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Free books, Gooru, Pinterest, study tips, new UC logo

Education Roundup

My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., last week.  I moved to Sonoma from a small town in Connecticut 15 miles from Newtown. Schools should be a safe place for learning for all students, always.

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There are 25 classic holiday books currently available for free in all eBook formats (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at gutenberg.org. The list includes “A Christmas Carol,” “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Children’s Book of Christmas Stories,” “The Night Before Christmas” and many more.

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Gooru is a new free search engine that is billed as tailored for learning. You can search for your favorite science, math or social sciences topic and browse millions of the best online learning resources, organized into thousands of curated collections. Teachers and students can use Gooru to search for rich collections of multimedia resources, digital textbooks, videos, 
games and quizzes created by educators. 
Gooru is free (of cost and ads) and developed by a nonprofit whose mission is “to honor the 
human right to education.” Go to goorulearning.org.

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The Boys & Girls Club will be open during the winter school break, Dec. 26 to 28 and Jan. 2 to 4, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
 The afternoons are free for members; from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $12 a day. Members should sign up through Membership Services, 938-8544, ext. 102.

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Does your child have ADD, ADHD, dyslexia or another learning disability? Are you wondering if they are ready for college? There is a free online tool to help you decide, courtesy of Landmark College (which specializes in meeting the needs of students with learning issues). Go to: landmark.edu/news/at-home-college-readiness-test-for-students-with-learning-disabilities/.

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The website Pinterest is all the rage right now as its visual interface allows users to create, share, pin, re-pin, like, follow, search on a theme and share their interests. Educators are using it in the classroom as a tool to promote student participation in classes, showcasing student work, collaborating on coursework and suggesting reading and enrichment ideas. Go to: pinterest.com.

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“What to Do When Bad Habits Take Hold,” is a very helpful book by psychologist Dawn Huebner, Ph.D. The book is aimed at helping kids ages 6 to 12 overcome hard-to-stop habits such as nail-biting, thumb-sucking, hair-twirling, scab-picking and shirt-chewing. Huebner offers five strategies and I recommend it for parents to us with your child. Perhaps not exactly what they were hoping for under the tree, but a long vacation is a good time to make progress on breaking a bad habit. 

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Hispanic students now make up nearly a quarter of the nation’s public school enrollment and are the fastest-growing segment of the school population, but these students rarely see themselves in books written for young readers. Experts say the lack of familiar images and role-models could be an obstacle in engaging young Hispanic readers. The few books that are available from Hispanic writers are not finding their way into classrooms.

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El Verano Elementary School has a subscription to a cool website called Education City that students can also use at home. Teachers can even monitor student work through the site’s Success Tracker and see which areas they are struggling with. Some 15,000 schools nationwide use this award-winning online teaching and learning resource, which is mapped to the student’s specific state and common core standards. Go to: us.educationcity.com.

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El Verano Elementary School has announced the first trimester honor roll for its fifth grade. Honor students include:

Andres Cabrera, Omar Colin, Emily De la Cruz, Kaliyah Hensic,Emma Kelly, Alejandro Lagunas, Kennedy Mendoza, Jessica Molinar, Sebastian Rodriguez, Eduardo Romero, Alex Rosales, Ava Burk*, Brenda Morales, Brian Cavillo*, Eric Hudson*, Hank Schoeningh*, Jocelyn Paredes*, Jordy Tapia, Lorelei Deely*, Maria Mendoza, Max Sinclair, Oscar Rivas*, Abe Martinez, Ximena Landeros, Yuliana Perez*, Zanett Velazquez* (* above 3.5 GPA).

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Parents of children with food allergies are always worried when their child eats any food not prepared in their own kitchens. UCLA Schools of Engineering and Applied Science has just developed a lightweight device called the iTube, which attaches to a common cell phone to detect allergens in food samples. The attachment uses the cell phone’s built-in camera that runs a test with the same high level of sensitivity as a laboratory. Weighing less than two ounces, the attachment performs an allergen-concentration test. It doesn’t sound ready for the marketplace yet but the invention will be welcome by the parents of the 8 percent of young children who suffer from severe food allergies.

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The Target pharmacies in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park are offering free flu shots for children aged 4 through 18 years through Monday, Dec. 31. 

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A $10 practice ACT test will be offered at Sonoma Valley High on Saturday, Jan. 19, for juniors and sophomores from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Juniors are also urged to consider SAT test prep classes that begin on Saturday, Jan. 26. Discounts are available if you sign up before the end of the year. Stop by the College & Career Center for details.

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In honor of the current exam period, here are some study tips for students (perhaps to tape inside their notebooks for future reference):

• Try studying for a few minutes right before falling sleep. During sleep, the brain strengthens new memories.

• A relatively new learning technique called “spaced repetition” involves breaking up information into small chunks and reviewing them consistently over a long period of time.

• Turning the details you need to remember into a crazy story helps make the information more meaningful. For example, remember the order of mathematic operations PEMDAS this way: Philip (P) wanted to eat (E) his friend Mary (M) but he died (D) from arsenic (AS) poisoning.

• Research suggests studying the same stuff in a different place every day makes us less likely to forget that information.

• Research suggests we store information more securely when we write it out by hand than when we type it.

• Reading information out loud means mentally storing it in two ways: seeing it and hearing it.

• Research has found just half an hour of aerobic exercise can improve our brain-processing speed and other important cognitive abilities.

• Relieve anxiety and tension by listening to classical music while studying.

• If a computer is necessary for studying, install an app that blocks the Internet for a short period of time.

• Research suggests meditation can reduce anxiety and boost attention span. There’s no harm in trying it out for a few minutes to calm pre-test jitters.

• Aim to get those seven to nine hours a night so sleep deprivation doesn’t undo all the hard work you’ve put in.

• Omega-3 fatty acids, found in certain fish, nuts, and olive oil, are known for their brain-boosting potential. Tips courtesy of USA Today.

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The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund has given $1 million to U.C. Berkeley for scholarships for undocumented students. This is the single-largest gift ever of this type. The gift will immediately assist nearly 200 undocumented students at Berkeley from 20 different countries, and more in the future. Undocumented students are not eligible for federal Pell grants, federally backed loans or work-study positions and their average family income is $24,000.

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Does your school release honor roll information? If so, please email it to me at ourschools@sonomanews.com.

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Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

– Albert Einstein