Resting After Learning Aids Memory
A new study suggests that maybe all they really need to do to cement new learning is to sit and close their eyes for a few minutes. Psychological scientist Michaela Dewar, Ph.D., and her colleagues show that memory can be boosted by taking a brief wakeful rest after learning something verbally new.
“Our findings support the view that the formation of new memories is not completed within seconds. Indeed, our work demonstrates that activities that we are engaged in for the first few minutes after learning new information really affect how well we remember this information after a week,” says Dewar.
photo via flickr:CC | PatrickYHC
This sounds like a fantastic excuse to have the kids play heads down, thumbs up at the end of every lesson.
Excellent website for learning languages
I have discovered this excellent website for learning languages for free.
You can learn German, French, Spanish (and if you speak Spanish, English) for free. It gives you practical tasks for learning the languages, has a bright interface and allows you to test your knowledge along the way.
Definitely a website that it could be good to allow your students to access to improve their languages. You could even have competitions as it tracks their progress.
Age range: 7 years - 70 years.
Planning: Little planning required - all it asks is for an email address and username, and most students have email addresses now.
Have you got any other free resources for learning languages online?
We’re all going on a summer holiday.
For the parents out there, how do you keep your kids occupied throughout the summer holidays?
Reblog with your favourite thing to do?
Bullying
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stamp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it.
Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty is was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it.
That is what happens when a child bully’s another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home. Pass it on or better yet, if you’re a parent or a teacher, do it with your child/children.
Challenge capsules for students who finish early. After finishing their daily work the students can pick one of the capsules and then complete the task inside. I think it would be a cool idea to color code activities by the lids. That way the students knew that if they picked a capsule with a yellow lid they would be doing a writing activity, a blue lid for vocabulary, a red lid for reading, and so on.
I love this idea. Definitely one of my favourites that I’ve come across.
(Source: pinterest.com, via hellotallsara)
Placement
So I’ll be working in a primary school from September onwards as a teaching assistant. Awesome!
Educational but fun trips!
I love that I was able to find the teachers resources are accessible on the “Visit Sealife” page. These would be great to print out even if taking your own children to these places.
http://www.visitsealife.com/SiteImages/Assets/1/26/KS1ResourcePackTeacherWorkbook.pdf
http://www.sealifeadventure.co.uk/pdf/SLA-2011-TeachersPack.pdf
CV writing workshop
Have a look at this link:
http://savedelete.com/100-most-creative-example-resumes-of-all-time.html
Recommended age: 14+
Tell pupils to think of their dream job, and then fully customise a CV as if they were going to apply for that job.
If the pupils are older, and soon to finish their education, (e.g. the last few weeks of the summer term) tell them to find an actual job they want to apply for, or a summer job, and again customise a CV relevant to this.
Do you have any other ideas to add to this?
Ripping up books?
I know it sounds mad, and I was appalled at first when I came across this.
But I like the idea behind it. Especially splitting students off into groups and getting them to learn a chapter of a book each, then retelling the story in order back to the class.
With the creation of e-books, this could be a lot easier to implement and also give pupils the chance to add their own creative spin to a book.
Great idea. :)
Lesson plans
So, I’m thinking of starting to add lesson plans for fun lessons onto here. Thoughts?
