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By: http://ilearntechnology.com

What it is: Can Do Street is a website that has games, lessons, and videos focused on character development for young students.  The site is membership based but does have some free content. Hector’s Being Selfish is a free video on the site that teaches students what it means to be selfish.  The cartoon is easy to understand and helps kids recognize selfishness and what it means to be a good friend.  Throughout the video, students are given the chance to interact by answering questions.

How to integrate Hector’s Being Selfish into the classroom: This videos helps children recognize selfishness and offers ways that they can be a good friend.  Character education needs to be taught, we can’t expect that all children will naturally pick it up.  Kids come from different backgrounds and differing expectations at home.  Hector’s Being Selfish is a good video to begin the school year with, and would be a great reminder mid-year.  Watch the video as a whole class and invite students to vote on their answers throughout the video.

Advertising is now being accepted for this Parent /Teacher blog. Please check out the ad information for sizes  and  costs . Ads will be appropriate to the interests of parents and teachers. For more information about advertising please contact jeanc@candostreet.com or call Jean at  212-727-8477

Be sure to check out a new addition to the “Can Do” Street digital coloring game, “My Mouse Can Color.”

We have all been there. Perhaps it was when you watched in horror, as a date slurped soup from the spoon that was held in a manner similar to Beast in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” Maybe it was the way that a friend ordered the server around at brunch with such disdain that you knew your pancakes were going to have a little bit of the “special sauce.” Or how about the child that walked up to your table and took a French fry? Those instances might seem trite, but they all indicate the decline of social graces. Watching that child take what was not rightfully his (or hers!) without any sort of consequence demonstrates the imperative need to return social skills to modern society.

On January 12,2009, Perri Klass had an article published in The New York Times that discussed the need to instill social skills into [your] children. “Making Room for Miss Manners Is a Parenting Basic” made a case for teaching children manners because it is what will ensure their success later in life. Completely agreeing with the doctors’ assessment of a child in the examining room: the behavior that is displayed there is a microcosm and a precursor of what is to come…

Early childhood is the optimal time to educate young children, as their minds are like sponges. Learned behaviors become innate, so it is imperative to teach them social skills at such an impressionable stage. Enter EtiKids: the program presents a foundation of necessary life skills, which incorporate cognitive, social, emotional and physical domains. Children will use the senses of touch, smell, sight and sound to understand and manipulate their environment- a tall order for such little people. It has been working though.  Parents have reported that their children are now correcting them; ensuring that mouths are closed while chewing and “pleases and thank yous,” said.  Rest assured that these kids would not eat the French fries off of my plate! And of course their parents will ask me politely, rather than demand my assistance.

Julie Blacker is the director and owner of EtiKids, a program that teachers social skills and school skills to children in a fun and developmentally appropriate manner.  Visit www.etikids.com for more information.

There are three “Can Do” Kids that have disabilities. Annie wears a hearing aid because she has  hearing loss. Orrie uses a wheelchair to get around and Mickey is blind. These characters are there to introduce young children visiting  “Can Do’ Street  to kids who can do much of what they can do despite the fact that they may look different to them.

Mickey and his dog Muggins make children aware of the role of a guide dog. Mickey talks about how Braille enables him to read music so he can play the saxophone. Annie shows visitors that her hearing loss doesn’t prevent her from being good at basketball or playing the drums in the community center band. Orrie needs a wheelchair to get around, but he can swim, is a straight A student and sings in the community center chorus.

These characters show young visitors to “Can Do” Street that kids with disabilities make good friends who don’t let their disabilities get in the way of having fun.

Hi, I’m Diane Hopkins. Not only do I play the role of a nurse on “Can Do” Street, I am a nurse!

In the interactive program, Germs, I  speak to the “Can Do” Kids about what germs are and how to avoid them so they don’t get sick. When your child plays the program he or she gets to make decisions for the “Can Do” Kids, helping them avoid germs and practice good personal hygiene such as hand washing and covering their mouth and nose when they cough or sneeze.

In Food is Fuel I speak about food being the fuel that runs our bodies and gives us the energy to do well in school and  in recreational and sports activities. Your child will have the opportunity, while playing the program, to make decisions about what foods are good meal foods and snack foods.

Both programs reinforce what your child is learning at home and in school.