Early childhood education is an important step in educating young minds and offering stimulating opportunities for exploring and learning. Those who contributed to the discipline of early childhood education came from occupations and professions outside the academic domain. What they had in common was an understanding of children. And that is what makes early childhood education unique; it starts with the child and not with the subject matter.

Historical Foundations of Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education has roots that reach far back into history. For over 2,000 years  the issues of “why” and “how” to teach young children have engaged philosophers, psychologists and educators seeking to discover universal laws of child development.

• Plato (428-348 BC), a leading Greek philosopher, believed all children were born with a defined amount of knowledge, and that education served to ‘remind’ them of this inherent understanding of the world, and help them use it in their everyday lives.  Plato viewed play as a form of anticipatory socialization. If children were to become builders, he suggested, they should play at building houses. The teacher’s role was to try to direct children’s inclinations and pleasures through play towards their final aim in life.
• Quintilian (AD 35-95), educator in the new Roman empire, was also an advocate for play, and encouraged parents to choose their children’s tutors and nurses with great care, emphasizing learning through imitation rather than intimidation.
• Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a keen advocate of universal education, and believed both boys and girls should be educated to read independently so that they could have access to the Bible, instead of relying on verbal retelling. He believed the school’s role was to educate the intellectual, religious, physical, emotional, and social aspects of children.
• John Amos Comenius (1592-1670)  published what many consider to be the first picture book dedicated to the education of young children. Comenius believed all children to age 6 should be taught in their native languages. He was also the first to introduce the concept of “grades”, or different levels of education determined by each individual child’s age and developmental stage.
• John Locke (1632-1704) developed the theory (known as “Tabula Rasa”, or “Blank Slate”) that children come into the world with an empty mind, and that knowledge and learning is received through experience and converted to understanding through reasoning. Locke strongly believed in “nurture” over “nature.” This belief led him to emphasize the idea of early education and changes in parental care, such as allowing young children to explore their world physically without restraint and the use of gentle forms of discipline. He emphasized respectful, loving relationships as the best way for adults to inspire the child to replicate their behaviours, and that learning should be fun, not a task to be imposed.
• Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a French writer, philosopher, and social theorist. His belief in the innate goodness of children led him to propose early schooling that enabled children to direct their own activities, free from the constraints imposed by “society”. He also believed education should begin at birth and continue well into adulthood, emphasizing the differences between the minds of children and adults, and adjusting educational methods accordingly. According to Rousseau, children learned best by experiencing and exploring their environments. This idea is still incorporated into ECE programs today. Such child-centred education, emphasizing activity and the use of senses, was thought to foster the development of each child’s moral and intellectual potential.

• Most of us probably think of kindergarten when we consider early childhood education. We can thank Friedrich Froebel (1782 – 1852), a German educator who created kindergarten in Germany in 1837, for that. Froebel’s idea was born out of the desire to socialize young children and to expose them to an education in science, music, and language outside the home. Following Rousseau’s philosophy, Froebel advocated respect for young children’s needs and the importance of sensory training. He promoted the importance of play as the educational “medium” through which children could reach their intellectual and emotional potentials. Suggesting that children progress through different age-related “phases”, he proposed that certain materials, or “gifts”, be incorporated into the kindergarten curriculum to correspond with these phases, hence enhancing development. This notion of appropriate “match” has been the cornerstone of many contemporary early education programs.
• Maria Montessori  (1870-1952), Italy’s first woman physician, continued the Froebelian tradition within a different context. Concerned with the welfare of young, poor urban children in Italy, she established her “children’s houses” in Rome in 1907. Like Froebel, Montessori implemented an early education curriculum that was founded on a developmental theory, employed play as the instructional method, and introduced developmentally appropriate materials designed to facilitate sensory and cognitive skills. Her method, which like kindergarten also spread throughout the world, was child-centered and child-directed, meaning that individual students learn based on what they are interested in at the time.

Approaches and Teaching Methods in ECE Today

The Montessori Method – Self-Directed Learning

In a Montessori classroom, the main interaction is between the child and the materials, not between the teacher and the child. Initially, the teacher demonstrates the proper use of each set of materials, after which children may work on them individually or in small groups. The teacher’s role in a Montessori school is to observe in order to connect the child with the suitable materials. Children learn through experience, by observing and doing. They practice life skills like buttoning, zipping, cutting, and gardening, enabling children to care for themselves as well as their environment. Learning in the Montessori classroom is cumulative, constantly building on what was learned prior. Activities are primarily individual, and children move around the classroom freely, choosing their own activities. The emphasis is on self-directed learning; children pursue their own interests at the pace that best suits them, rather than moving through teacher-led lessons as a group. Children develop respect for each other and their classroom, placing items back on shelves before reaching for new ones. Their work is taken seriously, and not regarded as play.

The High/Scope Program – Plan-Do-Review Process

High/Scope was founded in 1970 and emerged from the work Dave Weikart and Connie Kamii did on the Perry Preschool Project. High/Scope provides broad, realistic educational experiences geared to children’s current stages of development, to promote the constructive processes of learning necessary to broaden emerging intellectual and social skills. In a High/Scope classroom, students are engaged in learning ‘centers’, including building, dramatic play, math, reading, music, writing, art, science, and motor development. A typical day would demonstrate a three-part process: “Plan-Do-Review.” Beginning with planning, the class and teacher discuss and create plans for a certain play period. Children go about their various activities, (Do) while teachers observe and offer support. The “review” process takes place after the play period, where students and teachers gather to discuss what they have found. This helps children understand their own actions, and enables connections between action and language. Children’s work is proudly displayed on the walls of the classroom.

Waldorf Schools – Hands-On Exploration

Developed by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in 1919, Waldorf programs aim to educate the whole child “” “head, heart, and hands.” Children in Waldorf schools are allowed to remain ‘childlike’, under the belief that there is a time for every aspect of development, and that children ought not to receive formal education until after the age of 7. Learning is hands-on, achieved through cooking, art projects, storytelling, singing, puppet shows, dress-up, and play. The teacher stays with the same group of children from preschool through eighth grade. The focus in the Waldorf classroom is on sensory exploration and self-discovery rather than formal instruction and merit, helping children develop  a sense of compassion and responsibility. The use of electronic media, especially TV, by young children is discouraged in Waldorf schools.

Reggio Emilia Schools – Classroom as the “Third Teacher”

Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994) founded the Reggio Emilia approach at the Italian city of the same name. The Reggio approach fosters intellectual development through a focus on symbolic representation. The primary curriculum is in-depth project work based on the interests of the children. Children are encouraged to express themselves through ‘natural languages’, including drawing, painting, working in clay, sculpting, constructing, conversing, and dramatic play. In a Reggio Emilia school, educators pay close attention to the look and feel of the classroom, which is often referred to as the “third teacher.” The goal is to create a room that is beautiful, joyful, inviting, and stimulating. Teachers document the children’s discussions, remarks, and activities through notes, videos, and photographs. This makes learning visible and helps parents to understand what their children are learning; teachers get to know the children better; and children see that their work is valued.

Bank Street Approach – Learning by Doing

John Dewey (1859-1952) and his theory of “˜learning by doing’ influenced this developmental approach. The focus of Bank Street preschools is on a child’s mental, social, emotional, and physical growth. In these programs, the child is an active learner and gains knowledge about the world through experience. Students set the learning pace, and the teacher serves as a guide. Bank Street approach teaches lessons through hands-on activities, such as building blocks, puzzles, clay, and dramatic play.

Which Educational Philosophy Is Best?

As the preschool options seem endless, many parents wonder if they will ever be able to choose a program that is a good match for their child. Here are some guidelines to help them in the process:

• Carefully consider your child’s personality and learning style before investigating the options. After all, you know your child best.
• Research the various types of programs available, and make the selection of those that best fit your child’s needs.
• Visit each type of school and then try to determine the program that feels right for your child and family.

What type of ECE program do your kids attend? How did you choose your child’s preschool? Share with us your thoughts and experience.

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Children are usually not shy about telling us when they are hungry or full. They will signal they have had enough by pushing away a spoon or turning their head away from the food being offered. In the same fashion, they will ask for more if they still feel hungry. Sometimes, however, it would be helpful to see inside their small stomachs to know if what they are saying is really true.

Parents know how hard it is to figure out how much their kids need to eat. A study published in the Journal of Paediatric Psychology states that when parents pressure children to eat more food than they want, kids learn to ignore their internal cues of hunger and fullness. Thus their normal eating behaviour is disrupted, making children vulnerable to unhealthy weight gain. A leading  family nutrition expert, registered dietitian and the founding editor of Raise Healthy Eaters, a popular blog about family nutrition, Maryann Jacobsen, further affirms this by criticizing the age-old feeding strategy of asking children to clean their plate or forcing them to eat “just two more bites”. In doing so, parents are negatively affecting children’s food regulation skills as they age.

Pushing food is not always about getting children to eat more “” it’s also about the quest to get them to eat healthy. Caregivers may insist children eat fruits and veggies before other items, or reward children with dessert for eating more healthy food  – Maryann wrote in a blog for the New York Times.

Unfortunately, this strategy makes children less likely to intrinsically prefer healthy foods while making sweets even more desirable. And with all the negotiations at the table, children lose sight of their internal signals of hunger and fullness. As they grow and get accustomed to this, they don’t quite understand or know what being full actually means. Over time they internalise how they should be eating, and continue eating in that manner.

Children must follow their bodies’ hunger and fullness cues to eat enough, but not too much

Therefore, parents should make teaching children to recognize their internal hunger and fullness cues a priority even if it means their kids will eat fewer vegetables in the meantime. According to Jacobsen, a good start to do so is asking children the question: What Does Your Tummy Say? especially at mealtimes or anytime they ask for more food or want to leave the table. Let them eat as much or as little as they want during scheduled meals and snacks. The key is to help children match how much they eat with their internal feelings of hunger and fullness in order to regulate their food intake. Parents can support this process  by structuring meals, providing variety, setting clear limits, and allowing hunger and fullness to guide eating.

What Does Your Tummy Say? Challenges for parents

While stressing the importance of this question Jacobsen also identifies three obstacles that can get in the way of teaching kids to become intuitive eaters for life:

• The child’s physical appearance – If parents consider their child as being too small or too big for his/her age, they are less likely to accept his/her appetite when they aren’t comfortable with their child’s size. However, pressuring “little ones” to eat  more or trying to get “big ones” to eat less has the opposite effect. The right strategy in this case is to help children become aware of how they feel, rather than trying to get them to eat a certain way that may not match their appetite or needs.
• The nature of kids eating – Kids who go through growth spurts can be non-stop eating machines as their bodies drive them to seek out food to support the rapid growth. On the other hand, when they are not growing as much, their appetite wanes. Therefore, it’s not realistic or in line with child development to expect them to always eat the same amount of food. Instead, helping them notice the difference between real hunger and something else is crucial.
• A food-centric environment – We live in a food-centric environment in which the next meal, snack and eating opportunity is certain and bigger than ever. There are more opportunities to eat mindlessly, making it difficult for parents to do their job of feeding. There are also more packaged and processed options that children easily accept which is another great temptation for parents.

Resources and activities that can help kids tune into feelings of hunger and fullness

Being aware that many children’s books talk about what kids should eat, but few talk about how Jacobsen came up with the idea for a story to help school-age kids understand this important aspect of eating. The story is about 7-year-old Emily who has grown up listening to her tummy. Her mom challenges her to find others who don’t because Emily assumes everyone does. She first finds Larry the Lunch Monitor, who pushes kindergartner Sam to eat so he doesn’t ask for an early snack. Next is Grandpa Jerry, who cleans his plate because he grew up poor and hates to waste food. The last is Emily’s Aunt Jane, who is always trying to control how much she eats by going on diets. Her mom helps her teach each of these people why listening to their tummy is a better option.

In addition to reading this and similar books and discussing with kids why it’s important to listen to their tummy, parents can try out the following exercise:

• Make some small “stomachs” by filling a few stockings with varying degrees of salt.
• Strap these “stomachs” onto some dolls, at tummy level.
• Ask your children questions like, “Which doll’s tummy is hungry?” “Which doll is a little full?” “Which doll is really full?”
• Next, have your children place their hands on their own tummies and tell you whether they are hungry, a little full, or very full.
• Go back to the dolls and ask your children to choose the doll whose stomach best matches their own.
• Finally, practice this exercise at varying times throughout the day to “catch” your kids at different stages of hunger.

Teaching your kids to stay in touch with their hunger and fullness is one of the best gifts you can ever give them. If children are allowed to guide their eating through intuition they will grow into adults with lower rates of disordered eating and diet less. Because when they reach for something to eat they’ll ask themselves that same question they heard many years ago: What does my tummy say?

Are you a member of  the “Just Two More Bites” club or do you teach your children self regulation skills at the dining room table? Share with us your stories, tips and experience.

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Holiday environment with twinkly lights, sparkly mobiles from the ceiling and overly commercialized displays with little to no meaning or learning value. Or rather a festive atmosphere that helps children connect with the larger community and understand that holidays are celebrated in many ways and, just as they enjoy their celebration, children from other backgrounds enjoy their celebrations too.

Holiday celebrations are perfect opportunities for children to learn about our multicultural world and share traditions and values that are cherished parts of people’s lives. In pluralistic society, it’s important to raise children with a greater awareness of others around them, especially those who are different. But many early childhood professionals wonder what holidays to celebrate in their program or classroom and how to respect the cultures represented by all children. Many parents too, wonder why programs celebrate specific holidays or why they discourage any celebration at all.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children decisions about what holidays to celebrate are best made together by teachers, parents, and children. Families and staff are more comfortable when both have expressed their views and understand how a decision has been reached.

In addition, when planning holiday activities, the rules of good practice continue to apply:

• Are the activities meaningful to the children?
• Are their needs and interests being met?
• Is the activity a valuable use of children’s time?

Teachers may survey families at the beginning of the year to determine what holidays to celebrate. They may even ask the children to create their own holiday to help them learn the concepts that underlie such valued traditions. Holiday celebrations are just one way for programs and families to work together to create developmentally and culturally appropriate learning experiences.

Copyright: Producer

Here are some signs of good practice in celebrating holidays

Parents and teachers ask themselves why children should learn about this holiday. Is it developmentally appropriate for those in the group? Why is it important to specific children and families?

• Activities are connected to specific children and families in the group. This helps children understand holiday activities in the context of people’s daily lives. Children should have the chance to explore the meaning and significance of each holiday.
• Children are encouraged to share feelings and information about the holidays they celebrate. This will help them make the distinction between learning about another person’s holiday rituals and celebrating one’s own holidays. Children may participate as “guests” in holiday activities that are not part of their own cultures.
• Every group represented in the classroom is honored (both children and teachers). This does not mean that every holiday of every group must be celebrated or classrooms would be celebrating all the time! It does mean that once families and programs have decided on what holidays to celebrate, none should be treated as if they are “unusual.” Children should recognize that everyone’s holidays are culturally significant and meaningful. Activities demonstrate the fact that not everyone in the same ethnic group celebrates holidays in the same way. Families may provide examples of their own unique traditions.
• Curriculum demonstrates respect for everyone’s customs. If children are observing different holidays at the same time, the values and traditions of each child’s culture should be acknowledged.
• Focus is on meaningful ways to celebrate holidays without spending money. Families may find certain holidays stressful due to the amount of commercialization and the media pressure to buy gifts. Teachers can help by showing children that homemade costumes and cards are very special, and celebrating can be joyful without gifts.

Holidays as cultural concepts

As part of their social development, children learn about themselves, their families, their community and the role of traditions and holidays in establishing cultural identity and unity. How and what they learn in this process shapes their values and beliefs later in life. Children learn best by seeing, doing, and being a part of a new experience. Early childhood professionals can build on holiday experiences to help children develop empathy and understanding for other people and ideas. Learning about holiday celebrations, especially ones celebrated by other students in their classroom, children will appreciate what is important to their friends and neighbors and embrace the increasingly global and diverse world around them.

For adults, it is easy to become stressed over the commercialism of holiday celebrations. Therefore, we should help children develop healthy behaviors and attitudes toward the holidays by giving them the opportunity to experience the true spirit of these special days common to all cultures.

Do you think that learning and celebrating holidays all around the world benefits your child?

What is your experience so far? Have this way of exploring other cultures helped your child to be more understanding and open-minded?

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In the modern technological climate children are born with the expectation of a screen of some sorts being presented to them from a very early age. As technology dominates our lives, learning basic computer programming isn’t just a smart idea; it’s an essential skill for grown-ups and children alike.

While coding used to be something reserved for the highly technical and programmers, it is now a valuable, universal language that is surprisingly easy, fun, and useful for our kids to learn. Computer coding for kids is a new type of literacy that will allow them a different way to communicate with others, use problem-solving and be creative.

Coding programs for children have gained considerable popularity with the introduction of tablets which make computer interaction more palatable for little hands. Coding apps like ScratchJr not only give children the opportunity to learn skills essential to computer programming at an early age but also support parents to integrate technology into their children’s lives in a meaningful way.

Copyright: Syda Productions

Beauty and joy of kids coding

ScratchJr is an introductory programming language that encourages creativity and expression, enabling five- to seven-year-old children to create their own interactive projects through coding. Using ScratchJr, children can snap together programming blocks to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. They can modify how their characters look, design their own backgrounds, add their own voices and sounds and even photos of themselves and then use the programming blocks to bring their characters to life. In this way children explore concepts of computer programming and digital content creation in a safe and fun environment.

ScratchJr was inspired by the popular Scratch programming language also developed by the MIT Media Lab and already used by millions of children aged eight and up around the world. The ScratchJr team redesigned the interface and language to make them developmentally appropriate for younger children, with features to match young children’s cognitive, personal, social, and emotional development.

Benefits of ScratchJr for children

As young children code with ScratchJr, they learn how to create and express themselves with the computer, rather than just interact with software created by others. Children learn to think sequentially, explore cause and effect, and develop design and problem-solving skills. At the same time, they learn to use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context. They also get instructed how to divide complex problems into simpler parts, iteratively refine and improve their work, remix and build on the work of others and persevere in the face of challenges. These skills are important for everyone, not just people who will grow up to become scientists, engineers, or computer scientists. With ScratchJr, children aren’t just learning to code, they are coding to learn.

Copyright: Africa Studio

Let’s code together

The most important educational value of any programming environment is that it allows children to make their abstract thought processes visible on the screen. Once the thoughts are made concrete, they can be easily manipulated and controlled in a more tangible way. And, because they are displayed visually on the screen, parents and educators can gain insight into what and how a child is thinking. Scratch was designed so that this visualization is very clear. In addition to sharing their own games and animations on the web, children can invite parents, grandparents, siblings, extended family members and friends to step into this amazing world of coding and work together to create new projects in ScratchJr.

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When I was young, my grandma enjoyed taking me on long walks around the park near where we lived. We often had adventures, my grandma and I, and going to the park soon became my favourite place for them. We would pretend to be explorers, discovering new land as we waded through the head-height blades of grass (well, head-height for a 3 year old), on our way to the perfect picnic spot. She would take me to feed the ducks at the pond and teach me about grasshoppers and dragonflies and beetles. I would run away from her as we played hide-and-seek in the trees and together we collected the different types of leaves that fell from them in the autumn: oak, birch, elm. Eventually, when I grew up a little more, she and my grandpa would teach me how to plant flowers, how to know when the raspberries they grew in the garden were ripe for picking and about the reasons why poison ivy stung so much. I was luckier than I could ever have imagined – despite living in one of the biggest cities in the world, my family found the time and sought opportunities that allowed me to develop the deep appreciation for the environment and its wonders that I still carry with me today. Learning from nature has been beneficial to my growth in many ways, some of which are outwardly evident, some of which aren’t. And with the rise of the dangerous anti climate change movement championed by people in power (hi Donald Trump), it’s more important than ever that we strive to ensure that future generations do not suffer from the consequences of human disregard for nature. The first step is allowing your child to learn from nature, just as I did.

What Are The Benefits?

Richard Louv called the lack of opportunities for children to connect with the natural environment ‘nature-deficit disorder’ in his book, The Last Child in the Woods, opening an important discussion into the developmental effects that learning from nature has on children. The sad truth is that, with parents’ busy modern lifestyle, children are spending more time watching TV and playing video games than they are outdoors being physically active. But why is this situation bad? What about learning from nature is so good for our children? Below are just a few benefits that researchers have found that are worth knowing about:

1. It supports growth in multiple development domains – in other words, children benefit intellectually, emotionally, socially, spiritually and physically when they learn from nature.
2. It supports creativity and problem solving skills. Studies have found that children play in more creative ways in green outdoor areas and tackle issues more innovatively in classrooms that have a nature-based learning experience.
3. It enhances cognitive abilities and improves academic performance.
4. It has many physical benefits, including improving levels of nutrition and physical activity and bettering eyesight.
5. It reduces stress (even long-term), improves social skills and reduces Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) symptoms.

Keeping It Interesting

It’s all very well that learning from nature is good for children, but how do we make children who don’t appear to have any interest in nature learn to enjoy being outdoors? The key is to approach the “learning from nature” experience using many different methods and materials – so as not to allow activities to become mundane. Children who are exposed to nature early on generally continue to appreciate it as they grow older, but older children without this early exposure can find being outdoors boring, gross or both. While teachers can easily teach children about the importance of nature through “Go Green” initiatives in classrooms (including recycling schemes, conservation projects and starting a team of “Go Green” helpers), parents should not rely on this alone if they want their child to learn from nature. Some ways parents might do their part is through buying books, singing songs, teaching children to turn lights off as they leave a room and celebrating Earth Day at home. But nothing beats spending much-needed time outdoors with your child, splashing in muddy puddles, pointing out birds’ nests and planting flowers in the garden or at the park. These are priceless opportunities that just can’t be replaced.

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The modern times we live in, along with the development of technology, have brought different widgets and entertainment for children. All they need is to turn on their computer and the fun can begin. Parents are quite busy nowadays, and often they don’t even know how much time their children spend in front of the computer. It does not worry them too much, since they sometimes think this might be a good alternative for their kids, especially when it’s so cold outside. However, there are many other ways how children can spend some quality time at home without being stuck in front of the screen. It takes just a little bit of our imagination, creativity, and a good will. Provide your child with a lot of colorful paper, crayons, watercolors, fabric, buttons and beads and let him or her express and be creative.

Let me share with you some of the ideas regarding activities for our kids that will not only entertain them, but also motivate and develop their imagination and motor skills.

Paper Snowflakes

I am sure many of you still remember how you made your first New Year paper snowflakes in kindergarten or at school. To make these ornaments, all you need is some paper, a pair of scissors and a little bit of your imagination. Begin with a square sheet of paper. Fold it in half twice, then on the diagonal. You will get a triangle. Let your child be creative by cutting paper with scissors in the way he or she wants. You will get the best snowflakes if you cut the paper only a few times. To get fancy snowflakes, use colored paper or let your child decorate them in colored pencil, crayon or marker. To make paper snowflakes, you can use compass drawn paper circles. It’s even easier to make snowflakes by using round coffee filter.

If your child is still too small to help you make these interesting decorations, you might let them create snowflake chains. For this activity you will need scissors, paper and thread or rope to hang snowflakes on the wall or doorcase, as well as sellotape to attach flakes to the thread. Stick the thread to make sure that the flakes will not become loose when children touch and match them to make a chain. Get two sheets of paper or coffee filters. Cut them round. Then put them on top of each other and cut them as you wish. Make a few snowflakes of different shapes. Hang them using a thread or rope so your child can reach them and start making snowflake chains.

Use your imagination to make unusual snowflakes. Your child can help you with that. Here are some of our ideas:

Shredded Paper Snowman

To make your own Shredded Paper Snowman you will need: 2 paper plates stapled together, shredded paper, white glue, scissors, black paper circles for eyes and buttons, orange paper triangle nose. You may add a hat or other decorations a child finds interesting for your little snowman. First you have to stample two paper plates together into a simple snowman shape. Then encourage your child to squeeze glue over paper plates and press handfuls of shredded paper onto the plates. If you want the paper stick better and give your snowman an extra dimension, add the second layer of glue and some more shredded paper on top of the first layer. When you make the body of a real little snowman out of these plates you can start decorating it. Let your child make his/her favourite snowman!

http://www.housingaforest.com/shredded-paper-snowman/

Here is another interesting way how to make your snowman. For this activity you will need sectioned tray, cotton cosmetic pads or white craft foam circles for snowman’s body, small twigs for arms, small lengths of ribbon, trim or fabric for the clothes, colourful buttons, plastic ice crystals, dried black beans. You can use other things as well to decorate the snowman. Give each child a stryrofoam meat tray and let them create their own snowman. This activity will encourage creativity of your child and test their fine motor skills.

http://happyhooligans.ca/build-snowman-activity-tray/

If there is no snow during winter in our country, the following “recipe” can help you and your kids make artificial one, and enjoy in snowflakes and magical winter moments in your home. All you need is a pound of baking soda and shaving cream (whole bottle). First put baking soda into a larger plastic bowl and then slowly add the shaving cream. Let your child mix the ingredients until you get snow mixture to make snowflakes like real ones. To make them sparkle and shine, add some glitter.

Play Dough Activities

Making Christmas and New Year ornaments using play dough, clay or similar materials will help children discover the world around them and develop their fine motor skills. Place vinyl table cloth on the table, prepare a small apron or an old T-shirt and start making ornaments of different shapes and colours! Make sure the play dough you have chosen is flexible enough so that a child can make everything he or she wants without any difficulties that may occur if the material is too hard or too soft. Let them express their creativity without your interfering – perhaps they want to make a forest with forest animals, vegetables, a house for small creatures, jewelry…Their piece of art is not so important as the possibility to express themselves and develop different skills through rolling, pinching and squeezing.

Beside making Christmas ornaments, play dough can be used in many different ways, like for encouraging basic maths skills such as addition. Let your child use play dough to make three trees or baskets. The first two are the summands and the third tree or basket is the sum. Then the child can create different shapes of levaes, fruits, etc. Give them the task and let them explain you the operation and the result using the leaves or fruits. Learn together and play at the same time!

How to Make Play Dough at Home?

If you fear that your child might put play dough in the mouth, or you lack materials for making the ornaments, you can always make your own play dough. You will need:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 2 cups hot water
• 1 cup salt
• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 tsp citric acid
• Food colouring and flavoring (optional)

Mix all of the ingredients together, and stir over low heat. The dough will begin to thicken until it resembles mashed potatoes. When the dough pulls away from the sides and isn’t sticky anymore, remove the pan from heat and allow the dough to cool enough to handle. Split dough into 4 equal parts and make small balls. Make a dent in each of them with a finger. Then add a few drops of food colouring. To give the play dough a different smell you can use food flavoring.

Beside play dough you can use clay or dough as well. Use your fingers to pinch and poke a single lump of clay into any shape. It is not possible to add some details on the clay later on due to drying. Instead you must form the details right away from the piece of clay you are working with. To prevent drying, you can wrap unfinished sculpture in cellophane or wet cloth and leave it for a few days. Finished sculture can be dried (which requires 2-3 days) or you can fire it in a kiln. Then the clay is ready for painting.

When your children can’t play in the park due to cold weather or when they have nothing interesting to do, a little bit of your imagination and a few buttons can help you spend some quality time with them at home, playing, encouraging creativity and developing their motor skills. In this blog post we gave you some ideas how your children can learn through play suitable for these winter days. How do you entertain and educate your children during the winter months? We would like to hear your ideas and experiences.

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Her writing supports the hypothesis that emotion plays a crucial role in helping children understand didactic instruction or pedagogy. Although logic and reason are often vital to learning, she argues that emotion helps us connect the things we’ve learned in the past to influence real-world decision making. She writes that it is “literally neurologically impossible to build memories, engage complex thoughts or make meaningful decisions without emotion.”

A former junior high school science teacher, Immordino-Yang became curious about the fundamental role of emotions in learning when the issue of race was raised in her classroom. She used science to teach hominid evolution and to discuss natural selection for adaptive traits, such as varying pigmentation in the skin; to her surprise and amazement, engaging with this new scientific perspective seemed to ease racial tensions, improve peer relationships, and inspire ethnic pride among her socioeconomically diverse students. She also noticed that her students seemed to take a new interest in the sciences, as if they had gradually come to appreciate the personal relevance of scientific reasoning to their daily lives.

Now an associate professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at USC Rossier and USC Dornsnife, Immordino-Yang examines the reasoning behind her students’ shift from indifference to engagement, and finally, to deep and meaningful learning. In her book, she claims her students learned because they “had taken the lesson so personally and so seriously,” emotionally connecting to material that had a personal significance for them. They had discovered that “science could help them make personally relevant meaning of the racial and ethnic diversity and identity issues they encountered in their daily lives.”

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Emotion is essential to learning and it should not be devalued as merely the “E” in “SEL,” or social-emotional learning. Emotion is where learning begins, or as is typically the case, where it ends. Furthermore, emotion also forms “the basis for creativity and invention and for the decisions we make for now and for the future,” particularly in academic contexts. Even in educational subjects that are traditionally regarded as unemotional, like physics, engineering or math, “deep understanding depends on making emotional connections between Concepts.”

Dr. Immordino-Yang makes a well-founded and convincing argument that emotion helps us not only to engage in the task of learning in many disciplines, but also to integrate past experiences and use them to make future decisions. In her book, she suggests that student reactions and experiences show how deeply our emotions, identities, and relationships are intertwined, and how these together form the basis of social behavior and learning. Emotions, Learning and the Brain is a must-read for anyone hoping to reach students or adolescents – or anyone else for that matter. While there are no silver bullets in education, emotional engagement and personal relevance are the mechanisms that can potentially improve the educational status quo in the United States and beyond.

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Poetry is an art form. Its power to evoke emotions and thoughts within readers using only a few words and syllables, to create timeless melodies and rhythms that sustain cultures and memories for ages, and most importantly, to develop our appreciation and intellect is truly unmatched.

The true beauty of power lies in the fact that it is entirely open to interpretation. There is no set of rules or laws that have to abided by when writing or reading poetry, allowing creativity to flow and imagination to be sparked. Unfortunately, many parents and teachers nowadays are reluctant to introduce poetry to children, thinking that it’s burdensome and far beyond their years. Research has shown that introducing poetry to children at earlier ages, and encouraging them to memorize it, has significant benefits.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of reading, and memorizing, poetry, aside from an appreciation for a wondrous art form, is the immensely beneficial role it plays in the development of one’s mind and intellectual ability. Children, in particular, are undergoing a stage of life in which they experience the most intellectual growth and changes, and poetry can help shape the framework and basis of their minds and encourage them to become more analytical and inquisitive by nature.

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Memorizing English poetry can work wonders for English speakers and writers. Not only will it help instill an intrinsic appreciation for rhythm and melody-production created through manipulation of words and syllables and their arrangement, but will also help them articulate English words, of a more eloquent vocabulary, which will go on to help them greatly as they progress through schooling. Susan Wise Bauer, author of The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, says that memorization of poetry helps children learn to use complex English syntax. A student who memorizes poetry at an early age will have garnered a cache of easily applicable phrases and vocabulary, and will have an easier time adjusting to writing potently and effectively as they get older.

Language is our mode of communication, and mastering it at an early age, or at the least being exposed to some exemplary examples of it, is beneficiary in all aspects of life. “The student who memorizes poetry will internalize the rhythmic, beautiful patterns of the English language. These patterns then become part of the student’s language store, those wells that we all use every day in writing and speaking.” – In Defense of Memorization by Michael Knox Beran. A child’s ability to express themselves and communicate with others can be greatly enriched from an exposure to poetry.

Furthermore, finding solace in poetry that expresses the emotions and sentiments so sincere and deep that their existence may be unbeknownst to the beholder themselves is truly a remarkable feeling. Especially for children, who have not yet developed the full palette of emotions, who may not yet know how to characterize some of their feelings and thoughts, reading a poem that shares the same feelings as them can help them feel as though they are not alone. Poetry connects people, from different cultures, different generations, different societies, and it allows an appreciation for both diversity and unity; an appreciation that is vital in one’s development as an open-minded individual in today’s society.

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Here’s a set of easy-to-follow tips for memorizing poetry, as provided by MensaForKids:

1.  Read the poem slowly and carefully,then practice reading it out loud. It’s important to verbally express the words of the poem to get a sense of the rhythm and flow.
2.  Rewrite the poem yourself, try your best to keep the structure of stanzas and lines of the original poem.
3.  Read the poem out loud once more.
4.  Cover the poem using a blank piece of paper, so that you can only see the first line. Repeat the line to yourself three times, then look away from the poem and try to recount the line from memory.
5.  Repeat this process with the rest of the lines of each stanza.
6.  Then, continue on doing the same thing with each stanza, each time recounting the past two stanzas to see if you can remember them. Do this until you reach the end of the poem.
7.  Now that the poem is engrained in your short-term memory, here are some easy steps to follow so that you’ll remember them for a long time:

• Record yourself reading the poem and listen to it whenever you can, or if you can find an audio recording of the poem, listen to that.
• Read the poem out loud anytime you’re walking by yourself.
• Read the poem to your parents or anyone else who’s willing to listen.
• Say the poem out loud whenever you’re alone (in the shower, exercising, any daily activity you can.)
• Rewrite the poem over and over, writing has been proven to help with memorization and engraving things in long-term memory.
• Read it to yourself (in your head) whenever you’re bored or aren’t paying attention in class or other situations.

It may seem daunting at first, but the rewards that accompany an appreciation for poetry, developed at an early age, will definitely prove to be worthwhile.

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