-BAM! Body, Mind and Child - Preparing Your Child's Body and Mind for Life!

According to our guest, homeschooling is not what it used to be nor what many people think it is. If you haven't looked at homeschooling in a while this may be a good time to update your understanding -- before the next school terms starts.

All of our guests in this segment seem to agree that today's parents are very different from generations past. They cite diverse examples and offer a variety of reasons, but all prescribe useful tips to help today's teachers survive today's parents.

In America, early childhood professionals often look at parents as pests rather than partners in the education process. Some teachers dread the prospect of meeting with parents, and parents often are less than thrilled with their interactions with teachers. This segment looks at barriers to teacher-parent collaboration and offers bridge-building strategies.

Every teacher knows that when the children go outside to play, that's the time for teachers to have a break and for children to do their own thing. Well, today’s guests say that play time is not break time and savvy teachers put as much thought into planning play time as they put into planning the rest of the school day.

According to a recent study, 98 percent of teachers are using punishments and rewards for classroom management, but are they really effective? Are there better ways to motivate young students? If so, why are sticks and carrots so popular? In this segment we explore the difference between classroom management and discipline and look at creative strategies aimed at promoting internal motivation in students.

There has been some buzz around the topic of creating a national common core curriculum. The notion has engendered quite a bit of push back, raising fears of loss of local control. We invited two education advocates and a practicing teacher join us to explore the implications.

Are boys’ brains and girls’ brains fundamentally different? If there are differences, are they significant – and do they really matter in the context of teaching? In this segment our guests identify and attempt to debunk the big myths about teaching boys versus teaching girls.

"Great job!" "That was very good!" Teachers and parents use phrases like these everyday to give positive reinforcement to children. But are we creating praise-addicted children by giving them too much unwarranted, rote and excessive praise? Turns out that positive reinforcement can be negative. In this segment our guests give us the basics on how to get it right

Despite a plethora of research in the area of early childhood education, much of it is not being transferred into practice. In this segment we explore why this disconnect exists and what needs to happen to build a bridge between, research, policy and practice.

Many believe that there is a correlation between the quality of a child's handwriting and their literacy and intelligence. Others assert that there is no relevant connection and, more importantly, that the advent of computers makes practicing handwriting less important.