My Connections to Play- Ready, Set, Go!!!!

“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury, play is a necessity.’

–Kay Redfield Jamison

“Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn’t taste good.”

-Lucia Capocchione

“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing. “

-Charles Shaefer

                                            

When I was a little girl, my mother had to threaten my life in order for me to come in from outside for dinner and a bath. This usually happened during my summer break. I can recall helping my mother fill up a recycled milk jug full of water every night and putting it in the freezer so that me, my friends, and siblings could have a drink of water while outside. That was not as fun as turning on the water hose and drinking the water as it shot up in the air! Our neighbors would tattle on us for doing it, but it was worth it.

Play was very important to me as a child. From kickball to dodge ball, to baseball- we made up the rules and had a great time. Sure we had arguments, cuts and scrapes from playing those games, but it was all in good fun. I also enjoyed indoor games. We played school, or monopoly, or operation or Go Fish. There was never a dull moment. My mother also gave us an Atari game for Christmas. She had to put us on a schedule in order to ensure that we continued to play outside. Now that I look back, I think the schedule was for her sanity. She was a house wife. and I'm sure that we would've gotten on her nerves if we stayed in the house all day. Besides, we were loud and rowdy when it came to play. It didn't matter if we were outside or not! :-) I loved my childhood. It was so carefree. I really enjoyed the moments when mommy came outside and played hide-and-seek, or monitored us as we ran through the sprinklers in bathing suits and swimming trunks. With all that going on, who needed a swimming pool?

I thought that once I began school, playtime was going to be over. Luckily for me it wasn’t. We worked and played in the classroom. We worked and played outside. I incorporate the same tactics in my classroom today. I work with kindergartners. It is almost impossible for me to keep my sanity if I don’t allow them playtime. Sure we work in groups doing hands on activities in centers. However, I believe that they deserve an unstructured break just as I do. We are studying rocks. For our outside time, the students took magnifying glasses from our science kit and searched for rocks. The project was a success. They even made up a game to see who could find the biggest, shiniest rocks. The person who did was simply ‘the winner’. I thought it was so cute. I just walked around observing and taking it all in. The whole time I was thinking to myself that they really listened in class and they’re applying what they’ve learned without much direction from me.

I have always been in favor of play. I believe that’s because I was given the freedom to learn and play at the same time. Kids deserve an opportunity to think for themselves without having an adult tell them what to do and how to do it. Hands on activities are an awesome asset to the classroom. It helps the children focus on what they’ve learned and apply it without having to use pencil and paper.  I hope that as I continue teaching I can stay with the Pre-K/K age group. They are the ones that have less paperwork while learning and can still enjoy the freedom of hands on engagement.

(Investigating rocks...ROCKS!)

RELATIONSHIP REFLECTION

"Cherish your human connections-Your relationships with friends and family."
-Joseph Brodsky
I love this quote. It is plain, simple and to the point. It also describes how I feel about my relationships. I love my family. They are the people that I'm stuck with, so I must love them, right? On a serious note, I am the youngest of nine children. Before my mother passed away a year ago today, my parents had been married for 56 years. My family is my foundation. They are the first people that I had a relationship with. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge them in every way. Below are pictures of the people  who are important to me:

These photos have captured the important and precious people in my life. My relationship with my parents, siblings, and friends are all different. There is one common bond that keeps the realtionship wheel rolling- I love them, and they love me. We support one another. We act as counselors. doctors, and lawyers. Our main goal is to make sure that we take care of one another. show support, and give tons of love! I feel that if I didn't have these people in my life, I would be alone and miserable. I would not be able to function because they are the glue that holds me together.
                                                   When I think about the relationship that I have with these people as it relates to my career in early childhood, I think of my parents. When I come across a child who is stubborn or defiant, I think of how my mother would handle it. What would she say? What would she do? I often look back on my childhood and realize that the relationships that I have built seem to fall in the catagory of long term. I look at my parents and their marriage life. I look at my siblings and thier relationships with husbands/wives. I also look at the work ethic of my father. He gained much respect from his co-workers because of his patience, dependability and endurance. That alone gained him life-long friendships. My mother never met a stranger. She would've talked to the wall if it responded back. I gained all of these characteristics because I was surrounded by the makings of them my entire life.
                                              Being that I come from a large family, we developed partnerships by working together. (Cleaning, cooking, playing, etc.) It was our responsibility just as much as our parents to keep our family organized and on track. This teamwork also hepled me make me a team player at work. I believe there is a solution to every problem. If we just work together, the problem can be solved and we can move on. I appreciate the relationships that I have with the wonderful people in my life. Loving and knowing them makes it easier to get along with others. My family is my life. In the end, they are all that I have!

Famous quotes about children...

"Pausing to listen to an airplane in the sky, stooping to watch a ladybug on a plant, sitting on a rock to watch the waves crash over the quayside-children have their own agenda's and time scales. As they find out more about their world and their place in it; they work hard not to let adults hurry them. We need to hear their voices."
-Cathy Nutbrown

"When children pretend, they are using their imagination to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick becomes a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero.
-Fred Rogers

"No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship."
-James Corner

Please enjoy one of my favorite songs that can relate to the endless possibilities that children have. The song is titled "Unwritten", by Natasha Bedingfield

When a teacher comes across a student with overall great success academically, the child is often given a test to see if he or she is gifted. Being gifted is a label just as having a disability is. Children deserve to receive adequate services no matter the label.  I feel that all areas of the whole child should be assessed. Can the child comprehend an assignment and show classroom participation? Does the child sociaize well with other children? Does the child complete tasks on time? Does the child show respect for himself and others? Those are just a few things that are assessed throughout the school year in a public school. I feel these types of assessments are important because they help to mold a chind into a productive citizen. Standardized tests are also an assessment to show the progress or lack there of in students as well as teachers and school systems. Standardized testing can be good and bad. In Georgia, if you are a 3rd grader and you do not pass the reading portion of the Criteria Referenced Competency Test you are not promoted to the next grade. If you are a 5th grader and you fail reading, math or both, you are not promoted to the next grade. This test brings added pressure to the students, their parents, teachers, and the administration. In my opinion, some children should be exempt from the pressure of having to pass. Students that have english as a second language should be exempt. They are forced to take a test in english and they can barely speak english! Students that are labeled as special needs should be exempt as well. There is a child at my school that has autism. She bites, kicks, runs away, etc. I cannot imagine this child having to sit for an extended period of time. Bottom line is- SHE CAN'T! At the sam time, I feel that tests are important because educators need to know if the curriculum is working or needs to be revised.  Any issues should be detected and hopefully corrected by giving the child the help and assitance they need to succeed.

Check out the article on students in Japan! http://www.nctm.org/resources/content.aspx?id=1560

Stressors that affect Children

The stressor that I have been affected by is chaos. For a year, I had a student who was tossed back and forth between his mother, father and grandmother. His situation affected his work as well as his behavior. It became a very big issue in the classroom. He was six years old and on more than one occasion had loud outbursts and tantrums when things would not go his way. He often fell asleep during class time. I knew that something was going on at home because he did not act this way at the beginning of the school year. However when we returned from the holiday break, he was violent towards the other children. He would get so angry that he would stand still and scream while waving his arms. His sudden change in behavior was frightening the children and puzzled me and my team teacher. After several phone calls and written notes, we finally had a conference with the child’s grandmother. She informed us that the child’s mother and father were going through a very bad divorce, and the child had often witnessed, with his other siblings, acts of violence against his mother by his father. The situation was corrected as he became comfortable with his living arrangements with his grandmother. Unfortunately after a few weeks, his parents came for him and supposedly reconciled. The child started back having tantrums and exhibited violence towards his classmates. I got the counselor and social worker involved. Eventually, the child was permanently placed with his grandmother. By the end of the school year, his behavior improved tremendously. He was more focused on his work. He received an award for the most improved student- behaviorally and academically. This is just one example of how unstable situations in the home can cause a child to be unable to develop fully from a social perspective. Each time that his situation changed, he changed. He was unable to focus in class. He didn’t have friends because he was violent towards him. The children accepted him each time he acted out and calmed down. He was dealing with a situation that his brain could not process at a six year old level, and the only way he knew to respond was to lash out, which is a learned behavior from his home life.

Child neglect or failure by the caretaker to provide needed age-appropriate care is the most common type of reported child maltreatment in rural America. I chose to discuss child neglect in rural and or urban communities because I have family members that live in these areas, and have heard the stories of this type of treatment against children. Parents are stressed because of lack of money and resources. Often times the parents anger and stress oozes out into the children. They are sometimes presumed to be the cause of the stress; therefore they become the target of abuse by the parent. Please visit this website for more information on maltreatment in rural and urban areas in America: http://carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/FS-Mattingly-Childabuse.pdf

Reference:  http://carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/FS-Mattingly-Childabuse.pdf

Child Development and Public Health

The public health topic that I chose to discuss is immunization. The textbook defines immunization as the process of protecting a person against a disease, via antibodies. Immunization can happen naturally, when someone survives a disease, or medically, via a small dose of the virus that stimulates the production of antibodies and thus renders a person immune. (Berger, 2012, page 149) Being that I am in a public health position working at an elementary school, I feel that children need to be up to date on the immunization requirements. It amazes me that every year during registration, some parents seem oblivious to the immunization requirements. Often times they feel as if we should allow the child to be in school and they will provide the immunization paperwork at a later date. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, and the parent or guardian has to be told that the child cannot enter school without the proper documentation.
Immunization protect children from temporary sickness, as well as serious complications including deafness, blindness, sterility, and meningitis. Wow. I had no idea that immunization can protect children from so much! As the saying goes, you learn something new every day. My personal experience with the importance of immunization came to be when I contracted chicken pox from a child in the daycare classroom that I worked in. I was eighteen years old with itchy bumps and spots all over. Needless to say, I learned the value of children having the proper immunizations from that day forth. This makes me wonder why some parents make a big deal on the first day of school if they are turned away from registering their child for school if they have no proof of immunizations. Not only is the welfare of other children at stake- the welfare of the staff is at stake as well. In my opinion, a fussy, irritable child who may or may not run a fever after shots is a small sacrifice that can possibly save his or her life from disease in the long run. As with anything, there are problems with immunizations. The biggest problem is that no effective vaccine has been found for AIDS, malaria, cholera, typhoid, and shigellosis. (Berger, 2012, page 151) All of these diseases are deadly and worldly.

I am enclosing a website which details immunization criteria all over the world. Please check it out! It is quite interesting.

http://www.iamat.org/pdf/world_immunization_chart.pdf

Week One Blog Assignment

I was sixteen years old in the delivery room with my twenty-six year old sister giving birth to my nephew. Nervous and excited, I held her hand and felt a sharp pain in my wrist because she was squeezing my hand extremely tight. My mother was holding her other hand, coaching her along. Mommy has a lot of experience with child birth. She herself gave birth naturally to nine children- four boys, five girls. The story I always hear is that I was the hardest birth. She told my father in the delivery room that she didn't think she was going to make it. Guess I fooled her, being that my birthday is April 1. The doctor and nurse began to talk to eachother, and he told my sister that it wasn't  safe for her to continue a vaginal labor being that my nephew weighed 10 pounds. A few moments later, the nurse handed the doctor a device, which sort of looked like an electric knife, and my sister was crying and emotional because she wanted to give birth naturally. Mommy calmed her down and they proceeded. 
                 I will never forget the smell. I will never forget the sound of the device. I thought they were burning my sister alive! Looking at her made me feel better because she was calm, but moaning softly. In the end, my nephew came out kicking and screaming! I jumped up and down for joy. He was beautiful. He is now a twenty-two, six foot 2 young man. But he will always be auntie's baby.
                I researched the birthing practice of Germany. In Germany, midwives are highly respected. By law, a midwife must be present at birth, and a doctor is optional. This reminds of the tales my grandmother told, as she was a midwife in south Georgia where my parents were born and raised. My grandmother was my mommy's midwife for her first two children. A doctor would make a house call only to check out the child and mother if requested. I found it interesting that the women in Germany focus on the act of giving birth more than the outcome. A Berlin resident originally from Maryland was asked if she felt like a failure for having a C-section. Giving birth by C-section is a normal practice for mothers in the U.S. 
           The government offices in Germany
 keep a list of acceptable names that parents must register. This is the law. If the parents choose an unusual name, they must provide a reasonable explanation for doing so, and it has to be approved. This is done in the best interest of the child in order to avoid potential ridicule for having a different type of name. I have mixed emotions about this. In a way I feel as though this is a helpful law/practice because I have come across some names that have me questioning why parents put children through this. I work with Kindergartners. Some of them enter without knowing how to write or spell their names. Sometimes their first names have ten plus letters. This can be quite challenging for the student and teacher. On the other hand, I feel that as a parent you should be able to name your child whatever you want. America is a free country, so have at it, right?


Reference:  http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/giving-birth/vaginal/birth-customs-around-the-world/?page=3