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How do you have the time to do art and music and still teach the standards?
Do you have standards?
How will I know for sure how well my child is doing?
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| kids working on test taking skills |
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It's only natural for you to be worried about your child not getting the academics they need. Or, to worry that if our students are spending time painting, or "playing" with toys that they won't have anytime left to learn.
| Making Constellations |
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| 3.4a Students know the patterns of stars stay the same. |
But what if the classroom environment was set up so that the children were learning concepts and standards through music, dance, drama and movement? What if the "toys" that the children were "playing" with were actually special materials that were intentionally designed so that the children were concretely learning the concepts, and once those concepts were clear in their mind, THEN, they were then taught how to put them on paper?
Look at the photos below, each shows a different way to learn the threes table. All of these materials, and more, are available to the teacher so that they can match each child's learning style to an appropriate material. Every child is not forced, or even exposed to each material, and once a child has grasped a concept and is comfortable with it, they move to abstraction, (often completely on their own). On the on the other hand, if a certain material isn't helping a child learn a concept, or if a child gets bored with a certain material before they have mastered the concept, the teacher can introduce a new material and help the child see what they are learning in a fresh new way.
| Multiplication board |
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| child sorts through wooden tiles to put out the factors of three |
| 3 Cubing Chain |
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| child counts beads in groups of three and labels every three beads |
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| Multiplication Board |
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| child builds an array using threes and lables factors |
| Play- Three is a Magic Number |
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| children made shirts and jump to their number when it came in the song. |
We all have had a situation where we were shown something in a different way and said, "Oh, now I get it!" What if your whole classroom environment was like that? Would seeing a concept in many different ways until it really made sense to you be a waste of valuble educational time, or the foundation for things to come?
All of Merced City School District's standards are listed here.
Below are some photos of our materials and students. The CA standards they are learning is writen under the photo.
To see our full array of materials, and to observe our program in action, please call for an observation date.
| measuring water |
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| 3.1.1 Choose the appropriate tools and units (metric and U.S.) to measure liquid volume. |
| learning geography with a pin map |
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| 7.7.1Students learn the geographic structures of the Meso-American and Andean civilizations. |
| Setting out the phases of the moon |
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| 3.4b Students know the way in which the Moon's appearance changes during the four-week lunar cycle. |
| diagraming sentences |
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| 7.1.3 Identify all parts of speech and types and structure of sentences.. |
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