Let's Teach Mastery

I am already a Sal Khan fan, if you don't know who he is, he set up Khan Academy, an online learning space where kids (and adults) can learn maths for free.

Well, initially it was just math but there are many other subjects up there now too.

The thing I LOVE about Khan academy is that it works on a solid foundation rule, as you progress through the program onto more difficult levels, it is impossible to skip ahead, which, if you did, it would leave holes in your knowledge. It lays a good foundation to build on.

Unfortunately, this isn't what happens at school. Unless you are a student who never misses a day and gets straight 100% in everything then you are going to have holes. Because the school has a curriculum to keep to and standardised tests, one the test is taken and the scores noted, the class moves on. No matter how many holes the kids have in their knowledge.

The system that Sal talks about in this video could very well be a Montessori class, kids learning at their own pace, mastering a task before moving onto the next level, embracing the subjects that they are drawn to and exploring them in as much detail as their heart desires.

I do so wish I had been able to be educated in such a system.

Sal's academy is online HERE and available to anyone with an internet connection. They are funded by sponsorship and donations (I donate every month, it is a cause I truly believe in) and I hope, like Sal that we can change the antiquated Victorian education system that most of the world is using, into a Mastery system instead.

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What Freezes Quicker Milk or Water?

These are the kind of questions I constantly have fired at me! This time, I decided we would figure it out ourselves, well with a little help from our friend google too.

What you need:

• Ice-tray
• Pen and paper
• Different liquids to put in the ice-tray
• Toothpick
• Freezer
• Timer

1. Start off by drawing a replica of your ice-tray, we don't actually have a proper ice tray so we used this tray that is for making chocolate skulls! 

2. Fill up each hole in your ice-tray with different types of liquid and make a note of which liquid is in which hole. 

3. Pop in the freezer and set the timer for 30 minutes. Go and play.

4. When the timer goes off, take out the ice-tray and use the toothpick to see how hard each liquid has frozen (if at all). Make a note of what is happening.

5. Set the time again for another 30 minutes and repeat.

6. After 2 hours, set the timer for 1 hour and after 4 hours set it for 6 then leave over night. Each time, make observations of what is going on.

Once we had a list of what had frozen at what rate, google came in handy to find out why.

7. Write a report on the findings.

How Parents Can Help Every Child Reach Their Potential...

Do you ever get the feeling that you are sometimes the last person to know about something? That is what happened to me this week. So, lets take a step back first.
Earlier in the week Ebi-kun was complaining about school, he is not a big fan and he hates maths. This worries me because he has always enjoyed learning, I suspect that is the problem, he is not learning and so he is bored.

In maths at school they are just starting addition where the sum is over 10, for a kid that can do long multiplication, he must be bored out of his skull. The problem is that it is teacher focused learning and they go at the speed of the slowest kids in the class. Great if you are one of the slower one but it is a system that penalises the brighter kids. 

I believe that as parents or educators it is our job and responsibility to provide our children with the tools they need to teach themselves, it is not our job to make them sit them down go through workbooks. Once a child's interest has been sparked, they will immerse themselves in the subject, they suddenly get a thirst for it and just want more and more. We should be there to provide the knowledge in whatever form so that they can soak it all in.

Wouldn't it be great if the kids at school could work at their own pace and the teachers was there to help those who needed it? Wouldn't it be good idea if the kids that are good at something could then help tutor the ones that needed the help? Anyone who is into Montessori will recognise these ideas and for me, it is a solid, sensible idea that would help EVERYONE in the class, no matter their ability.

So, yesterday I opened a newsletter from Kathreen and one of the links took me to this TED talk below. I sat and watched it. Twice. Then I clicked through and took a look at the academy, it is brilliant, the concept, the set up and the idea that they can change a standard classroom set up from teacher focused to child focused proves that it can be done. 

Ebi-kun came home yesterday and when it came to cook dinner I asked him if he would like to take a look at this new website (Khan Academy BTW it's all free). He said yes, I had already set up an account for him, so I introduced him to the first module and left him to it. He LOVES it, I had to drag him off to have his dinner and as soon as he was finished he was back on there! Yep, this is the kid who earlier in the week told me he hates maths. What he hates really is not learning maths.

The Victorian way of teaching that goes on many schools needs to be changed, to get best potential out of every child and every teacher the class needs to be child focused.

As one mom in Japan, I can't do much to make this change happen but by sharing this it is a start. If just 10 people who watch and read this then share the Khan Academy information with their friends and the their friends do the same, we can get this concept in front of a lot of people. Then maybe, Khan's dream of every child working at their own pace and the idea of child focused classrooms can become a reality.

So, take two seconds and hit the share button to share the video and let's help make a positive change for our children.

How colouring mixing can teach patience...

I think we now live in a time where we expect instant results to everything, we expect instant replies to emails and text messages and we often choose quick fixes over working at something over a period of time. So when it come to doing craft and projects with Ebi-kun, I like to throw in some patience testing projects.

This one I totally stole from Chasing Cheerios and although it was a slow project, it was fun.

What you need:

6 glasses

Red, blue and yellow food colour (I used Wilton gel)

Water in a jug

Something to mix with

6 sheets of kitchen paper

Pour water into the 6 glasses, the three that will be plain water need less than the coloured water, took me a while to future that out!

Add colour to three of the glasses so you have a red, a yellow and a blue glass and mix well. Then place the glasses in a ring as shown below.

Fold the kitchen paper in half then half again to make a long strip. Link each glass with a strip of kitchen paper to make a ring.

Sit and watch. This was about an hour after we put it together in the morning....

This was dinner time, as you can see the colour hadn't moved much. That is when I realised that the plain water glasses should have less water in them, so I removed a bit of the water.

This was the following morning, Ebi-kun was the first downstairs, I could here him shouting 'it worked'. Not only had the colors travelled along the kitchen paper it had also mixed in the plain water glasses, so they were now purple, orange and green.

We wondered what to do with the kitchen paper, we decided to put it on a big sheet of paper to dry.

Which gave us even more beautiful results! Now I am wishing I had used a piece of fabric instead!

And the kitchen paper... we scrunched them up to make pretty roses....

Ebi-kun is now old enough to predict and deduce results but he was still surprised when he saw the secondary colours in the glasses, I must admit, I enjoyed doing this too!

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I have come up with some printable teaching ideas to help boost your kids confidence, they are over on the new blog... go check it out!

Taking a trip to Nigeria...

Alas, only a virtual trip but it was fun all the same. From the swaps we have done in the past we have collected a number of items from Africa, not all of them are from Nigeria but we got them out of the continent box anyway.

The reason we did Nigeria is that we have the most items from there, a while ago I did a swap and got a great package which included a handmade book about a child living in Nigeria and the story of her going to a family wedding, a really nice touch. The snack which was included in the pack made my Japanese speaking friends laugh because it was called chin-chin, which in Japanese is a word for 'boys bits'. Ebi-kun obviously though this was hysterical. It did lead onto a discussion of how words can have different meanings in different languages.

The swap pack also included this book, Bisi and the Golden Disc which was an interesting read and we also looked through Africa Is Not A Country to find the page about Nigeria. It is a great book and I highly recommend it for your Africa box.

We also got out my Mancala game. This set was given to me by a good friend who did a couple of years voluntary work in Nigeria, it is hand carved and used dried beans for the stones. We do have a commercial set too that is small and fits in the game drawer. It would be easy to make a set using an egg carton and marbles, the rules to play are here.

The other thing he did was the map of Africa, I bought these maps years ago so I'm not sure how correct they are now, I am sure a country or two has disappeared and a new one emerged! Whilst he was doing it he was asking me for a random fact about each country, hurrah for google is all I can say about that.

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boredom busters for the 2012 Olympics

I usually share what we have been doing after the fact but since the Olympics kick off tomorrow I thought you might want to join in the fun. I made up a PDF so that you can make up your own family Olympics. This afternoon we will decide which 'events' will take place in ours. Hoopla is definitely on the list but I'm not sure what else yet. 

So, print out the sheet, you might want to print out a few copies, write in the events, they can be as serious or as silly as you like, we will probably be leaning towards the silly side, then pop them on the fridge or up on the wall. When you have one of those 'I'm bored' moments, pick an event and go for it. 

When you plan your events make sure you include ones that even the littlest kids can win.

As you know the actual Olympics will be running over the course of a few weeks, you can do the same with your family Olympics. Record who has won what and either award medals as you do the events or have an award and closing ceremony at the end of the holidays.

Need some event ideas?... hoopla, thumb sumo, tidily-winks, skipping, hula-hoop, ping-pong, egg and spoon, ball toss, long jump, sprints, balancing a pencil on your nose, juggling, standing on one foot....

Family Olympics by Jojoebi

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Worldwide Culture Swap...

If you have been reading my blog for a while you will know I love doing a swap, I have organised several in the past and joined swaps organised by other bloggers. I have made some great friends and we have had some fantastic packages which has made studying about another country or culture so much more exciting. I feel a bit guilty for not organising any recently but to be honest it is so time consuming, it is actually really hard work.

So, you can imagine how excited I was when Rachael dropped me a line last week to let me know about the site that her and two other bloggers, Deb and Mymy have set up, a site dedicated to culture swaps whoop-whoop!

I will hand over to Rachael to let you know a bit more about it...

My name is Rachael from Worldwide Culture Swap – a completely free resource for schools and families who are interested in learning more about different cultures around the world.

The project started lasted year when I set up an exchange on my blog after being inspired by the exchange page here! I asked if any families wanted to register to send packages to each other representing the country in which they were from and within a few weeks I was able to put together 25 swapping groups, each made up of 5 different families worldwide - the Culture Swap had started!

As time went on the swaps became more and more popular but I was struggling to keep up with the growing group of people. At one point I thought I would have to just close down the project so that I could catch up with the organisation but before I did I posted a quick plea for help on my Facebook page and that's when I 'met' Deb and Mymy, fellow bloggers and former participants in the project whose help just immediately transformed the project into the form that it is today.

We are three expat mothers all with a shared love of learning about different cultures, and together the three of us were able to set up a dedicated site just for the project and expand the types of swaps offered to suit schools, homeschools, families, clubs and just about anyone with an interest in cultural education.

Currently we offer the following (free) options

• Worldwide Culture Swap - A group of 5 families from around the world swap packages containing items related to their country and culture.
• US State Culture Swap -  A group of 5 families from different US states swap packages containing items related to their state's geography and culture.
• Culture Swap for Schools - An exchange between two schools / classes which takes whatever form is agreed between the two educational establishments.
• Find a Pen Pal - A service putting children and families in touch with potential pen pals from around the world

If you are interested in taking part in on of these swaps take a look at our site for more information about how to sign up and please visit our Facebook page for lots of updates about the swaps.

All that remains is for me to thank Jo on behalf of Deb, Mymy and myself for giving us this amazing opportunity to spread the word about our project. This site is absolutely inspirational and we are honoured to be part of it!

*all images are copyright of World Wide Culture Swap

Egypt...

In the spring break, Ebi-kun received his latest issue of NG Kids magazine and in it was a kit to make a plaster King Tut. I had been planning a month on Nigeria but King Tut trumped it and we ended up in Egypt instead! There was one day in the holidays when I knew I was going to be really busy so the day before I prepared a pile of questions and worksheets so that he could get to work on his own. 

We started off together making the plaster King Tut, once it had dried I left him to his own devices to paint it. 

I didn't make much this time but instead got onto the Internet and printed out a pile of things such as this pyramid box, I printed it on yellow paper, came out great the he made a little mummy to keep inside. I used this hieroglyphics chart to make a quiz and Ebi-kun used it on his work too. I printed the Pharaoh Rules prompt sheet from here and if Ebi-kun has his way, there will be no drinking beer in his land! There are some great Ancient Egypt colouring sheets here. He used The Magic Tree House Mummies and Pyramids resource book, it was lucky I ordered this a while ago!

Ebi-kun worked through the project pretty much unassisted but there were a couple of pages he hadn't finished. Unfortunately, he is like me and if something more interesting comes along I forget to finish the current project, this is what happened to Egypt so yesterday I suggested he finished it off.

The pages he hadn't finished were more about Egypt today so he got out the maps, it is quite a while since he has had the map of Africa out.

I asked him not to pester me while I was working so he went off on his own devices, looking up in Africa in his Most Stupendous Atlas - a great book incidentally!

Then it was to Flags Of The World to find the Egyptian flag and got his Flags of Africa 3 part cards. Although he wasn't supposed to pester me he couldn't resist telling me his exciting facts that he was finding as he was reading through the various books, he also took it upon himself to write his exciting facts down!

I found a great Mummy Making online game and a friend suggested You Tube and Horrible Histories, I wish these had been around when I was a kid, I know some adults don't approve but I am all for making learning fun and interesting and humour is a great way to help remember facts. I found several Horrible Histories songs, I put them all together here.

And well, I have to share his favourite one...

Waldorf Stars...

I think these Waldolf style are so pretty and a great way to brighten up a window and best of all they are easy to make! I found some lovely semi-transparent origami paper and decided that it would be perfect for this project.

Here are the step by step instructions, click on the image to make it bigger.

 

Throwing a sickie, what a palaver....

As I remember it, if you are throwing a sickie back home, you or someone else calls the school for you in the morning and it is done and dusted. Not in Japan, oh no, life could not be so simple!

Each child has a plastic wallet which is used to carry all the random pieces of paper that get shuttled from school to home and back again. When your child is sick, you fill out a form saying why they are sick and how long they are likely to be off, put it in the folder and give it to the hancho-san (head kid in the morning walking group). She/he then takes it to school and hands it to the respective sensei.

So far, so good.

But by 6pm we hadn't had the folder back so I went and asked hancho-san's mom, she explained that one of Ebi-kun's classmates should have bought it back. Hmm, I had no idea who was supposed to bring it back. What happens next couple have been material for a sit-com. I call my husband, he thinks he knows which kid should have bought it back so he calls his mom. In the mean time the hancho-san mama calls the school, she then comes round to our house where I am on the phone to my husband who is reporting back to say that the classmate goes to after school club and the mom was on her way to pick him up. I hand hubby over to hancho-san mama and they have a chat, looks like it is all sorted. Five minutes later sensei calls to say that the classmate forgot the folder and so he will deliver it back himself then the doorbell goes again and it is the classmate and his mom, 100 apologies because he forgot the folder (upside is that I now know who the mystery classmate is). She leaves and then sensei arrives with the folder. He then spends five minutes bowing and I am ready to bang my head against the nearest wall.

And guess what? Yes, we have to do it all again today! Hopefully without all the mix up and the folder gets returned by the classmate.

When we did eventually get the folder there was a note from sensei saying that he hopes Ebi-kun gets better soon and what they did at school today, sounded riveting

1. How to hold a pencil

2. How to walk around the school yard

3. and something else that was so exciting I have forgotten what it was!

Doesn't sound like he missed much.

I'm not sure if this method of calling in sick is the norm around Japan, it seems that our school has a lot more equipment and things to label than others, maybe we just pulled a short straw!

Oh yes, and about the invalid, he is spotty and seems to get itchy as the meds wear off. Last night he had a fever which meant he ended up in bed with me which resulted in me getting no sleep, someone will be taking a nap this afternoon and it might not be the spotty one. 

The bag...

Introducing the randoseru. Almost every elementary school kid has one of these bags, although they are not mandatory at most schools it is like a rite of passage, a elementary school status symbol if you will and I have yet to see one of the local kids carrying something different.

The idea behind the bag is durability, they start off with it in grade one and they will use the same bag until the graduate elementary school, 6 years later. Traditionally they were made from leather and some still are but many are made from synthetic materials these days too. Also, it was always the rule that boys had black and girls had red. Some private schools enforce the colour and sometimes the brand too but our school anything goes. These days they are available in every colour going, Ebi-kun wanted green.

Now, these bags are not cheap, the ones I looked at this year ran in the price range of ¥20,000 - ¥59,000 ($248 - $731 / £156 - £460 / €189 - €559) Which, as far as I am concerned is a LOT of money to spend on a kids school bag. For those of you doing this next year, the kindergartens will send home a pile of flyers around summer/early autumn that is when you should start looking at the bags, don't do like we did and leave it too late. Also, in keeping with tradition the grandparents pay for the bag *phew*

We didn't know at the time but if you want a personalised bag you need to order early, by the time we got round to looking the only option was to buy one off the shelf. The personalised ones have a menu so you can pick the bag colour, stitching colour, what type of linings, add stars or hearts etc.

Inside will fit A4 sized books but really it isn't that big and you often see kids with extra bags either in their hand or hanging from the randoseru.

And to answer the question about the alarm, it is in case of an emergency and they are not supposed to set it off unless it is an emergency, that said, I heard quite a few yesterday, I am sure the novelty will wear off soon.

So, Ebi-kun's first day seemed to go OK, they didn't do much learning much to his disappointment and declared that he had no homework as soon as he walked through the door. He was shattered when he got in but once he had eaten he was bouncing off the walls as normal, here's to another 6 years...

It is official...

I am now the mother of an elementary school child (and will have to start paying for him on the trains!) We usually get up at 6.10am but got up 10 minutes earlier so we didn't have any crazy rushing around. All his clothes were set out the night before and his bag packed ready to go.

Yesterday we were given a list of which things he has to take in on which day so they are now sat in piles on the floor, so he knows what to take and when.

The meeting spot for his walking group is actually the house across the road and his hancho-san (buddy) is the girl who lives on the corner of our street, her little brother was supposed to start today but he wasn't there, not sure why.

Ebi-kun was quite excited to go today, he had 3 big girls fussing over him as he left, only the first graders have to wear the yellow flap on their bag. The kids have to walk a set route and in their own group, I think there are 11 in Ebi-kuns group all together, they pick up more kids on the way, for me it would be say a 10-15 minute walk but for the kids probably 30 minutes. Not like Heathers kids who have to yomp up and down a mountain! Also, along the route there are nominated parents who wear high viz jackets and flags where the children have to cross the road or on dangerous spots. I have to do this about 5 times a year.

Coming home though, the different grades have different finishing times so, the walking groups don't have a big kid to keep an eye on them. For the first few weeks there are a couple of parents walking with the groups but eventually they will walk alone.

So, the last three days have been pretty chaotic which is mirrored by the state of the house, I think today I will try and get back on top of everything, get everything sorted and the tomorrow I can throw myself back into work mode.

Opening Ceremony...

Yesterday we got all suited and booted, Ebi-kun looked very smart in his little suit, we took a few pics on the road  with the neighbours garden as a backdrop, she then appeared and invited us to us the garden to take some nice pictures so we did that when we got home. Ebi-kun didn't need his bag so he just put in on for the pictures. We had to walk to the school and luckily we had beautiful weather for it.

When we got there we had reception, got his name badge and signed in and then a 6th grader showed Ebi-kun to his seat, he is 2nd row back so you can't actually see him here. There are 7, yes 7 classes in his grade all with 34 or 35 kids in it. The first grade here is twice the size of the whole elementary school I attended.

 There were loads of boring speeches, one little first grader was falling asleep and the teacher sat behind had to keep poking him to try and wake him up and catch him before he fell off the seat, watching that little incident actually kept me awake. Then we had the class photo, due to the classes being so big only one parent can get on the photo and yes, it wasn't me ! The general advice for outfits is to wear dark clothes for graduation because it is a sad occasion and something bright for opening ceremony because it is a happy occasion. In Ebi-kun's class quite a few of the moms were in cream or pastel suits but I would say on the whole it was 70% dark colors and 30% cream/pastels. I wore black because that's the way I roll.

The school itself is quite modern, this year was the first time that any kids have graduated, so everything is still pretty new. After the photos we were taken to the classroom to meet his sensei. All the rooms have these wide sliding doors which apparently they leave open most of the time.

Ebi-kun is the second row back and second row in, he stands out because his hair is a lot fairer that the other kids. Unfortunately he is not in the same class as any of the other kids that he went to yochien with, he does know one boy in the class who lives near by, he is really naughty and so is his sister so hopefully Ebi-kun will make some new friends today.

His sensei is 50 years old and also gave his full name, which surprised me, I don't ever remember a teacher telling me their age or first name, in fact it was a really big deal if you managed to find out the teachers first name when I was a kid. I am hoping that with him being one of the older teachers, he will have plenty of experience under his belt and that he isn't one of the oldies that are stuck in their old fashioned ways, only time will tell.

All the kids were given a yellow hat, a bag alarm, their text books, the yellow cover for their bag and a big pile of papers.

We had a quick word with sensei before we left, I know that the schools send home loads of bits of paper each day and sometimes my husband is away on business trips so we asked that during those times they mark any really important papers and the sensei offered to write them in hiragana so we should be OK.

We left around 4pm and took some more photos in the neighbours garden, even though she had gone out, she had given us permission beforehand, it still felt a bit weird. Then it was back out with the markers so we could add his grade and class to all his stuff, luckily not all 600+ things, mainly just the big items and all his bags. Daddy-ebi had a massive pile of papers to fill in and we were all done and dusted by 9.30pm.

Oh yes, and the donut hanging from his bag is an alarm, we bought one because we didn't know he was going to get given one!

and it continues....

Yes, the school preparation is still under-way. After the last post I discovered that the ring cards has to have each card with his name on, so add another 200 names to the list!

He also needed new bags, they have to be the same type of fabric and specific sizes so I couldn't recycle his yochien ones. Ebi-kun asked for the knight fabric again, fine my me! If you want some, you can get it here. Of course each bag needs his name and class on it.

From the top, the first bag is for his gym kit, the next one for carry extra stuff to and from school - end of term things not the day to day things. On the bottom, the long one is for his eating utensils, middle one for his toothbrush and cup and the last of for his school lunch clothes.

School lunch clothes, what is that? I hear you cry....

Yes, he has to wear this get up, jacket, hat and mask, I think this is for when they are serving lunch, I'm not sure if he wears it (without the mask) for eating, I will report back on that.

Next up, the earthquake hat, cover for the hat, two brollies - one is left at school and one here, two cleaning rags and a yellow cap.

This is the earthquake hat, it all folds up neatly and goes in the blue quilted cover. That has a strap on it and the kids use it as a chair cushion. Hopefully he will get six years of sitting on it and not having to wear it except for drills.

I forgot to take pics of the final things, sports t-shirt and shorts, and pumps for inside which have to be a specific brand not any old pumps and a bag for the pumps which I have just realized I haven't made yet! Pianica and The School Bag - which deserves it's own post!

We will go through everything today with daddy to double check to make sure we haven't missed any of the squillion items he needs!