Useful links and resources for paper crafts!

I love making paper crafts, because it is easy to make, you don't have to bother about buying expensive supplies, and easy to discard, when you are finished with your projects. But first let us know about paper craft, as it is different from origami or paper folding.

Definition of Origami: "Origami, the art of creating various shapes from a single piece of paper, is a pastime that has been enjoyed in Japan since ancient times."

I have collected some useful links and resources, which are mostly FREE to use. There are a lot of ideas to keep your child busy and not only children but adults can also enjoy making these crafts.

1- DLTK's Crafts for Kids features a variety of fun, printable children's crafts, coloring pages and more including projects for holidays, educational themes and some of our children's favorite cartoon characters. The site is run by "Leanne, a mom with two girls and husband.

* DLTK's Crafts for Kids

* Note on Crafting with Preschoolers

2- Crafts bits provides resources for teachers, therapists, and craft enthusiasts. Craftbits.com is an independent craft website.
Site is created at sunny Brisbane on the east coast of Australia. At Craftbits.com you can find free crafts, free craft projects, diy craft gift ideas, christmas crafts, kids crafts, sewing crafts, candle making and more.
* Paper cragts page

* Kids crafts page

3- * Tips and techniques at paper crafts section at "Michaels.com.

4- Paper crafts magazine blog with news and paper craft ideas.
* Paper Crafts projects

5- 'Family fun.go.com" has some good paper craft projects at: 3D paper crafts for kids

6- "Creative Park" presents every kind of papercraft- from simple toys to intricate crafts, there's something for all the family! - and it's free to download!
Make fun with 3D paper craft
There are a lot of origami ideas and these ideas can be downloaded

"Parents Centre"- helping parents to help their child

Upto now I have been reviewing many sites which were for students, teachers and parents. But "Parents Center" is specially for parents. As a parent I found this site really useful, easy to navigate, infromative and specific.
In short- A must visit site for parents!

ParentsCentre is an official Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, web site for parents and carers.
ParentsCentre has been running since June 2003. It provides =Information and support for parents on how to help with your child's learning, including advice on choosing a school and finding childcare.

What is DCSF?
"www.dcsf.gov.uk" or "The Department for Children, Schools and Families" -leads work across Government to ensure that all children and young people:

- stay healthy and safe, secure an excellent education and the highest possible, standards of achievement, enjoy their childhood, make a positive contribution to society and the economy, have lives full of opportunity, free from the effects of poverty.

Mission of the site:
ParentsCentre has links to numerous relevant websites, both Governmental and non-Governmental. And they act as a reference book about education system, directig parents to sources of information and advice.

Start browsing the site from this link:
First time user

They suggest you to participate at the forums:

- Whether it's dyslexia, bullying, nursery education grants, choosing a school or antisocial teenagers, you're sure to find other users willing to add an opinion or offer advice.
Link to the forum: Parent's Views Forum

What you can get at the site?

- 1- This section helps you by providing article and links towards doing research for school and homework, gaming, online safety, and lot more.
Link: Using computers and the internet

- 2- "Education and learning" includes information and support on issues including choosing a school, types of school, curriculum and assessment, home education, reports and parents evenings, special educational needs (SEN), bullying, truancy and your rights and responsibilities.

The section includes a number of useful links to further information and organisations providing support.
Link: Education and learning

- 3- Links for age-specific information on:

Childcare - your options explained
Helping your child to learn - what you can do to prepare your child for school and build upon what they learn at school
Curriculum - what and how your child learns, as well as the choices they will have to have to make
Qualifications - the tests they will take and the certificates and diplomas they can achieve

Link: For age group

- 4- Behaviour and discipline: you'll find information about how schools deal with issues such as bullying, drugs and alcohol, truancy and disruptive behaviour.

You'll also find information on what your rights and responsibilities are as a parent or carer, with sections covering exclusions, parenting contracts, parenting orders and penalty notices.

Link: Behaviour and discipline

- 5- Worried about...Information, support and advice in dealing with some of the major issues affecting parents and their children for example bullying, sex, alcohol, drugs, anorexia, dylexia etc.

Link: Worried about

- 6- Webchats, interviews, videos: This section contains webchats (live, online Q&A sessions in which our users ask the questions), interviews and videos featuring a diverse range of experts across the parenting spectrum.

We include transcribed versions and endeavour to provide film streamings in different speeds and formats to enable as many people as possible to access them.

Link: Web chats, interviews etc

- 7- School holidays: Provide a range of ideas to help you keep your children occupied, whatever their interests.
Link: School holidays

- 8- Publications: guide to the current brochures and leaflets from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). All leaflets and guides listed here are available free.
Link: Publications

More free interactive kindergarten resources

Crickweb.co.uk is one of those sites which offer  free interactive resources and activities for Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
Subjects including: Maths, English, Science, History, Geography, R.E., D.T., I.C.T.

Explaination of key stages:

There are three education stages in the U.K. covering the following ages;
- Early Years/Foundation Stage for 4 to 5 year olds.
- Key Stage 1 for 6 to 7 year olds.
- Key Stage 2 for 8 to 11 year olds.

What this site offers?

* 156 free to use educational interactive resources for Primary Schools.
* 15 free to use fun games for children aged 4 - 11.
* 100 web links to other free interactive, image and software resources.

More page links from the site:
*14 Early Years interactive resources for Primary or Infant Schools.

"Topic Box"- A good resource for teachers!

This site is for primary school teachers. A lot of FREE resources which may help you in planning. Site also provides you with best available educational resources.

To my opinion a very easy to browse, useful and well designed resource for teachers.
You may start your search by selecting for your subject. Site links according the subject are selected very wisely and description helps to chose it for class room or teacher's personal use.

Link: browse the subjects

To get TopicBox newsletter: Subscribe link

I searched the site to see if they can help in planning for Islam subject and I was really amazed to see lot of informative material at this link. They provide a very interactive style link bos from where you can decide what topics you want to look for. You are then taken to that link or site : Religion-Islam

* Resources for foundation stage: Foundation stage
* Math links
*

"Teaching ideas"- A free resource for primary teachers!

There is no end of creativity and innovation and with sharing we learn a lot more. Teaching profession is also full of innovative activities if you are dedicated teacher and want to produce creativity in your teaching, class room presentation etc.
Teaching idea.co.uk contains lesson ideas, activities and resources, and they're all FREE to use in classrooms for primary teachers.


* Part of the site "Display Photos" has lots of photos of classroom display. I searched for maths and found this idea:

Link to the page: Facigng picture shows the idea of ordering numbers


Teaching Forum has 267 members, where you can read other teachers ideas, share yours, but you have to register there. This forum is FREE to sign up. There are many useful ideas, links and resources at the forum.

* More teaching ideas contains assembly ideas, display photos, classroom management tips, and lots of other really useful ideas and resources for teachers.

* At Site map link you can search for subject based link of page. And every page brings a lot of ideas.

An internet learning site for children and teens!

This site is not only for children or teens, but teachers who want to guide their children about basic knowldge of internet and web, this site would be a good source.

“Welcome to the web” provides you step by step instruction based tutorial where you can lean about internet, web browsers, searching and researching the internet.

Welcom to the web is created by Mark Warner, and is a production from Teaching Ideas for Primary Teachers.

What you can learn from the site?

1- The internet section provides you with the information about the Internet, what can it do and how do you move around the internet.
* The internet

2- Guest book section shows you the use of guest book and also give you tips to be safe on the internet.
* Guest book

3- Web browser is an important section of this site, as you would get introduction of “web browser, use of it.
* Web browsers

4- Searching the net-Here you can learn safe use of internet.

* Search the net

5- “Researching on the internet” is basically about printing web pages, finding words on a page and how you can copy text and pictures from the web.
* Researching

6- And the most important part of the site is “Challenge”.
This will test what you have learned about the Internet and if you are good enough to succeed, you will get a special certificate to prove your brilliance!

*

"Stree free school"-helping us improving academic achievement!

In my previous post "Do children and teens are affected by stress, anxiety and trauma?", I mentioned that like adults, children and teeens have anxiety in their lives, and as a result they suffer from anxiety disorders. And as research shows if children are not treated, their performance in school would be poorer.

To help our children keep safe from stress, depression, anxiety and similar mental disorders, we as a parent and teacher can take some action in this regard by first getting the knowledge of these conditions and then look for proper treatment process.

Stress free school.org is a site which provides Transcendental Meditation (TM) program for this purpose. It showcases 40 years of scientific and class room experience with TM method. I am also a regular practitioner of meditation, but I don't believe that only "Transcendental Meditation" technique can be a only solution for these kind of mental disorders. As to my personal experience, I participated in a "Quantam method meditation" 40 hours long course, and results were astonishing. I was very stressed and felt that I was losing my interest in life, before doing that meditaiton course. But just after completing it and practicing it on regular basis proved that I could get rid of my anxiety, depression and stress conditions. I could feel myself happy, satisfied, energetic and more creative than before. I was really feeling sick and physically exhausted before it, but gradually I could overcome these symptoms also. This post and review of the site is only an effort to create an awareness that we can help our children improving academic achiements. Mostly the mental disorder symptoms are not taken seriously, and results are poor performanc in schools, social behavior problems and so on.

What the organization does?

Education & Transcendental Meditation Research on improving Academic achievement by preventing and treating stress, anxiety and depression, and learning disabilities.

What is Transcendental Meditation?

The Transcendental Meditation technique is thousands of years old—it comes from an unbroken tradition of meditation instruction from ancient India.

What is the evidence that the TM technique works?

During the past 30 years, hundreds of scientific studies validating the benefits of the Transcendental Meditation technique have been conducted in 33 countries at 210 independent research institutions and universities, including Harvard, Stanford, and UCLA Medical School.
This research found that the TM technique produces a physiological state of restful alertness, distinct from ordinary waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. During practice of the TM technique, the physiology becomes deeply rested, as indicated by significant reductions in respiration, minute ventilation, tidal volume, and blood lactate, and significant increases in basal skin resistance (an index of relaxation). At the same time, the physiology is alert rather than asleep, as indicated by an increased abundance of alpha waves in the EEG.

More about the topic: Frequently asked questions

* For further posts go for their blog

More research links:
* University of California at Irvine Study Finds Transcendental Meditation
Reduces the Brain’s Reaction to Pain

* University of Michigan study finds improved emotional development in
early adolescent African children practicing Transcendental Meditation

"Child Study Center"- Giving children back their childhood

Being a foundation stage teacher, every session has some new challenges for us, as we have to deal with many kind of studensts. Many children show some "hype" attitude, where we use techniques provided by the school to treat these kind of children, but I really needed some more information about the children who are "hyper" or in other words have symptoms of "Attention Deficit Syndrome".
My only son was showing the same symptoms at foundation stage years, and as a parent, I was adviced to acquire some methods to help my son. Its been 3 years, and my son is better than before. Still I feel like that I should have some knowledge and research based study help to deal with the children with mental disorders. I was really amazed to know about "NYU child Study Center" which can help a lot to teachers and parents in this connection.

Research shows that over 75 percent of mental health disorders have their roots in the childhood and adolescent years, though fewer than one quarter of children or adolescents needing services receive treatment. Millions of children are never properly diagnosed or treated.

About our kids.org is a site by NYU Child Study Center, which was founded in 1997 to improve the treatment of child psychiatric disorders through scientific practice, research, and education.

Through their professional education programs, they provide physicians, educators and mental health professionals the tools and knowledge needed to promote the mental health of the children they serve.

For families pages provdes more links to:
- The Child Study Center offer you a comprehensive library of articles dealing with all the crucial elements you need to know for Keeping kids healthy

* Disorder treatments page provides advice on these areas:

- Their experts provide a wealth of information on common childhood psychiatric disorders. Learn the signs, symptoms, and treatment options.
Link:

-It can be hard to keep up with rapidly changing and jargon-filled vocabulary regarding mental health. This dictionary can help you make sense of some of these terms and participate in the discussion. The staff of the NYU Child Study Center has compiled this glossary to help you learn more about children’s mental health and disorders. Scroll down or click on the appropriate letter to find an easy definition of the term you are interested in.
Link:

- NYU Child Study Center provides an overview of most of the comon medications used to treat psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents. This guide is intended to be informative and useful, but it is not comprehensive. Children should take these medications only under the careful supervision of their physicians.
Link: Guide to Psychiatric Medications for Children and Adolescents

* Success stories

Read the Testimonial page before browsing the site, which says:
"Viewers of this website are advised that materials contained on this site are made available solely for educational purposes and as part of an effort to raise general awareness of the mental health issues affecting children. These materials are not intended to be, and are not, a substitute for direct professional medical or psychological care based on your individual condition and circumstances or those of your child."