Education

Making Books Accessible to Mouthing Babies

June 6, 2013Books and Reading, Educationbooks, children, Readingsubversivereader View all 5 comments

When you’re talking about books and babies, one of the things you often hear about is making books accessible to babies – putting them in places where babies can pick them up, play with them and enjoy them.

I can totally understand why this is important – it normalises books, makes them part of the everyday. It teaches important book skills, like turning pages and looking at pictures. And it makes for some pretty cute photo opportunities.

However, I have a Mouther. One of those babies who cannot pass something without trying to put it in his mouth. Recently he’s extended this to trying to lick things. To top it off, he started sprouting teeth really early – so he wasn’t just sucking on and licking things, he was gnawing, chewing and attempting to swallow things (his first official solid food? Wrapping paper)

Now, obviously this doesn’t work so well with traditional books. And while we know things could be replaced, we really wanted some books to make it through these early stages of baby-hood, so that he can enjoy them properly later. However, we still wanted to make books accessible to Squirm. So how did we do that?

Making Books Accessible for Mouthy Babies: Adventures of a Subversive Reader

1. Soft books are your best friend

We’ve got quite a nice collection of fabric books, mostly given to us as gifts. There’s a couple of Lamaze ones, a couple with squeaking things in them, a lift the flaps style one and a gorgeous fabric filled one which my mum made for Squirm for Christmas. (It’s filled with different types of fabric, letters of his name, counting and colours – she’s the best Nana!) These books are well loved, but being fabric, they’ve totally stood up to the Squirm Mouth Treatment. We complement this with a bath book which is also well loved.

The lovely soft book that Nana made

2. A Few Cheap Board Books

We’re talking those itty, bitty board books which they sell in packs and which only have a picture and a word a page. These have been wonderful because their small size makes them easy to manipulate, and Squirm has spent a lot of time picking them up and playing with them. We’ve lost a few to epic chewing, but since they didn’t cost much and they don’t have much emotional weight (since they weren’t gifts or ‘favourites’) made it easy to toss them and move on.

3. Wooden Books

I was so surprised when I saw these! I found them in Toy World and they’re simply a few wooden ‘pages’ which are held together with a cord. They’re similar to the board books in content, but very sturdy

4. Putting these books in accessible places

We’ve got a big fabric box where we keep all the books which Squirm has complete access to. These go in the bottom of our book case where Squirm can get to them. This has helped in two ways – he knows he can always play with them, and often goes and pulls them out. Meanwhile, he tends to leave our books alone!

5. Sharing books often

We do a lot of reading to Squirm, but we also read with him. Recently he’s been spending a lot of time ‘reading’ other board books with Mr Pilot. Squirm holds the books and flips through them, and Mr Pilot reads whatever is on the page he stops on (or as much as possible until Squirm starts flipping again). Squirm has control over the book, but it’s supervised, so if the book goes near the mouth one of us is there to distract him and move on to other things.

6. Reassessing his ability as he grows

Recently we noticed that Squirm is spending less time chewing and mouthing the books we’ve provided him. Since then we’ve put a few new board books (bigger, different sizes and pictures, different text) into his book box. We’ve also had great success reading the ‘That’s Not My . . . ‘ series with him (a dear friend sent me three as a baby present and I’ve since bought some more – they’re brilliant!) This week, I put three of the books into a basket near his toys (in a different area to his other books). These have been an absolute hit – bigger than his other toys. Every single day he’s had them opened up, flipping through them, searching the page for the different textures – and they rarely go in his mouth. It was a good reminder that Squirm’s abilities will change as he gets older, and that means reassessing how we provide materials for him too.

Do you have a book-unfriendly child? What are your best tips for keeping books in their lives?

When Governments Bully Children and Parents

May 19, 2013Education, Opinion and Other Random Thingssubversivereader One comment

Governments Bullying Parents and Children

There’s a lot of news about disgusting behaviour in Federal politics at the moment, most of it aimed at other politicians. But I want to take a moment to bring your attention to something at a Queensland state level – the disgusting act of an Education Minister criticising the parenting of people he is supposed to serve – using his power and position to bully them.

The Queensland State Government, under Campbell Newman, recently made a decision that they would close 9 schools in Queensland. Some of these decisions simply don’t make sense. Fortitude Valley, just outside of Brisbane City, is a small school, but right in the middle of a massive growth area with the building of apartments nearby. Furthermore, the 2 nearby schools which the students will be expected to go to – New Farm and Brisbane Central – are both at capacity. Brisbane Central (where I went as a child) simply does not have any more room for students, while there’s talk that temporary classrooms will be put in at New Farm (another growth area) to house the numbers.

So these kids have nowhere to go, they’re in a school growing in numbers, but they’re told that their school is going to close.

I’m not sure if it’s the same in every school, but in my experience, children can be pretty protective of their schools. I remember the hard work students did in student councils to improve their school facilities. I remember the pride of a child when I let him know I went to the same school as him, and he told me about recent refurbishments. Children care about what happens in their schools. So when they’re told that their school is closing, they would be likely to want to do something.

So yesterday, the Fortitude Valley P and C organised a protest outside the school. It was held on a wide footpath, with plenty of parents and adults around as well as the children who are facing losing their school. It was a great example of teaching children about democracy and civic values – that we have the right to protest peacefully in this country.

Except if you’re a child, obviously. Because the Education Minister of Queensland – John-Paul Langbroek came out and said that he didn’t think it was ‘appropriate’ for children to be protesting for something which directly affects them. He says they are ‘consulting’, but it’s pretty clear from his dismissal of children, that he’s not interesting in ‘consulting’ with them – making sure that they have to protest to be heard. He went on to criticise the parents of these children for involving them, dismissing it as ‘union-led hysteria’. (Watch the ABC clip here)

As a minister, John-Paul Langbroek is in a position of power. And to use that power to criticise someone else’s parenting – to effectively ask them to shut up and sit down, and for goodness sakes don’t let anyone know that there are children involved – is bullying. Putting someone else down and trying to curtail their political rights – even when they’re a child – is bullying.

The parents of Fortitude Valley State School are good parents. They’re standing up for their rights and teaching their children that they can be involved in society – that they can be informed, interested people. The children of Fortitude Valley are active and interested. They have the right to be heard. Don’t let the government bully them – go and Like their Facebook Page, add your message of support, share the information so others can get behind them.

Good parents deserve good community support.

Adventures in Play Dough: The First Try

May 15, 2013Craft, Education, Playart, baby play, craft, exploring art, play, play dough, play matterssubversivereader Leave a comment

Adventures in Play Dough: Adventures of a Subversive Reader

One of my fond memories from my own childhood is my mother making play dough for us. She must have cooked it, since I remember it it being warm when we played with it. It always had a nice, heavy feel in our hands, and the possibilities of a fresh ball of play dough seemed endless.

Squirm and I have just had our very first experience making and playing with play dough. After our experience with paint and other art, I knew we needed to go slow when I introduced it. I also knew that we needed to make sure it was non toxic – more than likely it would go in the mouth.

As it turned out, Squirm didn’t try to taste it at all, which really surprised me. He didn’t really want to interact with it, except when I put little shapes of play dough on the brick he was exploring. There he moved it, pressing his fingers into it and explored it a little more. We’ll play with it over the next couple of days to get him more used to it – but for a dollar or so of materials, I’m not real worried if he doesn’t get that into it.

Making the Play Dough

I started off using this recipe. (I didn’t want the bother of cooking play dough this time, so non cook was the best option) Since I wasn’t sure how it would turn out or how Squirm would react to it, I halved most the recipe, but added a little more than half the oil. I also used hot water. When I was adding the water, I added a little bit at a time to try and get the best mix. Having some extra flour around would be good in case you use too much water, though.

The best tip I have is to put the spoon down once you start adding water and knead it together by hand. You can get a much better feel for the play dough that way and you’re more likely to get what you want.

I also held off on adding the food colour. When I had the play dough to the consistency I wanted, I divided it into four small balls. I then put a couple of drops of yellow colouring in the middle of one, and that was what we played with today. When we came back inside I coloured the others for later play.

When we came back in I did notice the dough left out on the bench was a little dry. It moistened up as soon as I started playing with it, and it might keep better now that I have it in a container. I’ll keep an eye on it over the next couple of days and report back.

This really is a nice way to start playing with play dough. I’ll be very interested to see if Squirm becomes more interactive with it over the week, as well as if he’ll keep up his record of putting everything in his mouth . . . I bet the salt of the play dough will be a bit of a shock!

A Subversive Reader’s Guide to Taking NAPLAN

May 13, 2013Educationchildren, education, learning, NAPLANsubversivereader View all 6 comments

This week is NAPLAN week in Australia, and students in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 will be undertaking tests in reading, writing, maths, spelling and grammar and punctuation. With standardised testing becoming more high stakes in Australia – for schools, teachers and students – the stress can easily build up – especially for those students undertaking them for the first time.

This is the first year since NAPLAN started that I have not taught a class taking the test. So I know a fair bit about the test and how students handle it. Newspapers have had ‘how to deal with NAPLAN’ articles which basically just repeat parts of the test, while matching them with scare stories about nightmares and schools hiding students in closets so they can’t take the test (I made up the last bit, but give it time . . . )

So, here’s my take on NAPLAN.

The Subversive Reader Guide to Taking NAPLAN

1. Read the questions.

I cannot stress this one enough. NAPLAN is, for all purposes, a reading test. It might be a maths problem in front of you, but it is still a reading test. The more attention you pay to the words in the test, the better you will do at the test. There are only so many ways you can make a multiple choice test ‘tricky’ (to find those students who are achieving at the higher levels) – one of them is using potentially misleading wording. Last year I co-supervised with a maths teacher. We were looking through the Year 7 maths test booklets and I said that I thought it was pretty easy. She said that there was a question she couldn’t answer . . . until I pointed out a little sentence quirk. Reading is the absolute key to doing well in NAPLAN

2. Plan and Take Your Time

This is mostly for older students – it’s way too much to think of for the younger ones. NAPLAN can really rush you on time, especially the maths tests, the reading comprehension and the writing. Have a rough idea of how much time you will need to devote to each question. Remember that if a question is too hard to solve in a reasonable amount of time skip it and come back! It won’t disappear when you’re not looking, and the break from the question might help you solve it better. Plus you’re not missing potential marks on questions because you didn’t get to them

3. Eat a good breakfast

Everyone knows the good night sleep/good breakfast combo. Sleep can be a harder thing, but a good breakfast is more easily achieved. It doesn’t have to be a special breakfast, but trying to do the test on an empty stomach is not a good idea.

4. Don’t cram for the tests

At this stage, there’s not much you can do to cram more information in before the tests. Use time at home to relax – get outside for a play, read a book to your child, put on some music and have a dance party. The more relaxed and comfortable they are about the test and the time around it, the better.

5. The test is not that important

I cannot stress this one enough. This is a point in time test. Even if private schools are asking for the test, they will not ignore years of good reports and focus on one bad NAPLAN mark (and if they do, it’s probably not the best school for you). Teachers will not be fired because your child forgot how to spell ‘whimsical’. The test is a point in time test which provides some helpful information to teachers and schools and gives education ministers something to talk about, because it’s too much work for them to actually understand what goes on in a school.

No one is going to care how you did in NAPLAN when you finish high school, no one is going to look up your NAPLAN test result when you apply for a job. Relax. Breathe. Read the test carefully. Try and include a joke in the written section for the poor markers. Have a good time. Smile at your teacher when you finish.

Do you know someone doing NAPLAN this year? Or what is your best advice for someone doing a standardised test?

Learning About Learning: Where are we now?

May 9, 2013Education, Family, Opinion and Other Random ThingsEarly Childhood, Early Childhood Education, education, Educational Philosophies, School Pressure, Schools, squirm, Testingsubversivereader View all 9 comments

Learning about Learning: Adventures of a Subversive Reader

For a long time now, one of my interests has been educational philosophies. Obviously this isn’t terribly interesting to most people, and there are probably some who feel that time could be better spent learning about eyebrow shaping or penguin wrangling (my eyebrows are awful and Sea World keeps a close eye on their penguins whenever I’m nearby), but it’s something that really fascinates me – especially how we can create the best learning experiences for children.

Obviously this was useful to me when I was a teacher. I was able to implement changes in the way my classroom was set up, the way I worked with students, the types of lessons we had, even some of the topics we approached, thanks to the reading I did. But since Squirm’s birth, I’ve become more and more interested in Early Childhood learning and learning environments. I worked, primarily, with middle and upper primary, then lower secondary students, so learning about early childhood is a totally new ball game for me. I have been fortunate, though, that I have some brilliant early childhood/lower primary school teachers as very good friends, who have shown me just how good early childhood teaching can be.

One thing which deeply worries me is the pressure for younger students to be doing more academically. There are schools in my area who won’t take students into Prep unless they can write their full names – not nicknames, which might be easier for 4 or 5 year olds to write, but their full names. There’s an awful lot of pressure on children to be reading and writing by the end of Prep, so they don’t ‘fall behind’, so they’re ready for Year Three when the NAPLAN testing begins.

As this pressure moves further down – from Prep to Kindergartens which now have to incorporate phonics lessons into their program – it’s not hard to see the pressure moving further down again. If Kindergarten aged children (4 and 5 year olds) need to be able to sit still and learn sounds, then we’d better make sure that 3 and 4 year olds know what the alphabet looks like. And if 3 and 4 year olds need to know what the alphabet looks like, we’d better make sure that 2 and 3 year olds can sing the alphabet song. Suddenly early childhood learning becomes less about about discovery and invention, and more about making sure we tick all the academic boxes. And I don’t think this is coming from the educators – it’s hard to miss the pressure being applied from politicians and ‘experts’ who believe that atandardised testing is the cure-all for all educational woes (or the companies making money from them).

The focus and pressure on Standardised testing has worried me for a long time now. This is actually the first year I haven’t ‘done’ NAPLAN since it began – I’ve always had Year 5 or Year 7 classes, so I’ve had a lot of experience with it. I must admit, I’ve been able to use class results to highlight areas where I could improve my teaching, though I’m sure a low-stakes test would have given me the same information. But instead of low stakes and low pressure testing, we’ve continued to push our students through testing which has left them in tears (the break between maths tests for Year 7s was almost always guaranteed to have tears), left them physically ill, left them not wanting to come to school, made them feel cynical and tired of learning (in 2011, my students started to refer to NAPLAN as ‘That which must not be named’ to avoid the NAPLAN saturation which had overtaken the school) and then, given parents almost no information about how their child has actually performed. The tests are heavily bell curved, meaning that only so many students can achieve the top levels, and parents are left with little more than a dot on a line.

So how do we prevent this NAPLAN mania, this drive for ‘academic achievement’ from moving further and further down to our youngest children? Should we just ‘suck it up’ and join the conveyor belt, buying NAPLAN materials for our toddlers to ensure that they aren’t ‘left behind’? Or is there a different way to approach early childhood education, or a different way to approach education altogether?

Or most importantly for me – how can I make sure that learning is a joy for my child? How can I make sure that he wants to learn all his life? How can I make sure that he’ll be curious about the world, that he’ll question what he sees, that he’ll participate?

That’s why I continue to read about Educational Philosophies. That’s why I’ll continue to debate the use and methods associated with NAPLAN and other standardised testing. That’s why I’ll continue to share my thoughts on education here.