Underestimating your child

Wherever I look these days I see articles and commentators making a big thing about not pushing children and that they should be free to enjoy their childhood rather than being thrown into formal learning. I couldn’t agree more, however, it is a shame that so many of these arguments and articles are so narrow…

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The Benefits of Reading

One of the easiest and often most overlooked aspects of child development is simply just taking the time to sit and read together; the emphasis lying with the word “together”. Reading should be a shared experience and not just one way. When we say one way we mean either by the parent reading and the…

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Is My Child Gifted or Talented ?

  What is Giftedness? There are some common characteristics that many gifted children will show, often from a very young age. The following traits and characteristics grouped by type are typical amongst children in their infancy through their early years. Cognitive Excellent memory Fast learner Very good problem solver Large vocabulary for age Highly curious…

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How Can I Help My Child At Home?

  Helping your child at home is almost like trying to fit exercise into a busy routine. If you don’t have much time, it is better to give 10-15 minutes of quality time every night, than one hour a week on a Saturday, when neither of you are really into it. Here are some ways to…

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Top 10 Must Have Toys

There are some toys that every family should have at home. They are not expensive and not difficult toys to find, even in Bangkok. We have these toys in schools for a reason so if you haven’t got them at home already, go out now and create a learning environment at home. Sensory boxes- Different…

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Why I like to teach in the Early Years

  I have been lucky enough to teach almost every year group in my time as a teacher; from Nursery all the way through to upper secondary. Whilst I enjoy the challenges that accompany every age group, I would always choose to teach Early Years over any other level. Some might disagree, but for me,…

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Multiple Intelligence Theory- Not what you think

‘Multiple Intelligences’ (MI) is a theory proposed by Gardener (1983). The main concept is that children are all as intelligent as each other, but they may have strengths in a particular type of “intelligence”. For example a child who is terrible with numbers will be fantastic at something else, e.g. art.  Gardner’s theory doesn’t necessarily…

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The Future of Education

What will the world be like in 20 years time? That is a very difficult question. It is hard to even imagine where we will be in 5 years time. With science changing so rapidly and new threats appearing each year what kind of world will our children have to deal with? Will we be mining…

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Jolly Phonics’ songs stand the test of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCjJYB07aSU It may be have been around for over 2 decades and look a little dated but the Jolly Phonics’ Songs as a Synthetic Phonics teaching aid is impressively reliable. I can not say the same for the actual Jolly Phonics teaching scheme however. Having trained in Early Years in the U.K. at the same…

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The importance of using games to teach Phonics

Children love games right? They love exciting and engaging games that they can easily understand the rules to and which they are able to experience the joy and excitement of winning. As adults games need to be at least a little challenging for us to gain the same amount of excitement from a game. Games that…

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