_In The News June 2007 Vol. 10-6
President’s Message  Congratulations
to all graduates this year! We have been so pleased to hear of
the many successes you have achieved. Whether graduating from
Junior High, High School or College, we applaud your efforts. We
wish you much happiness and success in the future and that you will
continue to learn from the challenges ahead.
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There is still time to register for Summer Course Work. Continued learning over the summer months keeps student minds active and there is no learner gap when they return to studies in the Fall. If you would like more information call 877-687-7200.
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School is out and the children in my
neighborhood are trying to pack all of summer into the first few
days. There is swimming, sports, clubs, lessons, practice and
more. The cars packed with kids come and go all day long!
Parents are exhausted after a long day of chauffeuring. The
lives of children today are so programmed that there seems little time
for them to just imagine, create and play. I suppose as the
summer progresses, some of this voracious appetite for activity will
die down, at least I hope so. Our children need quiet time to
think, contemplate and invent.
We have watched a miracle of nature
this year in our area. For the last several weeks we have been
serenaded by the buzzing song of the seventeen year
cicada......thousands of them. They are an ugly creature, with
red eyes, a big body and wings that will take them only as far as the
nearest tree. They are ungainly on ground and in the air.
They have but one purpose, to find a partner, mate and die all within
a period of six weeks. The new brood remains in the soil for
another seventeen years and returns to sing to us once again.
Beyond this remarkable event is the response we see from children to
what might appear to be a frightening insect. They have watched
for their coming, have counted their numbers and have helped them find
their way to a tree. The visit of the cicada after seventeen
years has been enchanting for all of us. 
As another school year comes to a close,
I just want to thank all of our
subscribers, both schools and individuals for your support and
encouragement. It is such a joy to hear from
you and to learn the many
exciting things you
are doing in educating students. I look forward to
talking with more of you in the future and to a long and gratifying
relationship.
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The strongest and sweetest song remains to be sung. Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Poet |
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 Learning with e-Tutor
A wide-range of age-appropriate topics cover
twenty-three subjects in the curriculum. Below are the goals and
objective for Language Arts, including the subjects of Reading,
Writing, Listening and Literature. In the months ahead we will share
with you goals and objectives for other curricular areas.
OBJECTIVES
A. Recognize, recall,
and summarize information from material read.
OBJECTIVES
A. Distinguish among
the types of literature. LISTENING
OBJECTIVES
A. Understand and
evaluate the meaning of spoken messages. WRITING
OBJECTIVES
A. Write for a
variety of purposes and audiences using appropriate language and
style. Twenty-six
New Lesson Modules
were added to the Join the e-Tutor world of learning today to view the Lesson Library. |
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The possibilities for family fitness are endless. Consider these tips before getting you family started on the road to fit.
Adapted from Shape Up America |
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anguage Arts
Curriculum
LITERATURE
ch your kids to pace themselves; don't allow
any member of the family to work beyond his or
her means.| Page 3 |
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It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong. Warren Buffett, Investor and Business Leader |
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Have you ever noticed that little children love to pull off their shoes and socks whenever they can? Perhaps there are good reasons for this. Take off your shoes, take off your socks and wriggle and wiggle your toes. Walk in the sand, walk on the grass and feel the earth beneath your feet. Being
kind to your feet can relax you and enable you to be kinder to your
children; afte Adapted from Wonderful Ways to Love A Child, Judy Ford |
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Watching children learn to read is one of the most joyous experiences of being a parent or teacher. Many effective strategies can be used at home to encourage developing readers. One of the simplest ideas is to work with the child to write about something you did together. For example, after a walk in the woods have the child tell you about things you saw or experienced. Write or type the sentences, one or two to a page for the child to illustrate. Staple the pages together as a book. Read the pages together to remember the experience. Before reading a picture book, have the child tell the story using the information in the pictures. Yes, it is okay, and in fact desirable, for young readers to get clues abut reading from the pictures. Copy a sentence from a
piece of text. Cut the words apart. Mix the words up
and have your child arrange them in correct order. In the
beginning your child can look at the original text. Cover on word in a sentence. Have the child think of a list of words that fit where the word is covered. Uncover the hidden word one letter at a time, eliminating words on the list that do not match the letters. The ultimate goal in
reading, is, of course, comprehension. It is not too Encourage your child to make connections between the text and themselves or with another book. Pioneer
Press, Dianne Hamelly SD 79
Music, it turns out, has
more of a grip on our mind and body than we realize. When
couples smile at each other and murmur, "They're playing our
song, " for instance, they may be repeating a universal behavior
that goes back to the dawn of humankind. It is becoming more evident in scientific circles that music was an early form of communicating and it may predate language. No one knows for sure which came first, but there is growing evidence, as well as debate, that music is as much a part of our genetic inheritance as language. How else can you explain such observations as music being an integral component of every culture in the world, past and present; that primitive musical instruments appeared long before any other form of artistic expression; and that infants know rhythm and pitch almost from the first time they hear music. Does music promote
learning, as some advocates propose. There is no clear answer
yet, but evidence suggests it may help youngsters learn math and
reading faster. Children enrolled in an orchestra, for instance, scored twenty-one percent higher on vocabulary tests than children of similar socioeconomic backgrounds who did not take music, according to one study. The better vocabulary scores persisted when the students were retested a year later. Whatever the outcome of studies and research, it is important that our children listen and enjoy various forms of music.....an incentive to enjoy music this summer. Adapted from The Chicago Tribune |
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Extending your hand is extending yourself. Rod McKuen. Poet and Compuser |
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Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), Reformer |
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She began with the premise that every child could learn and she vowed not to let any child fail. By treating her children with respect and caring, by working hard to teach them and by demanding that they work hard to learn, Collins' school survived and the children grew to value it. Collins writes in her autobiography, "I was determined to instill a 'we' mentality in my students and make them realize the school would only work if all of us stuck together." She pointed out to the students that anything they tore up or damaged would have to be replaced. This would increase expenses and cause tuition to rise. She warned that if that happened, only the children of rich families would be able to attend. To illustrate her point, Collins brought the utility bills and invoices for school supplies to class. This provided the students with a simple, but compelling, lesson in economics: "Everything has a cost." "See the bill from People's Gas Company?" she said. "I want that much learning out of you today." Marva Collins' Way, Marva Collins and Civia Tamarkin |
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The best way to get going is to grab a few minutes in a relatively hectic day. Use a pad and pencil to brainstorm what tasks need to be accomplished to reach your goal. Write down whatever comes to mind, without editing yourself. Keep the list available and add to it whenever you get a spare minute. As the ideas build, you'll see a pattern grow and you'll be able to develop them into a sound game plan. Adapted from Working Fast |
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Every man must carry his own sack to the mill. Italian Proverb |
Dr. Seuss Went to War: This site
includes political cartoons from the noted children's' writer Theodore
Seuss Geisel (1904-1991). Students can follow the course of World War
II through these series of cartoons that first appeared in the New
York newspaper PM. Subject matter includes politics, battles and
life in the U.S. during the War. MathNerds: Created by the Center for Advancement of Teaching, Xavier University, MathNerds isn't a "problem solving" service for all things math. What this site will do is give hints, suggestions and explanations to help your students (or you) figure out math problems. Team members who respond to questions are generally professional mathematicians holding advanced degrees in mathematics. Important: You must read and agree with their terms and conditions before you submit a question. http://www.mathnerds.com/mathnerds/ The Birdhouse Network Nest Box Cam: Monitor the nests of birds in North Carolina and New York or learn how to construct your own birdhouse. Be informed of the major predators of the bird world and how to provide the safest habitat possible for local birds. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/nestboxcam/ POMP - The True Story of the Baby on the Sacagawea Dollar: Who is that baby on the $1 (US) coin? Read about Pomp (Jean Baptiste), son of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau. Learn about the child and the man he became. Also discover the decision-making process involved in the design of this coin. http://pompstory.home.mindspring.com/index.html ESkeletons: View the bones of the human anatomy from different angles. Compare those bones with the bones of a chimpanzee or a baboon. Funded by the National Science Foundation, this resource allows students to access clear, detailed images that they can observe, describe, and compare. http://www.eskeletons.org/ Ancient Egypt: Let's hear it for
the British Museum. Their staff has created a website dealing
with many areas of study of Ancient Egypt. Explore Egyptian
Life, Geography, Pyramids, and Time. Find out where writing was
used in Ancient Egypt. Activities are included for each area of
study. Check out the Staff area for a complete glossary and
descriptions of resources. Gray's Anatomy: Bartleby.com has
been adapting classic books for the web, and has added the 20th
Edition (1918) addition of Gray's Anatomy. Don't let the date
of the edition fool you. This resource includes beautiful
illustrations and is searchable by keyword.
Enjoy Every Special Time This Month! From the Knowledge HQ Staff Copyright © 2007 Knowledge Headquarters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. www.knowledgehq.com |
r all, they're the only ones you've got! Take off
tight shoes, wiggle those toes and breathe. Let your feet remind
you that your children need your time and a relaxed, more comfortable
you. 
Later,
they should arrange the cards by repeating the sentence.
soon to
involve the child in the meaning of the reading. Before
reading have your child make predictions about the book.
Read and decide how much of the prediction was correct.
Continue reading, use the text to affirm your prediction or modify
predicting.
Human hearts have always
warmed to the rhythm of music. A popular melody reels around in
the brain against our will. Music sets the toe to tapping and
the blood to racing. It marks our happiest and most solemn
occasions. It forges bonds. It reflects all of our
moods. We remember far more songs than speeches. 
Sooner
or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not
the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings,
not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less
prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray
dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave.
Our lives are measured by these. 
Mara Collins was a teacher for eighteen
years in the Chicago public schools. She became dismayed at the
negative attitudes many children had about schools and many teachers
had about children. Collins decided the only way to achieve
teacher-student harmony would be to start her own school.
Resist the temptation to wait for a
slow day to begin a major project. Most people function more
efficiently and make better decisions when busy. Trap: having
too much time to think, which can cause you to become daunted by the actual
amount of work you need to do and the number of decisions you have to
make. 
