Posts Tagged ‘Early Learning’
Grace Geller on June 17th, 2010
Summer is upon us! With a little extra time and an uncluttered calendar, imagine the possibilities…. Summertime is the perfect time to start something new; but what? How do you stop yourself, or your child, from falling into the doldrums and doing the same old thing?
As parents and teachers, we want our children to be “creative.” But what is creativity? And how do we encourage it in ourselves and others? Before we discuss creativity and enhancing creativity, let’s back up and examine a few creativity inhibitors.
In our never-ending effort to help create the well balanced child, we sometimes interfere with that balance. Some of our inhibiting behaviors include:
Hovering: Constantly watching children while they are working interferes with risk taking behavior. (We are not talking about safety issues.) We are talking about using a medium in a different way or combining items that are not usually combined.
Approval Seeking Behavior: Sometimes our children will do, or make something, in an effort to please us. They do not make it or do it to please themselves. When we seek approval from others we ignore the satisfaction that comes with our own accomplishments. Allow your child to check his/her motives. Let them tell you why they created what they did….
Rewards: Excessively rewarding children with prizes and gifts deprives them of the pleasure of creating something for its own value. The goal then becomes receiving the prize rather then creating something new. Create for the sake of creating.
Competition: Sometimes when we place children in the position that only one or two children can win, we create an environment that winning becomes the important result. Innovation can lose to the sure thing.
Controlling: Constantly telling children what to do and how to do it can inhibit a child’s ability to develop problem solving skills. Without problem solving skills it becomes increasingly difficult to think of and test new ideas.
Over Scheduling: Directing your child’s activities or enrichment classes is an important part of exposing children to the many options available to them, but over scheduling limits your child’s time and interests to the allotted time and information. Children need time to explore and follow their passions. Sometime after the 20th “I’m bored” comes discovery. It takes awhile for our over scheduled children to learn how to fill their own time with things that are important to them.
Pressure: Last but not least, pressure. We need to scale our expectations for our child’s performance. When our expectations are too high our children may refrain from trying something new or not taking any risks, for fear of failure. As parents and teachers we must remove our ego from the equation!
The beginning of this post referred to creativity in our children and ourselves. We too, are victims of inhibitory behaviors. More often than not, we place those inhibitors on ourselves. The more aware of the inhibitors that we are, the better we can deal with them.
So now that we have a handle on the inhibitors, what is next?
We need to get unstuck! First we must set a goal. One that is specific, attainable and realistic.
We are helping our children and ourselves learn to create! To relax, to go with a new flow, express ourselves, paint, make music, build things, try new foods, sing, look at the world upside down aaaaahhhh Create………
Next we must get up and move. That is right. We need to get the creative juices moving. So shake and shimmy until you work up a sweat.
Finally allow time – to dream, imagine the possibilities, visualize, hum, sniff, giggle. What would it be like if…
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: creativity, Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, family life
Grace Geller on May 27th, 2010
Continuing with our series by our guest author Sharon Alm
Over the years of opening the world to your child, there will be so many things that you can do to connect the books you read, to your child’s reality:
I’ve mentioned the plastic magnetic letters for the refrigerator. One of the most important first words on the refrigerator should be your child’s name!
Using the letter M as my example, you can conveniently think of lots of words, beginning with that sound, as you go through your day. Emphasizing the letter sound, as you say and shape the words, connects them in your child’s brain.
Find that visible letter as you shop or ride in the car: Mommy, morning, and M at the local McDonald’s, of course. Use capital letters, including words that you create on the refrigerator.
Write your chosen letter for your child in soapsuds at bath time in the tub; make it from PlayDoh as he/she grows into that activity. Create a collage of a few pictures from magazines that show M things in your child’s world. Post it where your child will see it to point out M pictures during a diaper change, for instance. (Don’t let your child see you cutting up a magazine for this, however. Save that for later, when you can teach scissor-cutting and the chosen old magazine to help with the posters.) Remember those lessons on respect for printed materials.
If your book is about a farm, you can visit a local petting zoo, when your child is old enough to handle the experience. Repeat this type of activity by visiting: an annual fair, the beach etc. Each experience connects something new in that little brain.
Find incidental ways to remember things from books your child has read over the years. These don’t have to be “dog and pony show activities.” Just a quiet walk in the park can recall trees or fences or fountains seen in a story. Little things mean a lot when they are discovered in the average day.
As you read the same books over and over, you’ll remember certain parts to recall at the opportune time for silly moments, too! Dr. Seuss often creates those times with “I do not like them (or that), Sam I am.” This can be a silly reminder of a funny story, and can also correct some behavior that is unfavorable to you at the time.
I would also like to recommend two books for you to read. Both cover the subject of reading aloud to your child, but are written in delightfully different ways. Each book contains lists of suggested books for various ages. The books also make great gifts for new parents!
Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives
Forever by Mem Fox
Mem Fox is also the author of several wonderful children’s books!
Read to Me: Raising Kids Who Love to Read by Bernice e. Cullinan
I hope you will delight in watching your child grow and blossom with the reading aloud of wonderful books. Making your child a book lover will be one of your greatest achievements as a parent. Reading aloud bonds parents and children in so many ways. Don’t assume that your independent reader won’t want read-aloud time with you. Chapter books provide wonderful opportunities for some great reading—only without as many pictures to explore. Your child will be older, and chapter books can provide age-appropriate life lessons, too.
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, Early Reading, family life
Grace Geller on April 14th, 2010
The small bundle in your arms is growing quickly! By now your child knows your voices, your faces, and some daily routines. Smiles appear! Parenting is wonderful (overlooking the messy and cranky parts, of course). Those smiles melt your heart and erase the messes. Books also help with the cranky times. Your calm voice and the rhythm of your words are comforting for many situations. Try it! Books in that diaper bag can work wonders in many “waiting times” during a day.
Reading aloud is not difficult. Your child, liking the routines in his/her life, will also like you to read the same books the same way each time. (Sit in the same places at home, with favorite pillows or blankets or stuffed friends nearby, too.) So comforting.
Use various pitches in your voice to match the story. Make some sounds for the surprises in a story, even when the surprises aren’t surprises any longer. Your child will anticipate those surprise sounds anyway! This doesn’t necessarily mean LOUDNESS.
Remember, at bedtime you want a calming story.
Don’t go to extremes with the stories. After all, you’re not on stage. Your face and your eyes share the story’s events. You are going with your child through this tale. Relax and enjoy it yourself. Take time to look at the pictures and point out some things, for enjoyment, not “teaching.” Relate them to the child’s life and to the story. Riding in the car, for instance, you might see a barn or a fire truck just like the one in the story you read yesterday.
Reading aloud with your child is the most important thing you can do to help your child read. Be satisfied that you are taking steps toward independent reading each time you share a book aloud. You are beginning at infancy and you will continue for many years. Children who are older and can read independently still enjoy read-aloud time at home (and at school). There is always a book to share, too.
Submitted by Sharon Alm, guest author
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, Early Reading
Grace Geller on October 15th, 2009
It is fall conference time at the preschool and teachers are preparing their materials on each child. Conference preparation is a time consuming but important component of curriculum development. After a teacher reviews the work samples and Developmental Checklist for each child, she must then review her curriculum. Has she/he incorporated needed skills into the lessons? What adjustments must be done for the future?
Fall conference time for the school is like getting your tires aligned. You could drive the car without an alignment but the uneven wear would not give you an optimum ride.
So why do so few preschools have a parent/teacher conference for each child?
For some it is just ignorance they are not aware of the value of the conference, for others it is economics and still others it is a scheduling problem. Teacher prep, materials, and conference time can be costly to a school.
This year the school has found itself in a quandary. We have a private pay program and a state funded pre-kindergarten program. We have consistently provided conference time for our private pay clientele but have been unable to provide the same service to the state funded clients.
In the private pay program we have built into the tuition the funds necessary for lesson planning, home/school communication, class enrichments, conferences, materials and administrative oversight. The state pay program allows for none of these provisions. In state funded programs, payment is based on the actual hours that the students attend. If the child does not attend consistently, they are not funded. There aren’t any monies for: lesson planning, communication, materials or conferencing time.
So how are we, as a school, supposed to provide our state funded clients (the child) with a quality program? As an administrator I had to make some tough decisions. Rather then placing an unseasoned teacher (less costly) in the classroom, we went with a veteran, degreed teacher (more costly). Lesson planning time and home/school communications are still essential. So we found the funds from outside of the program but there are no funds for conferencing. We will have to align our curriculum on our own.
Once again Early Childhood Education is being treated like the unappreciated step child of education. We are given poorly funded programs and expected to prepare children to succeed in the academic world (while wiping their noses and tears). Once again Early Childhood teachers are expected to provide services and feedback on extensive amounts of unpaid time.
There are less and less Early Childhood specialists entering the field; soon it will dwindle to a handful. Perhaps then when classrooms are staffed by under educated personnel, we will begin to understand the full impact of under funding quality child care. If you are going to do something then do it right – fund it right. If they are not going to fund the state programs to include planning, communication and conferencing time, then they should drop it. It is time for parents to bring these concerns to their legislators. Someone must speak for the young children; that someone is you!
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: Early Learning, Parent/ Teacher conferences, State Funded VPK
