What is a Makerspace? Basically, it’s a space where people get together to make things. You may have seen them in your school or community. Often they’re designed for older schoolchildren or young adults and contain technology and interesting equipment to share. There are also makerspaces for younger children. They are places that encourage discovery… Read more
Do you ever use a highlighter when studying? You might want to rethink that. What are good ways to study? To learn more, read: Learn How to Study Using… Retrieval Practice Learn How to Study Using… Spaced Practice Learn How to Study Using… Elaboration Learn to Study Using… Interleaving Learn to Study Using … Concrete… Read more
In our Let’s Make It! Babies activity sheet, we’ve outlined some of the things that parents can ‘make’ with babies – smiles, conversations, games, and traditions. While we focused on the tradition of reading aloud, another popular tradition is singing. Many parents sing to their babies. And, lullabies are a popular bedtime tradition. Did you… Read more
One of our Family Literacy Week activity sheets this year is Let’s Make It! with Paper. It has activities for a range of ages, including early school years. The suggestions are only the tip of the iceberg. Here are some more ideas for things to make with paper. Let’s start with a puzzle you can… Read more
The Decoda Literacy Library continuously adds titles to the collection. Here’s a sample of the newest additions: Click for a list of all the newly added titles. The Decoda Library is open to all adults in BC. We will mail the loans to you for free. To request any of the new titles, email library@decoda.ca… Read more
The Center for the Developing Child at Harvard has created an interesting interactive graphic outlining the brain regions involved in motivation and how they work together. Click the image below to go to the fully interactive graphic. Here are five commonly misunderstood facts about motivation: Motivation comes from a set of neurochemical networks that develop… Read more
We know it’s only the beginning of the year and summer seems a long time away, but the recently released Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd edition confirms that early planning is key to a successful summer learning program. As the report description notes: Based on thousands of hours of observations, interviews,… Read more
Families can have fun making things together without spending any extra money. You can use items you have at home. And, maybe even items you would put out for recycling. Here are some ideas to get you started making things with recycled materials: 75 Recycled Art Projects for Kids Make Your Own Instruments From Recycled… Read more
We’re getting ready for Family Literacy Week, January 20th to 27th. This year’s theme is “Let’s Make It!” focusing on the fun and learning that can happen when families make things together. To help you celebrate, we’ve created some Let’s Make It! family activity sheets. There are activities for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and primary school… Read more
For a quick, at a glance look at literacy dates to remember in the year ahead, view our Literacy Calendar 2019.