Coursera: ADHD Materials Week 1

The ADHD online course by Coursera is up and the materials for the first week is now available. You may download and share away all of these.


Learn and share the light. God only knows how you can affect eternity by teaching and helping people.

ADHD_booklet.pdf by buenaventura_f_a

Enrichment Lessons for Summer 2013

I knew it! It is summer time and announcements are pouring in. This time we have the schedule and classes offered by different specialists to make fun learning and worthwhile for your children. From Homeschooling Solutions:

And for those who would be interested in football or soccer, we have Cheval Noir Football Academy:

Chess Try-outs Summer 2013

Image: From GIZMODO. http://gizmodo.com/5171946/inside-a-computers-brain-playing-chess 

We found a thread for Chess try-out announcement over at Philippine Chess Portal courtesy of laminin and verizondsl:

• University of the Philippines-Diliman: March 23, 2013 Saturday 8 A.M. College of Human Kinetics Gym. For College and High School Freshman students. 
• Adamson University Chess try-outs 2013: April 6, 2013, Saturday 8 A.M. SV Hall. For High School Freshman students. 
• University of Santo Tomas Chess Team. April 5-9 2013 at the UST Quadri-Centennial Pavillion. 10 A.M. Tournament format with time control of 90 + 30 seconds increment/g. Round Robin System.
• Columban College-Olongapo City: Chess try-out: 2nd week of April 2013. Call 0908-3587858. 

Metta Summer Workshop 2013

Summer time is coming! Workshops, seminars and camps are here to enrich your children's time. The Metta Summer Workshop 2013 has so much to offer in a fun and relaxed environment.

Check it out.

Ten Hours of Gregorian Prayer Music

This YouTube video is timely. The world is now watching with bated breath the first few steps our new Pope is taking, slowly but surely. I discovered this video and it runs for ten hours, giving us a taste of Gregorian prayer music.

Enjoy the peace and silence while you play it on the background.

We have Pope Francis

We have Pope Francis to guide us through the 22nd century and I pray that God's Will takes over in everything the Catholic Church does. Prayers, prayers and more prayers.

Here is Philippine Daily Inquirer's summary of Pope Francis first homily. The Catholic Church as an important institution of the society is real and I myself never thought of it but it is a possibility, the Church becoming an NGO:

VATICAN CITY—Pope Francis on Thursday warned cardinals at his first Mass since being elected that the Catholic Church risked being reduced to a non-governmental organization unless it undergoes spiritual renewal.

Warning of the dangers of inaction, Francis told the cardinals that the Church could “end up a compassionate NGO,” using a word in Italian that can also mean “pitiful.”

“If we do not confess, if we do not pray to the Lord, we are praying to the Devil. When you do not confess to Jesus Christ, you are confessing to the worldliness of the Devil,” he said. 

“Walking, building and confessing are not so easy. Sometimes there are tremors,” he said.
“I would like all of us after these days of grace to have the courage to walk in the presence of the Lord,” he said.

Oh Lord we pray!

Papal Conclave 2013 Begins

We are looking for a new leader. The Papal Conclave begins today with no clear favorites. Thanks much to the unexpected resignation of the previous pope, Benedict the 16th.

With an estimated population of 1.2 billion, the Catholic Church remains to be the only organized religion in the world that has a direct lineage from Jesus Christ. All else were started by somebody else.

Please join me in praying for all the cardinals participating in the conclave. May the Holy Spirit guide them in choosing for our next pope.

Our very own, Cardinal Luis Tagle is in the conclave and netizens are one in saying that he is among the favorites to be the next pope.

We'll see but what's more important is this: Divine Will takes over.

Bye bye Balkman

You're out of the Philippine Basketball Association and you should be packing your stuff now. Head out of the country and back to the US of A. Philippine basketball fans, especially the youth, don't need you.

You don't push you coach nor any of your teammates trying to pacify you. And yes, you cannot do that to any of the game officials. Who knows what else you can do when you throw another tantrum?

Bye bye Balkman!

Try your luck in China maybe or in Europe, but Filipinos don't like and will never like what you have to offer them. Sorry but you should be back to your hometown Balkman!

We don't need you.



If only the management of Petron knew about his previous hardcourt tantrums, maybe the ugly meltdown would not have happened.

Let's see:

2nd SENIA-Manila Conference in ISM

Its the 2nd Special Education Network in Asia-Manila Conference today. It starts at 8 in the morning and ends by 3 in the afternoon and International School Manila is hosting the conference.

Participants will come from member schools like The Beacon School, International School Manila, Brent International School, British School Manila, DLS-CSB, German European School-Manila and Faith Academy. We have a total of seventy-five participants including presenters for each workshop.

The workshop topics will be:

1. Oral and Written Language Development
2. Occupational Therapy in the Classrooms
3. Behavior Modifications
4. Social Thinking
5. Multi-sensory Maths
6. Structured play-dates
7. Cooperative Learning
8. Empowering Teachers
9. Consistency, challenge and care

I'll be giving a thirty-minute lecture on Bringing Occupational Therapy in the Middle School Classrooms. I hope the day will turn out to be successful for everyone.

   

TBS Dodgeball Open

Here is an interesting event and I guess this is RP's first, The Builders' School Dodgeball Open:

TBS Dodgeball Open Greetings!

We are writing to invite you and your students to The Builders' School Dodgeball Open to be held on Saturday March 16, 2013 from from 8:00 am to 11:30 am at the Meralco Sports Center Covered Tennis Courts.

There will be a short clinic from 8:00 am to 9:00 am.  Officials from the Philippine Dodgeball Association will teach the participants on how to play the game and they will then be distributed into teams for the friendly games that will follow. Participants must be 7-13 years old. You may bring up to 14 participants and the entry fee for each is PHP 100.00.

This Dodgeball Open is an activity in preparation for the Philippine Dodgeball Association Little League season which is slated for July this year.  We want to encourage your school to join this league.

Kindly email us your response or you may also call our office at 972.5974 on or before Friday, March 8, 2013.  We hope to see you there!

Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

Victor A. VillanuevaSchool DirectorThe Builders' School

Come and join in the fun!

Free Download: Journey through Chess

Here is a free download for all our readers and visitors. Another book written by UK's Number 1 chess author and teacher, Richard James. Journey through Chess was published this year for free. It is a collection of the most important ideas and concepts from his heavy-traffic, rich-content chess website, ChessKids Academy:

Journey Through Chess by buenaventura_f_a

FIDE Trainer's Seminar in Phl 2013

It's official, the FIDE Trainer's Seminar in the Philippines will be held on May 20-24, 2013 to coincide with the Asian Continental Chess Championship.

The World Chess Federation has been training chess coaches all over the world and this will be the first time our country will be hosting the event. A good opportunity for teachers like me who, aside from teaching the usual school subjects, also run an after-school chess club.

FIDE Trainer titles to be awarded:

1. FIDE Trainer
2. FIDE Instructor
3. National Instructor
4. Developmental Instructor

Lecturers for the five-day workshop would be GM and  FST Efstratios Grivas and GM and FST Eugene Torre.

For further information and questions:

Address: Florencio Campomanes Chess Academy 

c/o Fianchetto Unit 1 Villa Felicidad # 117, 

14th Avenue, Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines 

Tel: +63 2 4396921, +63 2 4385828 

Email: campomaneschessacademy@gmail.com, abundo@fide.com

IA Casto Abundo, +971 50 3544938 

IA Elias Lao +63 926 237 8876 

Breaking the 2700 Barrier

Congratulations to GM Wesley So for placing second in the Reykjavik Open with a rating performance of 2753. This is the first time for any Filipino to reach and breach the 2700 rating.  Another feather in the cap, another milestone reached that gives Philippine chess the needed shot in the arm.

Now go and finish that Webster University education.  Finish it so that you will truly become a model for the Filipino youth!

Try-Out for UP Varsity Chess Team

Here is an announcement I found over at Facebook:

Try-out for UP Varsity Chess Team

8:00 AM, UP College of Human Kinetics

For Graduating High School Students/Incoming College Freshman ONLY.

Coursera: ADHD Through the Lifespan

This just in: "Pay Attention" ADHD Through the Lifespan by Anthony L. Rostain of University of Pennsylvania. This is one of the Coursera course I'll be participating in and I hope to finish the course.  The course reviews current scientific knowledge and clinical approaches to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and examines its impact on development, functioning and health outcomes.

An intro to the course:

1st Philippine Brain-based Conference

BrainFit Philippines is hosting the 1st Philippine Brain-based Conference on March 25, 2013 at Centro Escolar University Auditorium (CEU), Mendiola, Manila. The conference starts at 1 and will end by 5 in the afternoon. Keynote speaker is Martha S. Burns, Ph. D. and she will talk about "Brain Fitness, The Key to Learning Success in Children."

For a preview of what to expect and probably to learn from the conference, here is a TEDx video of Dr. Martha S. Burns:

For the additional  information, posters and registration, drop me a line or two on my comment box so I can send you it to you by email. You may also visit the following link: http://brainfitph.blogspot.com.

Free Download: Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle

Here is a copy of the book Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle which according to Amazon,  is said to be:

"A dramatic account about a Communist who purposely enters the Catholic priesthood (along with many, many others) with the intent of subverting and destroying the Church from within. Tells of his commission to enter the priesthood, his various experiences in the seminary, and the means and methods he used and promoted to help effect from within the auto-dissolution of the Catholic Church. Absorbing and compelling reading from beginning to end. The author explains how she found the information on this Communist-priest and why she decided to publish those findings. Helps to explain much of what has happened to undermine the Catholic Church today."

I've heard about this book in 1996 but never really had the money to buy and order online, I had to settle myself to reviews and comments found on the internet. Two weeks ago, when I've decided I'm willing to shell out $25 for the ebook, that's when I found a free download in one of the ebook hosts scattered online.

So here it is:

The Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle by buenaventura_f_a

When Knights and Bishops Play

I run out of cubits for my two ChessCube accounts and so when I saw my brother-in-law's account while he was asleep, I played chess using his and the result is this. My bro has more than five thousand cubits and he hardly plays, how could he gain so much without playing? Hhhmmm!

And the onto the game. Although the queen gave the final blow, it was the play of knights and bishops that allowed the queen to do its job.

Let's watch.

Unstoppable double attacks

I noticed a pattern tonight. I will play against a new opponent and I would lose every first game that I'll play with them. Then I'll win 2 or more consecutive games with one basic yet unstoppable tactical theme, double attacks.

The starter:



The two wins after an awful defeat. First with black and then with the white pieces:

 

National Age Group Chess Championship-Luzon 2013

National Chess Federation of the Philippines has announced the Luzon leg for this year Age Group Chess Championship and it will be March 3 to 6 at the Capitol Gymnasium of Malolos City, Bulacan Province.

Please read the following documents for the tournament rules and regulations, registration form and NCFP membership form. You can download and print these forms for free.

2013 National Age Group Luzon Leg Rules Regulations 

2013 National Age Group LUZON LEG Registration Form 

NCFP Membership Form