The University of Childhood Foundation

16/02/2022

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Follow their social media accounts and always be up to date on news about education around the world. Bonus: learn english and be part of an international community!

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01/12/2021

“Children are not little idiots,” - Teacher Tom talks about the importance of play in early childhood education during conference. Watch the clip and tell us your opinion on play approach to the preschool education!⚡️

09/11/2021

🚩On November 17, the 125th anniversary of the birth of Lev Vygotsky, an international round table "The role of Vygotsky in solving the problems of giftedness" will be held. Anyone can join by following the link is at the end of this post.

Why should you join?

✅To discuss with experts the difficulties of learning, playing, the role of an adult, the development of creativity and higher (cultural) mental functions, as well as the prospects for the development of cultural and historical psychology, its theory and practice in different countries

✅To get acquainted with the experience of the development of cultural and historical psychology in Russia, Greece, USA, Japan, Spain, Brazil and Poland

✅To hear a report by Ekaterina Rybakova, founder of the University of Childhood Foundation, co-founder and president of the Rybakov Foundation, on the role of philanthropic organizations in the implementation of relevant and effective principles of personality development according to Vygotsky (13:30 Moscow Time)

🚩Find more information and sign up here:
https://universityofchildhood.org/

💥Free entry

04/11/2021

💥💥💥Game 4D project by The University of Childhood community has been selected as one of the 100 most effective and scalable educational innovations for the Global Collection of 2022 !💥💥💥
https://hundred.org/en/innovations/game-4d

⭐More than 600 experts from 100 countries were involved in the selection process and then formed the lists of winners!⚡Our project has passed 4 stages of selection among thousands of other applications!😃We are incredibly proud the project’s contribution was recognized!
🎉🎉🎉We congratulate and thank the organizers of the project, the «Game 4D» has been living, developing and bringing joy and benefit to teachers and parents for 4 years by now!

💬A member of the HundrED Academy called the "4D Game" an effective initiative for playing on the street and noted the high scalability at the expense of the University of Childhood community - thanks to our residents for this!💛

The project is aimed at promoting the outdoor games culture and involves an online community of play advocates, a shared bank of games and regular playing "flash mobs". It was developed by a group of early-childhood educators, winners of the Vygotsky Competition, while attending the Summer...

28/10/2021

✨The new edition of “Asking children” is in the making and we invite you to join!

Do you have many friends? And what about your children? What do they know about friendship?
✔1. Ask your child these questions
✔2. Record their answer on video(horizontal format is preferable)
✔3. Send it to [email protected] until the 29th of November, 2021
✔4. We will combine your responses in one video and share it within the community.

👍🏻 Share this post with your fellow educators so that we hear more interesting opinions of different kids from all over the world!

22/10/2021

🎶The importance of Family Engagement in Music Education
💬When families are given the tools to engage musically with their children, they discover that they are helping them to become more confident in creating music and supporting their growth.
💬It’s enjoyable to engage in music activities with your children. Teaching music through games and activities is a fun way to incorporate early music education into your children’s lives. Music is a way for families to have fun together and help to relieve stress.
💫Here are some musical activities to try at home!
🎵Dance with your children and share the experience together. Play a recording of a song and move to the beat. This activity strengthens the feel for the beat through different movements.
🎵Share your own favorite tunes. While dancing say "freeze!" and stop the music. See what funny positions you both finish up with. How long can you stay in that position?
🎵Find recordings of quality music and play songs with a beat and have the children move, clap, tap, or play percussion instruments. Another possibility is to create a story, working movements that reflect a steady beat while telling a story.
🎵Singing is a wonderful activity. Play a game that involves your children having to repeat the musical sounds that you make. You can also choose a song that your children can learn, counting songs or certain songs to introduce a topic.
🎵How do the claves, tambourine, xylophone, boomwhackers, sound?
Play the sounds of different instruments and ask the children to identify them. You can make each level more complicated by playing two or three instruments together.
🎵Have the children listen to examples of music played loudly and softly. Make cards with the symbols L (loudly) and S (softly). Ask them to respond by pounding or clapping when their symbol is displayed.
🎵Play percussion instruments (rhythm sticks, egg shakers, bells, tambourines, xylophones, boomwhackers) in different tempos and dynamics. Switch and mix them up (fast and loud, soft and slow, fast and soft, slow and loud).
🎵Give your children a piece of paper and colored pencils. Choose some music to listen to and as they listen, let them draw how the music makes them feel.
Make Musical Instruments for Sustainable Fun. It’s easy, it’s fun and you will help the environment by reusing materials in creative ways🎼.

15/10/2021

Effie Bachtsevana (Greece) a Creative Music Teacher, an International Author and Educationist, Creator of the first Boomwhackers Orchestra and Author of Let’s Play boomwhackers method “Learn English through Music and Play” for Kindergarten and Primary School; "The Importance of Music in Childhood Development"
The Importance of Music in Childhood Development

Music is a universal language that sets off emotional responses and kick-starts creativity.
An ancient Greek Philosopher Plato once said that music “is a more potent instrument than any other for education”.

🎵Music activities in early childhood education can accelerate brain development, especially in the areas of language, reading and math.
🎵Music ignites all areas of child development including motor skills and confidence. It improves socialize behaviors such as leadership, cooperation and discipline.
🎵Music can offer opportunities to create, compose and to brainstorm (sense of achievement)
🎵It helps problem solving through listening by thinking outside the box.
🎵Children learn social skills, taking turns, sharing ideas and playing together.
Introducing music in the early childhood years can help them to gain a positive and creative outlet of self-expression and emotions. Through music children develop a sense of creativity, intellectual curiosity and imagination.

Exposing children to music play during early development helps them to learn the sounds and meanings of words. Songs and rhymes can expand a child’s vocabulary and their ability to use the language correctly.
🎶Children enjoy playing with percussion instruments like claves, triangles, shakers, bells, drums and boomwhackers.
🎶They like to tap or beat the rhythm of songs that repeat words and melodies. They enjoy playing nursery rhymes, songs and poems using rhythms with a clear beat.
🎶Action rhymes encourage children to move their bodies and develop their motor skills. They also learn listening skills as they need to pay attention to the words in order to follow the actions of certain songs.
🎶The repeated nature of songs and rhymes allows children to work on their memory skills.
🎶Music in early childhood is also a social experience.
Singing the same songs in kindergarten or at music groups is a great way for them to come together and enjoy a shared culture with other children.
Co-ordinate, concentrate and taking group decisions, can be learned through many musical activities. Such as action rhymes, making musical instruments from recyclable material (e.g. maracas) music games (e.g. learning the colors with boomwhackers) and dancing.
Music is FUN!!!

07/09/2021

For the University of Childhood this academic year began with a speech at the 30th ECCERA International Conference. Irina Bykadorova, the Foundation’s CEO, and Galina Laponova, the executive director, presented the achievements of the foundation at a poster session, together with our colleague from the USA Elena Bodrova; they spoke about the community, joint projects and the Rybakov Preschool Award.

Researchers from the UK, Sweden, Canada, Estonia, Turkey and Finland also spoke during the session. The speakers shared their successful experiences in the field of preschool education, innovations, and talked about projects aimed at supporting families and teachers.

This year, more than 500 speakers from all over the world will present their works at the ECCERA online conference, which will take place from September 1 to 17.

06/08/2021

🌍Irina Bykadorova and Galina Laponova spoke at the symposium «Reintroducing play into early childhood education: the role of social cultural context» under the 6th ISCAR International Congress, which took place in Brazil from July 30 to August 7.

Every three years, the ISCAR International Congress creates a space for dialogue between those whose work is rooted in the study of cultural and historical theory. The ISCAR takes place in Seville, San Diego, Rome, Sydney and Quebec.

Our colleagues discussed the problems of children's play and presented the projects of the University of Childhood Foundation related to this topic.

04/08/2021

🌍The “University of Childhood” community is popular among teachers not only in Russia but all over the world. This year, thanks in part to a new nomination called the Education Community Leader, we were joined by colleagues from Ghana, Guatemala, Colombia, Kenya, Greece, Hungary, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Romania, who, as the winners of Rybakov Preschool Award, presented their projects and shared experiences at the Summer School.

✅Educators told us how to establish a learning process based on fairytales, ✅how to learn English joyfully through music and games at an early age,
✅how to develop a child's neural connections and teach them to feel their body,
✅how to learn to recognize problems that are indicated by a strange behaviour of a child instead of seeing this behaviour as a characteristic of a “troubled” kid.

💯But the most important thing, as one of the speakers noted, is that teachers from all over the world are interested in raising happy children and helping families along this path in all possible ways. This is our main and common mission.

😉By the way, Jaddy Brigitte Nielsen from Colombia, whose presentation was on learning foreign languages through the mobile application designed by her team, invited Russian colleagues to join the project. They are planning to add Russian language to the app in the nearest future. So feel free to contact her in case you’re interested!💡

Furthermore, the participants created an international podcast, curated by the expert of the laboratory of socio-cultural educational practices of MCPU, the host of the podcast “It will not work to write off” on RBC trends, Maxim Bulanov. Make sure to check this out! You will learn about new means of interaction between teachers and families and discover the wonderful world of preschoolers in other countries!

What will your children remember about their childhood. It is what you do with children that counts not what you do for them. The best Memories are formed at formed at the early years. Use the Early-Years to form great connections with your young children and see their life evolve into greatness. An...

27/07/2021

💯Our time is interesting because you can see how values, norms, mindsets are changing. Similar changes are taking place in the field of education, affecting both parents and teachers. There is a transformation in the relationships between the teacher and the child, the parent and the teacher, etc. More and more frequently, we talk about the need to focus on the family as the main participant in the educational process. It is no coincidence that the main theme of the Summer School 2021 is “Family in Focus”.

📍An eponymous discussion took place today with the participation of Ekaterina Rybakova, Olga Shiyan, Natalia Schensnovich and Egor Bakhotsky
https://youtu.be/9H2tUwOxF8M
❗The experts discussed how to build a model of partnership in the relations between a family and an educational institution, and how to solve conflict situations.

✏Parents want their child to be happy, they care about their health and security, but they talk about preparation for school. They want the good, but they ask for the old. We can influence their demand.

✏A conflict is something that moves us forward. There are conflicts that help us develop, but there are also domestic disputes that burn us out and ruin the relationships inside the family. And it is important to be able to manage them.

✏There should be a common space opened for the discussion of ideas, where there isn’t the only correct opinion — of a teacher or a parent, — but there is an internal belief that it is allowed to debate.

✏We are used to explaining everything to parents. But what we need to do is to ask questions. Once you learn to do it, you’ll see the effect immediately. There is no resource in the problem, the resource is in the goal. Define it.

✏Look at the child from the perspective of a psychologist, two teachers, a guidance counsellor, a parent, analyse your behaviour, create the tradition of conversing, and remember that we should all be on the side of the child.
https://youtu.be/9H2tUwOxF8M

27/07/2021

🚀The Fifth! The Newest! The Brightest!

☀The Summer School for Rybakov Preschool Award winners is opened!

⭐96 people from all over Russia gathered together at the Summer School 2021. There are kindergarten supervisors, educators, school teachers and students among them. New acquaintances, fresh insights, collaborative projects, unforgettable impressions and an intensive course from the best experts who support the values of high-quality preschool education await them here!

Another feature of this year is that the co-creation of the Rybakov Foundation impact partners — the University of Childhood Foundation, RYBAKOV PLAYSCHOOL and RYBAKOV PROKIDS — made the competition transform to a new format, invariably changing the Summer School!

💬Ekaterina Rybakova, founder of the University of Childhood Foundation, co-founder, and President of the Rybakov Foundation, gave an inspiring speech to participants at the opening: “We are sure that after you return to work, to the children with whom you work, every one of them will feel the changes that will inevitably happen to you. Moreover, you will tell your colleagues about what you learn, share your energy, your inspiration, your discoveries with them, and those children with whom they work will also feel these changes. That’s how, painstakingly, with small steps, together we are changing preschool education every day.”

💬Irina Bykadorova, The University of Childhood CEO, said that thanks to the competition, organized and invented by Ekaterina and Igor Rybakovy, colleagues from Mexico, Greece, Guatemala and many other countries joined the today's chat of the Summer School as the winners of the Education Community Leader nomination: “These people will also speak here about what they do and share their experience. It is very interesting that the topics that concern international preschool educators resonate strongly with what we’re working on”.

📍On the first day, our educators took part in a networking session, where they upgraded their creativity, intuition, idea-spotting and negotiating skills;
📍They discussed Andrey Tarkovsky’s film “The Steamroller and the Violin”(that, by the way, we recommend strongly!)
📍They laughed, walked, and talked a lot.

But the story only gets better!💛

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