve the purpose if it is not developed with the international competencies in mind. A book not geared towards the development of competencies makes the task of teacher very difficult also. Only a book developed with competencies in mind can enable a teacher to achieve those competencies.

So where one should look when searching for latest and most effective set of competencies? We recommend two places: the U.K. and the Indiana Academic Standards USA. Our research into a number of international standards has found these two to be the most professional organization. The fist one is commonly known as the National Curriculum and it’s prepared by a government agency for this purpose. Whereas British National Curriculum is developed for the whole nation, the Indiana Academic Standards are prepared at the state level. The Indiana Academic Standards also offer strategies and teaching ideas for teachers and parents alike.

So if you are interested in bringing the education standards of children up to the international level; making sure that children can perform well, once they enter their practical life, then look into a set of international competency standards. These competencies will help you to improve your teaching. These are the milestones that can help you create a world class school education. Use of international competency standards will help you to act globally while working locally. Something we all need to learn to do if we are to survive in the global village!

Size Does Matter

And not every time it has to be bigger. Children preferred something they can hold and manipulate easily. We adult would call that size small.

Size can make all the difference in the world. For children, it can be the difference between independence and dependence. This is important if you think of children as ‘mini adults’ rather than children.

Dr. Maria Montessori was right in saying that a visitor from another planet will think of children as mini adults if they are the only people he would see on the Earth. Look at the way children act. They imitate many things that adults say and do. There’s much resemblance to adults in the way children walk, eat, and sleep.

This desire of children to be like adults is understandable; since they realize that adults manage the world around them and it’s always better to look like one. Behaving like an adult can get them more power and respect. It can also bring opportunities (read: permission) to do things which otherwise would not be allowed.

They would go around with their hands tied closely around their back with a little tilt forward trying to speak like their grandfather. Or they would sit in the driving seat of the family car and then pretend going around the city on a leisurely trip.

These ambitions of children are taken positively by us adults. It gives us a window of opportunity to teach them few things about how to behave. This gives a chance to make children do many things by giving only one reason, “Because grownups do it that way.”

“Why should I eat vegetables?” “Why do you want me to learn how to read?” “Why do I need to brush my teeth twice a day?” All these can be reasoned very well, simply by reminding children that adults do the same and the performance of that act can bring the child in the same league with the adults.

What’s the alternate? You can always give the pros and cons of the act and the conversation may not go anywhere. “You know there’s something called plague. It is a film that builds over your teeth and damages the enamel that covers it…. Oh! Never mind, just know that brushing will make you look like your papa.” And bingo, you have a child heading towards the washroom.

Now how long a child will continue to perform a certain action is a different story altogether. It would require special equipment to help a child to achieve the end result easily. And that’s where the size matters.

Look what happens when child goes to the washroom for brushing his teeth. Surely he is going to do it because it makes him look like his father but the kind of brush his father uses won’t do. It’s too big for him. He would need something of his own size, something smaller that he can hold and use easily.

There’s a difference between a desire and ability. A child wishes to be like an adult but he doesn’t have the ability to use all the tools used by adults. That’s a very important difference we adult should always keep in mind.

Usage of the same tools that we use by the children can decrease their motivation. They will not be able to maneuver a particular tool due to its size and decide not to carry on with the task.

Eating with the spoon is another good example. A child wants to eat independently, just like adults. But a big spoon will be too difficult to handle. There will be spilled food. Sooner or later the child or the parent will decide to stop the experiment. The feeding of the child will be done as it was done previously- by an adult. The journey from dependence to independence takes few steps backward due to the non-availability of the right tool.

There are a number of tasks which children can learn to perform if they are provided with an age appropriate sized tool. You don’t need to force them to choose the tool that can fit easily in their hands. Children have a natural inclination to choose the right sized tool. Place in front of them a tailor’s scissor and a small one with round edged and they will surely pick the second one. They will prefer to drink water in a small cup and eat in a small plate whenever they have a choice.

The same goes for pillows, socks, and blankets. Offer them a choice and they usually choose the smaller size. Children are smart naturally. They know what they can handle comfortably, and they also know the importance of completing a task as flawlessly as possible. That’s why they make the right choice of tools.

The shape of things can be a part of the same discussion. Children get bored with routine. They are creative and that’s why they love change. New and different shapes attract them. Shape of an object used for an activity, can increase the motivational level of children considerably.

So, if you want to help children to gain independence, and get in the habit of completing their tasks then arrange for the tools that are rightly sized for them. And if you can offer a tool with an interesting shape then so much better. A little innovation of ours into the shapes and sizes of things can bring a great improvement in children’s work habits. These two characteristics of an object help children to do more without any adult’s help or interference.