Advocating for Children

Dear Parents,

     As advocates, you are doing a great job advocating for your children in the public sphere.  As a future child educator I would like to take the time to return the favor.  What I would like to talk about today is one way for you to spend some quality time with your child while preparing them to succeed in the classroom everyday.  I am suggesting that you have breakfast with your child everyday.  I know, your first response is, “We don’t have time!”  And I politely say, “Yes, you do.”  We all have the same amount of minutes in the day; it is our priorities that distinguish what is important to us.  And I know nothing is more important to you than your kids.  Here are a few tips to help things go a little easier.

1.     Get up 20-30 minutes earlier than normal and get completely ready before you start getting breakfast together

2.     Get everyone involved. Let every member of the family help with the preparation.

3.     Plan a menu- sometimes our brains don’t work very well at 5:30am!

4.     Remember it will not be easy the first few mornings, but persevere!  It will get easier. (You may have to adjust bedtimes by a few minutes)

5.     Make sure you speak to every family member during breakfast.  Tell them that you love them and you enjoyed your “family-breakfast” time together. 

     As a child advocate it gives me chill bumps thinking about what would happen if this took place in every home in America! Teachers would be jubilant if every child came to school with a full tummy ready to learn!  What a huge difference it would make!  It is such a small change but it could have a big impact on how well your child and every child learns throughout the day.

So give it a try-you will be glad you did!

www.moneyinstructor.com-spending quality time with the family
http://ezinearticles.com/?Spending-Time-With-Family&id=1530956
well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010-04-05/surprisingly-family-time-has-grown
www.suite101.com/content/spending-time-with-the-family
www.ehow.com- How to spend time with your family

Copyright Laws

     It is important for us as educators (eventually) to respect copyright and fair use rules because our students will model our behavior.   We “have a responsibility and legislative mandate to model ethical, legal, and appropriate respect for US copyright law.” (Fryer)  We can teach our students about this by giving them basic guidelines to follow when they are working on a project.  The Technology & Learning Chart is a fantastic tool for us to use.  It is precise, clear, and it will not overwhelm students with too much information. 

     Online safety refers to the act of keeping our students safe from online predators.  Predators are people who wish to contact, harm, or use a student for their own purposes without the consent of the student or the parents.  Sexual predators are the most heinous of these predators and we as educators must remain vigilant in protecting our students.  We need to teach them to always use a cyber name when they are online and NEVER reveal personal information such as real name, address, hometown, or phone number to someone they have never met.  One website we visited in our homework assignment taught kids to get offline if anything ever felt even a little “creepy”.  I think that is an excellent standard to go by: Creepy=Goodbye!  Cyberbullying refers to online bullying and usually involves students and their peers.  Mean and nasty remarks online can have a terrible effect, as we all have seen.  Unlike a verbal attack in person, this attack is now in cyberspace forever for all to see.

     I learned a lot this week about the boundaries for all students when it comes to copyright laws.  I really appreciate having the Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers.  This website is a great resource for us to have in our repatoire.

   

Webquest

For our first assignment we are to post our thoughts on Chapter 4 and Webquest.  Chapter 4 was more helpful to me because I intend to teach English in the public schools and the introduction to educational resource websites piqued my interest.  I was excited to find such a helpful website as Webquest and I look forward to exploring it further in the future.  One activity that I found that I liked was http://questgarden.com/109/11/9/100916115629/ .  This activity helps students learn and understand figurative language.  I plan on using it in the future!

Needless to say, well I will say it anyway, everything we are learning about in class is new to me.  I have precious little knowledge of computers/electronic helps and I am grateful this class is opening my eyes to what is out there.  This will be a tremendous help in the future when I have a classroom full of computer savvy  kids!