Teaching human rights through language

During my years teaching I have learnt that teaching adults is by no means a one way process. It certainly isn’t about me bringing knowledge to the classroom for my students to gratefully absorb and walk away with. Teaching is about what we all bring, and share and learn. I’ve learnt about the history and geography of the countries my students grew up in. I’ve learnt about different political systems, religions, customs, clothes and family life. My favourite lessons are the ones where we all bring a dish and learn about food from other countries. I’ve also learnt about determination, motivation and resilience and I am inspired every day by my students’ attitude and aspirations.

  

I have been given the opportunity recently to take my teaching and learning in a new direction and to get involved in a project looking at teaching human rights in language. This is a topic that is both new to me, and at the same time is something that has always underpinned how I live and teach and work.

It is easy to take our human rights for granted, or to think that human rights are not something we need to concern ourselves with. My daughters' right to education is not threatened; I have never felt the need to consider my right to be free from torture as I have never experienced or been afraid of being tortured; I was free to choose who I wanted to marry, or not marry; I always exercise my right to vote and feel safe to do so. These, and many more are set out in the universal declaration of human rights. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to take these rights for granted, and that's where the thinking behind the teaching of human rights through language came from. Recently arrived migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, will be offered the chance to participate in courses to learn the language of human rights and the laws of the countries they are now living in.

“Human rights in language” is funded by a European funding programme which seeks to prevent violence and protect the rights of women, young people and children. I spent a few days in Berlin last week meeting with language teachers from other European countries where we shared our experiences of teaching migrants and took part in workshops looking at how we can teach human rights in language classes. We all came away inspired and motivated and with firm plans in place to start teaching these classes in our settings in 5 European countries, including three locations in the UK.

Teach is maybe the wrong word though, because I know, as all teachers do, that teaching any topic in a language lesson is about sharing, enabling, giving and receiving. It’s humbling to realise that your students’ experiences are far greater that yours and their contributions teach the rest of the group far more than the person with the certificate and the teacher’s hat on standing by the whiteboard. I hope that I can help my students to learn the language they need to talk about human rights, and to gain the skills and confidence to take that language out of the classroom. For by doing this, we are together doing our bit to make the world a better, fairer place for all of us to live in. And at the end of the day, that’s what my job is all about.

If you would like to know more about how you, or someone you know, can get involved in human rights in language classes in Newcastle feel free to get in touch by leaving a comment below.

Leave the teacherspeak in the staffroom

Teachers generally have my full support. I think the teachers at my daughters' school are brilliant and they are doing a fantastic job of educating my children. I trust that they always use appropriate language and explain everything in terms that the children can understand, defining new terms when necessary. So why can't they do the same when it comes to parents? We don't want to be patronised, but really, there's no need to use abbreviations or language that we have no idea about and that will just alienate us, and make us feel as if we have no place in our child's education, is there?

I've written about maths language before, and how difficult it is to help our children when we don't understand the terms used. So today when my daughter came out of school with a weekly plan, outlining the topics that their class will be covering this week I was disappointed to find references to "RWI sounds" and "positional language"! After some thought, I realised that the first refers to a new reading and writing scheme the school are introducing, and the letters stand for Read, Write, Inc. And after some more thought, that positional language is very simply using the words, under, above, on, inside etc, to talk about something. How difficult would it have been to use a few extra words to explain these two things to parents, and include us in the learning? If we know what positional language is at the moment we get the piece of paper in our hand as our children rush out of school, we can take the opportunity to have a conversation on the walk home about the person inside the blue car, the chimney on top of the house, and whether the post office is next to the shop, or opposite it. Instead, as the piece of paper is glanced at, not understood, and shoved in a pocket, the opportunity for learning, and engaging in our children's learning, is lost. What a shame.

So teachers, feel free, please, to use all the "teacherspeak" you want to in the staff room, but leave it there. As parents, we're not impressed.

Cuddling letters

I know I've blogged about handwriting before, but I'm currently having trouble again with my 5 year old, who is getting her letters increasingly muddled as she learns how to spell longer and more complex words. It seems that when she only had to think about a simple 3 letter word, she could remember, most of the time, how to write the letters 'd', 'o' and 'g', but when the words get longer, she is focussing so intently on getting the letters in the right place in the word, she forgets which way round to write them!

I watched her write the word angel the other day, and anticipated that she would have problems with 'g', which has become a regular culprit. It would confuse her, I thought, to try and point out that the tail on the 'g' points to the left, so instead I told her that the 'g' likes to cuddle the 'n' in the word angel. It worked! Maybe the tail was a little too long, as it curled around the 'n', but at least it was the right way round.

So what about other letters? 'Y' and 'j', like 'g',  always cuddle the letter before. The 'c' in chat is friends with the 'h' and likes to have a chat so it's got it's mouth open, facing the 'h'. The 'k' of course, is kicking the 'i' in kite, and the 'p' has its back to the 'o' in hop. Of course, the danger is that kids will then remember this and try to write the 'p' with its back to the 'o' in pond, which won't work. But hopefully, once they've practised, and started to write their letters correctly again, they'll remember this and it will automatically translate to their other words.

You can come up with your own silly ideas, depending on which letters your child struggles with, and which word they are trying to write. If we make it fun, it should take the stress out of writing, which will encourage them to write and practice even more, ultimately helping our children to develop beautiful handwriting!

Who are the miniature wives?

Due to a slight and hopefully temporary hearing loss that my older daughter has been suffering from, the correct pronunciation of new vocabulary in our house can be a bit hit and miss. Even without this issue, my younger daughter also comes out with some corkers - as I suspect all children do from time to time. We wear "curvy grips" (kirby grips - I think they're bobby pins for my American friends), and recently enjoyed watching the "Power-Olympians" - I particularly liked that mis-hear. When we say our prayers, I think we are sometimes asking God to give us our dresses (instead of forgiving us our trespasses). But my favourite by far was back last winter when we were listening to the beautiful Christmas number one on the radio, sung by the miniature wives choir! 

Wow words

The wow word in our house this morning was "frequency". And "frequent" and "frequently". We had a spelling list of "high frequency words", which prompted my children to discuss what this meant, and how else we could use this wow word.

According to Ros Wilson, creator of Oxford School Improvement's Big Writing, used in many primary schools,  wow words are words that you would not expect your child, at their age, to know and use, and you are impressed when they do. Children are encouraged in literacy lessons in school to expand their vocabulary and explore new words, and new ways of using them when speaking and writing. If your child comes out with a new word, and it makes you go "Wow, that's a great word to use - well done!" then that's a wow word. Wow words are different depending on the age of the child. While "frequency" was a wow word for my 5 and 7 year old this morning, I would not necessarily expect it to be a wow word to an 11 year old.

Help your children by using wow words when talking to them. Using a new word and then discussing what it means and coming up with other examples of when it can be used, will expand their vocabulary and have benefits for their writing and speaking in all areas of the curriculum, at school, and at home. Having a large vocabulary can be seen to be irritatingly rather than endearingly precocious, but by teaching them to discover these new words we are increasing their confidence in using English and increasing their chances of doing well in literacy especially but in all subjects in school. So I'll put up with a little bit of irritating precociousness while I teach them what precocious means.

Is text speak a bad thing?

I've always felt proud of the fact that I'm not very good at text speak. I was in my twenties before I got my first mobile phone, and as well as being a stickler for always using good grammar and correct spelling, I'm not always the coolest kid (or adult) on the block. I've discussed text speak with other parents, and the general feeling has been that the constant use of text speak in email, text messages, and instant online chat can only be a bad thing when it comes to learning and reinforcing good grammar habits. However, an article published in the Telegraph last week made me rethink this point of view.

Researchers from Coventry University assessed primary and secondary school age children, and although their sample was relatively small, their findings seem to show that there is no evidence linking the use of text speak, with its associated poor grammar and spelling, and the understanding of grammar and aptitude for spelling amongst children when writing standard English.

Perhaps rather than indicating a lack of ability to use good grammar, it actually shows that children and teenagers have the ability to learn a new language. As well as being competently literate in standard English, kids of today are also literate in text speak, able to switch from one to the other depending on the situation. So maybe, instead of worrying that constant texting will impede the ability of our kids to write and spell correctly in other areas of life, we should celebrate their bilingualism.

Back to homework

So after the first few hectic days of trying to get the kids up early again and remembering to label everything and coping with the back-to-school nerves and hunting out PE bags that have been lost in the bottom of the wardrobe, we can breathe again. It's amazing how quickly we settle back into the routine of the school run, the sigh of relief when they're safely dropped off and they become someone else's responsibility for 6 hours, and the joy we feel as they run out of school with a smile on their face, having had a good day.

And then there's the homework. I suspect that we will get our first homework on Friday this week, but some of your children may already have been given homework assignments or books to read. Now I have mixed feelings about homework. Part of me feels that my children have worked hard enough during those 6 hours at school, so why, when they're shattered, should they have to do yet more work. And then another part of me wants to be involved in their learning, and knows how important it is to involve parents in their child's education, and so I enjoy sitting down with them and finding out what they're learning in school, and thinking up ways that I can enhance their learning of a particular topic, and help to make learning at home fun too.

Even the dullest homework activities can be adapted and made into something more exciting, with a little bit of enthusiasm from us as parents. A school reading book can be read together in the garden, in bed, or in the bath. You can tell your child to shout the words on one page, and whisper the next page. You can ask them to tell you what happens next, after the book is finished. If they want to read alone, get them to retell the story to you in their own words, or suggest they make a comic strip telling all or part of the story. Make up a wordsearch, or play hangman or other word games to help them learn their spellings. Go the the library together to find "real" books to research projects, and then sit down at the computer together too. Make a sticker chart with a reward for when they have completed their homework for the week, or a certain number of pieces of homework. Rewrite maths problems on individual cards to do one by one if a whole sheet of problems seems overwhelming, and decorate this with stickers too when they get the answers right.

Teacher friends reading this, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any teacher would mind if the homework is not returned on the same piece of paper and in the same format that it was given out on. The aim of a sheet of spellings is to learn to spell those words correctly, and returning a different sheet of paper to the 'Look, Cover, Write, Check, then write ten super sentences' one given out will not matter as long as the spellings have been learned and the sentences written. If the maths homework comes back to school on flashcards and decorated with stickers it may be a pain to fit into the child's file, but teachers can work around that I'm sure. And it's a better option than having a child who either hates homework, or refuses to do it at all.

So let's not be scared of homework this term, but embrace it with a new enthusiasm which will hopefully rub off on the kids!

Returning with confidence?

I've had a break from blogging over the summer, just like the kids have had a break from school. And returning to it, I'm not sure where to start or whether anyone is interested anyway. Maybe I'm having a crisis of confidence. A bit like my children at the start of a new term.

A new class, a new teacher, friends they haven't seen for 6 weeks - relationships change, and there's excitement about what the new term will bring, but also worries too. Worries about the challenges, both academic and social, that the new year will bring. Most children will have days when they are reluctant to go to school, whether that be the start of a new term, or just a tired Monday morning when a difficult week stretches ahead, and it's not easy to inject them with the confidence and love of school that we wish they'd always feel.

Whether your child bounced out of bed and raced to the school gate on that first day back, or whether they dragged their heels and clung to you for an extra moment for the goodbye hug, they all have to go in and face the day. Alleviate their worries by talking to them about what will happen in their new class and asking what their new teacher is like, stressing that some things are the same and that change can be positive; be organised and make sure they have everything they need for school so they don't have the worry of forgetting something or being unprepared; smile yourself and show outwardly that you are confident and happy and they will feel better. All these things and more will help your children to cope with the wobbles a new term, or even a new day can bring. And if you are lucky enough to have children who never worry about anything, count your blessings and enjoy it.

Holiday fun

My 7 year old came, quite literally, bouncing into our bedroom this morning, with excitement at the prospect of going on her school trip today. They're both off to a farm for some end of term fun, and it got me thinking about the learning that takes place outside the classroom.

We often think that these trips are just a fun day out to treat the kids at the end of a long and busy school year. They'll get to feed the goats and lambs, hold the chicks and stroke the guinea pigs, and hopefully have a play in the park if the rain holds off. When I stopped to consider it though, I realised there's a lot more to a school trip than just fun and games. I bet there's plenty of children there today who've never held a chick and stopped to consider where it comes from, and heard about the life cycle of a hen. Seeing a lamb up close and feeding it from a bottle raises questions about mammals and how they feed their young, and why sheep can't always feed more than one lamb themselves. The adventure playground and climbing frame is great exercise and can be a confidence builder for the less adventurous as they strive to keep up with their peers.

So let's continue these experiences in the school holidays. Days out, holidays, even playing in the garden are all opportunities to teach our kids something new. On a walk in the woods point out the variety of plants and see how many you can identify. (Or find out later, as we often do, as I'm useless at plant identification and have been known to take a photograph and bring it home to show my husband.) Listen to hear the sounds of different birds, and spot insects. Search in rockpools on the beach for creatures and seaweed, or talk about how fishing towns and villages along the coast have changed. The Newbiggin Maritime Museum is one of my recent discoveries - as well as being right on one of my favourite beaches in the northeast it also offers craft activities for children, a lovely cafe and interactive displays which teach about the history of Newbiggin-by-the-sea. This is just one of many great places like this around the coast.

If you're going away on holiday this year take the opportunity to sample different local foods. And not just abroad too. Here in the northeast we have stotties and pease pudding. In the midlands pork pies and stilton cheese both hail from Melton Mowbray, and yummy traditional bakewell tarts can be found in Bakewell in Derbyshire. And if you go down to Cornwall this summer don't forget to try the Cornish pasty and talk to your children about the history of mining and how the pasty was a complete meal that could be taken down the mine and eaten easily without cutlery and that stayed warm for hours.

Learning doesn't end with the school term, and while reading and practising academics in the holidays are useful, we must never underestimate the learning that takes place when we're just playing out and having fun.

Charity begins at home....

.... and with teaching our children about it. One of the most important lessons we can teach our children is how we respond to suffering in others, and how we care for people we don't even know. It's very easy to give them a pound to put in the box on a non-uniform day in school to raise money for a charity that they won't even remember the name of tomorrow, but it's much harder to teach them what it means to need the help of that charity.

I've started volunteering with a local food bank recently - we give food parcels to local families who are in real need, and I've been thrilled with the response from parents at my daughter's school who have donated food for the project. I'm always amazed at how generous people are, and the fact that it's being left in the school porch, where the children pass through every day, will hopefully mean that the kids take note of this very practical way that we can help people in need, on our doorstep.

We're taking our children to India this summer and we've tried to talk to them about the poverty we'll see while we're there, and the fact that there will be children we will meet who don't have enough to eat either, or even any toys. This second thing seems to have caught their imagination and they've started coming up with ideas of small toys and gifts that we can take to give to children that we meet - pens, bouncy balls, balloons. While I'm not sure how much difference a bouncy ball will make to an Indian child living in poverty, I'm hoping that the act of giving and thinking of others will have an effect on our children that lasts until they are adults and can make a more significant difference, by how they chose to live their lives.

Coping with disappointment

My 5 year old, who is at the end of her first year at school, has been very quiet this evening. The problem is that, in her own words, she has "worked really hard all year but didn't get the award for best work". The award, note, not an award. There is only one award given out in each year group for the child who produces the best work, and all the other children will be disappointed.

Unfortunately, such disappointments are a part of life. As adults we try our best in job interviews, but employers can't appoint all applicants, no matter how much effort and aptitude they display. How many of us felt the pain of unrequited love as a teenager when we failed, despite our best efforts, to win the heart of a gorgeous god/goddess and watched them fall for our friend instead? And after all Andy Murray's hard work and training, he still failed to lift the winner's cup at Wimbledon. That's life; there's often only one "winner", and my daughter, at the tender age of 5, feels like a "loser".

Cuddles, banana and chocolate cake, and lots of praise and reassurance have been my tactics. Acknowledging her feelings and allowing her to feel upset, while at the same time attempting to boost her confidence by pointing out the good school report she received, the positive comments from her teacher, and the great work she's done this year. Awards day in school happens once a year, but she knows that her and her sister get the awards for the best children in the world, from me, every day.

How much to say?

Whilst listening to the news on the radio recently, my 7 year old asked me what the word murder meant. It was one of those moments where you wonder how much to say and how far this conversation will go. And, as usual, I was surprised when it wasn't the definition of murder that interested her, but rather the subsequent discussion on mental illness. She found it difficult to grasp the concept of mental illness, and I'm not sure how far my attempts to explain how being mentally ill can affect a person's behaviour, were grasped by her.

How far do we go when our children ask us these questions? While we want to preserve their innocence for as long as possible, we have to accept that we live in the real world and they will hear things and see things that we don't necessarily want them to, and before we think they are ready. When they don't have the vocabulary or maturity to fully comprehend something as difficult as murder or mental illness it's tempting to shy away from the subject completely, but I believe that we have a responsibility to address the issues that our children ask about. Our knowledge of our own children and how much they can deal with will dictate how far we go with an explanation, but to dismiss their questions entirely does them a disservice and runs the risk that they will stop asking us altogether.

Boys and Reading

The National Literacy Trust has this week published a report showing evidence that boys are falling behind girls when it comes to reading. Carried out by the All-Party Parliamentary Literacy Group Boys’ Reading Commission (now there's a mouthful!), the report states that at age eleven 20% of boys are failing to reach the expected level in reading, compared with only 12% of girls. The Commission also found that boys are more likely to want to watch TV than read a book and that they struggle to find books that interest them.

So why are boys not turned on by reading? And what can we do to help? I think this starts very early on at home, before children even start school. The gender stereotypes that we all claim to try and do away with nevertheless take hold, and parents find themselves playing lots of active games with their boys, claiming they have lots of energy and need to be on the go. Girls on the other hand are encouraged to be gentle and love doing “crafty things”. Even by the time they get to toddlers I can see a preference in many of the boys for racing round the room and playing on the cars and bikes, while the girls come over to the “messy lady” (that’s me) and sit quietly to glue and stick and draw. They’re encouraged to try writing their name and identify the shapes and colours and letters that I have out on the table. Maybe I’m guilty myself, of subconsciously making more effort to welcome and encourage the girls, thinking they’ll get more out of it, and allowing the boys to be boys, and run off their energy. The National Literacy Trust also found that boys are less likely to be given books as presents, and that role models in schools are more likely to be female (either staff who teach reading or volunteers who come in and help with reading).

Boys may not want to sit quietly for hours and read a book – some do of course, and we must be careful of making generalisations - but we can encourage our boys; our own children and the boys that we know, by praising them when they do spend some time, even 5 minutes, reading. We can make sure there’s a wide choice of reading material to choose from: comics, adventure books, non-fiction books, books linked to their favourite TV programmes, even sticker books. We can ensure they get positive messages about reading from men – grandfathers, fathers, uncles and friends of the family can be asked to talk to them about their favourite books and what they like reading. So often reading is seen as uncool for boys, so to get a positive message from a man about reading is very powerful, for both boys and girls.

A last word from me: Make books fun. Having the time to read a book, either together or alone should be a treat and something we enjoy, not a chore. Being passionate and enthusiastic about reading is vital to your child’s learning, so don’t be afraid to dance around the room when reciting a favourite poem or put on silly voices for different characters – if they see you engaged and enjoying yourself, they will be too.

Spelling Stress

We're coming to the end of the school year and we're all tired in our house. Things that we've coped with all year have now become a huge deal and we had a meltdown after school today over spellings. The rule in our house is that when we come home from school we spend anything from a few minutes to half an hour at the kitchen table, having a snack, chatting about the day and doing some homework. Today I decided to ignore the rules and the kids took their snacks into the garden while I sat down at the computer. There's no point in getting stressed over spellings when you're 7 (or 36), so I decided to try a new approach. I might get into trouble with the teacher, but at this point I'm going to take my chances, so I decided to make our own spelling sheet. By chance, this week's spellings are countries, so I found a helpful website and copied and pasted flags into a word document, and then made a wordsearch containing all of the spellings. Took up a bit of my time, but hey, if it works it's worth the stress free homework time tomorrow. 
I'm still trying to work out how to link the word document that I've created to this blog but feel free to post a comment below and I'll happily email it to you! 

Rose-tinted "progress"

I used to live in India. I taught at a school there with my husband, and my eldest daughter was born while we lived there. The pace of life was less hectic, we were a lot less stressed and we had loads of friends. We never argued with each other, and never had disagreements with work colleagues. The surroundings were beautiful and we had no issues with pollution, or water supply, or bills. The weather was always sunny, but not too hot. Hang on a minute - was it really that good? We're going back for a holiday this summer, which I think is a really good idea because we've started to look back with rose-tinted spectacles, remembering only the good times, and are beginning to think about working abroad again. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but it will do us good to be reminded of some of the frustrations and difficulties of living in India before we go any further down that path.

My point here is that we all, at times, look back on the past as being some kind of golden age. Maybe not our own childhood, but we can all imagine a time when things were better, and the phrases "When we were kids..." and "It never did me any harm..." are commonplace among parents. And the Government too it seems. Michael Gove, the secretary of state for education has now announced that he would like a return to O-Levels, qualifications that were scrapped when I was just starting secondary school. If change is needed to our education system (although I'm not convinced that such radical changes are needed) then surely we should be looking at moving forwards, not back to something that was deemed to be outdated in the 1980s. Mr Gove seems to be under the impression that a return to the way things were done when my parents were at school will better equip our children to live in the 21st century. That's right, a system that educated children to live and work in the 1960s and 70s, to be reintroduced today. Hmm.

If we want our children to succeed in the system that the Government imposes on them, then we will have to roll with the changes, and attempt to keep up to date with the methods and strategies that Gove sees fit to introduce. Progress and change are not bad or scary words but Gove has me in a tizzy at the moment - what on earth will he come out with next? At the end of the day spending time with my children and taking an interest in what they are doing (whatever that is!) at each stage of their education is the best way to help and support them and that's what I'll continue to do, whether that be learning Latin with them, or helping them to revise for their O-Levels.

Getting letters dackwarbs

Many children get their letters and numbers backwards at some point, and this is perfectly normal, but as parents, we do worry about it. If your child is 7, 8 or even older and still getting (or starting to get) their 'b' and 'd' mixed up, don't despair - chances are they will get the hang of it eventually, but extra stress from you isn't necessarily going to help!

The most common confusion is over 'b' and 'd' but talking to parents and teachers it seems that children can struggle with most letters, and with their numbers too. It's hard to get 'o' wrong, but other regular culprits include 'g', 'j', 'p', 'z', 'h', and 's', and in the number family '2', '3', '5' and '7' can be tricky, as can remembering that twelve is written as '12', not '21'. So what we can do to help our children? Here's a list of tips:

• Gently correct your child when you see them make a mistake. Saying something like "This is the way we write the letter 'b'. Do you want to try?", can be much more effective than being too strict or worrying them.
• Use a try of sand or foam to trace the shapes of letters and numbers with your fingers. They can copy yours or do their own, but get them to focus on the letters and numbers they struggle with.
• When you're reading together, point out the letters they are finding difficult to write, and talk about them. The more they see the correct letter, the more likely they are to be able to identify their own mistakes because their writing will 'look wrong'.
• Play a tracing game on your hand where you close your eyes and ask your child to trace a letter on the palm of your hand. They will want to get it the right way round so that you can guess the right letter; then do it to them.
• Don't be afraid to talk to the class teacher if you are worried. Chances are they will be able to reassure you and give you some more tips to try at home.
• Lastly, don't stress about it too much. Your child may pick up on your worry and become reluctant to try and write, thereby making the problem worse.

Interestingly, I have read that some teachers find that it is the more able children in their classes who continue to get their letters the wrong way round. They seem to be focussing so much on getting their complex thoughts and ideas down on paper that the task on concentrating on the detail is forgotten, and getting their letters the right way round becomes unimportant when the creative juices are flowing!

Kitchen learning

OK, so it's not easy to find the time to make a marvellous home cooked meal and dessert every day for the family, let alone involve our kids in making it. How many of us have the time to spend hours slaving over a complicated, nutritious meal that the whole family will enjoy? Other things take precedence - work, after school clubs, housework, homework. The question of whether you sit with your children and coax them to complete their homework, or whether you leave them to it, believing that it should be something that is completed independently, is one that can be left for another day.  But if we want to spend time with our kids helping them with their learning, and cook a meal for the family, why not combine the two?

Recently my daughter's homework involved identifying items bought from the supermarket that were measured in millilitres and litres. While I was cooking I was able to ask her how many millilitres a bottle of oil holds, and how many millilitres is in a half litre bottle of milk. Measuring things is an important part of the maths curriculum in primary school, and involving your child in measuring ingredients and talking to them about grams and millilitres is great practice for them. Even younger children can be involved in measuring and working with quantities. Before they begin to use standard measurements they can count the number of spoonfuls or cups to be put into a recipe, and they love to try breaking the right number of eggs into the bowl when making a cake. (Beware, this takes some practice - there's many a time I've ended up with raw egg all over the floor or the table)

Another important aspect of involving children in cooking is teaching them about healthy eating. Talk to them about why you're cooking a particular meal and the importance of a balanced diet. Show them that taking the time (even when you don't think you've got much of it to spare!) to make a nutritious meal, and then sit down and eat as a family, is something you value and try to do as often as you can. For fussy eaters, getting them involved in the preparation of a meal can be a great way to get them to try something new. If they're made it themselves they're more likely to want to eat it.

I know that we live in the real world, and we don't always have the time or the patience to use the mad rush of cooking the evening meal as a learning opportunity for the kids, but once in while let them make a mess in the kitchen and help you cook the dinner - you might be surprised at how much they learn.

The guilty pleasure of television

There's been much coverage in the news in recent years about the links between children watching too much television and obesity, ADHD, lack of early language development skills, lack of social skills... The list goes on. And of course, as parents we feel guilty.

It's very easy as a parent to feel guilty. We joke about being "rubbish mothers" but how genuine is that laughter? We know that our children shouldn't watch too much television, and when we're expecting our first child, we have all kinds of good intentions. I told myself that my children would watch no television until they were two years old; I would never take them to McDonalds or feed them sausage rolls; we wouldn't have a house full of plastic junk; they weren't going to be surrounded by pink (if they were girls) or blue (if they were boys). How quickly these good intentions vanish into thin air when faced with a long car journey, a hungry toddler and a big yellow M appearing as if the fairy godmother has just waved her magic wand. Or a tired, grumpy child, and a tired grumpy mother who can sit and cuddle up on the sofa together in front of good old cbeebies. And so I soon learned to let go of some of my guilt when it comes to television.

I'm not suggesting that letting your children spend all day glued to a screen is in any way good for them, but at times we all need a break and television is a very easy way of providing us with this break. However to get the most out of television there's loads we can do, grabbing the opportunity for a cuddle being just one of them. Talking to your child about television programmes can help with language skills. Describing how things happened in sequence and how they felt about certain characters or situations are a way of helping your child to develop essential literacy skills which will help them in school. Use a television programme as a starting point for a trip to the library to find out more about the topic, or even to find more stories about their favourite characters. Jump up and dance to the theme tunes (it'll make them laugh at you even if they don't join in!) or act out favourite episodes after watching them. 

I have met families who have banned tv altogether and don't even own a television. While very noble, and in my experience capable of producing children who are academically successful, there is something of the nerd about these families, and children who cannot join in with conversations about the latest episode of Spongebob Squarepants or BGT may find themselves at a social disadvantage.

I love watching television, and I don't want to deny my children the pleasure, but if it can be educational for them, all the better. 

Rhyme, but no reason?

The education secretary Michael Gove is set to announce plans later this week to make the teaching of English more rigorous in primary schools. While I have no problem with this in theory - we should indeed evaluate the education system on a regular basis to ensure that our children are getting the best possible education, I do have a problem with the idea that we should "start" to teach poetry "as young as the age of 5". Well, I don't know about you, but I was teaching poetry to my children before they could speak. And my parents did the same for me. As yours probably did too. So this is nothing new Mr Gove.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star"; "Baa, baa black sheep"; "Incy, wincy spider"; "Pat a cake, pat a cake" - are these not poems? My children could recite these and many more by the age of 3. I share poetry books with them at home; both traditional poems such as "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear and modern stories in rhyme like "The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson. Young children are able to predict the rhyme at the end of a line. Read them the words: "Poor Tyrannosaurus Drip tried hard to sing along, But the others yelled, 'You silly drip, you've got the words all...'" and wait for them to shout "Wrong!" (Julia Donaldson again, in "Tyrannosaurus Drip")

When mine started nursery they enjoyed the delights of Michael Rosen in fabulous books such as "Little Rabbit Foo Foo" and "We're Going on a Bear Hunt". They were encouraged to join in and came home quoting their favourite bits to me. At the age of three. When Christmas time came and they were starring in their first nativity play, they learned to sing the words of "Upsy Daisy Angel". Again they were both 3 years old.

So what I want to know is whether Michael Gove has spent any time with primary school age children recently, and actually asked them about their favourite rhymes, stories and poems. He might be surprised that parents and teachers are actually doing a pretty good job already of teaching poetry to children aged 5. And much younger.

What time is it?

My children love this question. "What time is it Mammy?" is a regular utterance in our house. Why they need to know the time, I'm not sure. They are only 5 and 7 after all, and during the school holidays we're all more relaxed about bedtimes and mealtimes, so it's even less important. With no school day to start or appointments to get to, we can chill out about the time. And yet they still like to know.

I encourage them to have a go themselves. My 5 year old can tell me the o'clock, and is starting to get to grips with half past. The 7 year old has got the hang of quarter past and quarter to, but when they asked me the time at twenty to eight the other evening, the discussion that followed got rather complicated. How is seven-forty the same as twenty to eight? Why, when the long hand is pointing to the eight, does that make forty minutes?  Or twenty minutes to something?

Part of the problem is, of course, the fact that we have different ways of saying the same thing. So half past three is the same as three-thirty; ten forty-five is a quarter to eleven; twelve o'clock is midday (or midnight if your children can stay up that late). The five year old happened to ask me, at midday today if it was morning or afternoon. She likes to make sure she hasn't missed a meal, so this is a common question; if it's afternoon she should have had her lunch. We were in the car at midday and so had to hurry home to eat! But was it morning or afternoon? Well, neither, at the exact moment she asked me. And that started another discussion about time.

With preschoolers, parents can help teach time by talking about times of the day, and the order in which we do things. "It's breakfast time now, then we'll get dressed and after that it's time to go to the toddler group." Think back over the day with your two or three year old and talk about what they've done, and the order that things happened in. This gets them understanding that time is sequential, and that there are certain times for certain activities. Make a clock with a paper plate, some hands cut out of cards and a split pin so you can move the hands around, and let them play around, looking at the numbers and beginning to show them the time on the hour. This will be great preparation for starting school and learning to tell the time. Talking about the past as well is as important as times of the day. When you were a baby; when I was a little girl; in the olden days (which is very subjective, as was brought home to me when we were watching Back to the Future a few weeks ago, a film guaranteed to cause confusion around time concepts, and my 7 year old asked me if it was made in the olden days? Yes, when I was your age!)

Show your child different types of clocks and watches. My watch has no numbers on the face, but my children still like to look at it and see if they can work out the time. Our alarm clock in the bedroom is digital and they know that this is a different type of clock, although understanding how the digital display relates to an analogue clock face is tricky. Making a sundial is a great, and very simple activity. Next time you spend a sunny day on the beach, put a stick in the sand and mark where the shadow falls, then keep coming back to it during the day and marking the hours, talking about the way the sun moves across the sky and the shadow moves.  "What's the time Mr Wolf?" is a game I remember from school. Play this with your children; as well as being great fun, they start to learn the language of telling the time. There's loads of online games to help kids with time telling too. One of my favourites is on the bbc bitesize page but there are lots more out there.

Once children have been at school for some time and can confidently count in ones, they will begin to learn to count in twos, tens, and then, importantly, in fives. This step is vital for advanced time telling later on, as when you can count in fives up to sixty, you can count round the clock and get to 10 past, 25 past or 55 minutes past. And then if you can subtract you can make the connection between knowing that there are sixty minutes in an hour, so 55 minutes past is 5 to the next hour. We don't do this calculation of course, every time we look at a clock. Experience and practice teaches us that when the long hand is pointing to the 11 on a clock face, it's five to the hour.

Learning to tell the time is difficult; children won't grasp it overnight, and it takes years to progress from playing with a home made paper plate clock to being able to confidently state that the time is twenty to eight from looking at a watch with no numbers. But we can help our kids by talking to them about time, playing games with them, and helping them to use clocks and watches themselves.