It has been such a joy to work with Head Start teacher Rania and her preschoolers on the Next Generation Preschool apps over the last two years! Here’s a short video from our last visit of the school year (thanks to a third party app called Magisto!):
We’re sad to see some of our young friends graduate from preschool, but excited for what their lives will bring! Good luck, and many thanks to Head Start, Rania, and her class!!
We’re thrilled to announce the third installment of our Gracie & Friends apps, Treasure Bubbles, has been released and is now available to download for the iPad from the Apple App Store!
We’re so happy to share the Gracie & Friends City Skate app with you all — now available for download to the iPad in the Apple App Store!
After four years of National Science Foundation-funded research and development, our team launched the first of the eight game apps last week! Our iPad app Gracie & Friends Birthday Café is now available in the Apple App Store!
The app is part of Early Math with Gracie & Friends™— our new, mobile app series and math curriculum supplement developed by the First 8 Studios at WGBH team under the Next Generation Preschool Math project. A randomized control trial demonstrated significant learning gains among the children who used the apps.
The hands-on activities are currently available at the First 8 Studios at WGBH Web site! The remaining apps will be released in the Apple App Store over the upcoming months, and the digital Teacher’s Guide will be released in early 2015.
Our own Christine Zanchi, Executive Producer, says, “The Gracie & Friends apps are laying the research foundation for how to use technology with young children. Our research and preschool partners, the teachers and children, are integral to this process. As this and other projects demonstrate, public media has an incredible role to play in setting the bar for mobile learning.”
We’re so excited to share our work with the world!
In a recent blog post, we shared a USA Today article about the importance of exposing children to math ideas early. In her latest piece for the Huffington Post, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger describes how her grandfather taught her to see the math in her own world when she was a young child.
Kerger is hoping to give all parents and caretakers the tools to provide for their children what her grandfather provided for her. Following a survey of parents and their attitudes towards teaching math to their children, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are launching a new “It All Adds Up” initiative with the goal of pulling together math videos, games, activities, and tips.
Check out the PBS KIDS Lab website to see one (or one hundred!) of these great resources. Be sure to scroll all the way down to see the “Math Activity of the Day” and “Ideas To Go” sections, which include quick and easy suggestions for parents. We’re planning to have a similar section in our Teacher’s Guide where teachers can get quick ideas on how to get kids engaged in math, math talk, collaboration, and more!
Stay tuned for more updates on our Teacher’s Guide and our games and activities as we begin the summer work of moving from alpha builds to beta builds!
There’s other evidence that math matters early in life.”
New studies show that math ability in secondary school and beyond can be predicted in first grade or earlier. An article in USA Today summarizing recent research in the effects of early math instruction on later math success describes a study done out of the University of Missouri which found that seventh graders who performed poorly on a test of core math skills were those who had lagged behind in number sense and math fluency as first graders.
The profound effect that early math education can have on a child’s educational trajectory should therefore not be underestimated. Parents and caretakers are encouraged to build children’s number sense from “as soon as they’re born,” says Mann Koepke, of NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. How? Check out the article for tips on how to get your child on the path to developing math fluency!
From Phil, a fantastic justification for what we’re doing.
blog.first8studios.org 