Books rock classrooms and kids know it! whether they hear Stormking on CD or sing the Garden Song, they are on track to be accomplished readers.
New Education Options uses "The World Around me" to build STEM vocabulary using standards and songs. Whether using "inch by inch and row by row" in class and at the Javitz- Books rock and kids know it. Here's their background.
This week the Book Expo America will open for the Book Trade in New York City at the Javitz. This is the international venue for finding new books to publish or resellers that will have titles and reprints to adopt, resell, or reposition to find new and old audiences, libraries, bookstores, or translations and new options for exploitation a meeting at a time.
It's time to head back to Manhattan to celebrate the return of Spring, the Book Fair, and authors…like Kenneth Grahame' whose language in The Wind in the Willows still charms, hypnotizes and fascinates readers. It's time to celebrate NY's famous book trade from Scribner to indies, from Penguin to Indies and Reed hopes to welcome old friends and newcomers alike.
Published in 1909, Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" is still selling worldwide. It is the concordance of book lovers, writers, agents, and innovators that have brought great books to new audiences. With the upcoming centennial of the National Parks, it's a historic example of one evergreen book that still sells Nature to kids and has had professional fans year after year.
An example of figurative writing and memorable prose that keeps reader interest year after year:
"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
? Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, from Good Reads
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1061285-the-wind-in-the-willows
For all the new titles, software, readers, iphone apps and more, the strength of this writing still brings riverbanks alive in the minds eye for children, parents and teachers, and is in libraries, on home shelves, and in audio spoken word.
Executive Director of New Education Options, Inc. is humbly winging back to New York City having defended the possibility that it is utilitarian and shrewd to stand up for English Language Learning that will allow for understanding great metaphors, similes, contrasts and comparisons that are easily lost to low English learners by teaching through new standards.
Whether common core, science, or English Language and STEM standards, Grahame's pastoral world can make science come alive using JPL's SMAP or Cloud satellites and song.
California has a place to bring Science into the classroom in its CARecycle Education and the Environment Curriculum. This curricula developed in 10 states allows teachers to substitute this systems based content to open children's eyes to the Natural World. The first kinder unit is called "The World Around Me" is also the name of a William Elliott song that can be used to describe a river and a meadow or to teach about habitat and weather. New conceits can make an old work horse (Grahame's pastoral kids novel) come alive. Abstract concepts can be taught through imovie (like kindness) to counting syllables and using math with music.
NEO, Inc. is a 501 c 3 works to raise interest in staying in school through student centered, cognitively enriching, arts in education instruction using hands on science.
WaterBuddy, its program, uses singing and writing to make academic vocabulary memorable and word distinctions in meaning fascinating and fulfilling.
Who knew that Mole and Ratty would last to be observed from outer space in a drought?
What an amazing synergy of compilation and consideration occurred at Seer.org that led to the release of the EEI curriculum online and Gerald Lieberman's Harvard Press Book.
And with the dry conditions in California, what an opportunity to teach through our state's current situation to befriend water, think about the wildlife that depends on its habitat and the weather that influences urban water usage and our water resources.
NEO is using national standards and state curricula applied with its musical linguistics (songs and writing) to help at risk students to "mix it up" with sound to symbol, rhythm and phonemic awareness. Although not as devastating as a tornado, this classroom is warm, friendly and full of singing and experimentation.
Neo's strategy that "music might make you smarter" if it was included in English Language Arts class and embedded with academic words that will make Science and other core coursework more familiar.
Bo asserts that writing, math, and spelling seem easier because playful pedagogy makes students more comfortable taking risks, children who were failing to learn at the speed that Districts have expected them to learn at…. just might start building responses and resources that make all the difference one mind at a time.
Science and Math have plenty of concepts that can be reviewed, repeated, and explored to makes students and citizens aware of water, waste, recycling, measurement, planting, stewarding, and physics, motion, or species or season.
Why not make pressure, shape, speed, and atmosphere part of class along with culture, agriculture, architecture, and fashion- you can use the EEI lesson plans and find out.
WaterBuddy and NEO's lesson plans teach color and weather in the early grades and the frequently used words- WaterBuddy is working with Globe.gov (soon to have its national convention in Los Angeles in Universal Studios this summer) and building student ELA and Math skills through writing, measuring, and hands on science with LAUSD students. Kids can use blended instruction on their tablets and blended instruction with descriptors and sentence structure.
What's new? The use of language and rhythm, patterns, and best practices with the computer and without to sing in words to build comprehension….conventional, affordable and working with some of the 30 million words it will take to catch up….one class at a time.
The BEA and the classroom connected by making the classroom both fun and meaning "sticky" (A Tippling Point and Malcolm Gladwell …Big Bird concept) used for resiliency in Elementary and PK grades studying California and LA's River. The SMAP satellite can measure water in lawns from work with parents at home on i-phone or ipad or in the school garden with WaterBuddy programs in the Valley.
Whether a literary river in Grahame or a classic folk song (Row, row, row your boat), kids are learning about water as a precious, limited resource can become understandable and so much more. From stories in digital format from Arbordale Publishing, or a large format Barnes and Noble "Tales from Wind in the Willow" ….Liggett, Gault, and Hamlin kids are being put first and each brain filled with words, meaning, signs, and symbols to build resources and habits that will last a lifetime. A love of books, the ability to work academically and to understand what's expected doing an experiment, working solving problems solo, or in a group, reading and deciphering a page or doing calculations and predictions….are all developed by using VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Standards) and CDE core subjects requirements with whimsy and this weeks course work.
Past California Arts Council recipient, works with teachers and kids at the same time demonstrating how simple math, variable expressions, and Q&A can lead to expanded vocabulary and comprehension a note, measure, and concept at a time.
All the while, kids are gaining confidence and security with books, authors, and subjects. Whether geography, biology, physics, in their neighborhood, or at the beach, in the garden, at home, or on a river bank outdoor classroom…..whether on a field trip to a museum, to the Frog Spot, or in picking up the River in a FoLAR seasonal cleanup, they are singing about "The World around me" and building new language pathways.
They are continuing forward as word makers and collaborative editors, writers, and risk takers. It's a noisier classroom …one that can include making instruments, or learning solfege. It can also mean one lyric is created or another comes from adapting a story into two measures….either way books can be condensed into short phrases or the reason a child gets a library card. Having learned about great writers….scientists…explorers…and stories they are becoming fans of next seasons books soon to be seen at the scholastic book fairs or soon in class or at their local library.
They are taking steps toward their future one note at a time and one measure or measurement at a time "inch by inch", and "row by row" and having a "jolly good time" being integrated into academics. Bravo! For more information on classroom coherence and joyful activities write us at bo@kidsfirst.la, info@littledrip.org or call us at 818-742-5099. Resources below will give you a handle on blended instruction to the Book Fair and William Elliott's Wind in the Willows musical to measurements from a garden to satellite.
Alfred Music, a Van Nuys music publishing leader, will have a stand at BEA and Bo's kids are singing in Panorama City about energy conservation to California's habitat on the Coast or along the river bank on hiking paths…thanks to the Green Songbook and the work of Guitars in the Classroom to work with teachers to teach new concepts in innovative ways nationally a school at a time. Find new books, new authors like Jessica Baron, Kenneth Grahame, or new content at the Javitz this year a row or one stand at a time.
The Book Fair…bloggers, authors, speakers, and more:
http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/
Classroom Resources:
Stormking…Jeff Haynes award winning CD on Hachette Audio:
http://www.peteseegerthestormking.com/site/jeff-haynes/
http://www.alfred.com/Products/The-Green-Songbook--00-35434.aspx
Globe.gov conference and measuring the world around me with students worldwide:
http://www.globe.gov/do-globe/measurement-campaigns
Music Edventures Videos, Conference, Trainings, and Lesson Plans:
http://www.musicedventures.org/
Coastal Commission and the Coastal Steward Pledge:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/277252920780993946/
Kelp:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/89368373832230421/
Kenneth Grahame quotes:
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1061285-the-wind-in-the-willows
The Word Gap:
https://soundcloud.com/thecaliforniareport/struggling-with-english-from-kindergarten-to-high-school-graduation
Standards and STEM:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/pd/ca/sc/stemintrod.asp
http://skillsusa.org/about/why-career-technical-education/stem-and-cte-alignment/
http://www.cteresource.org/featured/stem.html
Ibpa and Ben Franklin Award Winners:
http://ibpabenjaminfranklinawards.com/
Music and Math…mixing subjects up from video frames to musical conceits:
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2012/07/teaching-children-math-using-music/
http://gaultes.com/
(gault es videos using blended instruction)
Dr. Lieberman and District Standards:
http://www.amazon.com/Education-Environment-Standards-Based-Districts-Lieberman/dp/B00HQ1OU8Y
Word Walls:
http://www.californiaeei.org/abouteei/howtoteach/components/wordwallcards/
Mixing up beats and beets….Galactic Pizza….saving energy and laughing through math:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KIo9YZtWFV2x8ARQ4snIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ--?p=Santa+Barbara+Oil+Spill+As+a+Teaching+Moment&vid=ad1331278cee4b5ffbb71adcfc41e7bd&l=2%3A24&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DWN.JGoeYEtpWo1nGPjxHYdx4w%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWpBjginjdTo&tit=Superhero+Pizza%3A+Delivering+Pies+With+Captain+Awesome&c=0&sigr=11bf5ejjb&sigt=11lh8inji&sigi=11v6o4peu&age=1412874530&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=yhs-mozilla-002&hsimp=yhs-002&hspart=mozilla&tt=b