Full of Great Activities for you to Explore

Looking for fun activities on the internet for your preschooler? Or simply searching for high quality educational materials for your toddler?

Here’s a fun treat for you, read and enjoy classic titles like:

• “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr.
• “Is Your Mama a Llama?” by Deborah Guarino
• “Mockingbird” by Allan Ahlberg
• “Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo” by Kevin Lewis
• “The Color Box” by Dayle Ann Dodds

Fun Take Home Activities like:

• Mouse Masks
• Baby Rattles
• Color Concentration Games
• Paper Plate Fish
• Paper Bag Puppets

and so much more…

Hey, don’t take my word for it, Check it Out Here!!!

Kids International Learning Academy was established in the year 1998 as a preschool dedicated to nurturing young minds to become exceptional members of the community as well as respectable beings.

• Address: #27 Jetta St Village East Cainta Rizal
• Telephone: +632-6566911
• Mobile: +63920-9011546
• E-mail: info@kila.edu.ph
• Website: www.kila.edu.ph

OBJECTIVES:

• 1. Promote critical thinking ability
• 2. Direct and strengthen growing independence in self management
• 3. Develop and optimize physical skills
• 4. Equip each child with social skills
• 5. Increase creativity and imagination
• 6. Guide children in establishing values

ENVIRONMENT:

A stimulating environment is provided to allow
children to optimize their potentials. Children are exposed to activities and
manipulatives that create a challenge for their young minds. Different
learning corners are provided for children to freely explore, allowing
them to create and explore their own ideas.

IS Village - The International School Community

Check out this great site that features a Directory Listing of International Schools in the Philippines.

Information available about the featured schools are: A short description, a location map (google map), address, telephone number, email address, and school website - just about everything you’d need to know in order to get in touch with your child’s next possible school (if you have the budget of course )

IS Manila is fully committed to its mission to build a community of reflective learners who are passionate, caring and responsible contributors to the world in which we live. To this end, we provide a program that challenges our students to demonstrate their array of abilities and aptitudes and encourages them to think critically about their education. Our teachers are encouraged to cater to the individual needs of each student and class size facilitates this approach.

IS Manila was the first international school to be accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC); this year the School sought dual Accreditation with WASC and the Council of International Schools.

Mission Statement

VISION

Integrity, Service, Merit

MISSION

International School Manila is an independent international school whose structure, traditions and style emanate from the United States and whose curriculum and methodology reflect the best in worldwide educational research and practice. Our school is diverse and dynamic, and our students have the highest aspirations for their education and future lives. Our mission is to build a community of reflective learners who are passionate, caring and responsible contributors to the world in which we live.

CORE BELIEFS that bind our community of faculty, staff, parents and students.

We strive to:

1. Advance the value of learning, growth and self-awareness as life-long endeavors.
2. Nurture creativity and originality as precursors for critical and reflective thought and action.
3. Succeed collectively as well as individually, achieving our personal best in all aspects of school life.
4. Maintain a healthy balance in the time devoted to work, rest and recreation.
5. Involve our community in sustaining and safeguarding our environment.
6. Interact through honest, respectful and open communication.
7. Acknowledge and celebrate our differences and encourage empathy, compassion, understanding and respect for human dignity.
8. Live our lives positively, joyfully and ethically.

Location Map

Visit Our Website at: http://www.ismanila.org for more information

Since 1970, Accelerated Christian Education has published the individualized School of Tomorrow curriculum and provided training in its implementation for Grades K-12 (See Definition of K-12). Students are tested diagnostically upon entering schools or home schools using the program. Students are then placed in the curriculum in each subject at their own performance levels determined by the results of the diagnostic tests.

An Educational Strategy Based on Tradition

In the late 1960s, Donald R. Howard, Ph.D. and his wife Esther, founders of ACE - School of Tomorrow, were troubled that many students were not performing at their grade level. Observing the same situation with their own children, they began questioning the structure of the conventional educational system.

They designed a program geared to meet the learning needs of individual children. Through the development of self-instructional, individually prescribed, continuous progress material, the School of Tomorrow program came into being. It was destined to revolutionize education worldwide. Today Mrs. Howard and more than 300 employees provide curriculum for an international network of nearly 7,000 schools in over a hundred twenty countries.

Curriculum

According to their curriculum section, the ACE “program is individualized and nongraded” and “designed to allow students to work at their own level of achievement”. They state that their “core curriculum is an individualized, Biblically-based, character-building curriculum package”. The program allows students to advance through high school.

The Accelerated Christian Education curriculum is based on a series of workbooks called PACEs, which stands for Packets of Accelerated Christian Education. Each subject has 12 PACEs per grade level. The basic subjects of ACE are Math, English, Science, Social Studies, and Word Building (spelling and word usage). Test Keys are published for corresponding PACEs.

ACE states that, “Before printing, all curriculum is checked by quality control personnel to assure the highest standard of accuracy and academic excellence. For additional verification, much of the curriculum is field tested.”

For More Information Please Visit:

The School of Tomorrow

Theories

It was once commonly thought that infants lack the ability to form complex ideas. For much of this century, most psychologists accepted the traditional thesis that a newborn’s mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which the record of experience is gradually impressed. It was further thought that language is an obvious prerequisite for abstract thought and that, in its absence, a baby could not have knowledge. Since babies are born with a limited repertoire of behaviors and spend most of their early months asleep, they certainly appear passive and unknowing. Until recently, there was no obvious way for them to demonstrate otherwise.

As a result of these theoretical and methodological developments, great strides have been made in studying young children’s learning capacities. To summarize an enormous body of research, there have been dramatic increases in knowledge in four major areas of research, illustrated in this chapter:

1. Early predisposition to learn about some things but not others No evidence exists that infants come into the world as “blank slates” capable only of registering the ambient events that impinge on their senses in an undisciplined way. Young children show positive biases to learn types of information readily and early in life. These forms of knowledge, referred to as privileged domains, center on broadly defined categories, notably physical and biological concepts, causality, number, and language (Carey and Gelman, 1991).

2. Strategies and metacognition Outside of these privileged domains children, like all learners, must depend on will, ingenuity, and effort to enhance their learning. It was previously thought that young children lacked the strategic competence and knowledge about learning (metacognition) to learn intentionally, but the last 30 years have witnessed a great deal of research that reveals hitherto unrecognized strategic and metacognitive competence in the young (Brown and DeLoache, 1978; DeLoache et al., 1998).

3. Theories of mind As they mature, children develop theories of what it means to learn and understand that profoundly influence how they situate themselves in settings that demand effortful and intentional learning (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1989). Children entertain various theories of mind and intelligence (Dweck and Legget, 1988). Indeed, not all learners in schools come ready to learn in exactly the same way. Some theorists argue that there is more than one way to learn, more than one way to be “intelligent.” Understanding that there are multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) may suggest ways of helping children learn by supporting their strengths and working with their weakenesses.

4. Children and community Although a great deal of children’s learning is self-motivated and self-directed, other people play major roles as guides in fostering the development of learning in children. Such guides include other children as well as adults (caretakers, parents, teachers, coaches, etc.). But not only people can serve as guides; so, too, can powerful tools and cultural artifacts, notably television, books, videos, and technological devices of many kinds (Wright and Huston, 1995). A great deal of research on such assisted learning has been influenced by Vygotsky’s notion of zones of proximal development and the increasing popularity of the concept of “communities of learners,” be they face-to-face or through electronic media and technologies

Source:

How People Learn: Brain Mind Experience and School

by John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown and Rodney R. Cocking
Part II Learners and Learning Chapter 4 How Children Learn

Website: http://www.nap.edu/html/howpeople1

As of the moment, the school directory list section of the website is being upgraded so as to be able to link directly to other schools’ websites. Temporarily, you can access schools (arranged alphabetically) with websites in the School Directory under Category on the right hand side of the page.

This list will constantly be updated until the database for the site search has been completely upgraded, I apologize for the inconvenience, and once again feel free to suggest anything by sending an email to the webmaster here.

Alternatively, you can use the link below to search our database for schools:

School Directory Search

As untraditional as it may seem, I personally would not want my own daughter to only be in this kind of learning atmosphere while growing up. For one, I don’t believe that if something is popular then it has to be the best choice, as there are other methods of learning and teaching strategies that could work better for my daughter - though I have yet to decide which one exactly it is.

Here’s an article I’ve stumbled upon browsing through the internet, I hope you find it as useful as I did…

The traditional Lecture method, when used in conjunction with Active Learning Teaching Strategies, can be an effective way to achieve instructional goals. The advantages of the lecture approach are that it provides a way to communicate a large amount of information to many listeners, maximizes instructor control and is non-threatening to students. The disadvantages are that lecturing minimizes feedback from students, assumes an unrealistic level of student understanding and comprehension, and often disengages students from the learning process causing information to be quickly forgotten.

The following recommendations can help make the lecture approach more effective:

1. Fit the lecture to the audience
2. Focus your topic - remember you cannot cover everything in one lecture
3. Prepare an outline that includes 5-9 major points you want to cover in one lecture
4. Organize your points for clarity
5. Select appropriate examples or illustrations
6. Present more than one side of an issue and be sensitive to other perspectives
7. Repeat points when necessary
8. Be aware of your audience - notice their feedback
9. Be enthusiastic - you don’t have to be an entertainer but you should be excited by your topic.

Case Method. Provides an opportunity for students to apply what they learn in the classroom to real-life experiences is an effective way to both disseminate and integrate knowledge. The case method is an instructional strategy that engages students in active discussion about issues and problems inherent in practical application. It can highlight fundamental dilemmas or critical issues and provide a format for role playing ambiguous or controversial scenarios.

Discussion. There are a variety of ways to stimulate discussion. For example, some faculty begin a lesson with a whole group discussion to refresh students’ memories about the assigned reading. Other faculty find it helpful to have students list critical points or emerging issues, or generate a set of questions stemming from the assigned reading. These strategies can also be used to help focus large and small group discussions.

Obviously, a successful class discussion involves planning on the part of the instructor and preparation on the part of the students. Instructors should communicate this commitment to the students on the first day of class by clearly articulating course expectations. Just as the instructor carefully plans the learning experience, the students must comprehend the assigned reading and show up for class on time, ready to learn.

Active Learning. defined as learning environments that allow “students to talk and listen, read, write, and reflect as they approach course content through problem-solving exercises, informal small groups, simulations, case studies, role playing, and other activities — all of which require students to apply what they are learning”. Many studies show that learning is enhanced when students become actively involved in the learning process. Instructional strategies that engage students in the learning process stimulate critical thinking and a greater awareness of other perspectives. Although there are times when lecturing is the most appropriate method for disseminating information, current thinking in college teaching and learning suggests that the use of a variety of instructional strategies can positively enhance student learning. Obviously, teaching strategies should be carefully matched to the teaching objectives of a particular lesson.

Cooperative Learning. Cooperative Learning is a systematic pedagogical strategy that encourages small groups of students to work together for the achievement of a common goal. The term ‘Collaborative Learning’ is often used as a synonym for cooperative learning when, in fact, it is a separate strategy that encompasses a broader range of group interactions such as developing learning communities, stimulating student/faculty discussions, and encouraging electronic exchanges. Both approaches stress the importance of faculty and student involvement in the learning process.

Integrating Technology. Today, educators realize that computer literacy is an important part of a student’s education. Integrating technology into a course curriculum when appropriate is proving to be valuable for enhancing and extending the learning experience for faculty and students. Many faculty have found electronic mail to be a useful way to promote student/student or faculty/student communication between class meetings. Others use on-line notes to extend topic discussions and explore critical issues with students and colleagues, or discipline-specific software to increase student understanding of difficult concepts.

Distance Learning. Distance learning is not a new concept. We have all experienced learning outside of a structured classroom setting through television, correspondence courses, etc. Distance learning or distance education as a teaching pedagogy, however, is an important topic of discussion on college campuses. Distance learning is defined as ‘any form of teaching and learning in which the teacher and learner are not in the same place at the same time’.

Obviously, information technology has broadened our concept of the learning environment. It has made it possible for learning experiences to be extended beyond the confines of the traditional classroom. Distance learning technologies take many forms such as computer simulations, interactive collaboration/discussion, and the creation of virtual learning environments connecting regions or nations. Components of distance learning such as email, listserves, and interactive software have also been useful additions to the educational setting.

Although these methods would be more beneficial for teachers to know, I don’t see why parents should not be informed about common practices that are used inside their children’s classrooms, as it always helps when teachers and parents work hand-in-hand in understanding the child’s learning pattern.

Reference:
http://www.gmu.edu/facstaff/part-time/strategy.html

The book is a guide for parents with 3 to 14 year-old children. The Author, Shari Steelsmith holds a degree in English Literature from Seattle Pacific. After a decade of editing children’s and parenting books, she is now a freelance writer of books and articles on family, parenting, and educational topics. To date, she has written and co-authored a total of eleven books.

• Over 50 common misbehaviors and lists of creative workable consequences
• Real-life examples and solutions easily adaptable to your family
• Immediately usable, practical ideas
• Tips & techniques for avoiding a consequence scenario
• How to choose the right consequence for your child
• How to effectively deliver a consequence and follow through
• How to deal with children’s protests, arguments, and tantrums

Visit the website for more information about parenting and the book at http://www.ParentingPress.com

Montessori Method
- The Montessori method is an educational method for children, based on theories of child development originated by Italian educator Maria Montessori in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is applied primarily in preschool and elementary school settings, though some Montessori high schools exist.

The Montessori method stresses the importance of adapting the child’s learning environment to his or her developmental level, and of the role of physical activity in absorbing academic concepts and practical skills. It is also characterized by the use of autodidactic (self-correcting) equipment to introduce various concepts.

* note * Although there are many schools which use the name ‘Montessori’, the word itself is not recognized as a trademark, nor is it associated with a single specific organization.

Multiple Intelligences (MI)
- first developed by Howard Gardner, describing an array of different kinds of ‘intelligences’ exhibited by human beings. Gardner suggests that each individual manifests varying levels of these different intelligences, and thus each person has a unique ‘cognitive profile’.

The most common criticisms argue that Gardner’s theory is based on his own intuition rather than empirical data and that the intelligences are just other names for talents or personality types.

Categories of Intelligence According to Gardner:

1. Bodily-Kinesthetic
   People who are skilled at sports, dancing or any other activity that involves physical movement. Bodily-kinesthetic people learn best by physically doing something, rather than hearing or reading about it.
2. Extropersonal
   Interacting with other people is this intelligence’s main strength, extropersonal people, otherwise known as extroverts are generally characterized by their sensitivity to others’ moods, feelings and temperament which makes them easy to work and communicate with. Extropersonal people learn best by working with others.
3. Verbal-Linguistic
   Categorized as those who are good with words, whether it be written or spoken. They are good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing. Verbal-linguistic people learn best through reading, taking down notes and listening.
4. Logical-Mathematical
   This area has everything to do with numbers. People who are Logical-Mathematical are those who are good at reasoning, they can be mathematicians, computer programmers, analysts etc. A more accurate definition of this intelligence places emphasis less on traditional mathematical ability and more on reasoning capability, abstract pattern recognition, scientific thinking and investigation.
5. Naturalistic
   This area has to do with nature, nurturing and relating information to one’s natural surroundings. Naturalistic people are said to have greater sensitivity to nature and their place within it, they have the ability to nurture and grow things, and greater ease in caring for, taming and interacting with animals. They learn best by being outside in a kinesthetic way.
6. Intrapersonal
   This area has to do with introspective and self-reflective capacities. People who are intrapersonal are typically introverts and prefer to work alone. They are usually highly self-aware and capable of understanding their own emotions, goals and motivations. They learn best when allowed to concentrate on a subject by themselves.
7. Spatial
   Area of intelligence that has something to do with vision and spatial judgment. People with strong visual-spatial intelligence are typically very good at visualizing and mentally manipulating objects. They are very artistic by nature, they are also characterized by having a strong visual memory and a good sense of direction.
8. Musical
   This area has to do with rhythm, music, and hearing. People with this intelligence normally have a good pitch, are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music. Those who are strongest in it may learn best via lecture.

What’s Best For My Child Then?
How do you know what kind of approach is best for your child then? As a parent, and as a rule of thumb, the best way to know whether your child would really benefit from his or her education, is by talking directly to your child’s supervising teacher. Ask a few of questions, (1)ask about the style of teaching and the school’s approach, (2)ask why should you prefer this method over the other, (3)ask them their personal opinions about the methods they use and how effective they think it is, this way you’ll be able to have an idea whether or not they really know what they’re doing or simply feeding you answers from the book - which is the last thing you’d want from a teacher.

Simply put, what I’m suggesting is that in choosing the best school for your child, you should put more weight on your child’s teacher-to-be rather than the teaching methods that they use. We must never forget that these approaches, as helpful as they are, should serve simply as a guide to your child’s growth, whereas the bigger part of a child’s development heavily relies on teachers and educators including ourselves as their parents.