Tag: Development

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How To Develop Child’s Creativity? #AllAboutPreschoolers #MyFriendAlexa

Hi Everyone,

Here is my fifth post for #MyFriendAlexa. In the previous post I talked about 7 Main Domains of Early Childhood Education, to add on to that today I will be sharing with you another domain which might not be included in there but is considered as the most crucial and most vital development when it comes to children’s holistic growth.

Creative Development which also include Aesthetic development. Creative development refers to the development of child’s abilities in terms of creative skills and aptitudes using development appropriate practices; it involves children setting off their own learning, making choices and decisions by themselves. Aesthetic development in children is the artistic processes that a child experiences or goes through as he/she grows. Artistic processes that a child goes through are drawing or painting, creating structures, pretend play and using props during games. Aesthetic development is considered as an important factor in human development.

8 WAYS TO DEVELOP CHILD’S CREATIVITY

A child’s creativity starts with their method of thinking and problem solving. Daily challenges to expand their reasoning and understanding of the world, along with an encouraging environment allows for a child to become more confident of their views and opinions. There are several ways to develop child’s creativity, most of which can be incorporated into daily life.

  1. Allow your child to make simple choices, such as what to eat for dinner or where to go on a weekend. This encourages them to think independently, exercising an important aspect of creativity.
  2. Encourage independence from caregivers and media. A child that is constantly entertained by others or the television will struggle to find things to do on their own without access to media.
  3. Provide items in your child’s environment to stimulate their imagination. Drawing supplies, blocks, books, and random craft supplies can all contribute to elaborate dramatic play schemes.
  4. Brainstorm different uses for items with your child. For example, a cardboard tube can be a telescope, tower, or person. Validate all your child’s ideas, praising him or her for such an impressive imagination.
  5. Ask your child open ended questions to stretch their understanding and help them to postulate ideas. Ask your child “what if” questions. “What if people could fly?” “What if people lived in space?” “What if dolphins walked in land?” Involve your child in figuring out ways to make an improvement upon something. “How can we clean up the living room faster?” “How could we water the flowers without spilling any?” “What could we do to make the ball bounce higher?” Reading a book is an excellent activity for your child to exercise their creativity. Ask your child what could happen next, or how a character feels and why?
  6. Play with your child. Work together to establish dramatic play scenarios, using substitute items for props when needed. Pretend play allows children to imagine life from a different perspective, an important building block of creativity.
  7. Be prepared for “messy play”. While it may seem that your child is playing in the mud simply to make more work for you, in fact there is a great deal that is learned by playing with such things. When they are finished playing, make it a rule that they must help clean up. If faced with the choice of getting messy then cleaning it up and not getting messy at all, almost all children will choose the former option.
  8. Engage in storytelling. Start a story and take turns building upon it. Follow your child’s lead in what the mood of the story should be. Expect most stories to be more on the silly, impossible side. Since this is just a story, no idea is too farfetched.

CREATIVE PLAY

One of the most important types of creative activity for young children is creative play. Creative play is expressed when children use familiar materials in a new or unusual way, and when children engage in role-playing and imaginative play. Nothing reinforces the creative spirit and nourishes a child’s soul more than providing large blocks of time to engage in spontaneous, self-directed play throughout the day. Play is the serious business of young children and the opportunity to play freely is vital for their healthy development.

Even as early as infancy, play fosters physical development by promoting the development of sensory exploration and motor skills. Through play and the repetition of basic physical skills, children perfect their abilities and become competent at increasingly difficult physical tasks. Play fosters mental development and new ways of thinking and problem solving. Through block play, children are confronted with many mental challenges having to do with measurement, equality, balance, shape, spatial relationships and physical properties.

One of the strongest benefits of play is the way it enhances social development. Playful social interactions begin from the moment of birth. Dramatic play helps children experiment with and understand social roles. It can also give them countless opportunities for acquiring social skills as they play with others. Through dramatic play, children gradually learn to take each other’s need into account, and appreciate different values and perspective.

Through play, children can express and cope with their feelings. Play also helps relieve stress and pressure for children. They can just be themselves. There is no need to line up to adult standards during play. Play offers children an opportunity to achieve mastery of their environment. They control the experience through their imaginations, and they exercise their powers of choice and decision making as the play progresses.

Play helps develop each child’s unique perspective and individual style of creative expression. Play expresses the child’s personal, unique responses to the environment. It is a self-expressive activity that draws on the child’s powers of imagination. Play is open-ended, free-form and children have the freedom to try out new ideas as well as build on and experiment with the old.

Play provides an excellent opportunity for integrating and including children with disabilities in your program. The opportunities play provides for control and independence are important issues for any child but are especially important for these youngsters.

Therefore, as a caregiver, we must be careful to avoid dominating the play ourselves. Play should be the result of the children’s ideas and not directed by the adult.

Pay attention to play, plan for it, encourage it!

You can read my previous posts here

How to choose right preschool for your child?

Importance of Early Childhood Education

What is Early Childhood Education?

I am taking my blog to another level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa.

Pics courtesy : Pexel / Canva

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How to choose right preschool for your child? #AllAboutPreschools #MyFriendAlexa

Hi Everyone,

This is my third post for #MyFriendAlexa. You can read my previous posts here

What is Early Childhood Education?

Importance of Early Childhood Education

THE BEST PRESCHOOL IS THE PRESCHOOL THAT IS BEST FOR YOUR CHILD

How do you know? Start with what you know about your child. Does he thrive on playing with other children? Is she more likely to need the attention of an adult? How do you want your culture and traditions supported? Does your child have special needs? You know better than anyone where your child is most likely to thrive.

With over thousands of preschool partners across country, the Preschool Program offers lots of choices. These choices range from family childcare homes and centre-based programs to classes in public schools. But regardless of the exact setting or type of program, all preschool partners should be licensed and undergone a rigorous quality rating process.

5 STEPS TO CHOOSE THE BEST PRESCHOOL FOR YOUR CHILD

Schedule a visit with your child so you can see how your child feels in the preschool and how staff relates to your child. Remember first impression matters when you walk in the preschool with your child.

  1. Is your first impression positive?
  2. Watch your child’s response. Did adults acknowledge your child or just focus on other adults?
  3. Observe how teachers interact with children. Are they at children’s eye level when they talk to them? Do they appear responsive to individual children by listening closely, asking questions and using positive language?
  4. It is important that your child’s classroom has a variety of learning materials, toys and equipments. Are there places for quite time and an area for dramatic play?
  5. Does the classroom seem clean and safe with enough adults to supervise children? As child’s safely is of utmost importance.

ASK QUESTIONS

  • What is the school’s philosophy about how children learn?
  • What is the school’s approach to children’s behaviour and discipline?
  • How do activities promote social, emotional and intellectual growth and stimulate creativity?
  • Is there space and materials to promote a wide range of development activities from holding a pencil or cup to running and jumping?
  • Walk around the room and ask the teacher what the child is learning from the different activity centers.
  • Since no two children are at the same stage of development, how does the teacher support individual children in their learning?
  • Do children have their own place to keep their special things?
  • What is the daily schedule? Do the preschool offer activities your child would like to participate in and is there time for your child to explore?
  • How does the school communicate with families and how often?
  • Can you visit the classroom at any time?
  • Ask to talk to parents who have a child in the school.

It is important that when considering an early education facility, caregivers and teachers in the facility have knowledge of the cultural support for the language and literacy learning of the children and families they are serving. They need to have sufficient skills in guiding small groups of children to give full attention to individual young children’s language and literacy efforts. They need to be able to draw out shy children while they help very talkative ones begin to listen to others as well as to speak. Caregivers or teachers need to arrange environment that are symbol rich and interesting without being overwhelming to infants and toddlers. Even the simplest exchange becomes a literacy lesson when it includes the warmth of a relationship coupled with words, their concept, and perhaps a graphic symbol.

To be effective, an early year’s curriculum needs to be carefully structured. In that structure, there should be three strands

Provision for the different starting points from which children develop learning, building on what they can already do

Relevant and appropriate content which matches the different levels of young children’s needs

Planned and purposeful activity which provides opportunities for teaching and learning both indoors and outdoors.

If your child is between the ages of three and six and attends a preschool or kindergarten program, the National Association for the Education of Young Children suggests you look for these 10 signs to make sure your child is in a good classroom.

Children spend most of their time playing and working with materials or other children. They do not wander aimlessly and they are not expected to sit quietly for long period of time.

Children have access to various activities throughout the day. Look for assorted building blocks and other construction materials, props for pretend play, picture books, paints and other art materials and table toys such as matching games, pegboards, and puzzles. All the children should not necessarily be doing the same activity at the same time.

Teachers work with individual children, small groups, and the whole group at different times during the say. They do not spend all their time with the whole group.

The classroom is decorated with children’s original artwork, their own writing with invented spelling, and stories dictated by children to teachers.

Children learn numbers and alphabet in the context of their everyday experiences. The natural world of plants and animals and meaningful activities like cooking, taking attendance or serving snack provide the basic for learning activities.

Children work on projects and have long periods of time to play and explore. Worksheets are used little, it at all.

Children have an opportunity to play outside every day. Outdoor play is never sacrificed for more instructional time.

Teachers read books to children individually or in small groups throughout the day, not just at group story time.

Curriculum is adapted for those who are ahead as well as those who need additional help. Teachers recognize that children’s different background and experiences mean that they do not learn the same things at the same time in the same way.

Children and their parents look forward to school. Parents feel secure about sending their children to the program. Children are happy to attend, they do not cry regularly or complain of feeling sick.

I hope all these pointers can help you select right school for your child.

I am taking my blog to another level with  Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa.

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Importance of Early Childhood Education #AllAboutPreschoolers #MyFriendAlexa

HI Everyone,

This is my second post for #MyFriendAlexa. Now you know what is Early Childhood Education. So lets move on and understand It’s Importance.

Did you know that the capacity of the brain to absorb new learning peaks at age 3? Scientists have learned that a toddler’s brain develops over one hundred trillion brain synapses. A brain synapse is the wiring between two brain cells that grasps new learning. The more the synapses, the more your brain will learn. It is during this time that the human brain has the highest potential for new learning in its lifetime. Recognizing shapes, drawing, singing and playing with toys are all examples of behaviors your child learns in the first few years of life.

By their third birthday, your child should be able to do many things, including throw a ball overhand, feed themselves, ride a tricycle, balance on one foot or copy a circle, just to name a few. And by age 4, your child will begin knowing their first and last name, following family rules, recognizing colours, eating by themselves, dressing themselves, etc.

High-quality preschools and pre-kindergartens are geared to give your child a jumpstart to learning. Most have standards in place to prepare your child for kindergarten, so that on the first day of school, your child is ready to learn.

Appropriately early childhood programs not only help your child’s brain develop in a timely fashion, but they also contribute to physical, emotional and social development. Along with school readiness, it is also important to look for key development milestones in your children.

Some Development Milestones

Age 2Age 3Age 4
Walk, jump, runTell stories with two
or three sentences		Know first and last name
Kick a ballCan name a friendCopy images
Scribble with crayonsThrow a ball overhandEat by themselves
Imitate othersCopy a circleSing a song from memory

Benefits of quality early childhood education and care:

You can place your child in childcare or kindergarten and know they are safe and well cared for, by people who have a qualification and share an understanding about what is important for your child.

Your child will have the opportunity to develop skills by playing with others and taking part in activities that build on their abilities and interests.

You will be supported in caring for your child.

You will have increased opportunities to work, attend appointments or recreational activities or have time to yourself.

The importance of the early years is now well known throughout the world. These years are a time when brain develops and much of its wiring is laid down. The experiences and relationships a child has, plus nutrition and health, can actually affects this enormously. Positive experience help the brain to develop in healthy ways. Seriously negative experiences such as neglect and abuse, on the other hand, affect brain development in more harmful ways, and contribute to emotional and behavioural problems later in life. So the experience a child has in the early years can either support learning or interfere with it.

“The brain is the only organ that is not fully formed at birth. During the first three years, trillions of connections between brain cells are being made. A child’s relationships and experiences during the early years greatly influence how their brain grows”.

Children’s development and learning can be affected by

Influence within themselves, their genetic inheritance, temperament, gender and health.

Influence within the family, family relationships, parenting styles and values, the family’s financial situation, parents’ level of education, parent’s occupation and parent’s physical and mental health.

Influence within the community, children’s services, support for parenting, housing, safety and crime in the neighborhood, unemployment levels and general feeling of trust among the residents.

Influence within their culture, with different cultures marked by differences in parenting styles, beliefs and values, and different views on how children should be educated.

Early childhood is a crucial time for children to learn because this is when they develop the foundation of their brain for learning during the rest of their lives. The things children learn during these years play a very important role in the proper development of children. Children learn by exploring their environment and watching people everyday life.

I am taking my blog to another level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa.

Pics courtesy : Pexel / Canva

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What is Early Childhood Education? #AllAboutPreschoolers #MyFriendAlexa

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post for #MyFrinendAlexa, and I am really excited to share my theme for the campaign, “All About Preschoolers”. Here I will be sharing all the important topics related to preschoolers from, It’s importance to how to choose the best preschool, health and hygiene and many more.

In terms of a child’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social development early childhood is considered as one of the most crucial stage of life. It is the time when children need high quality personal care and learning experience as the growth of mental and physical abilities advance at an astonishing rate and a very high proportion of learning takes place from birth to age six.

Whether anyone believes it or not, education begins from the moment the child is brought home from the hospital and continues when the child starts to attend playgroups and kindergarten. The learning capabilities of humans continue for rest of their lives but not at the intensity that is demonstrated in the preschool years. Now keeping this in mind, babies and toddlers need positive early learning experiences to help their intellectual, social and emotional development and lays the foundation for later school success.

Aids In Early Childhood Education

Parent

During the first three years parents will be the main influence in the child’s learning experience and education. Therefore, what parents do and expose their children to, have a vast impact on the development of the child.

Environment

Environment plays a very important role in child’s growth. It is essential that the environment that the child is placed in during these years be as positive and intellectually stimulating as possible.

Speech Development

Speech development is one of the first tools that a child will demonstrate. And a parent or care giver can have a vast impact on child’s speech development by the amount of time that is spent talking with and reading to a child.

Play

Most of the child development experts will agree with me that play is very important in the learning and emotional development of all children. Play is multi-faceted as while having fun, often many skills can be learned. Play helps children learn relationship and social skills and develop values and ethics. Functional play helps children to develop motor and practice skills. Water and sand play is a favourite amongst pre-schooler children and a valuable teaching tool. Constructive play is characterized by building or creating something like puzzles, building blocks, puppets and easy craft activities. Pretend play allows children to express themselves and events in their lives which in turns helps them process emotions, practice social skills, develop a rich imagination, learn values and also develop language skills.

There is a range of early childhood education and care services for young children, include license and unlicensed, center based and home-based services. Talk to individual providers to find out about how they may cater for your child. It is important to consider the full range of early education and care options available to your child.

Education and care services aim to meet the education, care and development needs of children. There are range of different models of early education and care services. Most of these services are approved to operate by the Department of Education and Communities.

Important areas of learning

Health and physical well being are the basis for all learning and development. Such areas as eating, habits, attitudes towards exercise and self care routines build from the child’s earliest experiences. One of the most important things children learn in the early years is about themselves, that is, they develop a picture of themselves that affects the way they approach any situation, task or relationship with another person. In other words, they develop a self concept. An important part of that self concept is the picture they have of themselves as learners. Is it okay to be curious, to explore, to ask questions, to tackle problems, to try to figure things out, to experiment? Is it okay to try something and fail sometimes? Being a good learner means having a go, seeing yourself as capable, and taking reasonable risk. There are many different ways to categorize learning in the early years, but whatever the categories, it is important for parents, and others who work and live with children, to keep in mind the broad range of kinds learning that are important in the early years.

  • Use of body, including hands
  • Respect for others
  • How to relate to others, both adults and other children
  • How to resolve conflict
  • Problem solving skills
  • Communication getting used to things that make people different from each other
  • Self knowledge, understanding of feelings, a sense of your own strength, talents and uniqueness
  • Confidence, a sense of belonging to family, community, culture
  • How to look after and take care of yourself
  • Last but not the least, behaving in acceptable ways and controlling your own behaviour

Early childhood education typically focuses on five domains

  • Cognitive
  • Language
  • Social-Emotional
  • Fine motor skills
  • Gross motor skills

Early childhood educators are professionally trained to observe and enhance children’s development skills and refer children appropriately for additional services when a delay is expected. However, all children do not develop at the same rate and may not complete a development task when it is scheduled to be completed. If a child is having trouble with a development task, the child’s teacher can do extra activities with that child to help the child master the development task they are struggling with. Early childhood educators are trained to know what the time frame is in which to wait before they refer a child for additional services.

Children can never be too young to educate and the younger a child begins education the better. Infant’s and toddler’s brains are rapidly growing and this age is the perfect time to begin educating their little brains.

I am taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter’s #MYFriendAlexa.

Pics Courtesy : Pexel / Canva

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