Figur8 - Nurture for the Future

Prodigy Math – RPG that Helps Kids Learn Math

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There is a misconception pervasive in our understanding of Math. I’ve often heard it said, “I’m not a numbers person” or “Math is just no my subject”. It becomes that subject to get through and be discarded at first opportunity.

Math is like anything else in life that we do. Everyone starts at different levels – some of us start out better at it and some of us need more work to get better at it. Just like swimming, some of us take to the water like fish while others flounder around a bit more until we have lessons. At the end of the day, if we get the proper attention and practice, we do get better at it.

To help the kids get more exposure to math, but in a fun way, I’ve always looked out for cool and interesting math programs (check out the list at the end of this post). Prodigy Math is one that we have used that I have been most impressed with in terms of curriculum coverage, parent dashboard and pull factor.

Prodigy uses the RPG (role-playing game) format which has been used quite successfully in other educational games, like Chemcaper. I feel that RPGs offer an added level of engagement that other game-style educational apps lack. The desire to follow the adventure and see where the story takes you is a powerful motivator that brings the kids back for more math practice.

Prodigy Math

Prodigy Game

Prodigy Math is a role-playing game that teaches children Maths while they journey through a mythical land. Success in the game depends on correctly answering skill-building questions. Along the way, they can collect rewards, go on quests and play with friends. The gist of the story goes like this:

Your child plays a character who is about to attend The Academy to learn magic. A friend, name Noot, guides your child through the story. When the story begins, your child has to choose a pet who will help fight in magic battles. As your child is about to enter a portal to The Academy, an evil character called The Puppetmaster appears. He steals the keystones that keep the portal open and scatters them across the land. Your child’s quest is to collect the keystones while fighting monsters along the way with the power of Math.

Prodigy Math
Prodigy Math

Math Features:

  • Content is tailored to each child’s strengths and weaknesses. Prodigy is adaptive and sets the questions harder or easier depending on your child’s skill level, what they’re struggling with and what they’ve mastered.
  • Questions are fully aligned with state-level curricula, including Common Core and TEKS, so Prodigy is always connected to the classroom.
  • 1,400 available skills give students the chance to learn more and keep growing.

Prodigy Math cover the curriculum from Grade 1 to Grade 8. The full list of math skills covered can be found at: https://www.prodigygame.com/Math/Skills/

Parent Features:

The Prodigy Math Parent Dashboard allows parents to:

  • See what math practice your child is working on
  • Monitor your child’s understanding and progress
  • Set goals and give reward to encourage even more math practice
  • Choose between locking the curriculum with a grade override so that your child only works on questions within a set grade, or to have no override so that your child advances to the next level once they’ve mastered specific topics.
Prodigy Game
Prodigy Maths

The best thing about Prodigy is that it is free to use. There is a paid membership but it does not exclude you from any of the educational content if you choose not to subscribe. The benefits of being a premium member are that children level up faster, spend more time answering math questions and get exclusive access to pets, member-only game areas and extra rewards. These extra features are designed to increase your child’s motivated to practice.

Game Play

This is a brief video on how to get started:

Our Experience

I registered the kids for the free membership and agreed to subscribe for a year if they made the commitment to use the app. For my kids, the biggest pull factor that got them to keep going and practicing their math was what they called “the storyline”. Once they reached the point where the storyline stopped (because the rest was still in development), they started to get bored. While the rewards were helpful, it was not nearly as powerful as the storyline for pulling them back to the game.

We left the app for about a year and returned to it when a new section of the storyline was released. I could see the motivation was much higher with the new storyline because G2 started hitting the goals I set for him in two days.

Prodigy is a great Math app for encouraging Math practice but I hope the developers will focus on extending the storyline further.

Related:

Math Apps:

These are some of the math apps we’ve used in the past that the boys have enjoyed playing with:

Philips Sonicare Kids Brush

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I know… for an ex-dentist, I don’t write a lot about children’s oral health. We’ve been using manual toothbrushes for the longest time and I’d never thought much about it until my brother put this on my radar – the Philips Sonicare Kids electric toothbrush.

It’s been around for a while now so this is certainly old news, but the boys have been using it for nearly a year now so I figured it would be a good time to review how well it’s been working for them.

Electric vs Manual

First things first, electric toothbrushes cost more than a manual toothbrush so do we even really need one? When I was in dental school, the answer was “no”. As long as you took care to brush your teeth well, there was no difference between the electric brush and the manual one. Unless you’re a kid or anyone with manual dexterity difficulties. In these instances, an electric brush will definitely do the job better.

Admittedly, it has been over 20 years now since I was last in dental school so the facts have altered somewhat. According to Consumer Reports, some 56 studies have found that electric toothbrushes have an edge over manual ones. However, that edge is not significant unless you already have gingivitis (a mild form of gum disease). If you are disease-free, then a manual toothbrush will serve you just as well.

Compared with manual toothbrushes, electrics reduced dental plaque 21 percent more and gingivitis (inflammation of the gums) 11 percent more after three months of use, the team from Cochrane found.

Consumer Reports

G1 and G2 were 11 and 8 respectively when they first started using the
Philips Sonicare Kids electric toothbrush. They definitely old enough to have mastered the art of toothbrushing and manual dexterity should not have been an issue. Were they brushing regularly and well enough? Now that is an interesting question I do not have the answer to.

Tooth Decay Versus Gum Disease

First things first, we should go back to basics. Brushing your teeth serves two purposes:

  1. To prevent tooth decay; and
  2. To prevent gum disease

Although, strictly speaking, brushing your teeth is really for preventing gum disease. Plaque bacteria likes to grow along the gum line where it irritates the gums and causes gum disease if it is left undisturbed for too long. It is the action of the brush that removes the plaque and protects the gums from damage.

Toothpaste (containing fluoride) is the stuff that prevents tooth decay. All you really need to do is smear a dab of toothpaste all over your teeth with your finger and that would work as effectively.

So there you go – tooth decay and gum disease in a nutshell. When we talk about the effectiveness of a toothbrush, we’re really only talking about it in terms of preventing gum disease.

How to Brush Your Teeth Well

The next question that begs asking is “how well do you need to brush your teeth to stave off disease?” To be realistic, it is impossible to remove all plaque from your mouth. What we’re really doing (as one of my lecturers once said) is simply moving the plaque around. We’re moving it away from the gum line with a toothbrush so our gums have a chance to recover before more plaque builds up again.

Frequency

How frequently do we need to clear the plaque? According to the studies when I was in dental school, it was once every other day. Where did we hear that we had to brush our teeth twice a day or after every meal? From the manufacturers who wanted us to use more product. Although I would probably make it a habit to brush daily because it’s easy to forget if you’re working on alternate days.

Duration

How long do we need to brush for each time? To do an effective job of cleaning your teeth, you need to brush for two minutes. When you’re cleaning your teeth, that’s a pretty long time. I don’t think many people hit the two minute mark; kids would be even less so. In all honesty, I don’t brush my teeth for two minutes. The only time I ever took more than two minutes was when I had braces and I had to thread dental floss under the wires to floss my teeth.

This is where an electric toothbrush can come in handy. The Philips Sonicare Kids electric toothbrush is programmed to buzz at two minutes so your child knows when he’s been brushing for long enough.

Method

As mentioned earlier, the purpose of brushing your teeth is to remove plaque build up along the gum line. To do that, we need to aim the toothbrush bristles at the gum line and either make small jiggly movements or tiny circles. We start on the cheek side of the top right and move around the arch of teeth to the top left. Then we move to the tongue side of the top right and repeat the process all the way around to the top left. Repeat with the bottom teeth. Give the biting surfaces a scrub to remove any food debris from the crevices and you’re done.

Making jiggly or circular movements can be tricky, not to mention tedious, for young kids. It is much easier to scrub with a horizontal action across the teeth. I know, because I was a kid that did that even though I was taught to use the jiggly movements. An electric toothbrush will make the jiggly movements for your child. All they have do is hold the brush in place and slowly move it around.

The Philips Sonicare Kids Electric Toothbrush

What I like best about the Philips Sonicare Kids electric toothbrush is the app that accompanies it. When the kids brush their teeth, they have to play a tooth brushing video that shows them which part of their mouth their toothbrush should be at all times. The video teaches them to clean their teeth by quadrants – starting with the upper right teeth for 30 seconds, followed by the upper left teeth for 30 seconds, then the lower left teeth for 30 seconds, finally the lower right teeth for 30 seconds.

The app is also a really fancy tooth brushing sticker chart. Every day your child brushes her teeth, she can collect points, earn achievements, and unlock rewards for her sparkly (which is like her pet tooth on the app).

It is kind of gimmicky but it had both boys captivated for a while. G1 is still religiously collecting his points and rewards, but G2 has long given up using the app. App and rewards aside, G2 is much better with brushing his teeth (without Mama nagging) so that’s a win for me.

Overview on the Philips Sonicare Kids Electric Toothbrush:

  • Interactive free app educates and gets kids excited abour brushing. Exciting rewards for successful brushing sessions.
  • 91% of dental professional parents prefer Sonicare for Kids for their own children. Speed – Up to 62000 brush movement/min.
  • 98% of parents say it’s easier to get kids to brush longer and better
  • Patented sonic technology with 500 strokes per second. 75% more effective than manual toothbrushes in hard to reach areas for better check-ups guaranteed.
  • KidTimer helps ensure 2 minute recommended brushing time, and KidPacer alerts the child to move to the next quadrant of the mouth to ensure a thorough cleaning.

Related:

The Benefits of Pokemon Go?

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I confess that I never thought I’d be looking into the benefits of Pokemon Go, but here I am…

How it all started

When Pokemon Go launched two and a half years ago, DH said no one in our household would ever play the game. After hearing numerous stories about people walking into objects, in front of cars, and falling into water, or uncovered manholes, he was convinced that this game was dangerous. That didn’t bother the kids because they weren’t into Pokemon anyway.

But you should know that when you’re a parent, you should never say “never”.

Some months later, G1 picked up Pokemon in a big way. First, he was obsessed with the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Next, it was Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon on the Nintendo DS. Then the Pokemon Company linked their games. Now you could earn special characters on Pokemon Go and transfer them to your Let’s Go Pokemon Game on the Nintendo Switch. Like, really?

It was a clever marketing ploy, but it was bad news for parents. What was once a game G1 didn’t really care for became his new obsession. Please could he play Pokemon Go, please, Please, PLEASE! I wasn’t ready to budge, but DH said, “Write me a 1000 word essay on why I should let you play Pokemon Go.” I thought that would be the end of it, but here it is, his essay:

The 1000 Word Essay

This is the essay exactly as it was written with no edits or corrections. I will confess that I was itching to edit it, but I resisted.

Why I should get Pokemon Go
1000 words
By G1

One reason why I should get Pokemon Go is that it will motivate me to go on more hikes and to new places, as certain Pokemon can only be caught in certain places. This would expose me to nature, and children’s lungs work better and have fewer breathing problems when exposed to air with less pollution. Walking in forests would also benefit my eyes, as looking at green is supposed to be good for my vision. Another benefit would be that being in greener places are good for your brain, testing attention and memory.

Getting the game will also influence me to do more exercise because you have to walk to hatch eggs and collect candy with your ‘walking buddy’. Several scientific studies(I’m not making this up) show that Pokemon Go increases physical activity.
For instance, one study found out that Pokemon Go increased the number of people who walk over 10,000 steps a day from 15% to 28%. Another showed that Pokemon Go players raised moderate to vigorous physical activity by about 50 minutes a week.
A survey proved that players walked almost 1000 extra steps on average during the first week of the game’s release.

This also means that I will be exposed to more sunlight, which will mean I have more Vitamin D, which, by my research, will help me absorb more calcium and phosphorus, boost my immune system, help my bones and teeth grow and improve my resistances to certain diseases such as certain cancers, heart disease, diabetes, childhood obesity and muscle diseases! Vitamin D also boosts weight loss and reduces depression!

Yet another benefit of playing Pokemon Go is that it is a game that improves cognitive performance. A study found out that, after playing for over two months, teenagers had greater social intelligence and cognitive performance, for instance, improving attention and concentration levels. Another long term study found that children who played strategic video games(note that even though Pokemon Go was not amongst these games, as it had not been released yet, is is still a game that involves strategy and planning!) made improvements in their problem-solving skills and achieved higher grades. The difference between Pokemon Go and other brain training games is that it also promotes physical activity, which is beneficial to children by helping develop skills.

My hand-eye coordination might also improve from Pokemon Go, as there are several parts of the game that require quick reflexes, such as battling and capturing Pokemon. This would be beneficial as it would also boost my agility and athleticism, and even my typing speed would be improved, making it more efficient for my homework and other things.

Pokemon Go is also somewhat educational. In the game there are places called Pokestops where you can collect resources such as Pokeballs and Razz Berries. However, these Pokestops are not only used for getting more items. They are representatives of certain places such as historical sites or landmarks. This allows players to learn more about the surrounding area! Besides learning more about the area around me, education correlates to certain health benefits such as prevention of dementia. This is mostly associated with formal education yet even exercising the mind in little ways helps.

Pokemon Go, in a way, brings people together. Many people say that technology is
making us antisocial, yet there are certain aspects of the game that do quite the opposite. One example is a Raid Battle. In a Raid Battle, either a massiveness yet normal Pokemon or a Legendary appears and it takes the efforts of many to attack and successfully bring it down. Another example is setting a Lure. Lures are set at any Pokestop, as previously explained, and they increase the number of wild Pokemon in the surrounding area for thirty minutes, and the Lures seem to work on people just as well as Pokemon…

Pokemon Go puts thing into the world that are normally not present. This means it includes a sort of virtual reality, albeit one that does not include a headset. It also includes exercise, and games that include these two factors can seem to suspend time. This allowing trainers to relax and live in the moment, according to researchers, and this triggers the release of positive chemicals such as endorphins.

Challenges come hand in hand with Pokemon Go. Many things may cause disappointment, such as a rare wild Pokemon running away or a lost gym battle.
Resilience and perseverance are key factors in the game, and learning to accept defeat, to learn from your mistakes and try again are life skills, beneficial for the present and the future.

There are even benefits from playing Pokemon Go as a family. This gives children and parents a common interest which can present more opportunities for them to bond. This also introduces new topics for conversation, such as where to find a certain species or what to spend your coins on. Playing Pokemon Go can also teach parents more about the Pokemon franchise and they will be on the same level as their child. This means that they will no longer need to ask what certain things are, or definitions for terms and items.

In Pokemon Go, there are two main forms of currency: Stardust and Coins. Smaller subcategories are Pokemon Candies, with one for the base evolution of every Pokemon evolutionary line(For instance, Bulbasaur, Ivysaur and Venusaur give you Bulbasaur Candy. The game can teach children to save up to buy items(Coins) and evolve Pokemon(the Pokemon’s Candy and Stardust). This is a valuable life skill teaching children to save for a rainy day and not blow all their resources and struggle to recover.

Possibly the greatest benefit of all the above, while Pokemon Go may include in app purchases, the game itself is completely free!

To sum it all up, Pokemon Go:

  • Will motivate me to hike
  • Will make me want to walk around more and do exercise
  • Will expose me to more sunlight
  • Will improve my cognitive performance
  • Will improve my hand-eye coordination
  • Will educate me about certain places
  • Will make me socialize
  • Will make me more positive
  • Will strengthen my resilience
  • Could possibly bring us together
  • Will teach me how to save resources

That’s a lot of benefits!

The main reason why I want Pokemon Go is because it is the only way to gain access to Meltan, Melmetal and Alolan Pokemon in the new Let’s Go Pokemon games.

This concludes my essay. Thank you for reading!

Should We Let G1 Play Pokemon Go?

Like the Tiger Mother that I am, I was ready to say “no”. I had so many issues with that essay – no opening preamble, no citations, there were spelling mistakes, poor formatting – I could go on. DH, obviously, has lower standards than me because he gave G1 the game.

Well, okay, I did give G1 credit for effort. I confess that I didn’t think he would write it. I was also glad to see him reiterating some of the messages I have been repeating like a broken record since he was little. After all this time, they really did sink in even when it felt like I was talking to a brick wall. Sometimes, I guess it takes a while for ideas to take hold. Making him research the positives for his article probably helped reinforced them as well.

Why I Started Playing Pokemon Go

To understand the game and to determine the real benefits of the game for myself, I started playing it, too. Well, okay, the truth is that I was sold by this line:

“This gives children and parents a common interest which can present more opportunities for them to bond.”

The boy is growing up. I no longer understand him the way I used to. Sometimes – okay, most of the time – his conversations fly over the top of my head because I have no idea what he’s talking about. As he approaches the dreaded teenage years, I am conscious of the fact that I will understand him even less. Unless I start making a bigger effort to get involved with the things he enjoys.

So this is me, making an effort.

The Real Pokemon Go Benefits

Now that we’ve been playing the game together for a while, here’s what I think:

1. Hiking Motivation

G1 hates hiking. Honestly, it is hard to say who suffers more when we hike together – him because he loathes physical activity; me because I have to endure his attitude. Since he started playing Pokemon Go, G1 has initiated hiking on his own – he is the one who asks me when we’re going to hike. Normally, I’m the one who dictates that we’re going hiking. He was so excited to go hiking that he woke me up asking when we were heading out!

Christmas Holidays 2018

The photo above shows a section of the “heart-attack slope”. The last time I tried to get him to do two laps on this, he went on strike. He sat down and refused to take another step. During our recent hike, he was the one who suggested making a second loop!

He was also hiking ahead of his brother! Normally, G2 is our trail blazer. Okay, so he did have second thoughts during the second lap on the “heart-attack slope”, but he still completed it with almost no complaint. That is unheard of for G1! And, he wants to hike again! Who is this boy?

2. Getting More Exercise

G1 has been tracking more mileage on foot than I ever thought possible. The most amazing thing is that he doesn’t complain about it. He actually wants to walk! All I do is offer to walk with him to check out different Pokestops and Pokemon Gyms and he’s ready to go.

We’ve also been spending more time at the gym because he can use the kilometers to hatch eggs and collect candy. We just strap the phone to his arm while he runs on the treadmill. Win-win.

3. Cognitive Benefits

There is a study on in the journal “Computers & Education” that found Pokemon Go players significantly increased their selective attention, concentration levels, and sociability levels. That should come as no surprise since we know that physical activity benefits brain health and cognition. By virtue of the fact that Pokemon Go makes players more active, it will benefit the brain.

Playing Pokemon Go also requires players to understand the geography of the area around them when searching for new Pokemon Gyms and Pokestops. It is a little like orienteering, figuring out which direction you need to walk towards and how far. Players also need to decipher the game map and relate it to landmarks in the real world. Pokemon Go offers further cognitive benefits by developing spatial reasoning and map-reading skills.

4. Collaboration

When players reach level 5 in Pokemon Go, they have to join a team. There are three teams – Team Mystic (Blue), Team Valor (Red), or Team Instinct (Yellow). Pokemon Gyms are usually occupied by one team. If that team happens to be an opposing team, players from the same team (even people you don’t know) can join together to battle the opposing team. If they defeat the opposing team, they can take over the Gym. Players from the same team can help to defend the gym by feeding berries to the Pokemon on guard duty. These are just some of the ways that I’ve noticed how Pokemon Go encourages collaboration.

Christmas Holidays 2018

5. Bonding

Since I started playing Pokemon Go, I have spent more quality time with G1 playing a game that he enjoys. He tells me how to play the game better and I listen. It used to slide over my head but it is slowly starting to make more sense. Is it strengthening our relationship? I hope so.

While I cannot confirm the other benefits that G1 mentions in his essay, I think these are reason enough for me to allow him to keep playing the game. I was skeptical when I first read his essay. Now, I am a believer. Go Pokemon Go.

Scribd – Read Without Limits

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Listening to audio books in the car is something we have done since the boys were little. We started with CDs and moved on to audiobook apps when we discovered how handy and economical it was to have a library of books on my smart phone. Then our Tales2Go membership expired and I went searching for other audiobook apps to try out and discovered Scribd.

Scribd - audiobooks and digital books
Image Source: Pinterest

About Scribd

Scribd is an app that allows you to read or listen to any number of books, audiobooks, and magazines/news at a membership price of $8.99/month. This has got to be one of the best apps I’ve stumbled across. Not only does it fulfill our audiobook requirements, I now have a digital library for G1 to access – bonus! He’s so excited about it, he can barely contain himself.

There are some limitations, however:

  • Books we can’t access because of our geographical location.
  • Some of the books are available on audio but not in e-book format and vice versa.
  • The collection is not all-encompassing – there are still books we would like to read that are not available in the Scribd collection.

Nevertheless, what is available is still pretty extensive – definitely much better than what the Kobo shop had before we were able to buy e-books from Kindle. I also really like the fact that they have moved away from that silly token system used by Audiobooks and Audible (not that we could use Audible anyway because our country is restricted).

Why Listen to Audiobooks

Research has typically found that shared reading experiences are highly beneficial for young people. Benefits of shared reading include facilitating enriched language exposure, fostering the development of listening skills, spelling, reading comprehension and vocabulary, and establishing essential foundational literacy skills. They are also valued as a shared social opportunity between parents and their children to foster positive attitudes toward reading. – The Conversation

Many parents stop reading to their children when they are capable of reading on their own. But experts say we should continue reading to our children long after they are capable of reading by themselves. Here’s why:

  • Encourage them to read outside their comfort zone with books they wouldn’t ordinarily pick up on their own.
  • Expand their vocabulary with challenging books they find too tricky to read on their own. It also allows them to hear how unfamiliar words are pronounced.
  • Allows us to explore difficult topics that crop up in the stories – like when we talked about the good and bad of Professor Snape from Harry Potter.
  • Opportunity to bond with our children. There is nothing like sharing a story and knowing the secret terminology that comes along with the stories.
  • Develops children’s listening skills and their working memory which is important for helping children do well in school.
  • Fosters cognitive development as children try to make sense of the story and create mental images in their head while they listen.
  • Listening to someone else reading allows children focus on understanding the story rather than being distracted by having to decode the words as they read.

Audio Books Versus Parent Reading Aloud

Most of the articles that talk about the importance of reading with children often refer to parents reading aloud. If reading aloud with your child is beneficial, then surely increasing your reading time together with audio books is even better. Additionally, a good narrator can add more humour and expression that we may sometimes struggle to do on our own.

Audio books can also be listened to when we are not physically able to read aloud. For instance, during a car ride. Not only is it fun for the family, but it is also a great way to keep the peace in the car. When my boys are listening to stories in the car, I find they are too busy to annoy each other.

Parents who dislike reading aloud can have their cake and eat it, too. Audio books allow children to be read to without the parents having to do the reading. I find that I also enjoy listening along to the stories with the boys. Besides, I can only read aloud for so long before my voice gets tired.

A point to note: While you can replace yourself with an audio book, it is still beneficial to your children if you listen to the stories with them. This allows you to discuss the stories with your children which is another beneficial reason for reading with them.

Image Source: Pinterest

Related:

Why All Children Should Have Singing Lessons

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“I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.” – William James

We hear a lot about the benefits of learning to play a musical instrument and we’ve written about them in previous articles:

One of the easiest ways to get children involved with a musical instrument is to teach them to sing! The voice is the our body’s own built-in musical instrument and one of the easiest instruments for any child to access. It offers the same benefits as learning any other musical instrument.

Singing Enhances IQ

In a 2004 study, 144 6-year old students were randomly placed into 4 groups for 36 weeks:

  • 1: Piano lessons
  • 2: Singing lessons
  • 3: Drama lessons
  • 4: Control – no lessons

All the students received an IQ test before and after the 36 weeks:

  • Group 3 and 4 increased their IQ scores by 5.5 points after the 36 weeks.
  • Group 1 and 2 increased their IQ scores by 8.5 points after the 36 weeks.

What happened to the kids with the music lessons? Brain scans show that individuals who receive music lessons had greater development in various regions of their brains, including the primary motor, auditory and visual cortices.

“Anatomists today would be hard put to identify the brain of a visual artist, a writer, or a mathematician — but they could recognize the brain of a professional musician without a moment’s hesitation.” – Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia

Singing Enhances Executive Function

In a 2009 study, executive function was measured in individuals in three groups:

  • 1: bilingual
  • 2: music performers (instrumentalist or vocalists)
  • 3: control – neither bilingual or music performers

The results revealed that musical experience enhances executive control and that there was no difference whether they played an instrument or if they were singers.

It is easy to see how singing can develop executive function. An exercise of singing in rounds trains focus and working memory because you need to follow your own round without getting distracted. To sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat in rounds, for example, the first group will start with line 1. As soon as they reach line 2, the second group begins line 1.

Line 1: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
Line 2: Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Other Benefits

Singing Activities

The following games from Kate Fellin on Youtube are great for classrooms and groups:

More activities and games here:

Resources for Learning to Sing

Music Apps for Singing

Sing Sharp

singing appssinging apps

Learn to sing, improve your pitch accuracy, develop your vocal control, and enhance your musical sense.

Sing True

singing appssinging apps

SingTrue features over 30 interactive exercises that help you learn to sing easily, confidently and in perfect tune. By using the iPhone microphone and sophisticated signal processing, the app analyses your singing and provides personal feedback on how you can improve.

Related:

DIY Video Project: The Story of the Hokkien New Year

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For Chinese New Year this year, I wanted the kids to learn more about their Hokkien heritage. One of the stories I shared with them was about the Hokkien New Year. Unlike the Story of the Chinese Zodiac and the Legend of Nian, there aren’t any youtube videos about why the Hokkiens celebrate Bai Ti Kong (at least, none that I could find). So I had this brilliant idea to get G1 to create his own video.

Being a child of the iPad generation, creating videos is something quite familiar to him. He has worked on projects for school as well as his own personal ones at home, including:

What’s Great About a Video Project

A video project offers numerous benefits for kids. Here are some of them:

  • Video projects make kids think about the movies they watch and how these movies are created.
  • Before creating the video, they must research the subject in detail so they can weave the facts into a story. The process of re-wording the facts into a story for the video is a known method for reinforcing the learning.
  • The process of making a video can be quite involved, as you will see below, and requires the kids to consider a variety of factors when they plan their own video project:
    • What form will they use to tell the story?
    • The layout of the story – what dialogue will be included, will there be background music, what sort of images will they require, how the story will flow, etc.
    • Which apps will they employ to create their video – for instance, green screens, stop motion, editing program, etc.
    • If the video involves real characters, they will also need to think about assigning roles, costume designs, and video locations for background settings.
  • A video project is a terrific exercise in creativity.

Getting Started

The kids can get started by reviewing how animation movies are created so they can get an idea of the process they should follow when planning their own video.

The Process of an Animation Movie

  1. Create a storyboard – animators and directors discuss the film.
  2. Storyboard presented as a story.
  3. Record dialogue.
  4. Rough sketches for the characters.
  5. Inking department copies rough sketches.
  6. Painting department for finishing.
  7. Backgrounds are added.
  8. All images are photographed and recorded on film.
  9. Dialogue is added and film is edited.
  10. Movie is released to public.

video project
Image Source: Huffington Post

Types of Animations

Researching the Story

Think about:

  • Who you can speak to for information – in our case, grandparents who may know more about the traditions and beliefs for the Hokkien New Year.
  • Online research – what web resources are available? Think about the reliability of the information? Since we were recreating a traditional story, factual sources were less relevant.
  • Books – can you find information through books in the library on culture and history?

Planning the story:

  • Can we make it more exciting? How much of the story will we embellish? When creating a video, we want to capture the audience. A story that is too dry witih facts may appear dull and boring.
  • How will the video start? How will it end? Consider what you will include in the opening and end credits.
  • Telling the story – what will you use? Puppets? Animation? Live characters?

Apps for Making Videos

What apps will you use to make your video? Here are a few apps we have used before:

Stop Motion Studio

Video Project

Create movies like Wallace and Gromit or LEGO. Everything you need to create a beautiful stop motion animation on your device. No computer needed. Simple to use. Cool themes, titles and sound effects are easy to add, too.

Puppet Pals

Video Project

Create your own unique shows with animation and audio. Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later. Put your creativity to the test as you act out a story of Pirates on the high seas, fight as scary monsters, or play the part of a Wild West bandit on the loose. You can even combine any characters however you want!

iMovie

Video Project

With a streamlined design and intuitive Multi-Touch gestures, iMovie lets you enjoy your videos and tell stories like never before. Browse your video library, share favorite moments, create beautiful movies, and watch them on all your devices in iMovie Theater. And with the iMovie extension, it’s fast and fun to make every video more memorable — right in the Photos app.

Green Screen

“Green screens” are used movies to make it look like the actors have landed on an alien planet. On TV, it is used to make it look like the local news announcer is standing in front of a weather map. The green screen effect works by combining images from multiple sources into a single video. Green Screen by Do Ink makes it easy to create incredible green screen videos and photos.

See also: 10 Apps for kids to create their own videos from iGameMom

Putting It All Together

This was the end result that G1 presented to me:

Well, I suppose I did tell him to feel free to embellish the story to make it more interesting.

Raising Successful Children

In Education


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