televisions and scaffolds

In an exerpt from Kameenui and Simmons (1999) the purpose of a scaffold is to make sure a student "gets it" or masters the first learning step in order to achieve some independence in learning.
The purpose of a scaffold is then to remove it.
Somehow televisions aren't scaffolds; I find it hard to remove mine. On teachervision, a list for evaluating scaffolds is provided. Maybe some teaching methods make more dependent than others and are somehow more like my television.

books for children are scaffolds for development

In an earlier post I told you about scaffolds. Scaffolds are a very workable teaching method that helps students and children to surpass themselves. The idea is that what you teach should be slightly more difficult than what the student masters at that moment.
Now how can we build those scaffolds?
One way is creating books that contain stories that in some way helps children to reach a higher level of morals, reading skills, vocabulary, understanding of emotions, historical awareness,...
For surcharged parents and teachers, these books are a great help to build their children's character. After reading a part of the book, you can talk about your own ideas about what is written in the book, and ask what your child thinks about it.
If you want to go ahead and write a book, why not enter a competition? Maybe you will end up getting published. Good luck!

Puzzle sunday (14)

Houses and schools, puzzles and tools, scaffolds and posts, maths and hosts that's what this blog's all about, and here is todays puzzle for you to check out.
I know, I've had a hard day and I'm sublimating.

I love puzzles

I'm writing this post especially for Chris (and myself because my memory needs external backup). I searched for sites about wooden puzzles, because I think they represent what we need: beauty, natural materials, relaxation through directed attention, enjoying problem solving strategy development.
Puzzles can be boxes. Human psychology would like to unravel the mysteries of the box (symbolic for the brain) , Pandora opened the box, and we enjoy presents in boxes.
On the same site, the Alcatraz puzzle seems like a real challenge.
Also follow on the links on that site. One in particular I should put in my blogroll.
There is a mechanical puzzle competition to encourage new designs. So beautiful.

unplugged scaffolding

Because the birthday of one of the children is comming up, I've searched and found a few books and games that you might like. Usually I give something for their birthday that is a developmental challenge for the child at that time.
The books are in Dutch but the games might be interesting. I'm going to give a link to a dutch site and try to find an English counterpart. Thinkfun, Dutch site that delivers pretty good games and a site that describes abstract games are among my favorite. Wooden puzzle challenges can be difficult even for very bright children. That's good!

I love difficult.

Scaffolding, multitasking and house-improvement

Scaffolding, multitasking and house-improvement is my actual life. My father built and rabuilt 3 scaffolds in one morning (5 meters high) (how many inches is that?). Not virtual but touchable scaffolds. At the same time I saw how he built virtual scaffolds for me, for my children and even for my husband. Our family benefitted from his visit at multiple levels. I see where my youngst and oldest get there energy from. "I've got magical energy!" said the youngst. It is true. My oldest is recuperating from everything. She starts feeling better about herself. It's such a fine line between giving support and increasing dependent behavior. Art is doing the scaffolding, science is thinking how to and when.