The Learning Team: Tara Higgins, PhD

Puzzles and Problem Solving

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Sometimes we get caught up in thinking about how young children will learn to read, write, count, and develop other “core” skills, and we forget about all the other amazing things they’re learning to do and understand. I’ve been thinking this month about how we can encourage children to develop reasoning and problem solving skills. As an example, puzzles are undoubtedly popular toys for children and adults. Babies and toddlers enjoy playing with the colorful wood puzzles, picking up the large pieces by the attached pegs and trying to place them back in their slots. Those puzzles often feature pictures from a single theme – farm animals, vehicles, buildings – and children figure out where to place the pieces by matching the pictures or examining the shape of each piece. Older children move on to jigsaw puzzles, where the pieces have to connect to each other and create a larger picture, rather than one-to-one matching. Read more...

Make More Music!

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We had a fantastic event here at LeapFrog last week. Several local musicians and music educators joined us for a whole day dedicated to music and learning. It was a high-energy, interactive day full of clapping, singing, movement, and even an original composition that we created together using the musical alphabet (i.e., letters A – G). We were inspired by every one of our guests to think deeply about how to help children develop musical competence, but I think their most important message was that children need to interact with and create music as much as possible. Read more...

A Little Musical Inspiration

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I see that it’s been almost a year since I last wrote about music in my blog, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost interest in the topic. For many adults, music is a part of everyday life… part of their work, background music in the car, or motivation for exercise. Children experience music in many ways too, and we can use their natural interest to encourage musical learning. According to the National Association for Music Education, Music in Our Schools Month (March) is just around the corner, so it seems like a good time for a little musical inspiration. Read more...

Are we there yet?

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You’ve probably heard that question from your backseat, perhaps on a trip over the holidays, or even just running errands around town. There are so many possible responses… giving an ETA, explaining the route, pointing out landmarks, or staging a distraction (and yes, maybe even a reminder not to ask the question). The good news is that you probably capitalized on a learning opportunity for your impatient little one! Read more...

Maps from a Different Point of View

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At the Los Angeles Zoo the other day, I noticed that many of the children around me seemed as interested in the zoo map as they were in the animals. On a friend’s trip to Disneyland, she said that her 5 year old daughter directed the whole family around the park using the map. Maps offer so many different perspectives on our world, maybe it’s easy to see why we’re so fascinated. Read more...

Celebrate Social Studies!

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Holiday time is just around the corner - an exciting and busy time of year for children, full of family time, travel, celebrations at school, and more. Even in the midst of our hectic schedules, the holidays also offer wonderful opportunities for learning. Read more...

Every Child is an Artist

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Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Read more...

Save Recess!

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Back to school means fewer opportunities for free play and physical activity. So when do our children get the physical activity that they need to support learning? Read more...

Bringing Geography to Life

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I am fascinated by maps. I always have been, but today there are so many amazing ways you can use the web, a GPS, or even your phone to help find the nearest coffee shop, the fastest route home, or to check the traffic and find an alternate route. I'll admit it - I'm completely addicted to my navigation system in the car. How did I live without it?

It is difficult for children to connect an abstract map with symbols and lines to their real world. As a fourth grade teacher in California, I taught lessons on the state’s four geographical regions: coast, mountains, desert, and the central valley. By the end of the unit, my students could easily recite the four regions, and label them on a map. But if you asked them to draw their own maps of the state, it quickly became clear that they didn’t really understand how the regions connected to each other. To be honest, it wasn’t until I used Google Earth to zoom into California from space that I could really see for myself how the mountains surround the valley, and the desert stretches off into Arizona to the southeast. Those satellite images can help bring a map of lines and labels to life, connecting a printed page to the real world picture that shows trees and mountains instead of colored regions and state borders on a flat map.

While as an adult I may be able to have that “aha!” moment when I see the satellite image of California and compare it to my mental map of the state, it isn’t quite so easy for children. There are so many ways to help your child start to understand the connections between different kinds of maps and the real world that they live in. Google Maps, for example, can show the same location in a map view, terrain, satellite, or street view.

Here are a few ideas that are perfect for children ages 4 and up. Have you looked up your own house together to see it on a street map, then compared it to the street or satellite view? Or, you can take a walk through your neighborhood with a street map that shows only a few blocks surrounding your house. Use a digital camera to take pictures of important landmarks (the fire station or elementary school) and then print them out and help your child to put the pictures on the street map. Do you have family and friends living across the country or around the world? Print out pictures of them and pin them on a world map. Today’s technology offers so many wonderful ways to bring images and maps to life!

Summer Reading Adventures

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It’s that wonderful time of year… across America, schools are letting out for the summer and children (and parents!) are looking for other ways to fill the long hot summer days. Camp? Swimming and sports? Picnics and barbecues? When I was a child, summer meant hours spent at our neighborhood lake, evenings catching fireflies outside our house, and signing up for the summer reading programs at our local library. It’s nice to see that those programs are still around – the local libraries here have summer reading games that offer prizes to encourage children to enjoy reading outside of school.

I’ve never needed extra encouragement to read – you can find me at the library at least once a month, and I can get lost in a bookstore any time. And while I’ll read almost any genre of books, fantasy and science fiction books have always been my favorites. My dad read Dr. Seuss books to us at bedtime (we especially loved the secret world discovered in Horton Hears a Who!). When I was older, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series was appealing because I was wistfully hoping that I’d wake up one day to discover that I had magical powers (sadly, that never worked out for me). And yes, there were books about that long before Harry Potter! There is something so exciting about escaping to an imaginary world or seeing our own world through a new perspective - that is one of the greatest things about reading.

I could go on and on about my favorite books, which is part of what inspired me to become an elementary school teacher. In my fourth grade classroom, I dedicated 20 minutes after lunch each day to reading aloud. We started the year with Where the Red Fern Grows (so sad) by Wilson Rawls, moved on to clever re-interpretations of fairy tales in Patricia Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons, and read stories such as Cheaper by the Dozen that transported us to earlier times. Inspiring children to find joy in a book and immerse themselves in a different world is one of the most wonderful parts of being a teacher.

I hope you have plans to inspire everyone in your family to read this summer. Check out your local library or visit the Collaborative Summer Library Program online for more resources for adults and kids. My own reading list is always growing!