"My Connections to Play"

“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” – Mr. Rogers

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” -  Fred Rogers

 toys for young children need to match their stages of development and emerging abilities. 

    

 Blocks, Musical Instruments and Dolls are three essential toys.

The only memories I have of play in my younger years is that of being outside with friends, inside activities with my younger siblings. I think that these opportunities were provided and encouraged by my parents. We always were provided educational activities to museums when we lived in duty stations that provided these opportunities. I don't have anymore specific memories of play in my childhood because I don't really have a full memory of my early childhood at all but I do personally feel that it is important to provide several different types of opportunities for play to stimulate all the child's senses thus to develop all the child's areas of development.

I think that in the past we participated in a lot more outdoor play and activities and not specific directed play that was intended to help develop our educational development. I think that know there is so many advances in technology and research so that now we know how important it is to stimulate their development.

As an early childhood educator I know the importance of play in the children that are in my care and I try to convey that importance to the staff and families in my care. Parents still want to see the worksheets and physical proff that they can hold to prove that their child is learning but they learn through play.

References

www.naeyc.org/toys

RELATIONSHIP REFLECTION.

re·la·tion·ship

riˈlāSHənˌSHip/

noun

1. 1.

   the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.
2. 
   
3. I think that Relationships are important to me and my life because all of the different ones have helped shaped my life and who I am. Some relationships happen just to teach you something.

This is a picture of my oldest daughter and her family, including three of my "gran girls". My daughter, Whitney and her husband Aki, who is a marine got stationed in New Jersey Two years ago and the distance has been hard because this is really the first time Whitney has not been here for all the events, holidays and all. It's hard to accept that she's all grown up with her own family. We stay in contact with calls and skype so that the gran girls continue to know who "Nana" is.

All of my "Gran Girls, Alaia, Anaya and Amara who are Whitney's children. And Felicity, AKA. Pootie and her brother my only Gran Boy.Dj, who are Nicole's children. I have raised Dj since he was born so that is a really different bond. He is with me day and night and at an age when I thought I would be long done raising a child, I still am.

This is Ms. Sherry and she is one of my Sister Directors, we are both Directors for the same company and this is a picture from our annual Directors conference that our company holds for our region and we were celebrating this night. It is great to have a relationship with Ms. Sherry because we can support each other in regards to work and personal matters and be there to vent if necessary.

This is a picture of my staff, the relationships between me and them is important to us all and the families that we serve. Because we have a good relationship it boils over into the relationships we are able to build with our families and played into our school becoming a FIVE STAR school.

This is my "Trigger". He is like my little baby and he gives that unconditional love and is always glad to see me, I would say he doesn't ever give me trouble or "Talk back", but he does.

Having a pet is said to be good for your health and I know once my DJ get a little older and starts leading his own "teenage" life Trigger will be here to keep me company.

 From Top to bottom: My step Dad Ron who is very important to my relationship and that with Dj who he helps to raise with me. He is very important to the development of Dj.

Next two are my friends Fran and Carolyn and the relationship with them are very important . We like to hang out, go out to eat, and shop together and we are each important to the other as we offer support to one another when needed.

This is a picture of me and my second ex husband. Even though he is my ex we do have a friendship that is important to both of us. We have been divorced for seven years now but still are part of each others lives.

My Youngest daughter, Nicole and mother to Dj and my youngest gran girl, Felicity. Everyone has that one child..well she is mine. Love her to death but it has been a strained relationship through the years, I am raising her oldest child and I have since birth. She lives here in town so we do interact and share family events together. She is very close to her Step father pictured above.

 Last but least, my mom and friend. I am the oldest of her three daughters and I live here right in town and she also is a great help with the raising of my grandson and her great grandson. Without her and Ron I couldn't do it and still have my life. With there help and support I was able to finish my BS degree. Couldn't function without them two.

The challenges of developing and maintaining relationships is difficult me, I am very introverted so I think that makes it difficult for me develop  and maintain relationships, I often think it's odd that I don't really have a "Best Friend".

The relationships I have listed are mostly family and coworkers or employees so these are relationships that you don't have to work hard to maintain.

I think that all of the relationships are partnerships because it is a give an take relationship, some times I may give more and sometimes the other side but we are all in it together.

I think my limited experience with other relationships including my ability to be an active, reflective contributor sometimes make me less effective in my relationships with parents, I have to work harder because I am not so outgoing and bubbly and don't do a lot of "small talking" 

This was put on my facebook page by a former co worker who knows me so well. It sums me up.

Week 8  quotations.

"Now, today, some children are enrolled in excellent programs. Some children are enrolled in mediocre programs. And some are wasting away their most formative years in bad programs....That's why I'm issuing a challenge to our states: Develop a cutting-edge plan to raise the quality of your early learning programs; show us how you'll work to ensure that children are better prepared for success by the time they enter kindergarten. If you do, we will support you with an Early Learning Challenge Grant that I call on Congress to enact."
- President Barack Obama, speaking to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, March 10, 2009


"Experts tell us that 90% of all brain development occurs by the age of five. If we don't begin thinking about education in the early years, our children are at risk of falling behind by the time they start Kindergarten."
- Robert. L. Ehrlich  

The first quote is from my president and his stance on early childhood education and the second is one that the company I am employed at has taken as our new opening stance to parents as they tour. trying to help them understand how important these early years are.

Blog Assignment  Week 6

I think that once children get to public school they start "Teaching to the test" from the first week teachers have the agenda to meet their goals and with the ramifications for the school and the teachers if the right scores are not earned. I have been in one of our local Kindergarten classes during my undergraduate studies and noticed her using several different teaching styles trying to reach all the children in her class. I remember hearing her stress that the children needed to get serious about things and learn whatever was on the agenda because when they moved across the hall to the First Grade it was going to be tough.
'Being in Early Childhood we are not yet having to be that stressed about what the child "has" to know, we teach them through their play and other teachable moments. But just this past year I have seen more stressed placed on my non-state funded pre-k teachers to start incorporating some of the things that typically have no place in Early Childhood programs, such as dittos and worksheets.
  I understand though that once they get to elementary that needs to change and the progress of the children need to be measured but  I think that they should not only measure a child's levels by the test, I think that since we all have different learning styles that they should look at different ways to judge the child's level of competence.

 

I picked South Africa since at this moment everyone is remembering Mandela. RIP

South Africa does assessments for grades 1st through 6th and then in the 9th. and the Southern and eastern African Consortium is in charge of monitoring educational quality in 15 countries. The assessments are like our E.O.G's here in North Carolina in that they are testing language and math competences. From these scores goals for achievement are set and they are NOT used for progression or promotion to the next grade they are used to give the children the extra help. Teachers are able to use these results to adjust their lesson plans accordingly.



Retrieved from
http://www.education.gov.za/Curriculum/AnnualNationalAssessment/tabid/424/Default.aspx on December 6th 2013

Week 4 Early Childhood Development Post

Chaos is defined as physical and social settings characterized by crowds, noise,unpredictability or a lack of routines and instability or unplanned changes".
I have a family member who along with her three sons has lived in chaos for years. The parents have multiple jobs, they have experienced multiple moves and crowded living situations, the children have no set routine for dinner, bedtimes, or anything. And the children send to thrive in spite of it all, when they were younger all were honor students, in honor classes in school. This may have been there outlet to the chaos to excel in school, that was something they could control. The children are older now and the lack of structure shows in there lack of routine, what is or isn't acceptable and when visiting households of family members that do have structure and routines they have problems.  I don't think that any resources were offered to this parent at the young age  the mother started having children. Maybe a parenting class for the parents early on would have taught them how to set boundaries and routines for there children during the age when that is important to there development.
  The Tsunami  of Japan was a Major disaster and a major stressor for all the families involved. When you look at the devestation that this disaster caused, families are displaced from their homes, children have lost all sense of home and comfort. Schedulles and routines have to be changed and ay have to go into crowded living situation. Relief agencies and foundations have been offering  help since the disaster andnow with the disaster in the philipians their are childe

Child Development and Nutrition/Malnutrition

Week 2

          Proper nutrition is very important to the development of a child and it is not only a problem in underdeveloped  countries. Families who cannot afford or lack the knowledge of proper  nutrition can also be causing problems for their children's overall development and learning skills. In order for children to participate basic needs must be meet in order to lead the way for development to happen. 

          In my program we participate in the USDA food program offering balanced nutrition meals daily and snacks to the children in our care. We offer additional snacks in between meals to younger children since they need to eat a little more often than the older preschool children. This practice noticeably helps the children concentrate more on the daily activities of the day when they are not hungry  I have a Toddler, Maddox who gives me the signal that the teacher has not given that in between snack and if I am walking through or at my desk I stop and let the teacher know, it's time for there snack, that's why he is crying and cranky and after that it always settles him down.

        In the Philippians malnutrition is a big problem due to food shortages and the poverty in this country.  Malnutrition is not limited to just children with the lack of food, half of the deaths of infants are linked to breastfed infants of  mothers with poor nutrition. The long term effects of malnutrition are impaired learning and development and reduced income earning potential as adults (UNICEF)

              

http://www.unicef.org/philippines/reallives_19053.html#.Un61Q_nFWH4 Retrived on November 9th 2013

Early Childhood Develpment.

EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT

Week #1 Assignment

The experience I want to share regarding childbirth is my first child’s birth, I went to one of the regular doctor appointments and was told that I needed to go directly to the hospital. I was only 18 at the time, newly married to my High school sweetheart, who was finishing up training at the military base. I was immediately checked in and I was told because my blood pressure was extremely high and they were admitting me to try to get it down. After several days of laying on one side limited visitors it wasn’t down so they scheduled for me to be induced, during the process my daughter’s heartbeat was irregular so they had to do an emergency C-section. I opted to be put under during birth because I am not too interested in being given a shot in my back. So once I woke up later in recovery I was told of my daughter’s birth, she was only 5lbs but no problems during birth. We were right here in the town that I still live in, I didn’t have the complete nine months of prenatal care because I was young and unsure of the choice I was going to make and being a teen ager I know I didn’t make the healthy choices of meals but everything worked out.

In the U.S most families do have the option on pre-natal care whether they elect to use it or not. In the Republic of Congo, four women die every hour from complications of pregnancy (DiManno, 2010). Childbirth is considered a natural and private event, something that occurs in the home rather than being an event that requires medical attention. In this area of the world I also learned that a lot of births are the products of rape and these infants are killed after childbirth. Even if women in this area went to the hospital, the hospitals are not equipped like those in the U.S., they don’t even have enough gloves, mask or even blood.

In comparing these births they are different because of the health care I was able to have a emergency procedure performed when trouble arrived when on the other hand the mothers in the Congo are not even afforded gloves.

I think that the impact of births on child development are enormous, children are going to be born, with or without prenatal care for the most part. But research has shown that prenatal care gives children a good start, a healthier start. Hopefully health issues are discovered early to maybe provide treatment or to give the parents time to learn the best way to support the child with exceptionalities. A child's Development happens in the typical sequences but things that happen or don’t happen during prenatal and birthing process can have an impact on future development especially if there are difficulties or the child is born too early.

DiManno, R. (2010, July 28). thestar.com. Retrieved from Thestar.comworld: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2010/07/28/where_so_many_children_die_bearing_children.html