Whole Child Development
A preschool director once relayed to me an observation she made at her community center. She watched as a mother plucked her child from the waters of the pool at the end of his swimming lesson, quickly dried him and dressed him right on the deck, and then delivered him, minutes later, to his karate class. She wondered at how passive his role in the whole exchange was, as though he was merely a passenger on the high-speed train that was his life.
I noticed my 2 1/2 year old walking around the back yard the other day with a small rectangular rock nestled in the palm of his hand. I watched as he excitedly moved it around as he energetically bounded around the lawn, obviously in his own world. I wondered where his imagination had taken him. Then I heard the giveaway: “Boop! Boop!” He was holding the rock out, extending his arm toward a ride along car in the yard. “My boop-boop!” He said as he looked up with a huge grin of satisfaction, having clearly just set the alarm on his toy car with his own personal key fob.
Just a quick thought for today:
Play is powerful. It’s the process of authentic learning in action. Children play with new ideas, with social rules, and with just about any random item they can get their hands on. It’s an on-going process of questioning, exploring, and experimenting.
I am a passionate believer in play as the best method for teaching young children. And sometimes, the kids teach me a little something through play as well!
Part of a play-based learning philosophy is having materials that will invite the child to play with concepts and ideas. So, being the nut for play and learning that I am, I have shelves and drawers and pockets full of these kinds of materials. A simple material that’s been getting some increased attention from my kids lately is a container full of dice.
As parents and caregivers, the safety of our children is our highest priority. We ask them to wear their helmets while biking, to look before they leap, and we remind them again and again of the proper procedures for crossing the street. We want them to be safe. That’s reasonable and responsible. But, as it is easy to do, we sometimes go a bit overboard on our efforts to protect our children. In the long run, some of our efforts can backfire. [Read more…]
Enjoy this popular post from last year!
I am a nerd. (It’s OK. While the term might have made me cringe in high school, I have since learned to embrace my nerdiness.) I recently found myself on a short trip with some down time for a little reading, and as any good nerd would, I packed along one of my favorite textbooks from grad school. (I know, I just confessed to having a favorite textbook.)
I’m writing today over at Simple Kids. Here’s just a taste:
I have vivid childhood memories of trekking down to the pond near our home and catching as many tadpoles in my bucket as my scrawny arms could carry. I was fascinated by the process of metamorphosis and would check on them every day in the shed where I kept them, marveling over each limb as it appeared. Once the tadpoles had fully transformed into tiny toads, my sibling and I would line them up in our driveway and race them down the lane as they made their way out in to the wild world of pastures, fields, and ditch banks that surrounded our rural home.
A friend recently commented on this post (originally written in January of this year). Because so many of you have joined me since then, I thought this might be a good time to share it again.
An argument is brewing in the preschool scene. In one corner, you have those arguing for more academics to give children that head start that might correct the troubles of high-school drop-outs and low test scores. They claim that children rise to the occasion and show that they are capable of more than we’ve been asking.
As I began writing this post, it became apparent that I was writing a sermon in two parts. (Brevity has never really been my strong suit.) Don’t worry, you don’t need to change into your Sunday best, your pajamas are just fine (you know who you are). Just get comfortable, I’ve got a lot on my mind.
If you want to get preschool teachers all riled up, talk about “push-down curriculum” (pushing academic standards from one grade down to the next- pushing fluent reading skills from first grade to kindergarten, and now to preschool, for example). I read this article the other day, and it really got me thinking about academics and preschoolers.
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