babies

Magda Gerber... her philosophy changed my perspective on babies. It is incredible and I will be following it when I have babies! If you have a baby or are pregnant... look into her books!



http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSHicQMmi0Q9BkTWlEcarzLnqQ5Qq7drmbpSWUHUmpizjW46lqPBg


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http://www.rie.org/

skin

http://tbafblog.com/2010/11/great-skin-you-now-have-a-choice/

the importance of play

I went to a seminar by Eric Hoffman, author, professor and former teacher who spoke about the importance of play. It was so inspiring and brought so much to light about Children! Here are the notes...

Young children use pay to explore important questions about themselves and the world around them. It is their way of "thinking out loud." At first, these questions are basic: Who will take care of me? How does my body work? How can i learn about the people and things around me? As their brains develop and they gain more knowledge and control, their questions become increasingly complex. Observing play can help us understand what questions a child is asking and guide us to curriculum that provides positive answers.

CHILDREN TRY TO UNDERSTAND THEIR WORLD BY:
-observing adults, peers, and media characters
-imitating what they observe
-testing the limits of themselves, their environment, and important adults (children test our language to see if we are going to do what we say).
-asking questions
-creating ever-changing theories about how things work (they come up with grand ideas to understand things. If you give them info. it will change their idea. They are figuring out how the world works. Their ideas are not logical).
-expressing ideas through language, art, music and motion
-and most importantly---through PLAY! (through play they invest in the world. Play is fun for adults, NOT always for children. They make their ideas real in the world and that can be scary. If they are afraid of something they tend to turn it into something... for example: if they are afraid of a person place of thing they will call it a monster. They can can imagine future and past. Children will take bits of information and play it out, for example, draw or build. They are trying to figure out how the world works and how people work.)

PRESCHOOLERS PLAY SO THEY CAN:
-explore emotions by:
-learning to identify feelings
-developing new ways to express feelings

-explore social relationships by:
-forging new connections with adults
-investigating friendships with peers
-studying power, control and autonomy, and learning how to balance the desire for power with the need for relationship

-explore their intellectual abilities by:
-expanding knowledge of the world outside the family
-developing a self identity
-looking for predictable patterns
-trying out "big ideas"
-asking "big questions" such as:
what is right and what is wrong? what is good and what is bad?
what is fair and what is unfair?
what is life and what is death?
what is a boy and what is a girl?
what is real and what is fantasy?
what does it mean to be a grownup?
(they are trying to figure out who's in charge, and who is a friend. 5-6 year olds can have more than 1 friend, you can play with so in so and still be my friend but if they are younger, they can only understand what it means to have one friend, they think if they have one friend they can't have another and if someone else trys to be friends with their friend it means they don't have that friend anymore. Giving them examples such as "I am friends with Jack, Sally and Amy but sometimes I only play with Amy and Jack and sometimes Sally just plays with Amy.)

-Children will hit another child because they have a toy they want and if it worked and they got the toy, they will do it again because it worked for them. Children aren't good at having different categories in their life.

-Children think if they use their imaginations to say what this is it will really hurt their feelings.

-It's hard for them explore ideas they have with out being about to play it out with other children.

-Children don't speak their ideas (such as things about death, good and bad)

-Separating their actions from who they are doesn't make sense to them (you can narrate for them by saying "it looks like you really want to play with ___." when they express actions that look like they want to play with another child but may be harmful.) They explore their feelings by doing things, for example, if one child, lets call him Kyle is building blocks, and another child named John is watching and thinking of how he really wants to play with Kyle, but instead of saying I want to play with you he runs over and knocks Kyle's blocks over because he has already in his mind imagined him asking Kyle if he could play and Kyle rejected him and said no.

-Sometimes they are fighting over a truck when they are really fighting with each other, they just can't express it in words. That's why we must facilitate and narrate for them what their feelings are.

-We have to narrate, speak and defend for them. With out adults calling out their threats (i'm not going to let you threaten her to be the "baby", find something both children agree on and then they can play that. If the child that is being called the baby is ok being called a kitty and the other child calling her the baby is ok calling her the kitty, then they have resolved it and can play in peace.) If it is an older child calling a younger child the baby you can tell the older child "this person needs my help right now, you don't need my help right now."

-give children real examples to narrate their play, actions and feelings.

-books with real people and genders playing different roles (like a woman being a firefighter) can help them figure out their world and feelings.

-Children will give up their ideas to be accepted by their peer groups.

-If you make your child fearful (not letting them do things that may have some danger in it) they will never build the skills in that area.




-explore their physical abilities to
-test physical limits
-practicing new physical skills

wonderland.

I cannot remember a time where my imagination was more vivid than as a child. Remembering those times bring me alive in a way nothing else can. Ultimately our creativity comes from the expressions of what we imagine. When our passions are ignited, through inspiration, our imaginations can take us to places none have gone before, there is always something more to find... it's never ending.

Too often a child's imagination is squelched, due to the media and commercial based obsessed culture that entertains children with toys and tv, which only give them a product without allowing them to use their creativity and imagination to grow, learn and develop. Ultimately, we will have adults who no longer posses any imagination or creativity, only the lack there of. We are taking away their right to develop, be themselves, and function fully as the human being God created them to be. Their individuality will be stricken with similarity of those around them due to the product commercialism creates. I am desperate to change that which has stolen the very thing that allows them to be children.

As a child you can imagine almost anything. A tree could be a castle, a bike could be a purple flying dragon. Now we have child sized castles and toy flying dragons. This only stops children's ability to imagine, it does it for them, and therefore that part of them doesn't fully develop... and all the things that come along with it like role playing, figuring out the world around them through play, exploration and exploration... gone.

we love eachother, more than the stars.

we love to decorate together
spend time going to random places
i've learned to love japan like he does, but maybe not quite as much :)
he makes me laugh more than anyone
he laughs at my shopping justifications, and i somehow end up laughing too
we love linus and keiko
he likes hearing what I have to say about child development
and listens to me go on and on about it :)
he understands my passion, and brings me back to reality when i get too passionate about it
he tells me how i sleep talk at night and say the funniest things
we want to travel, and then have a family
he defends me and helps me find correction when i'm wrong
he helps me let go of my to do list and find moments to laugh and relax
he comforts me when i cry
he shares my dreams and dreams them with me
he doesn't let the hard times in life affect our love
he knows a lot about Jesus, and i love learning from him


he is my bestest of friends
i belong to him
he thinks i'm the most beautiful one in the world
he knows me and loves me even with my flaws
he inspires me everyday
and i tell him everything
he is my f a v o r i t e.

love that covers unfair pain

Surrender produces a Father who makes our failures something good. His grace is enough to cover our failures. Such a perfect picture of His love... He doesn't want us to feel condemned, He desires for us to know His g o o d n e s s.

That is love. When we know His love for us, we can love even those who hurt us.

a glimpse of my passion...

Ever since I finished my Child Development degree last year I have formed such a deep passion. A passion which seems to maybe go to far at times, because I feel for those who have children and don't understand where they are, or what they lack in their environment to help them progress developmentally. At times I think about how I didn't plan on becoming a teacher and how I would have gone into having my own children, not knowing much of anything about them developmentally and how I would have held them back for my lack of knowledge. I'm not saying I needed to be a teacher to give them all they needed, I'm just saying I believe it's important that parents understand child development. The first 5 years of a child's life are the most important, and the way we teachers/parents introduce them to learning/school will effect them for the rest of their lives. It will either put a bad taste in their mouth, or a good one. We can set them up for a successful future of learning and a healthy desire to learn.

Asking children "open-ended" questions helps them hypothesis. Instead of telling a child things you know, ask them what they think.. it causes them to develop cognitively by hypothesizing. For example: instead of saying "when you put that large block on top of that small block it will fall" say "what do you think will happen when you put that large block on the small block?" and let them experiment with it and see what happens. It may take them a couple of tries and trying out other blocks, but they will soon see what happens. That knowledge can't be told, it can only be experienced on their own.

There are some misconceptions about Play Based Schools.. here is one:

Children just play and don't do any academics: NOT true... actually it is opposite. Children know how to do one thing best... play. Children are learning about the world around them, and they figure it out by playing. In a play based school, we allow the children to do what they know best, and provide the right materials for them to have hands one experiences through their play which essentially is hands on academics. You might think that children playing in a huge sand box isn't beneficial for them, I hope I can change your mind... when a child plays in the sand they are learning cause and effect when they pour water on the sand and try to create something as opposed to creating something when the sand is dry. They have a sensory experience as the sand sits in between their toes and falls through their fingers. Depending on what items are in the sand, they can experience many different things from creativity, imagination, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, making connections cognitively, and many more. If there are other children in the sand with them, they can learn social and emotional skills with a teacher close by to guide them into problem solving. There are different steps of play which determines where a child is developmentally, and each step requires a child to be around other children as the child learns social skills. The most important stages of a child's development are communication/language/literacy, social emotional development, exploration/approaches to learning, purposeful motor activity, cognitive development and sensory organization.


One of my favorite places to visit is BING Nursery school at Standford University.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/bingschool/
This place created at SU as a research institute, following the motto that children do one thing best... play. The only children allowed in the school are ones of professors at the college. Now if that isn't legit enough for you.. I don't know what is! When i visited BING, I was amazed.. it is almost exactly like the school I work at... and the environment just inspires me creatively!


Something that kindergarten teachers have said is that they are looking for preschoolers who enter kindergarten socially and emotionally ready. If a child is not socially and emotionally able to cope, they will not be able to handle the learning aspect of preschool, they will only fall behind. At the school I teach at, we help the children problem solve all day long. It is so important to teach children problem solving skills, which will set them up for success for the rest of their life.

I could go on about this forever!

It is most inspiring and intriguing when a child allows us adults to step into their perspective... unfortunately, us adults take advantage of it and too often make the child step into ours, when they are no where close to ready. But when we take a moment to see into their world, we find more creativity, understanding and inspiration than one could hold. When we see the world through their perspective, we can understand them better and help them get to a place of understanding life and this world in their own unique way.