Elementary Art Class: Holiday Crafts

Art plays a vital role in your Montessori elementary child’s development. Children use art to express feelings, explore creative mediums, and expand their imagination. During the holidays, supplying the themed materials encourages creativity and learning.

Introducing Yoga and Meditation to your Child

It is never to soon to introduce your kids to yoga and meditation. Not only are they great for childhood development, they also provide a great opportunity for families to come together. Morning calisthenics or evening meditation routines are beneficial for everyone in the family. Just as Montessori extends to life at home, yoga and meditation work best when it is a consistent part of the daily routine.

Montessori Reading Tips for your Preschooler

The world has moved into a digital age where words on a screen are inescapable. In order to give your preschooler the best advantage later, helping them learn to read at an early age is important. The student guides at school will do their best to help out, but reading often begins at home.

Giving Back this Holiday Season

The holiday season is full of opportunities to express how one feels about another, show respect and care for others. The Montessori curriculum uses this season to increase your child's awareness of those in their lives they are grateful for and those in their environment who have needs that are not being met. Even though every season of the year deserves attention for those in need of services or items, there are unique opportunities for your child to give back during the holiday season.

Developing a Life-Long Love of Learning through Montessori Teaching

Montessori teaching has several differences in foundational concepts from traditional teaching methods. One of its most basic differences is that this method of teaching breaks students into three Montessori educational programs based on children’s developmental stages (as opposed to age) moving from concrete learning to more abstract learning, with schools typically working with children from 3-12 years of age. But the application of the Montessori method in teaching has many more nuanced deviations that work together to create an environment that is characterized by guided exploration and unhindered curiosity - key components in cultivating a child’s life-long love of learning.

Southern California: Employment Opportunities in Higher Education

When you are ready to make that career change, the Southern California Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) is ready to assist you with helpful tools to make the right move in higher education. Whether you are looking for administrative or staff roles, they have an impressive variety of member institutions related to higher education for you to search through for your next job.

5 Books to Teach your Child about Thanksgiving

Teaching children about Thanksgiving is not all about the holiday. The goal is for children to learn about giving and sharing and develop an understanding of how doing nice things for others can make you feel better about yourself. Perfect for story time or hours of reading alone, this selection is perfect for readers ranging from preschool up to around grade 5.

Nature Walk: Helping Elementary Students Learn in the Outdoors

Getting elementary students outside is beneficial on several levels. The fresh air is good for the body, peaceful surroundings encourage focus, and there is a lot that nature can teach us. The best locations are away from buildings and in an area where your outdoor forays will not distract other classes in the school. Be sure to take along a field guide to learn about different plants and animals, but give the elementary students opportunities to explore and learn in their own ways as well.

Indoor Science Activities: Fun with your Preschooler!

It is never too soon for your children to start learning how science works. Preschoolers may require a little help and a lot of supervision when they perform simple science experiments, but watching their efforts produce visible results is a great way to get them interested. The experiments described here require common household ingredients, a little time, and a lot of observation and discussion.

Pursuing a Career in Higher Education in New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware

New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware are some of the best states to consider for jobs in higher education, with a high concentration of schools in one area. In addition to academic positions, these jobs can also include research and teaching hospital positions. Higher education, regardless of the position held, is a good way to advance your existing job experience, break into something completely new, or get valuable experience after graduating.

Michigan Higher Education Careers: Helping you and your Partner Find Jobs

Finding a job in higher education can be challenging. Michigan's higher education job market is competitive, especially for faculty positions, and can be spread across many colleges, universities, teaching hospitals, and other institutions. The challenge is amplified when you're trying to find work for not just one person but for two, in a dual career household.

Greater Texas: Start your Job Search in Higher Education

Ranging from ground maintenance to published professors, finding higher education jobs in Greater Texas may lead to a rewarding, long-term career. Whether you are looking to change careers or start out fresh, beginning your higher education job search may seem intimidating. Planning and preparing is the best way to take the fear out the search process.

Giving Back: Ways to Volunteer in Any Community

The strength of a community depends on the interactions within it. Whether you are volunteering your skills in your child's Montessori classroom, assisting those less fortunate, or simply making your community a better place for everyone, your contributions have profound effects on the local quality of life. Opportunities to volunteer can be found in many places. To give you some ideas on where to start or little ways to play an active role, we have provided some suggestions where volunteers are in high demand.

Finding your Career in Greater Missouri's Higher Education

Whether you are beginning your career or starting over in a new field, finding a job in higher education in Greater Missouri area takes persistence, preparation, and patience. Job openings at a higher education institution are spread across numerous disciplines and departments. Working for a higher education institution provides employees a sense of belonging to a larger community.

Curious Classroom: Allowing Children to Explore

Sometimes, curiosity has negative connotations. After all, we have the proverb that “curiosity killed the cat,” warning of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. But in the classroom, curiosity is the necessary ingredient for meaningful and authentic learning. With a hearty sense of curiosity, a student can direct themselves to learn all kinds of things: the taxonomy of feliformia, the state of Schrodinger's cat, or which 16th century British play is thought to have first recorded this curious feline proverb. In the Montessori Method of education, curiosity is not just necessary - it is the driving aspect of each classroom, and the Montessori Method fosters the innate interests and motivations of children. Dr. Maria Montessori observed that this led to more successful outcomes in their education, which has been confirmed by recent research in the field. So what are the benefits of a curious classroom and what does it look like to let it guide the classroom as children explore?

Central Midwest Career Opportunities in Higher Education

Working for a college or university in the Central Midwest is an excellent career choice. Iowa, Nebraska, and Western Illinois higher education institutions offer a broad range of job openings to fit your background and education. An upcoming interview with a higher education institution may cause anxiety. Being prepared is the best way to curb your nervousness.

Fall Crafts to Try with your Kindergartner

Fall is an amazing time for crafting with your kindergartner. Fall introduces new colors with the changing leaves, new activities such as harvesting vegetables, and this season has several exciting holidays. Together, these create a lot of fun opportunities for your little one to get involved in crafting and connect with the season. Many fall crafts also fit within the classroom, such as Montessori schools, where the craft project can be part of a larger activity learning about the background theme of the crafts.

Assessing your Elementary Student after the First Semester of School

Montessori elementary schools do not use a list of topics that all children must learn at the same time. Montessori student assessments cover many non-academic aspects of education as well, limiting the value of traditional report cards. Instead, parent-student-teacher conferences are arranged where the student guide can give you first-hand observation information on your elementary child’s development.

Family Friendly Fall Activities in the Bay Area

Fall is a great time to get the family out of the house. The San Francisco Bay Area provides a plethora of child and family-oriented events and places to explore. Many of them are open year-round or holding seasonal exhibits and activities as they occur. Whether you prefer the outdoors or an interior adventure, the items mentioned here are bound to interest your whole family.

Fall Back: Safety Tips for Evening Activities

As the days get shorter, children will be engaged in more evening and nighttime activities. Halloween, for example, will see children roaming neighborhoods and attending festivals by the thousands. For parents, the primary goal is to make sure their kids have a good time and make it home safely when the day is done.

Questions to Ask your Elementary Student's Teacher at the Beginning of the Year

As parents, it is normal to have a million questions about your child’s learning experience. A quick Google search yields dozens of articles dedicated to this topic alone! Fortunately, as the parent of a Montessori elementary student, many questions can be answered by having a familiarity with the Montessori principles that guide your child’s school and classrooms. However, there are still many more answers to be had, and you can begin to uncover them by asking a few larger questions that open the door for deeper and continued conversations with your child’s teacher.

First Day of School: What to Expect

The first day of any new adventure offer both highs and lows, successes and challenges, and the first day of kindergarten is no different. Even with thorough planning, preparation, and rehearsal, there is no telling how the day will unfold. However, you can mitigate the degree of uncertainty by working together with your child and their new teacher at their Montessori school to learn and review a few basic things you and your child can expect.  

Preschool Stress: Helping your Child Focus in School

Stress is a major reason for preschoolers to have trouble focusing in school. Another common reason is attention disorders such as ADHD. In both cases, the child is unable to keep the desired center of attention and may easily lose interest altogether. This problem is not as pervasive in a Montessori classroom where keeping children active and engaged is at the core of the program, but it is still a problem from time to time. Keep in mind that your child does not have to have an attention disorder to become bored and restless.

Montessori Work Stations

Montessori classrooms use materials chosen specifically to teach various concepts. Each resource, or workstation, is used over and over to learn different concepts. This means that the same resources may be used by different students of various ages for different applications. It can be difficult to separate the materials used by one age group or another.

Transitioning from Traditional to Montessori Education: Supporting your Child

For every child, moving from one school to another can be a challenging experience. It can also feel particularly difficult when that change is not just in the new classrooms, teachers, and peers, but also in the method of education, such as when a child transitions from a traditional educational setting to a Montessori educational setting. The good news is that this is a transition that many families have made, and there are several helpful things parents can do to support their child in that process.

Creative Kids: Learning through Art

Art takes an important role in early childhood development. The importance of creative art cannot be understated as it relates to many aspects of education and personal growth. Promoting creative kids and learning through art has many benefits which should be encouraged, including:

·        Improving Fine Motor Skills

·        Increased Language and Vocabulary

·        Abstract Skills

·        Innovation

·        Cultural Diversity

Last Days of Summer: Fun Outdoor Games for Elementary Students

Before the summer comes to a close, give your elementary student a few last flings in the sun. All of the outdoor games presented here are kid-tested, and many can be modified for indoor play if the weather turns sour. The links provided here are not exact duplicates of the gameplay we describe, and we encourage you and your children to come up with even more variations.

Quiet Time Activities

Infants and toddlers need quite a bit of sleep, and nap time is a common method to help them get it. As they get older, nap time gets phased out, often replaced by a similar method of working or playing for a while without disturbing others. Quiet time activities help them do that by giving children activities to do during the quiet period. We have listed a few quiet time activities for small children which can be easily modified to suit your needs and the educational level of your kids.

Flexible Courses: Earning your MBA Online through ENMU

Earning your MBA is a great step to accelerate your career across the business landscape. ENMU’s online MBA is an exciting program to build your business understanding and help you make the next step in your career. ENMU’s MBA program, accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), is designed for the needs of working adults to deliver expert faculty and academic support, flexible courses, and affordable education to make an MBA accessible to all.  This general business approach allows graduates to pursue a wide variety of careers including entrepreneur, operations manager, marketing manager, finance officer, management analyst, human resource specialist, or business researcher. 

Positive Effects of Daycare on Children

While daycare is sometimes seen as a lesser alternative to sole care by a child’s parents or primary caregivers, a nurturing, quality, and structured daycare environment, such as those that Montessori schools provide, can create significant positive effects for a child’s development. Montessori school’s self-directed learning and social-emotional growth can lead to greater language development, social skills, and preparedness for later school environments.

Financial Planner: Key Skills you will Learn through ENMU's Financial Planning Certificate Program

Financial Planning is an exciting and growing field. For those interested in finance and interested in a career helping others improve their finances, or if you are currently working in accounting, banking, insurance or investments and want to jump start your career, becoming a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) may be a great choice for you. When you successfully complete the Certified Financial Planning examination you will be well-positioned for a high paying career in finance. Eastern New Mexico University's Financial Planning Certificate Program will teach you many key skills that you will leverage as you enter the next stage of your career.

Looking Ahead: Comparing Traditional Education with Montessori Education

Montessori learning is a completely different approach to education. The appearance of the classroom, the way students learn, how they are taught, and the desired outcome are all handled differently - and for good reason. Once you understand how and why Montessori works, you will never want to go back to traditional teaching methods again.

Summer Fun in the Bay Area

Summer break presents some excellent opportunities for you and your children to experience the world. The Children’s Creativity Museum is a good place to start, but your whole summer could be filled with fun and discovery in the Bay Area. To help you pick some interesting activities, we have compiled a list of some of the more prominent types of summer fun.

Teaching your Preschooler about Cooperation through Games

The Montessori classroom is uniquely suited for teaching preschoolers about cooperation through games. First, Montessori is focused on play-based learning, and secondly, classroom activities are designed to encourage the children to act in cooperation. We will look at a few examples of play-based cooperation to give you a better idea of how the two concepts work in conjunction.

Summer Reading: 5 Diverse Books your Elementary Student should Read this Summer

Research has shown that allowing kids to break the education cycle during the summer months can actually set them back in their learning. Instead, experts are suggesting that children be encouraged to continue learning and experiencing. Here are a handful of books written about life’s diversity, written for elementary school students and dealing with everything from racism to being differently abled.

Educational Games to Play this Summer

Your preschooler may have the notion that learning ends after the school year, but you know that summer vacation just holds a different type of learning for them. There are many ways you can extend their Montessori preschool experience and put together educational games throughout the summer for your child to play. They may not even realize they're educational! Here are a few ideas for educational games for your preschooler to play this summer.

Accelerate your Career: Complete your BAAS Degree from ENMU completely online!

The Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) at ENMU is a flexible program that allows qualifying students to complete their Bachelor's degree in as little as two years. For students who have completed an Associates degree in Applied Arts and Science or have a minimum of 30 career-technical credit hours from a CHEA accredited institution, this ENMU degree program provides the opportunity to choose a secondary BAAS concentration to complete your Bachelor's. ENMU has a wide range of concentrations available with 18 degree options across 15 subject areas, all available 100% online.

What to Expect: Courses in the BFA Design Degree from ENMU

It is an exciting journey on your way to becoming a graphic designer. Here are a few things to expect as a graphic design student working toward your bachelor's degree at Eastern New Mexico University. ENMU's Bachelor of Fine Arts - Design modern facilities feature state-of-the-art computer labs with 50 iMacs, loaded with the latest design software like Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes video editing, photo editing, and design apps, as well as 3D modeling and animation software programs. Additionally, ENMU's production facilities include a large green screen for filming, a darkroom, a video editing room, and many well-lit studio workspaces.

Cost of Graduate Programs and the Financial Aid Available at ENMU

The cost of graduate school is a crucial component of anyone's decision to pursue a graduate degree. As tuition costs continue to rise, prospective graduate students must also consider how a degree would facilitate their career growth. The 100% online Master's of Education Administration degree from Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) delivers affordability with outstanding instructors, and a degree that can help your career in a growing field.

Getting Creative with your Preschooler: Make at Home Learning Tools

It is exciting to bring your child’s learning home from school. While traditionally, this has looked like parents assisting with homework, the Montessori child’s education makes it easy for parents to extend their child’s learning more creatively. Using Montessori’s principles of self-directed learning, here are a few creative learning tools you can make at home for your preschooler.

What is a Prepared Environment?

In Montessori education, the prepared environment is an important tool. From child-sized furniture to a colorful, exciting room decor, everything is arranged to make the child more comfortable and encourage them to be more open and interested in the process of learning and discovery.

The Foundational Lessons of a Montessori Elementary

In Montessori education, there are 5 “Great Lessons” which are used to establish the framework of the Montessori program and encourage children to take an active, interested part in learning. Each of the 5 lessons is meant to give children a foundation for learning and discovery, showing them their relationship to the world around them and inviting them to take an active role in shaping their own environments.

Graduate School: Prepare for Acceptance by Enrolling in Leveling Courses

Deciding to pursue a career in speech therapy is an exciting first step to a rewarding new career. Speech therapy is a rapidly growing field, with the Bureau of Labor and Statistics projecting a much higher than the average 18% growth by 2026. It is also a field changing as new research and technologies emerge, which have the potential to revolutionize methodologies in the coming years. For a career centered on improving other's lives, speech therapy has everything going for it and Eastern New Mexico University's CDIS leveling program brings a new career closer than ever.

Help your Kindergartner Get Organized

Visiting a different country can be startling. Suddenly ordering a meal and negotiating traffic have become difficult tasks. Yet, with enough time, those tasks would become as straightforward as they are at home.

Being able to organize and interpret information into recognizable patterns allows us to forget about how much information we receive every day and focus on what we are trying to get done. Being a kindergartner must be a lot like stepping off the plane in a new country, a world overflowing with new information. Organization, like any other skill, is teachable to kids but requires practice, support, and patience. Here are a few ideas to help your kindergartner get organized.

Reading Comprehension Tips for Students of All Ages

Reading comprehension is a process that all students must go through. The first stage is to understand how words are put together, and then tie the sounds of different letters into the framework of language. Beyond that, the reader needs to learn the parts of speech and the things to look for in every story, and that will set the stage for better comprehension and a growing vocabulary.

Spring Break Fun in the Bay Area

Spring break ushers in the summer for the Bay Area. Instead of the party spots, families can enjoy mini spring break vacations at places in and around San Francisco. Everything seems to come to life at this time of year, so we have selected a “Life” themed assortment of family-friendly day trips with something for everyone.  Spending time outdoors with hands-on activities is sure to be fun for all.

Employment Diversity in Higher Education

Diversity in our workplaces is a crucial component to bringing the range of perspectives from communities into each profession.  It’s important for current and future generations that multiple viewpoints are incorporated into workplace decisions. This allows for norms and initiatives to evolve as more opinions become integrated into processes. Additionally, it’s important for young people to have role models and be inspired. The more diverse a profession is, the more likely a young person can find someone they identify with and are inspired by.

College Affordability: Returning to School to earn your Bachelor's Degree at ENMU

Life is not linear. The average person holds more than 10 positions before the age of 40, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. We all have periods of change throughout life and our careers shift with them as we learn more about our interests and employment opportunities change. Often we find that we need new skills and preparation for the next step in our career and returning to school to earn your Bachelor’s degree is an exciting step toward advancing your career.

Five Montessori Books to Read this Spring

As winter comes to a close, it’s time to refresh your book list for spring. Here are five Montessori books that delve into the background of Montessori schools, as well as the latest science on Montessori teaching.

Standing Out to Higher Education Employers

We all want to stand out to prospective employers. We all get excited about employment opportunities and want to communicate that enthusiasm. But it’s not always obvious how to stand out in a structured application process. If it were, everyone would do it. To stand out, you must do something different, and that can be easier than it may seem at first.

What is Financial Planning? How earning a Certificate will Benefit you and your Clients

What is financial planning?

We always hear about the stock market. The current market value is displayed during newscasts and mentioned throughout the day. Of course what we really want to know is the state of our financial situation and the stock market is just one visible, accessible proxy for that. But the stock market is not the only vehicle for investment and only one component of the economy.  The vast expanse of investment strategies, opportunities, and risk management as well as how to combine these components to plan for life events is not as simple as stock market reporting may make it seem. Still, we all must make complex financial decisions throughout our lives and want to make the best decisions possible. Financial planners fill that important gap.

Advancing your Associate's Degree to a Bachelor's Degree at ENMU

Once you have earned your Associate of Applied Arts and Sciences (AAS), it is time to take the next step in advancing your career by completing Eastern New Mexico University's Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) degree. ENMU has a lot to offer, including an advanced study program and a low faculty-to-student ratio. ENMU even offers online courses, so you can schedule your BAAS around your existing career or internship.

Steps to Become an Education Administrator

Why you should consider a career in Education Administration

ENMU is making a career in education administration more accessible than ever before. With an affordable, 100% online curriculum, you can bring your passion to life and begin a career as an education administrator with ENMU’s graduate program in Education Administration.

New Careers in Higher Education

As the pace of change in the workplace quickens, higher education will not only be a resource for students to develop new skills but how students interact with higher education will continue change. Higher education is responding with its own changes, creating new opportunities for careers in higher education. Higher education employs a growing number of people, meaning emerging careers in the field can provide a significant number of new opportunities. In the United States there are nearly 1.6 million faculty and 2 million staff in higher education, according to the National Center for Education statistics.