It all starts with once upon a time! Children have vivid imagination and love to listen to stories. Bed-time tales have always been a popular method to put children to sleep. Though technology has made its way to children’s tabs and laptops, nothing can replace the experience of having a parent or grandparent sit beside the little one and dramatize a scene from Eric Carle’s famous book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, or pretend to play multiple characters from the story of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ by ‘huffing’ and ‘puffing’ your child to sleep.

Every night or even day, be it a class teacher or a parent, children look forward to stories that transport them into imaginary lands and eagerly await the introduction of a new character each day. Stories allow children to escape reality and imagine a world of wonder where everything they dream of is possible.

There are a number of genres and types of stories that especially enthuse children. Kutubee is one such platform that is popular amongst parents and teachers as it broadcasts over 1,000 books dedicated to children. And the cool thing about Kutubee is that English books are translated into French and Arabic languages to cater to a larger target audience in the Middle East including Dubai, GCC, and other parts of the world.

So now that we know where to hunt for the next story book, let us share a few tips that can help bring out the true storyteller in you and make it an even more memorable experience.

Use words that adds to the child’s vocabulary

Children’s books often have words that are repetitive in nature and are found in verses across the book. This indicates that the word has to be emphasized upon in order to link the story and get the meaning out of it. Some books may have words that children have never learnt before. Say for example you come across this phrase ‘delightful Nancy’ all through the book and children are unaware what ‘delightful’ truly means. However, repetition is the best teacher and as the plot in the story book unfolds children start to understand the meaning of the word and by the end of it, they would have made sense of its meaning & learnt a few new words to enrich their vocabulary. Schools across the UAE have dedicated story time period at least for the preschool graders, so as to make attending school a joyous experience and encourage children to look forward to school each day.

Actions speak louder than words

Many a times children recollect the song or a story by reproducing the action. To make story time more inclusive & participative, the storyteller can use actions and ask children to replicate the same. Every time the phrase exclaims ‘pitter patter raindrops’ the storyteller can ask children to wriggle their fingers and assume raindrops falling from the sky. This is how one can connect the scene with the actual experience.

Appropriate voice modulation

The essence of effective storytelling is to make the sessions as lively as possible! Voice modulation is used to add variety and excitement to the story, rather than just reading out from a book in monotonous pitch. The storyteller may choose to speak soft, loud, slower or faster, as per the dimensions of the plot. When you modulate voice it conveys emotions and stimulates the same reaction amongst the young audiences before you. Also, while depicting different characters in the story the teacher or parent needs to get into the role and try to give it life by sounding ‘bold’, ‘timid’ or ‘funny’ as demanded by the story. Example: To express the lines of a timid mouse practice a squeaky sound in low pitch, whereas when you quote the lion make him sound a bit hoarse, loud and confident.

Bring the story to life with props

To make the story a visual delight, one can incorporate a prop box with soft toys, animals, finger puppets and visual cards. Children can take turns to feel, touch and interact with the characters to enhance the tactile experience. It is not necessary to have props all through the story. Just choose a few important scenes and correlate the characters to the book. Props give meaning to the story, they even become ‘role models’ when for instance ‘Popeye The Sailor’ is shown eating spinach and growing stronger by the day.

The above pointers were just a dot in the ocean. You can read and look-up for more such interesting storytelling techniques online. However, we can’t ignore the fact that great storytelling is rooted in consistent practice. So, practice in front of a mirror, practice in an empty room, practice at home, if you want to deliver a story without any fumbling or unwanted pauses.

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Just when toddlers enter school at about 1.5 – 2 years they are introduced to play-based learning. Most K-12 school following the IB curriculum in UAE-GCC, and other parts of the world, adopt the play-way model. Songs and rhymes are important techniques that are a part of the play-way method. Wondering what good a 4-8-line long nursery rhyme can do to a child? Before we proceed to enumerate the unending possibilities of songs and rhymes to preschoolers, let us explain what action songs are.

What are action songs?

Movement and action songs are sing-song phrases that are accompanied by actions. There are some classic action songs which never go out of fashion and are still popular in preschools. Some of them are; Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Row Row Row Your Boat, If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! amongst many others. Then there are action-songs that are currently trending & every kiddo grooves to the beats of these rhymes. Like some examples are; Baby Shark and The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, amongst many more.

Even 30-40 years later you would probably remember the verse and sing-move along to nursery rhymes you learnt in school. Such magnanimous impact is testament to the impression that nursery rhymes leave on the person and its retention capacity.

Here are a few benefits that are derived by introducing children to action-songs:

Enhances Hand-Eye Coordination

Hand-eye coordination is a basic skill which needs to be practiced by toddlers. It is a complex cognitive process which syncs the visual and motor skills, so that the child can move his hands after processing the visual information received by the eyes. ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ is a fun song where children use their fingers and make the spider walk up the water spout and then pretend to form rain drops by wriggling them. This is great exercise for little ones as they are learning to use their hand muscles by carefully observing the teacher & mimicking the actions.

Vocabulary Enrichment

Did you know by the age of 2-3 years, children mut be introduced to 200 to 1,000 words? In this span, it is important to expose your babies to as many new words as possible. So, what is the best way to introduce these words to them? Of course, by way of songs and rhymes. Singing helps children hear words and learn its pronunciation. And repeating the poem over a period of time registers words that form a new addition to their pool of vocabulary. Action songs are thus a fun musical way to teach and reinforce language, vocabulary and understanding of words.

Improves Self-Esteem and Confidence

When the child joins his peers and sings along with actions, he develops confidence. A feeling of inclusion is fostered and the child becomes more open. Their personalities develop and children learn to emote their feelings verbally. Research also suggests that earlier the child is exposed to tunes, the more capacity the brain has to develop music tonality and thereby improve musical sense & appreciation for music in children which boosts their self-esteem.

Enhances Listening Skills and Learns to Follow Instructions

In order to sing the poem, the child should know the lyrics. When everyone is singing together, the child starts developing keen interest in listening to the words and sings along. He learns quickly that if he won’t listen carefully, there are chances that he might feel left-out because everyone else in class in engrossed in singing the rhyme along with the teacher. The child also learns to mimic actions and facial expressions by following the instructions given by the educator.

Sparks Creativity

Rhymes help children transcend into fantasy world. They meet new characters, sing & dance along with them and visualize scenes that open new dimensions. At the end of the poem, encourage children to answer questions by asking them what they learnt from the song. You would be amazed to discover how innovative their responses are.

Egg Nursery Rhymes by Reading Eggs

To partake in this musical sojourn Reading Eggs presents to you Eggy Nursery Rhymes to sing and dance along with your little ones. Classic nursery rhymes can be downloaded via the app on the Apple Store on an iPad or iPhone device. Reading Eggs has gained popularity in the Middle East, including Dubai and is recommended by schools to parents. And you know what’s even more exciting about this app? There is an in-built karaoke feature for children to sing to the tunes of their favourite rhyme. Besides this, there are games that focus on teaching rhymes, phonics, words, and spellings. If you haven’t already downloaded the app, we urge you to get it today!

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Energy- The thing that makes everything work. How do you explain something so fundamental to young students? You can’t touch it, you can’t see it, you can only observe the effects it creates. Learning about an intangible entity like energy requires practically learning. The Energy Works Kit offered by Carolina aims to achieve just that. The kit helps define energy and enables the instructors to dive into various types of energy and how we use them.

The kit offers equipment and apparatus sufficient for a class of 30 students. The 6 lessons that make up the program take students through concepts of how Energy flows, how machines work with energy, and how Energy can be harnessed. Various models of machines are built throughout the program to shed light on how different kinds of energies work. Already adopted by most schools in the GCC, the Energy Works Kit is already a favourite.

The 6 lessons take the students through the following:

1- Where does energy come from?

Lesson number 1, “Where do you get your energy?” explores all the different sources we get our energy from. How it is harnessed and how it is used in making things work. The lesson is spent observing and taking note of all the different kinds of energies used by the students and present in their environment. This enables the students to understand the concept of energy and apply it to their immediate surroundings. The first-hand experience of different types of energies also enables the students in understanding how energy changes from one form to another.

2 – About Potential Energy & Kinetic Energy

Potential energy & kinetic energy are the 2-broad classification of energies. Learning about them and understanding their effects on objects allows the students to develop a deeper understanding of all kinds of energies. Kinetic Energy is moving and Potential Energy is a type of energy that is stored in various forms. Several activities are conducted in this lesson to create a differentiation between these broad classifications. The activities enable the students to learn even further of the kinds of energies that exist around them.

3 – How energy is converted to different forms.

Conservation of Energy is a fundamental law. This concept is taught to the students through the different forms energy is found in. Since, energy is neither created nor destroyed it moves from one form to another and thus changing matter in the process. This lesson focuses on identifying instances where energy changes forms. Investigating different forms of energy enables the students to understand how energy is converted and transformed to different types that they experience in their daily lives.

4 – Energy in water waves

Water waves as in motion experience the Kinetic form of energy, making the water move in a particular manner. Observing interaction of energy in water gives the learners a wider understanding of how energy affects objects. Interference and wave patterns teach them how energy affects other energies as well. Waves as a medium are explored in this lesson and since they form the base of all energy transfers, this develops a deeper understanding of energy in the curriculum.

5 – Alternate forms of energy sources

In this lesson the students learn of the alternate forms of energies such as wind, solar, geothermal energy as alternatives to fossil fuel as a primary source of energy. Various advantages and disadvantages are pointed out for these alternative energy sources and the students create models for wind and water energy harnessing. The students learn how their apparatus transfers wind and water energy into mechanical energy that is usable.

6 – What has been learnt about energy?

In this lesson the students look back to what they’ve understood about energy and the way it interacts with the world. Team projects are worked on enabling the students to apply the information they’ve gained throughout the course. Presentation of projects takes place, giving students the opportunity to explain their work to the rest of the students.

Teaching young students with practical applications enables them to develop a deeper understanding of the subject. Kits created by Carolina achieve this by making education and learning an involving experience. With several educational institutions from the Middle East in countries like UAE including Dubai, having adopted the kits, the young students are now learning even the most complex concepts practically.

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Assessments and timely examinations have always been a tool to determine the student’s level of understanding. Often there is misconception that examinations are only conducted to rank students and discover who is better than the other. Well, if you are one them who believes exams are merely about marks, then you are slightly mistaken! Although healthy competition to score better grades in class is a good motivating factor, there are other objectives that are achieved by way of assessments. Periodical assessments aim to develop the learner’s overall personality, improve their memory skills, and make them more confident individuals. It also instills a sense of responsibility amongst learners to take their studies seriously, this is the approach followed by IB schools across the UAE and all over the world.

Keeping this perspective in mind, the examiner needs to set the right ‘question paper’ by choosing topics that would add value to the student’s overall learning & development. Though the school curriculum is expansive the exam questionnaire can accommodate only a limited pool of important questions and hence it makes the job of the teacher rather difficult. In this current digital-age Markezy is a go-to assessment tool for many schools across the Middle East and especially in Dubai. Markezy is a hybrid platform that supports online assessments, as well as paper format and gives the teacher an option to choose questions from its own item bank. Through this article we aim to share some tips for executing impactful ‘questionnaire’ by choosing the appropriate question format.

Types of Examination Questions

Before we proceed, let us understand the different categories or types of questions generally asked in an exam paper. Well, there is no rulebook as such, but usually the format of the question paper is determined by the educational board department and schools need to follow the defined pattern. Broadly there are the following types of question formats; multiple choice questions, true or false, match the following, fill in the blanks, short answers, and essay answers. Let us elaborate on each of these types:

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)

Multiple choice questions have one question with multiple options as answers. Usually the practice is to give four options where one of them is the right answer and the other three are incorrect. Students can select the right answer by simply clicking on the correct option. Here are few points to keep in mind while drafting MCQs:

• Pick an important topic from the chapter which has a one word or one line as an answer
• For the incorrect options you can use alternatives that seem similar, but are not considered as the correct answer
• The aim is to clear the student’s misconceptions and drive down the sure-shot answer to remove any ambiguity
• Make sure the four options are all either ‘one word’ or ‘statements’ to avoid confusion and maintain consistency
• Consider giving ‘all of the above’ or ‘none of the above’ as one of the four alternatives if there are more than one correct or incorrect responses

Match the Following

Matching the correct options usually makes its way to kindergarten or elementary grade test papers. The student has to pair the correct options on either sides of the mid-line and draw a joining line from left column to the correct option in the right column. It tests the child’s memory with regards to knowledge recall and correct association. Children actually look forward to this section as it is easy to pair the options and they get the opportunity to score full marks. Teachers can refer to the following points while designing matching pointers:

• Don’t go overboard and give too many matching items, keep it between 5 to 7 entries
• Keep the cues on the left column crisp and short
• Have more options on the right column as against the cues on the left to add a bit of a challenge to testing children’s concepts
• Avoid having the paired options on the same row and shuffle the answers instead
• Some ideas to include as match the following are; definitions and their correct term or say a formula and its solvable solution

Short Answers

Short answer questions typically test the student’s understanding of the concept which he explains in 2 to 3 sentences. As against the match the following and MCQ format, short answers do not give any option to the student and the child has to use his memory to reproduce the answers. This gives the student an opportunity to explain his understanding more creatively, but also be precise and brief with no room for fluff. Curating short answers needs the following points to be kept in mind:

• Definitions can be considered for short answer questions
• Find topics that do not need elaborate explanations
• There should be no room for ambiguity in the question, so that the answer can be written precisely

Markezy offers a varied variety of assessment design options to make the teacher’s job easy. Educational institutions in the GCC have quickly adopted to this the trend and are streamlining their assessment & evaluation process for the dual benefit of students and teachers.

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Introducing a 3D printer to classrooms sounds exciting indeed and it is rapidly revolutionizing the way learning takes place. With 3D printed models’ children get to experience practical learning, as against the rote learning technique through textbooks. Learners use their sense of touch to feel the printed objects and can actually participate in the design & execution phase. So, before we have you marvel the ocean of possibilities with 3D printing techniques for schools, let us briefly explain how it works.

How to print objects with 3D printer?

Unlike the usual printer in offices that uses ink to print on paper, the 3D printer uses materials such as; plastic, rubber, metal, to print objects. The first step to printing mini models is to feed a picture into the system in order to help the printer identify what needs to be replicated. For example: If you want to print the 8 planets to teach children the workings of the solar system, you first need to scan a picture of each of the planets on a paper scanner or use a foam scanner to scan the existing toy model such that it can be replicated by the 3D printer. The scanned copy needs to then be cleaned via a 3D CAD software and the dimensions need to be checked before proceeding to actual printing. Now its showtime and the 3D printer does its job! In no time you would have objects created magically which can be used as an alternate to buying classroom aids online and spending oodles of money.

Effective learning through a hands-on approach

In a classroom full of inquisitive minds many a times the teacher has to tackle questions such as Why? How? What? because children need proof to the explanations given in textbooks. Hence, experimentation is the best teacher. When children actually get to see things before their eyes, their journey of self-discovery begins until they get satisfactory answers. 3D printing follows a hands-on approach and stimulates sensory-motor development which makes the learning process easy & leads to better understanding of concepts.

Exploring Earth and its Geographical Phenomena through 3D printable objects

Imagine having to study all the 195 countries of the world and their respective flags. It seems like a herculin task to memorize all of it. However, if children are introduced to the World by actually printing the maps, flags, and topographies, they will be in a better position to remember facts and apply them during exams. With 3D printing technology from Mayku it is easy to build models of rocky mountain ranges, discover some of the most remarkable islands and even marvel fascinating landmarks like the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.

Recreating Ancient Historic Civilizations

Wouldn’t it be fun to remember the events of the Egyptian Civilization or say the Indus Valley Civilization by actually having a dramatization session in class with epic monuments and historical figures in the background to give relevance to the scene. 3D printing brings new experiences and helps children interact with the subject, instead of having to study dates and complicated names of Emperors from boring presentation slides. Many IB Schools in GCC including UAE now rely on interactive techniques to teach the class about culture and history.

Understand the Complex Functioning of Human Organs in Biology Class

The skeleton that you see hanging in every school’s biology lab can be replicated using a 3D printer. What better way to understand the human anatomy than by actually printing the organ before your eyes? The best part is that 3D printers are so detail oriented, that it captures each attribute which makes learning more meaningful. Printing the human skull on a Mayku 3D printer would enable children to study the dimensions of the jaw bone, structure of the teeth, and other anterior features which would have been impossible to comprehend from an image in their textbooks. This hands-on approach leads to biology lessons getting ingrained in the child’s long-term memory without much effort.

Practicing Math Lessons with 3D Demonstrations

When students hear the term Math, the first reaction is a cringe-worthy smile. To brighten-up the smile simply introduce them to 3 dimensional shapes printed on a Mayku printer and let them play with it for as long as they want. This is an exciting way to actually watch the making of a sphere, cylinder, prism and other shapes alike. Another Math topic that children at first find difficult to grasp is fractions. Well, not if the objects looked colorful and could be easily assembled & dissembled in a jiffy. Across the Middle East 3D printing has gained so much popularity, that even parents are intrigued to purchase a Mayku for their homes to ensue their elementary school goers continue to have the same passion and zeal for studies at home.

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As we all seem to switch to the digital world you might be concerned about your child. Several questions might be emerging in your mind frequently like how much screen time should you allow your child? Is it impacting your child’s attention span? It is very obvious for you to be worried as a parent. Nonetheless, it is all about setting a time limit for your child to spend with the screens. Anything is bad if the limits are crossed.

Nowadays, teachers are suggesting E-Books (digital books) for children to not just gain knowledge but also read stories. ‘Highlights Learning’ offers E-Books for your children and is gaining popularity in the Middle East including Dubai. They have a wide range of fictional and non-fictional E-Books. You can pick according to your child’s interest.

Just like every coin has two sides to it, E-books and Paperbacks, both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Basically, reading E-books for long hours without any breaks can affect your child’s attention span. Continuously looking at the screen for long hours might affect them mentally and when they don’t get their laptop next time, they might get cranky or have mood swings. Make sure you don’t let them build a habit of reading e-books more than few hours because it will affect their eye health as well. Sit with your child when they are reading the book and share some of your real-life stories by narrating the story to them.

E-books have the advantage of having background music and animations so that children can not just imagine but feel like everything in the story is really happening as it builds virtual reality. Another advantage is that they can read E-books again and again. If your child doesn’t understand something, they can open the dictionary online and understand it. Quite a few schools in the UAE are taking advantage of technology and recommending E-book readers to parents so that children are constructively engaged even when they are not in school.

However, the drawback of E-books is that sometimes ads might keep popping up and numerous video links that ask you to play games. These links can be quite distracting for your child and they might end up clicking on such links. This can be distracting because your child will not be able to focus on the story.

On the other hand, Paperbacks have various advantages like it won’t affect your child’s attention span even if they choose to read the book for long hours. Your child can use a highlighter or a pen to underline a topic that they didn’t understand and come to ask you about it. This way, it will become interactive for you and your child. You can also give them a task that once they’re done with reading, they have to narrate the story back to you and elaborate on the favourite part from the story. This will help you stay rest assured because they will definitely pay attention while reading.

Some drawbacks of reading Paperbacks could be that your child can lose their book or misplace it. Secondly, they might find Paperbacks boring because their friends are reading E-books. Lastly, there won’t be background music when reading from Paperbacks so, there are chances that they might lose interest in the story.

However, everything has its pros and cons. You should decide if you prefer E-books or Paperbacks for your child because there’s no one other than parents who can understand what’s favorable for their child.

Highlights learning allow parents to choose between E-books or Paperback from amongst its collection of 1000s of workbooks, stories, magazine, and activity books. They also have gifting options available in case your child wants to gift a book to his/her friend and can be conveniently shipped across the GCC and other parts of the world!

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