Toddler Vs School

The preschool years which are the ages between 2 ½ years to five years old is an exciting time for children. It is during this time that they use all of the development learned during the infant and toddler stage to actively explore and engage in school. Preschoolers learn how to make their own choices, develop socially, and explore their environments. Parents and caregivers still play an important role in helping children during this time take initiative and explore their environments. Adult’s behaviors, attitudes, and styles of thinking contribute to preschooler’s

As an early years practitioner you will recognise that children’s play is closely linked to their learning and development. Children learn in so many different ways but you will notice that they learn mainly through play. When children are able to do many different activity’s that allows them to lean but have fun at the same time thy will find what they are doing fun and will engage the children. It is important that when in you your setting you set up a variety of educational activity’s this way the children will be able to choose freely what they want to do.

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.

“Early roots of play as a best practice for early learning was documented by Plato, a Greek philosopher, who insisted that play is considered a natural activity of childhood.”(Ingrid Crowther, 2011, Pg. 2) Early Childhood Education is a term that refers to educational programs that are devoted to children from birth to the age of eight. “Children of this age learn by exploring and investigating; therefore, their environment should support and encourage this process.”(Rebecca Isbell and Betty Exelby, 2001, Pg. 11) Early childhood environments should be attractive and exciting. These environments should allow children to work and play using proper resources, materials, and tools.

The Nursery set out many different activities for the Children. This is designed for them for the different areas that they develop within the Nursery. They are set to reach all the areas of learning, Personal social and emotional development, communication language and literacy development, problem solving reasoning and numeracy, knowledge and understanding of the world, physical development and creative development. With all these different resources the Children begin to recognize their skills and how to use them. For an example, in the toddler room the creative area always has something out, the toddlers can then sit at the table, start to do mark making on the paper and realize they are drawing on paper. They created a picture!

According to the textbook, brain based research states that child’s brain is two-and-a half times as active as an adult’s and it creates an estimated one trillion synapses during the first three years of infant’s life. In addition, young children have really powerful learning. They learn through quality experiences and relationships. There are some ideas that teachers of young children need to to keep in mind. From birth to age 4, teachers have to include all the senses in a child’s exploration in order for them to have a healthy and enriched environment. Children from age 4 to 8, teachers have to provide a lot of opportunities to use stories, explore ideas and master activities than using worksheets in order to have rich stimulating activities. In terms of all ages, teachers have to develop a curriculum that promotes collaboration, cooperation and teamwork.

“Play is developmentally appropriate for primary-age children and can provide them with opportunities that enrich the learning experience” (Copple & Bredekamp 2009). Early childhood education holds two main focuses; a child-based focus and a family-based focus. Early childhood education has positive outcomes on the child through their learning experiences, and their growth and development. Based on the family, the results of early education happen through the communication that the family has with the educators and by the encouragement they get from within themselves, and also from the educators.

In this program our child care providers have a hands-on interaction with the children. They guide our early learners through child directed play. The child care staff provides different learning opportunities by supplying an array of activities based on the children’s interests. This program will allow the children an opportunity to become leaders in their learning, by exploring and discovering their play environment on their own, with peers and through guidance from the staff. Although we have many open-ended play opportunities, we will have a few structured activities for the children to participate in. We find it important to keep some structure within the daily schedule as this will allow the children the

Young children learn and grow everyday. Especially, young children, the ages three years to five years old, learn important skills while they play with friends and interact with their teachers. Janice J. Beaty (2014) states that for young children, “play is their way of learning” (p. 167) Thus, teachers need to observe children while they play and assess the development of the child because “Knowing the development of a young child helps a teacher to plan the curriculum, to set up activities for individuals, or to ask for special help when necessary” (Beaty, 2014, p. 3).

Early years practitioners have to support children’s development and learning, through right materials, equipment and resources, also the practitioners needs to work with the colleagues to do better plans and create better play environments. Working with other can create flexible spaces for both indoors and outdoors spaces, so children can set of connections and converted for different uses in diversity of ways. The light is very important for children in early years settings because if the sun comes to child’s face during the play time or story time in the room, it will be difficult for the children to become engage. So the lighting needs to be very good for children to see everything well and it changes the atmosphere.

Children in the child care center also work on their fine motor skills. I observed how they often draw pictures of themselves or of something they really like. For example, of flowers, animals or a favorite cartoon character they really like. The teacher help children to perfect this fine skills by learning how to make cupcakes and cookies. This helps the child identify that sugar and chocolate chip cookies need to be added to the mixture and all the ingredients need to be mixed together in order to create the recipe. The textbook mentions that between the ages of 4 and 5 a child develops this skills by using scissors correctly following the line, and drawing simple figures. (Beck 309). Parents can also work with their children to perfect this skills. For example, they can show their children how to use the correct kitchen utensils or come up with creative arts and crafts that a child might enjoy depending on their interest. For instance, when I was around 4 years old my mom tells me a story about how when I was younger she and I would do arts and crafts together. We had the tradition of always decorating for the holidays especially for Halloween, thanksgiving, and Christmas, She commented that decorating crafts was always exciting for me because I had the ability to use my imagination and creativity. She also said that my favorite part of decorating was painting the crafts because I had the ability to combine colors together to make the arts look great.

Parents with babies, toddlers and preschool age kids are noticing the recent increase in local classes and activities offered for their little ones. With this growth comes the need for moms to either be selective in choosing appropriate classes or choose to put aside a chunk of free time to allow their children's' participation in the increased classes. TotActivities.com CEO Jeffrey Roth sees a trend toward quantity but not necessarily over quality in the current online environment.

The education of the young mind is an important step in preparing the child for future learning experiences. The evolution of early childhood education has changed how adults and parents view the importance of offering stimulating and exciting opportunities to the very young. Early childhood Education offers the young child learning experiences that benefit them throughout their educational career. They soon embark on a whole new world of learning. These children are not only experiencing standard brain growth, but verbal and physical skills as well. Early childhood education teachers use a variation of techniques for instructing. They use lesson plans, worksheets, and even teacher resources for these young minds.

The location of the observation was at the Community Center (Early Childhood education program) at 11:00am to 12:30pm on April 15, 2014. The meaningful experiences in early childhood education can positively shape children's development. With a teacher is guidance authentic child-art activity can educate enrich young students' learning abilities, encourage positive attitudes toward other children, and more importantly, learn to interact with people around them in the contemporary world. However, art for young students often takes many diversified approaches and emphasizing questionable practices. Observation is a part of meaningful and authentic early childhood art education. Observation enriches children’s experiences in

During my observations in the different classrooms at “The childcare Center”, I learned about the proper environment, the fundamentals of the teachers lesson plans, their health and safety regulations, their approach to guidance and discipline, and overall quality childcare. The center has eight different levels of age groups; each of them has their own curriculum based on their age and developmental needs. This curriculum changes and has a new theme each month that helps the lead teachers to be able to start their lesson plans each week. From infants all the way to pre-K the lesson plans include fine motor, gross motor, art and sensory, math and manipulatives, music and movement, language including both signing and Spanish.