I was just discussing with a retired teacher (my mother actually) whether there really is such a thing as “kindergarten spelling words“. I was showing her a nifty new online spelling activity that is in development and after showing it, she asked: “Is there really such a thing as spelling words in kindergarten?”
Of course, when I was growing up, probably not. But today, there are even lists of preschool spellilng words.
Are the expectations the same nationwide? Probably, although I’m not that sure…..
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There have been some great sites with perpetual gaming and identity for the under 13 crowd. A quick list:
www.neopets.com
http://www.nick.com/nicktropolis/game/index.jhtml - Nick jr. - feb 07
http://www.clubpenguin.com/
http://www.millsberry.com/
the BBC has announced a “second life for kids” for summer 2007.
And the knowledge adventure conglomerate (the same people behind the clever island junk mail empire) have announced: http://www.jumpstartworld.com/
And of course, those clever time4learning people are envisaging a massively cool learning games site.
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I’m constantly puzzled by the question of what should the children learn. I’ve spent time trying to understand curriculum and have a few basic thoughts about it.
There is a broad consensus on what constitutes a solid educational foundation. Children should understand the basics of math meaning features, sets, like and dislike, basic geometry, the concept of quantity and order, the representation of quantity, basic arithmetic operations, and so on. Similiarly, there is consensus on the language arts foundation despite the ongoing reading wars about how best ot teach language arts.
By middle school, I question the focus on learning so many facts. I for one can remember very few of them. Most of what I remember are the skills achieved in investigating some situation. For instance, while I cannot necessarily remember alot of the literature that I read, I do remember how the meaning and significance of a book opened to me as I learned to think about the multiple ways that authors send their messages.
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