01.25.2012

Read a who?Comics Biography App with Your Kids

Thank you to who?Comics for sponsoring this post and encouraging my child to read biographies in comic book form! Please click here to learn more about the app. And follow who? Comics on Twitter for updates. I love encouraging kids to read biographies in February since it includes President’s Day and is Black History Month. [...]

01.24.2012

Fed Up With (School) Lunch – The Book

I met Sarah Wu when she was Mrs. Q., the anonymous teacher blogger, chronicling her year-long experience eating school lunch. Since then, she’s officially come out and published a book which I know you’ll want to read. “I know that at some point in your life you ate hot lunch at school. . . I have [...]

01.22.2012

Standardized Tests – Your Rights and the Impact on Your Child

After I read What Happened to Recess and Why Are our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? by Susan Ohanian, I knew I wanted her to share with you exactly what you as a parent need to know about the national obsession with standardized tests. Here’s my (devil’s advocate) interview with Susan Ohanian, an experienced teacher, education [...]

01.20.2012

Soup Scoop – Best Links of the Week

What a great week! Now it’s time for some fantastic reading suggestions for your weekend. Salt Dough Brains from Red Oak Lane Extend your thinking about thinking aka. metacognition — make a brain! (so cool!!) Autistic Girl Expresses Unimaginable Intelligence Many of you saw this YouTube video already but if you missed it, please watch [...]

01.18.2012

PBS Kids, STEM, Twitter, Video Games, and You!

You’re invited to a PBS Kids STEM Twitter party 1/19 at 9 p.m. EST for which I’m a panelist. If you join us, you’ll learn about an innovative opportunity for children to design their own video games through PBS Kids, PBS Kids Stream, and the National STEM Video Game Challenge. (*STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, & math.) A [...]

01.17.2012

Should Montessori Education Have a Place in Your Family?

January is often preschool registration so I invited a Montessori educator, Deb Chitwood, to share about the Montessori philosophy of learning. I’m a Montessori educator/writer, so I’m biased. Still, I think Montessori education should have a place in every family. In fact, you’re probably using a number of Montessori principles already – even if you’ve [...]

01.16.2012

Teach Kids to Think About Their Thinking — Metacognition

Teaching children to think about their thinking, or metacognition, is essential. Confucius said, “A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake.” Or, as Dr. Phil asks his dysfunctional guests, “How’s that working for you?” When learners become conscious of their thinking, they can become aware of their strengths and [...]

01.15.2012

Teaching Individuals (Not a Curriculum) With a Workshop Approach

Let’s continue education month here on Imagination Soup by looking at best practices for encouraging divergent thinking in children with reading and writing workshop. Linear thinking, or convergent thinking, is about learning facts, follow instructions, and solving problems with one right answer. Divergent thinking is generating unique solutions and seeing various possibilities in response to questions and problems. To [...]

01.13.2012

Soup Scoop – Best Web Articles of the Week

Did you push yourself and your children to think divergently this week? I hope so. What did you do? Next week: It’s important for kids to think about their thinking. Next week, we’ll explore ways to get children to be more metacognitive in developmentally appropriate ways. Also, coming up will be what brain research is [...]