Easter Lessons - Updated Today

Holidays provides fun and engaging opportunities for children to learn. We have added some fun lessons for Easter on the blog to get children moving and engaged. (Labeled Easter so you can find them easy)

Science Lessons In Your Backyard - Baltimore Woods (New)

 Baltimore Woods Nature Center released some online suggestions for learning that is safe during the COVID 19 crisis. In the outdoor link session, parents can find the link. Science is a great hands-on event. I previewed some of the lessons. Children who enjoy sensory play will enjoy the activities.

Getting out in nature is a great alternative to being on the computer or gaming system. There are additional benefits to outdoor play that you will discover alongside your child. Be prepared to get messy with them and enjoy the fresh air.

Authors Note: Remember to dress accordingly for the weather. When working in the leaves, check for ticks when you return to the house.

APE (Adaptive Physical Education) Lessons Added to Our Site (NEW)

Adaptive Physical Education is critical for health and wellness. New this week is the addition of links for families to encourage health and wellness for their child or children at home.

Why is APE important? Fundamental skills such as throwing catching running and walking all children with Autism to benefit from exercise, and learn the fundamentals that provide a lifetime of experiences that are inclusive of participation in adult recreational activities with their peers.

Additionally, research has shown that diet and exercise provide positive outcomes including self-regulation skills that are critical to functional living. Check out the links and send us your recommendations that would encourage a healthy lifestyle for children with disabilities
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New - Outdoor Activities for Children

The weather is getting nice out. This is a great opportunity to get the kids outdoors and ready to learn.  A new link for parents and teachers will focus on outdoor education. We have added a link to our site for outdoor recreation ideas. There are 7 benefits to outdoor education listed below that guide this practice:

1. Learning
Playing outside helps children to develop their learning abilities. By putting educational equipment outdoors, children are soon learning through play, which is a fun way of helping children to learn new information and skills. As well as this, outdoor learning encourages children to think of learning is an ongoing process instead of just something done in the classroom.

2. Creativity
Outdoor play is great for encouraging children’s creativity. Away from the constraints and confinement of indoor play, being outside children’s imaginations are often stimulated by the objects around them and they quickly tap into their creativity.

3. Health
There are numerous health benefits to playing outside. With more room to play in, children are often more active when outside, which helps them to build strong bones and good fitness levels, while also enabling them to burn off extra energy and calories. As well as this, being in the sunshine, even in winter, means children naturally absorb vital vitamin D, a lack of which can lead to Rickets.

4. Social skills
As outdoor spaces are usually less crowded than indoors, it is less intimidating and helps children to naturally come out of their shells and be more social. This means that children will be more willing to join in games and activities, while they will also be more likely to talk to different children and make new friends. This all encourages children to learn social skills and how to interact with other children away from adult supervision.

5. Well-being
Giving children the freedom of playing outdoor helps them to feel happier and calmer. As already stated, being outside means that children naturally get vitamin D, which is proven to help improve moods and create a positive mental attitude. The freedom outdoor play also encourages children to get rid of built-up energy, particularly if they tend to be fidgety when sitting for long periods of time, this leads to them becoming calmer and ultimately helps them to be more focused when in the classroom.

6. Independence
The large space in which to play means that when outside children are often away from direct adult supervision. This helps them to learn independence when socially interacting with other children, as well as learning to play by themselves. They learn how to take turns playing games, to pick themselves up then they fall, and how to negotiate unfamiliar equipment, resulting in children learning how to be independent and self-reliant.

7. Explore
Often outdoor play equipment has a little more risk than indoor toys. Whether it is encouraging children to use slides they might be a little afraid to go down, or to try challenging play trails; outdoor play equipment can help children to learn to push their boundaries and become good at risk assessment. It also teaches them to explore new games and become confident in learning to try new things without being guided by adults.

Lesson for Home - Daily Lessons for Parents as Educators

Exciting News! We are adding lessons daily for parents and professionals to use that incorporate Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis strategies. We are going to incorporate our model into the planning so parents can reinforce some of the techniques children are learning at school at Upstate Cerebral Palsy.

Welcome Parents and Educational Professionals from New Discoveries and Tradewinds

I would like to welcome everyone to this online resource for parents and education professionals to use over the break. The purpose of this resource is to help families keep their children engaged in the educational process while working with our Teachers, Therapists, and Clinicians on their IEP goals. 

The links on this blog are interactive and fun. Parents will find the content to be a great resource for their children. The educational staff at New Discoveries and Tradewinds may use this to enhance their current lesson plans. They will let you know through their virtual classroom assignments. 

Our goal is to maintain the highest level of communication during the Spring Break. If you would like to give us feedback or provide instructional links that you found to be fun and engaging, email Lenny Giardino @lenny.giardino@upstatecp.org. I am the Superintendent of Schools and will be checking my email daily. 

COVID 19 Update

We have updated our site to support families and education professionals. New resources can be found in most categories. If you have sites your would like to recommend, please feel free to message us in the comments section.

ICIVICS - Return to Civility

ICIVICS.ORG is a website dedicated to Civics. Civics was once a required class in public schools. It disappeared as Education Reform erased the importance of students learning their responsibilities as citizens in a republic.

Civics teaches students the aspects of government. Most importantly, the role of civics classes was to teach future citizens the importance of the integrity of government systems. Participation by citizens guarantee checks and balances to our government.

Another aspect of citizenship is the integrity of reporting. Journalism, as discussed in the Bill of Rights plays an important aspect in holding our government accountable to the citizens. Without journalistic integrity, elections can be manipulated. Voters become disenfranchised, and then we become witness to low voter turnout.

ICIVICS wants to change the current apathy about citizenship. It is a clever site. Tapping into the current RPG gaming environment most familiar to today's learners, it is a very engaging. Students choose an avatar and engage in daily civic lessons. Relevant, and current, students will be immersed into today's current problems with citizenry. For example, fake news is examined as one part of the game. A very clever lesson in vetting sources. A challenging world of determining what is truth, and the skills necessary to filter the news.

Judicial law, branches of government and learning how local government works are just some of the offerings. This is a great site, that should be required learning in middle/high schools across the United States. For now, it is up to parents/educators to discover the site. Hopefully, with time we can impact future generations. Without lessons in civics, we have political ads that are deceitful, cynicism and low confidence in our system of government. This is why ICIVICS is so important. A valiant online attempt to education our youth about the systems of government and how they work.

NEW - Early Childhood Professional Development - Parents and Teachers and Paraprofessionals

Early Childhood development is the key to a lifetime of positive outcomes. Our page is dedicated to helping people in our community connect to valuable resources. For this reason, we have added a professional development section to our blog. This section will connect Early Childhood education majors to local, state, and national resources.


We already have a section for Early Childhood software and connections to learning sites. This in combination of our new links for professional development help strengthen our connection to positive outcomes for children. Feel free to check out our sites, and leave a comment if you have suggestions for future links that benefit our earliest of learners.

ISS Tracker - Fun for Kids and Adults

At camp, my cousin recently introduced me to the ISS Tracker. 

The ISS tracker is an app you download on your phone that alerts you when the International Space Station is going to fly over your house. It is only 5mb. however it is one of the funnest apps I have downloaded in a long time. It provides an overhead compass and data to help you successfully see the space station. It truly looks like a falling star at certain angles. The first time your kids see it, they will be amazed.

I do recommend an open setting to account for tree lines or natural boundaries. A city park or open field will do just fine. If you have some natural boundaries, you will have to choose a time when the space station is over 25 degrees or higher above the horizon. There are many factors that impact your view and the app will guide you to good nights to view the station. Try it out, you will be amazed. 

Reading Resources For Parents and Teachers

Monitoring the progress of emergent readers is important. There are great websites for parents and educators to help with reading goals. First, it is important to acknowledge what might be a misconception for some.

Most educators shy away from using the term grade level. Grade levels are a thing of the past because it was hard to apply in larger school districts. What might be 5th grade level at one school may be different at another. For this reason, Lexiles are used for measurements of progress regarding reading. It measures an individual's reading ability and comprehension based on the difficult of the text. So parents should use the websites provided knowing that many are based on a Lexile Range. It will look something like this:

480C -830L  - 4th Grade - A book within these parameters does not reflect context, just reading ability. BE CAREFUL. For example, the Grapes of Wrath is at a Third Grade Level , but is not appropriate for Third Grade readers.

Parents have to use the site to examine current age appropriate context and be sure to check for each text's reading level.

The over all range is Beginner Reader to 1700 exile. The website www.lexile.com will explain how to interpret your reading materials

We will also be including links for children with learning disabilities. For example, rewordify,.com allows parents and teachers to copy complicated texts from works of literature and have them simplified for comprehension purposes.  Check out the links under Reading Resources and feel free to suggest additional resources.

2017 Upgrades For Educational Websites

Decency Publishing is upgrading their free website for Parents, Teachers, and Learners. This is a mulit-age website for learners of all ages. The webite is rich with free learning tools.  New this year is Free Apps for Android and IPAD (ITunes Store). This central database helps people get connected to free sites. Please feel free to provide feedback and additional resources.

(Decency Publishing is a small publishing group from Rome NY. Click on our home page to discover our other sites.)

Fun For The Brain Is A Great Site For PreK- 7th Grade

Funforthebrain.com is an interactive site that is great for families and educators. Each grade level has hundreds of problems for students with interactive videos to help explain the solving of problems as they go. Lessons utilize flow player which is an HTML player. Adobe or flash programs are not required. This is great for parents concerned about downloading additional software.

The lessons are done using a smartboard type background. Kids will be use to this because most schools are equipped with smartboards. Also, the lessons will help parents navigate lessons plans from common core that do not come with instructional materials.

Grades pre-k to 7th grade, Fun For The Brain is a great addition to your learning experiences online. If you are a teacher, this site is great for classrooms. Overall, a great find and free for all to use.

Bible Questions - We Got Answers

I found a neat site for Bible questions and answers. Check out the link on the right - "Got Questions." The site not only interprets scripture, it also provides insight into contemporary issues. Type in Medical Marijuana for example, and it gives an analytical answer based on the Bible's verses that reflect upon the usage of marijuana possibly being supported or not by scripture. Check it out. You will enjoy the conversations that can be shared after looking up a topic on this site.

Ellen Craft - Switched Her Gender To A Male For Freedom

Who is Ellen Craft and have you ever heard about her journey from slave to freedom? I have and it is a great lesson to share with your children. Similar to Susan B. Anthony, Ellen Craft switched genders as a disguise. Cleverly, she went from slave to slave owner. I am including the link and the story for the blog. So how is this an education game you might ask? Well, imagine at home, or in a classroom a game of gender change that was used to gain a human right.... How much of an impact would this have on learning? I bet I would remember a lesson of putting on a dress for freedom. A lesson that would last a lifetime.

Here is the link:

http://jezebel.com/ellen-craft-the-slave-who-posed-as-a-master-and-made-h-1677144886

Google Provides A Powerful Tool For Studying the Holocaust

Today is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In a time when some are denying the Holocaust, Google has provided an amazing online tool for educators, parents, historians and home schooling advocates. A historical tool of Primary Sources including videos, first hand accounts, and photos help a new generation why we do not want history to repeat itself. (Or sadly, helping us recognize we continue to fail to understand the horrors of war and consequences of atrocities against a faith or culture.)

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/exhibit/evacuation-and-liberation-of-the-auschwitz-camp/gQgHKRpK?projectId=the-holocaust&hl=en&position=34%2C0

Educational Games Is Moving

Educational Games is moving to my Decency Publishing Site. I will be updating the sites in 2015 with recommendations from readers of the blog. This site was a resource for teachers and parents. Home Schooling parents also found the site useful.

Green Halloween

I found greenhalloween.org to be a great website for parents and teachers. The site has wonderful tips for an eco-friendly halloween. While checking out the site, play Haunted Hybrid.

Parents/ Students - New for 2008/2009 Literacy Progams

Parents, please check out the new links for literacy. We will be adding this section with the emphasis on fun and literacy being one. Literacy comprehension will not only be in Reading, we are going to try to increase comprehension skills across all disciplines.

New Early Childhood Development Sites!!!

I have updated the early childhood development websites. Many of these sites are recommended by early childhood specialists. Enjoy.