Infants And Toddlers

1. Understand the impact of early years curriculum models on the application of theoretical perspectives of children’s care, learning and development.

Toddlers and preschoolers are at different developmental stages, and therefore require their teachers to use different approaches and techniques to further learning. I completed my observations at the Bright and Early Children’s Learning Center where I observed a toddler classroom and a preschool classroom. My observations took place from 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. on the 21st and 28th of September. The first day that I observed I was placed in the toddler classroom which had two teachers, Miss Ashlynn and Miss Miranda, and six students, most of whom were two years old. In the preschool classroom there was one teacher, Miss Stephanie, and eight students, each of whom were 3 years old or 4 years old. While the rooms were physically similar, the teachers used different strategies and activities to appeal to the different age groups.

On Wednesday, October 5th, I read to an infant during my placement time at the Cortland Child Care Center. The children in the infant number two room varied from ages 3 months to 11 months old. I chose to read to Bentley, who is our oldest infant in the room at 11 months. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar designed, illustrated, and written by Eric Carle. I chose this book because I resonate this book strongly with my childhood. The book contains a variety of concepts necessary early learning such as colors, days of the week, and numbers. A lot can be understood when reading this book to an infant or toddler. It took about 15 minutes to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Bentley. We began the reading at 1:45 until about 2:00 o’clock to finish our book. During this time the younger infants were down for their nap, which was a perfect time to read to Bentley

The costs of this expansion will mostly go toward labor, as labor is the single largest component of costs for early infant and toddler care centers (Marshall et al., 2004). For teachers to stay invested in the children they teach and care for, they must be fairly compensated to maintain the high quality of care. According to a study in Massachusetts, 72 percent of typical full-time, full-year center expenditures go toward labor (Marshall, et al., 2004). In dollar amounts, “average expenditures per child care hour were $4.42 for centers serving infants and $4.28 for centers serving toddlers. These correspond to full-time care expenditures of $10,343 and $10,015 for the two groups of centers [infants and toddlers, respectively]”

So you see, pictures, even in books help minds to develop each time you take a glance at them. You gain that freedom in your mind and can grow and expand to photography, galleries, museums, and even creations of your own personal art... the possibilities seem endless. I would conclude that picture books are helpful to people of all ages, especially the minds of children. Will you ever look at books the same

In addition, during my observation, Sydney was able to demonstrate the following gross motor skills. Sydney was placed in a sitting position on the table as well on the floor and was able to sit up unassisted for brief periods of time. Although Sydney appeared to be unstable at times, her mother closely spotted her to ensure her safety. Most babies are able to sit up by themselves unassisted for short periods of time (Oswalt, n.d.). By being able to sit upright and support the weight of her head in the proper position, shows Sydney has developed her core body strength and has met this developmental milestone. In addition, while lying on a blanket on her stomach, Sydney was able to lift her chest and head. According to American Pregnancy Association, most infants at 6 months old can lift their chest and part of their stomach while lying face down (First,

How can care be provided for young children while fostering their growth and development? The answer can be found in curriculum. The curriculum that is implemented and the way the curriculum is executed affects the quality of care for those infants and toddlers. There are multiple types of curriculum, and it depends on what type of environment and learning the caregiver is wanting to provide. A curriculum that has been proven to be effective for infants and toddlers, is play based curriculum. Play based curriculum is recommend for young children to help them learn and develop through play. Curriculum based on play supports learning and development with the use of engaging activities.

For this assessment I chose to observe my six- month old daughter, Abigail, interacting with her mother, Melissa. Abigail is our third child and Melissa is comfortable with her role as mother. Abigail was born full term and is a healthy baby. All developmental milestones have been reached up until this point. She is a happy baby.

Developmentally appropriate practice is essential in early childhood education; because it helps is understand how children develop and learn. As teacher it ensures you create curriculum that meets the child needs. Consideration that even if all children are the same age, what they are able to do will vary from child to child. Providing children, the right amount of challenge in a task. Children will get bored a task is to easy. And discourage if the task is to complicated. Children learn thru play. Social dramatic play helps children develop their social, emotional, and language skills. In addition to help play develop their fine and gross motor skill. For example, if student knows their color but, has a hard time with their fine motor skill.

3) influence national, regional and local policies and practices so that the needs and interests of individual infants, toddlers, and their families are the foundation for all curriculum development and program activity.

The majority of children are not able to express their concerns to a healthcare professional. So the healthcare professional will have to scrutinize and carefully observe the child to identify any problem that the child may have. Also, the healthcare professional must talk to the parents and the caregivers in order to get more information and any problems they are aware of the child. A through body examination of the child may be carried out. Toddlers and preschool children are close to their parents, but generally, school goers keep a little distance from their parents as far as communication is concerned. Obesity is more among preschoolers and school going children, whereas, malnutrition is found among toddlers. Accidents and injuries, infections,

Benjamin Franklin said it well, "If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. " This quote holds true for the picture book as well as any other format of book. When one thinks of a picture book, it is a sweet moment of the wonderment of a child opening their eyes to reading. It is usually thought of as a safe, innocent world that children can get lost in. “As Perry Nodelman points out, picture books communicate information or tell stories through a series of many pictures combined with relatively slight texts or not texts at all” (Norton 158).

“Because of the specific needs of infants and toddlers the term curriculum is during the early stages of development is complex. To summarize all of the ideas of curriculum, as defined by leaders in the field (Gonzalez-Mena, Eyer, Dodge, Greenman, Stonehouse, Schwikert, Swim, and Watson), you must think about curriculum as an organized framework. To make curriculum DAP for infant and toddlers, it must be based on sound and relevant knowledge such as infant/ toddler development and research; so that it guides early care professional practices in providing purposeful and responsive learning opportunities for each child through daily routines and experiences (Blackboard, 2013).”

The key to understanding children is observation. As observers, we begin to look for daily patterns in their behavior. Once patterns of behavior are recognized, the observer can then give positive guidance in securing the child’s developmental needs.

It has been well established that early childhood is a crucial time for children’s cognitive development (Bowman, Donovan & Burns, 2001). Preschool curriculum is the entire span of lessons and teachings that a child will be taught during the course of a preschool year (Rock, 2015). Preschool curriculum covers a wide variety of academic, social, physical, and emotional lessons and usually vary from school to school and teaching method to teaching method. Depending upon the school and the preschool philosophy employed by the preschool, the preschool curriculum can be developed by administrators, teachers, and parents.