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"Children from disadvantaged backgrounds and certain ethnic minority backgrounds, including from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds, have lower levels of vigorous physical activity, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge. The patterns mirror inequalities seen in levels of childhood obesity, suggesting a need for a greater focus on the promotion of vigorous physical activity, particularly for those children from more disadvantaged backgrounds."

"Researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) have proven, for the first time in history, that physical fitness in children may affect their brain structure, which in turn may have an influence on their academic performance. More specifically, the researchers have confirmed that physical fitness in children (especially aerobic capacity and motor ability) is associated with a greater volume of grey matter in several cortical and subcortical brain regions."

"Dyslexia is a learning difficulty which affects the ability to adopt the automatic reflexes needed to read and write. Several studies have sought to identify the source of the problems encountered by individuals with dyslexia when they read. Little attention, however, has been paid to the mechanisms involved in writing. Sonia Kandel, Professor at the GIPSA-Lab of the Université Grenoble Alpes (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes/Grenoble INP) and her team [1] decided to look at the purely motor aspects of writing in children diagnosed with dyslexia. Their results show that orthographic processing in children with dyslexia is so laborious that it can modify or impair writing skills, despite the absence of dysgraphia in these children. The findings of this study are published in the November 2017 edition of Cognitive Neuropsychology."

"What is the biggest cause of behaviour disruptions in classrooms? Engagement. In general, when children are 100% engaged, there's no room for disruptions, because they want to learn. Easier said than done. We all know that as teachers we are faced with problems on a daily basis that are out of our control; children coming to school with no breakfast, very little sleep, or consumed by anxiety or stress. So how do we combat these issues and engage all children?"

Interesting study of children, preschool and later school success. "Children's later school success appears to have been enhanced by more active, child-initiated early learning experiences. Their progress may have been slowed by overly academic preschool experiences that introduced formalized learning experiences too early for most children's developmental status."

Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

Our Mission The mission of the International Children's Digital Library Foundation is to excite and inspire the world's children to become members of the global community - children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online.

"In the award-winning documentary Children Full of Life, a fourth-grade class in a primary school in Kanazawa, northwest of Tokyo, learn lessons about compassion from their homeroom teacher, Toshiro Kanamori. He instructs each to write their true inner feelings in a letter, and read it aloud in front of the class. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates."

Pros and cons about children under 13 using social media.

A list of books curated by teachers which have helped get children into reading books for pleasure

Teacher discussion summary and archive full of ideas to get children reading for pleasure

"Research in the past several years has shown that children can outgrow a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), once considered a lifelong condition. In a new study, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health Systemhave found that the vast majority of such children still have difficulties that require therapeutic and educational support. The study was published online today in the Journal of Child Neurology."

"Participation in team sports is associated with fewer depressive symptoms in children, whereas non-sport activities have no association with symptoms, according to a study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier. The association was found only for boys. The findings suggest that exercise could have anti-depressant effects in adolescents. "These interesting results provide important clues as to how exercise benefits mood in children and reveals the important role that gender plays in these effects," said Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging."

"Children of similar cognitive ability have very different chances of educational success; it still depends on their parents' economic, socio-cultural and educational resources. This contradicts a commonly held view that these days that our education system has developed enough to give everyone a fighting chance. The researchers, led by Dr. Erzsébet Bukodi from Oxford's Department of Social Policy and Intervention, looked at data from cohorts of children born in three decades: 1950s, 1970s and 1990s. They found significant evidence of a wastage of talent. Individuals with high levels of cognitive ability but who are disadvantaged in their social origins are persistently unable to translate their ability into educational attainment to the same extent as their more advantaged counterparts."

"Finding good quality websites for kids is a bit of a challenge. That's why I was delighted to find this site chock full of great sites and learning resources for children. The site is sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. Animals, Art, Sciences, and Reference sections are some of what you'll find there. I really liked the Reference section, but all other segments have great content."

Testing students over material that is NOT in the curriculum is not fair. I think that states should have a way to mark things not covered and just take the hits across the board for not having it in their curriculum instead of causing children to suffer through feeling ignorant. Common Core may be great, however, if it isn't in the curriculum it is unfair and shouldn't be done. What can we do? Do we cause children to stress out unfairly because adults can't get their act together or it takes time to change the curriculum? I don't know the answers, but the thought of a child looking at a test and knowing that some things didn't happen in the classroom and the impact of "feeling dumb" that will happen just turns my stomach, literally.  From the NEw York Times. " And they are likely to cover at least some material that has yet to make its way into the curriculum. The new tests, given to third through eighth graders, are intended to align with Common Core standards, a set of unified academic guidelines adopted by almost every state and goaded by grant money offered by the Obama administration. They set more rigorous classroom goals for American students, with a focus on critical thinking skills, abstract reasoning in math and reading comprehension."

New guide for parents from the Federal Trade Commission about protecting children online. It says that parents should get a "plain language notice" about information will be collected before they want to use features on an site or download an app that collects their personal information. I'm very curious how this is going to happen since often parents aren't involved in the app installation process for their children. Review the parent guide to understand the current rules.

I saw this on Fran Drescher's Twitter account from the Cincinnati Business courier and am quite floored by it. Am I the only one who doesn't know this? How about all of the little kids I see where parents are handing them their ipad and smart phones for play purposes. I jusst need to know more but it is based on a study presented at the Pediatric Academic societies meeting in DC. Of course, they recommend hand washing. But pregnant women should be careful - a 10x increase in maternal PBDE's is associated with a 4 point IQ deficit. Of course, we also have the age old question here of causation or correlation.  I do think we need to know more and also if the equipment we're purchasing to use with young children has PBDEs in them.  If you know more, please leave comments. It does say that some manufacturers are voluntarily phasing these out. "Small children should not touch electronic items such as TVs, mobile phones, computers and other products, according to University of Cincinnati researchers. Chemicals found in such items and in many other products, including older carpets and furniture, can cause behavioral and cognition problems, they have found."

This four part video series about the "Invisible children" is an excellent model for how you can share what you're doing. The design on this page is fantastic as well. This organization creaed #kony2012 as their 10th film. They understand social media mobilization. This is an important cause and also the example of how the story wouldn't be told if it weren't for good storytellers. We are first and foremost a "social media, storytelling organization" - they think it is fundamentally untrue that you cannot relate to someone halfway around the world.

Parents who excel at maths produce children who excel at maths. This is according to a recently released University of Pittsburgh study, which shows a distinct transfer of math skills from parent to child. The study specifically explored intergenerational transmission-the concept of parental influence on an offspring's behaviour or psychology-in mathematic capabilities.