Monday, January 31, 2011

Australia Day

Our family celebrated Australia Day in a very stereotypical way: at the beach, with a sausage sizzle. However, it was also lovely to come home for a light tea of (homemade) sushi, which I feel illustrates another reason to be grateful we live here - our multiculturalism which has seen Australia accept, accommodate and later welcome people from many countries. It has saddened me in recent years to see Australia Day marked by jingoistic outpourings of superficial nationalism/patriotism. I would like to see it a more reflective time (although it could be argued that we have ANZAC Day for that.) How do you feel?

This is a great post from Trevor Cairney's blog. It is filled with suggestions for exploring different aspects of Australian identity through children's literature.
Literacy, families and learning: Australia Day

P.S. The sushi was not intended as a symbolic gesture - it was delicious! The symbolism occured to me later!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Parenting Ideas - Help your child ACHIEVE this year

A timely post from Michael Grose's Parenting Ideas page. I appreciate his core messages of being involved and interested in your child's education, without taking over; maintain open communication with and trust the teacher and the school.

It is a little sad, however, to think that parents may need to be reminded to make sure that their kids eat healthily, get plenty of sleep and arrive at school on time - this was also a key message on the first note home I received from my son's grade one teacher. This must be a pretty serious problem if teachers are having to remind parents of something that is so commonsense. What advice would you give to parents with children starting school?

Parenting Ideas - Help your child ACHIEVE this year

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Reading Rockets: Building World Knowledge: Motivating Children to Read and Enjoy Informational Text

Hello and Happy New Year! I will do a proper New Year/Australia Day post soon. I the meantime, I wanted to share this article which has some good ideas for tackling non-fiction texts in the early years. It contains some very simple strategies for helping students to get the most out of a text, and to support comprehension and thinking skills.
Reading Rockets: Building World Knowledge: Motivating Children to Read and Enjoy Informational Text