How can you prepare your child at home for school? New Zealand has recently introduced National Standards and I know that as a teacher, it has been a lot for educators, students and parents to come to terms with. We all know that children start learning from the day they are born, so preparing children for school readiness is essential. The biggest question that I get asked as an educator is, “How can I prepare my 5 year old for school?” I usually find that parents do a great job at teaching their children the alphabet names before they start school, which really helps build confidence, but it doesn’t really help them much in those initial learning phases in reading. Of course, it is useful for them to have some concepts about print, but this is not the first thing that will help your child to learn to read. It is really important and beneficial for your child to learn how to audibly identify simple sounds that are similar. This can be highlighted in poems or rhyming books. Asking your child to be able to identify the sounds that sound the same or words that rhyme would be of great advantage to your child. Even playing “I-spy” with letter sounds rather than alphabet names may very well be achievable for a more advanced learner. This is called Phonological Awareness and is an important foundation to learning to read. Something I am continuously discussing with early childhood centres, is the importance of Phonological Awareness. This may sound like a lot of teacher talk however Phonological Awareness is very important in the development of your five year old. Being able to hear and identify similar sounds, or sounds that are different for that matter, will really prepare your child for reading. Far too often we expect students to identify letter sounds by looking at them and expecting them to know what sound they represent. This is called phonics and only comes later in the developmental process. Research shows that students are coming to school with very little preparation in Phonological Awareness, which is now a prerequisite for school. By the time your child starts school, they should be learning to match these familiar sounds with the letters, if they haven’t done so already. Another useful tip is teaching your child to write their name. This will be very useful in identifying their work at school and build confidence. Students need confidence in order to succeed at learning. The more your child succeeds, the more they will achieve and want to take ownership of their learning. If you want to teach the alphabet names, make sure you teach them the alphabet sounds first. There are a lot of ABC apps out there that will provide both of these learning opportunities, including how to write these letters, which will help when it comes to your child learning to write their name. Reading to your child and with your child every night will not only teach your child the necessary concepts about print, but will provide them with valuable quality time. It is so important that your child knows that you are interested in them and have time for them. Having this positive relationship with your child will also benefit their learning tremendously, as love and affirmation is so critical and necessary at this age, which goes without saying. Learning how to count out their lollies, toys or anything else of interest to them will also assist them in their mathematics. Again, teach them how to count to ten before asking them to identify the numerals. If they are confident with this, then you can proceed to numbers up to 20. Remember that this is not a prerequisite for the 5 year old and they will be taught this at school. However, learning these concepts in real life contexts is invaluable. Once they can count to 10, they can start learning that if they add 1 and 1, it equals 2. The language of mathematics is really important here, so don’t be afraid to use words like add, subtract, equals and left over. This will once again prepare them for the symbols that they will learn to match this mathematical language. What about teaching them to tie their shoelaces? Yes, it is important that you teach them everything to make them independent in being able to dress and use the toilet independently. Learning how to use a pair of scissors is also probably an expected skill by the time your child starts school however this is also not a requirement for New Entrants. All gross and fine motor development is also important in the preparation for writing. What is this you say? Gross motor development is the development of the bigger muscles in the body that will help prevent your child from falling off their chair. To develop these muscles practice climbing up and down stairs, running races and encourage your child to play regularly on adventure playgrounds. Fine motor development is essential in helping your child to have the muscle strength in their hands to grip a pencil and make the necessary small movements on a page with their pencil. You can encourage your child to draw, paint, cut out pictures, play with play-dough, build and pick up puzzle pieces. All of these activities will assist your child in their fine motor development. Finally, there are many other things that you could do with your child although the key to their success is the ownership of their learning. This means that the learning is fun and meaningful for them, providing real life contexts from their own home culture and that they have the freedom to share these learning experience with others at school, according to recent research. Most of all have fun and enjoy learning! for more, FREE resource go to: Century-Education.com

"Fritzfield!" is a new series created in-house at our school district to get kids in grades K-2 excited about reading. It features our head librarian, Pat Naismith, and a hilarious puppet named Fritz (voiced by Jim Henson Company puppeteer Christopher Scheer!). They tell stories and read children's books, and the show also features interviews with famous children's book authors and illustrators, tips and techniques to help young readers learn how to read, reading comp questions, and songs about reading written and performed by students from the high school.

Edited entirely in Photoshop CS6, this photo slideshow was created by turning an image sequence into a video. With Photoshop CS6, it is even easier to do this. Also, a gradient map was added using the a gradient map from the Photographic Toning filters new in CS6. With some of the new editing tools, it is also easy to slice,dice, grunge up and add audio to your video. This event, done by the "Museum on Main" takes place every year in Pleasanton, CA to celebrate our town's rich history and unsavory, wild west past. Photos were from our old time photo booth, which became a fun way to "document" and relive history! This project can be done as just a still, or video clips, or photos made into a slideshow. This is also a great way to do batch processing, as the video can then be exported as an image sequence after adjustments or filters have been applied to the whole video or adjusted for each image accordingly. Music by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech, (free, copy-right friendly) "Mr. Mealey's Mediocre Machine"

One of the things I love most about Photoshop is that it allows you to create anything if you can visualize it. Whether it be an image, a video, or something you wish to happen someday, Photoshop is a great way to make your dreams come true. In this project sample, I worked collaboratively with a Kindergarten student to make a very short video from one still photo. I used the new features in Photoshop CS6 to add lighting effects, transitions, and audio. I say that the best way to make something happen is to tell, show, and visualize anything you want, and you will convince both yourself and others until it comes true. What better way to do this in a Photoshop project? Here's a RockStar sample to get you and your students thinking creatively. See also the "Photoshop for Kids(of all ages): Animated Spotlight" tutorial Writing prompt to get started: "Someday.." Music/sound Crowd from "Soungle" "Pump Sting" from Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech

Jet Sail Musicians On Air 3.0 , is written in Adobe Flash Air technology, used to coach for fun learning computer software. There are three features. Design, human-computer interaction can be playing the special electronic equipment piano on the computers, and load music playback. It should be widely used via the Internet applications. Design has the appearance of ancient and modern music culture heritage. The music bear is a deep-loved star of tomorrow. The software is very good helper for people to use for entertainment, learning and training. Develop by Jet Sail Team- Yanhui Ma and Wei Xuan

Interactive resource for elementary level students to help them learn the order and spelling for the months of the year. There are lessons for each skill built in plus drag and drop interactive practice activities built with the Captivate 6 drag and drop widget and the hangman interaction so you can easily modify them if you wish.

The April 4, 2013 update includes moving the drag and drop activities over to the internal drag and drop interaction now in Captivate 6 (subscription version) and I added in the hangman interaction and hint graphics created by Phillip Martin (http://calendar.phillipmartin.info/index.htm ).