• 82% parents shout/hit at their children in morning (when they are running late for a meeting/reporting time at work) or when parents (NOT children) are pressed for “Time”
•  66% parents notice negative behavior of their child in public. In private settings (Like home, car) the same behavior remains unnoticed
• 42% parent believe that they have no control on child’s negative behavior after a certain limit. To simplify, I will quote a father’s words, “I have tried all strategies: love, care, counselling, hitting, and yelling: NOTHING works in some situations”

Do these facts sound similar to you? Do you feel the same at times? If yes, please continue reading this article. If not, please share your discipline policy with as many people as possible including us. To begin with, let us try to understand that why do we see negative behavior among children, and if we see, what should we do as a responsible adult in their lives.

WHY DO CHILDREN MISBEHAVE?

Children’s behavior is influenced by a variety of factors. I can only share few of the possible causes and you as an honest parent, can choose the option that best suits your child.

Reason 1: Instinctive Behaviors

Recent research in the field of child development have proven that many of the behaviors that parents find troubling are part of a child’s instinctive repertoire. Yes, it runs in the genes!!!!!!!!

Reason 2: Developmental Stage                                                                                                                                      

At different stages of development, children are likely to exhibit different behaviors. Toddlers are egocentric and will react based on what they believe to be best for themselves such as pushing, are typical at certain ages and then extinguish themselves as the child matures.

Reason 3: Environmental Factors

The environment influences behavior. How contradictory to the first reason!!!

Again, research has clarified that children will become often more active, disruptive and physical in homes that lack consistency in routines or are haphazardly arranged. Invest in organizing your routine activities and beautify your home, it helps!!!!

Reason 4: Learned Behaviors

So, the story is not only about genes, that’s actually just a tiny bit of it. The fact is that children are good observers and excellent imitators. Scary!!!! You are being watched always!!! But, that’s true!!!

WHAT CAN I DO AS PARENT?

Clinically, you just need to know three ways to help your child. Simple, isn’t it???

Actually, easier said than done. I am proposing three strategies here based on timing:

Proactive Strategies (STOP, before it comes)

These are the things that can be done to help prevent challenging behaviors before they occur.  In simple words, invest in/encourage/ appreciate/ acknowledge the good behavior. I can share some simple methods of proactive strategies, and most of these, you must be following with your child. If not, it’s not too late Mommy or Daddy.

• Always use simple direct language in giving directions

Don’t talk much and choose words wisely. For example, Pick up the books, please. Put in the shelf. If need be, repeat the exact same words.

• Organize books, clothes and toys logically and thoughtfully

Invest in buying organizers for children. Clear lines and clean cupboards help in decreasing stressful stimuli to a child’s brain.

• Maintain a well-organized daily schedule

The most important fact! And, please do NOT break it on weekends also. From Infancy to age 8, routine is the key. You may get bored of it, but your child will love it!!!!

• Invest in your child

In today’s world of “Outsourced Parenting”, it’s really a tough choice. Remember, “The child who need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving ways later”

• Limit Resources

Please avoid filling up your home with manipulatives, puzzles, and toys. Research has proven, the two most desired play for children from infancy to age 6 are SAND PLAY and WATER PLAY!!!!

‘In the Moment’ Strategies (ATTEND the behavior)

These are the things that are done at the time a challenging behavior is occurring.

• Ignore annoying but not dangerous behaviors

Avoiding/ignoring to certain annoying acts of your child is perfectly fine in parenting. For example, your child keeps pulling/tangling you sari/shirt when you are talking to your friend to whom you suddenly met in grocery shop. Your child is pulling your clothes to gain attention (by negative means): AVOID.

• Offer logical consequences

Again a simple example, “You lose the chance to play with that toy if you break it” and let the toy be broken if your child does not stop there and NEVER replace with new one immediately. Loss of that toy is worth it!

• Walk closer to the child-proximity

Physical proximity helps especially when your child is losing temper and crying, shouting or throwing himself on floor. Do NOT walk away from the scene. Stay in scene and ONLY leave when you feel like hitting your child.

• YOU SHOUT: I SHOUT

That is the problem. Instead, YOU SHOUT: I STAY CALM. The higher your pitch is, the lower the impact of your message is to a child. Remember the thumb rule: “The most significant messages of world are generally whispered”

‘After the Interaction’ Strategies (LESSON from the event)

There are things that can be done after the immediate situation has been resolved to help prevent future guidance challenges and to cement the learning that takes place.

• Console and cuddle

The first and foremost reaction from parent should be to give Love and care soon after the episode is over or as soon as the child exhibits controlled behavior.

• Discuss later as a group to generate new ideas

Discuss in your family on what could be done to avoid such behaviors. If your child is 4 years and above, make sure to involve your child in these discussions.

• Talk with experts for ideas

Sometimes, just a small fact needs to be reminded. And, that is perfectly normal. DO NOT hesitate in taking help of professionals. And do it, before it’s too late.

• Be a Parent, not a friend

Last but not the least, DO NOT try to be a friend to your child. Earn the respect, so that your child will listen to you when you want him/her to listen. Remember, it did not come easy to your parents as well. They also earned it from you or may be, still earning J

WHERE, WHEN and HOW TO START?

Ponder and Pick anything from this article that you found most useful and start from now. Keep revisiting these points and do not give up easily. Parenting is the most challenging task of god and therefore, the most rewarding as well. I will conclude by sharing what I recently read,

The moment you created another human, was the moment you chose to spend the rest of your life putting somebody else before yourself.

Happy Parenting!

-Meghna Yadav
Head, Training and Development
Founding Years Private Limited

The post Ponder and Pick! appeared first on Institute of Early Childhood Education and Development.

Early Years are crucial for growth and development of children and hence, the significance of feeding is beyond debate. 25 % of calorie intake of first two years is purely devoted to growth and infants need extra calories to keep rapidly developing organs of the body functioning properly (Trahms and Pipes, 1997).

To begin with, breastfeeding is ideally suited to infants because of multiple reasons. Human milk is higher in fat and lower in proteins and this balance is ideal for rapidly growing nervous system. Apart from this, breastfeeding helps in ensuring healthy physical growth, nutritional completeness and digestibility. Research has proven time and again that breastfed infants accept new solid foods more easily than bottle fed infants, perhaps because of their greater experience with a variety of flavors which pass from the maternal diet into mother’s milk.

To manage feeding with developmental milestones and based on various benefits of breastfeeding, World Health Organization (WHO) recommends breastfeeding until age 2 years, with solid food added at 6 months.  Mothers who are not having sufficient breast milk or cannot be with the child all the time, can still combine breastfeeding with bottle-feeding though exclusive breast feeding for first 6 months is highly recommended.

Bottle fed and breastfed children do not differ in emotional adjustment, so parents of bottle fed children need not to worry about healthy psychological development. Be it bottle-fed or breast fed, start including solids in diet of infants from 6 months onward in following fashion:

0-6 months
At 0-6 months, babies are solely breast and/or bottle fed. For both breastfed or bottle fed children, it is found through research that body starts gaining control around 4 months on sucking and therefore, feeding becomes less automatic and more voluntary. This maturity is well observed in children of 6 months, and therefore, it is during this period that many babies will be introduced to soft solid foods such as cereals and pureed fruits and vegetables.

6-9 months
Between the ages of 6-9 months, babies can sit and pick food articles on their own by using fingers and thumb. They are also ready to open their mouths and wait for the spoon to enter. The concept of food starts at this age and biological clock starts functioning at its best by this time.

Eruption of front teeth begins at this age in children, so they are found to keep food longer in mouth between 6 to 9 months. Any pureed food works wonderfully for this age of children as it matches perfect with their developmental milestones of feeding and teething.

10-12 months
At this stage, children recognize food by sight, smell and taste. Children might point out at food preferences by this age and therefore, a great idea is to introduce as many food items as possible by this age. By 1 year, infants’ diets should include all the basic food groups.

In this age, children not only can close the lips to clear the spoon but can also chew softer lumps of food. 77% infants can clear the spoon by 8 to 10 months and are perfect in using tongue movements to chew the food articles.Most infants can also sip liquids from a closed cup by themselves by eleven months

13-15 months
Chewing requires a combination of lip, tongue and jaw movements and early chewing can develop before the teeth have erupted as the gums are hard from the teeth within them. Chewing efficiency develops in 13-15-months old children while they will improve with their biting skills and are better able to use a controlled feeding through non-pureed food article.

The first teeth are usually the lower front teeth (incisors – at six to ten months), followed by the upper front teeth (eight to 12 months). The side teeth (molars) do not usually appear before the end of the first year. Keeping this in mind, try to introduce all possible solids between 13 to 15 months as chewing efficiency will purely be dependent on the opportunities given to children for chewing during this age.

16-18 months
At 16-18 months, children are given more challenging foods that require chewing such as meats, chapatis and many vegetables. The reason for this introduction of challenging foods purely lies in the fact of enhanced mouth control of children due to eruption of teeth.

Eye hand coordination is also at its best by this age, so children should be allowed to eat food on their own by this age. 90% of infants can feed themselves with a spoon by the end of 18 months.Few infants can drink liquids from an open cup by eighteen months of age.

19-24 months

This is found to be most challenging age related to feeding for toddlers as they are often very reluctant to accept new foods and might refuse to eat foods that they accepted before. In psychology, it’s called neophobic reaction to food and can stay till age of eight years. This rejection of new foods is a normal response which peaks at about the age of 20 months. Therefore, it is highly recommended to not to forced feed children of this age. It might result in repulsion toward food which will stay for coming five years!

Children are found to be learning to drink in longer sequences with little to no spillage by this age.

2- 3 years

By the age of 2, children can manage any type of food as they have learned all the skills they need to eat every type of food, although they will continue to “fine tune” these skills over the next few years.

Drops and spillage are still common but reduce by this period of development and this is the age to learn eating by imitating. The concept of healthy eating habits should be introduced at this age and parents just need to “walk the talk” when it comes to feeding of children beyond this age.

Food habits are highly influenced by family practices so, following a routine, eating all food groups, approach toward food are all copied and followed among children after 2 years. So Just Eat what you want your child to eat! Do what you want your child to Follow!

-Meghna Yadav
Head, Training and Development
Founding Years Private Limited

The post How to Manage Developmental Milestones with Feeding and Teething appeared first on Institute of Early Childhood Education and Development.

Those of you who know me I am a romantic at heart but I definitely don’t subscribe to the kitschy displays of love especially when carried out one day of the year. My question is why not commit to a month long, year long, lifetime of HEART in any relationship – be in work, parents, spouse/ partners/ lover, friendships or children.

Most of my adult life, and more recently through the work I do at Klay, I have had the joy of meeting thousands of families – my own (of course I am not sure my kids or my parents would agree :)), my husband’s, my friends’, employees who work for us and families we support through our childcare facilities. I have also seen and experienced the joys and travails of a sandwiched generation and some more- young children, aging parents, ever demanding jobs and pressures of living in expensive cities as a migrant.

It strikes me that how and what we learn, as our children do, is largely through our own experiences, through schools, what our families teach us (both knowingly and unknowingly) and through our friends and social circles. Even through these wide range of lessons I realize we aren’t taught to deal with what I believe are the 3 important milestones/ events in our lives -as we enter the workforce, as we get married and as we have children. Who hands us handbooks or lessons on these? We learn through horror stories and success stories about what the workplace might look like. Marriage and selection of a partner is not something anyone really advises us on – forget what to expect and what to work on – we really form our notions based on movies and books. On raising children – it can be such a lonely journey when you are working parents in a city far from your parents and families and even if they are around, with the changing context all you know is what you wouldn’t adopt from how your parents brought you up.

Through these 20 odd years of having worked in professional organizations and starting up my own company, a couple of relationships that didn’t work out – one specifically, 18 years (and still at it with our shares of ups and downs) of marriage, amazing supporting parents and in-laws (Indian marriages are marriages of families so the mention of them is crucial :)) and 13 wonderful years of parenting (2 boys aged 13 and 10) – innumerable fights and arguments at/ with all of the above discontent doesn’t come from the lack of love (I would argue love is a chemical reaction but that is for another article) – discontent comes from the lack of HEART.

Honesty- the cornerstone of any relationship – work, spouse, parents, friends, children. It is really critical for you to be honest about how you feel, what you think and even more important for you to foster a relationship where others feel comfortable being honest with you. Saying I see something I dislike it but since it isn’t happening to me I wont do anything about it isn’t good enough – if it is important to your value system it is important to be honest about it.

Expression – so often angst comes from the lack of expression. Over the years I have developed a simple formula – something I learnt largely from my husband and best friend. Say it as you see it. No masking, no hiding. It might hurt/ harm in the short term but if there is honesty and truth to what you are saying and there is comfort in the relationship it will eventually be understood. Even if there isn’t comfort in the relationship stay true to your value system – if it bothers you say it

Appreciation – Most of the lovely people (women more than men) I work with and meet have all these questions of self doubt and self esteem and the burden of balancing everything – am I doing right by my family, by work, by my children – I have gone through years of this myself. Even if (and this is more the exception than the norm) they have supportive families they carry the burden of guilt formed by years of ingraining – benchmarks (stay at home mothers with hot meals), mental images (of how she will be the first one to do it all), public figures (if so and so can do I should be able to do it), movie characters (the perfectly well turned out actresses doing everything so effortlessly – its a movie ladies). Learn to appreciate yourself. More importantly learn to laugh at yourself – self deprecating humor is so liberating and it is a brilliant lesson to teach people around you – “Look, I made a mistake and I can laugh about it” – specially your children. Learn to spend time with and on yourself and things that matter to you. And give the appreciation equally liberally – to the parents who support you. To the work mate who helped you complete a task. To the spouse who you forgot to appreciate in the middle of all the transactional madness of food to be cooked, school PTMs, travel schedules etc. The house help telling me how they make you a saner person. And to your children in liberal, generous portions – tell them about the joy they bring to your life and not only about how they let you down. Remember your image of perfection or the lack of it is what they are taking away as a life lesson so think about this every time you guilt trip yourself, call yourself imperfect, wish you could do more or wish for more.

Respect – I would argue is all relationships but specifically in a marriage this rates way above love. Love is overrated. The shivers down the spine are temporary. Love without respect is selfish or a lie. Respect can be a wonderful foundation to work on for love (if thats what rocks your boat). A mutual respect for what each person brings to a relationship – work, friendship, parents, children and a spouse is critical. If it doesn’t exist express it – work on fixing it – by no means am I saying quit on it. But if it doesn’t come – think about whether this is what you would want in the long run. If there isn’t respect for what you bring to the table it isn’t worth it (I told you I had a simple mantra -say it as you see it)

Trust – Trust is relationship 101. But like my mom said (or was it spiderman :)) with trust comes responsibility (he said “With power… “I think). When you break trust you let the other person down but here’s the thing – you let yourself down. That trust came from respect and is a privilege – treat it with the dignity it deserves and don’t assume that because you got a second chance you don’t have to work harder – you have work to regain it and retain it.

As I let Arjun, my 13 year old, go to boarding school – much to the chagrin of my parents, concern from friends, contempt from others I realized the formula above. I was able to let him go because our relationship has HEART and not just love. I know that as he is away in a far away place coping with things, making independent decisions and becoming a better version of himself he will always know his family has his back and will be a better person for it. And also distance does make the HEART grow fonder 🙂

As for the rom-coms I still watch them – not wondering whether I would ever by kissed like that or whether I will ache for another person the way Harry or Sally did but really wondering if they found HEART after the love (Harry met Sally sequel anyone :))

-Priya Krishnan
CEO, Founding Years Learning Solutions (formerly VES)

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Infants and Toddlers (0-2 years)

⦁ Brightly colored pictures of familiar objects
⦁ Simple texts (3-4 words per page) and words with rhythmic sounds
⦁ Pictorial books but NOT larger than life images
⦁ Small in size (Something a child can hold) NOT small in print
⦁ Board books, texture rich books, cloth books (Sensorial exploration)

Preschool and Kindergarten (2-6 years)

⦁ Boks depicting familiar objects like cars, dogs, family
⦁ Slightly complex texts (4-5 words sentence) with rhythmic endings line bush-push
⦁ Toy books that may pop up, move or make sounds
⦁ Folk tales, classics with small stories depicted through pictures
⦁ Equal proportion of text and pictures
School Years (6-9 years)

⦁ Books focusing on enhancing reading skills, can introduce fiction books
⦁ Text dominating books with small pictures
⦁ Time to introduce dictionary
⦁ Story developing books, short stories, puzzle/activity books
⦁ Real- life adventures books like travel, sports, body systems
⦁ Let children pick books at this age
⦁ Mix of familiar and challenging words
⦁ Text focusing on variety of statements like, questions, affirmative, exclamatory sentences

Middle Childhood Years (9-12 years)

⦁ Knowledge oriented books, encyclopedia
⦁ Informational books or novels based on child’s interest
⦁ Text rich books, pictures not needed
⦁ Grammar rich books developing clarity on punctuations, usage of grammar related to language

The post Selecting the Right Kind of Books for Children appeared first on Institute of Early Childhood Education and Development.

Abstract: Young children are normally fascinated by blocks irrespective of whether they have played with blocks before or not. Give a child some blocks and they can always find something to do such as stacking them, building structures with them, grouping them, and more. They learn how to play with each other or by themselves. Once they have explored blocks to a large extent, they challenge themselves by beginning to experiment with different patterns, by including vehicles, people as well as animals in their play area. This is indeed one amongst the favorite areas among young children which is why it works wonders when we integrate this area into the weekly themes that are being covered in a class.

Block center activities can be modelled in different ways so as to incorporate the theme being taught. It can act as a reinforcement area or an area of pure discovery for children.

During this workshop, we will attempt to showcase, how this center can be used across the different academic areas such as Literacy, Numeracy and even Social Sciences for reinforcing different concepts in them such as blends, odd and even numbers, life cycle of a butterfly etc.

Keywords: Block play; Curriculum; Learning center; Preschool; Teacher

INTRODUCTION

The block center also referred to as the block zone is an area of the classroom that has been specifically demarcated for play for children. Children can play with different types of blocks and block accessories in this area. The blocks available in the block center vary from wooden blocks of different shapes and sizes to hollow blocks to blocks made out of recycled materials. It helps develop the creativity of a child as well as helps them model the real world around them, accessories such as toy vehicles, animals, people and more can be made available to children.

Block center also promotes development and learning to achieve different milestones such as social and emotional development can be seen as a child shares the block center space with other children and learns to care for materials. Similarly, physical development; both in terms of gross and fine motor skills are also enhanced when children play in the block center. This center also helps in development of language and literacy and at the same time improves the cognitive skills of the child as he/she tries to recreate the environment he/she sees around him/her.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Setting up a block area

Location
1. Largest area of the classroom so that children can build without getting in each other’s way
2. Away from traffic and in a corner of the classroom
3. Area can be demarcated by classroom shelves
4. Closer to other noisy activity centers such as role play center or sand and water center

Figure1: Layout of a block center Figure 2: Ideal shelf for a block center

Figure 3: Recycled blocks created out of packaging material

Furnishings
1. Flat floor surface with carpeting to reduce the noise
2. Child sized shelves with varying size storage spaces

3. Shelves clearly labelled with block shapes to facilitate learning such as sorting, matching and helps in clean up

4. A separate shelf for storing the props

Suggested Materials
1. Types of blocks (3-4 four basic shapes, sizes, materials)
2. Plastic or child sized tools

3. Props (animals, birds, transport, people, fruits, vegetables)
4. Big Legos
5. Carpet with road design, road signs

6. Paper and crayons
7. Natural materials (shells, pebbles)

DIFFERENT WAYS OF INTEGRATING BLOCK PLAY IN LEARNING

Apart from using the block center as a free play area that only focuses on the creative development of the child, it can also be used integrated with the classroom themes/units of inquiry. We have successfully integrated the block center into our curriculum and here are some examples.

1) Being Literate:

Figure 4: Letter formation using recycled materials

Activity (Refer Figure 1 and Figure 4): Alphabet taped on the floor and children are asked to place the blocks on the letter.

Learning objective: Learning letter formation, expanding children’s vocabulary and oral language as they describe their actions, blocks and accessories used to their teacher and peers.

Older children can use connecting blocks to make the letter formation as well as objects that start with any letter. For example:
Fish for the letter f.

2) Being Numerate:
Activity (Refer Figure 4): Count the number of blocks that can be placed on letter ‘o’.

Learning objective: Counting and associating quantity with number.

Other than counting, blocks can also be used to teach number formation, sorting, matching, patterns, geometry (shapes), spatial sense (over, under, etc.)

3) Being Knowledgeable:
Activity: Build a Zoo and place only wild animals in the zoo.

Learning objective: Children are able to differentiate between different animals and choose and place only the wild animals in their zoo.

Blocks and block accessories help integrate concepts in the learning process of knowledge and understanding of the world (Science and social science concepts). Examples – grocery store, race track, or even their own school.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall block center has multiple uses in the learning process of a child and as we explore further, sky’s the limit in utilizing the block center effectively and to its full potential in the classroom.

REFERENCES

1) A Publication of the Environments Professional Group. 2002. The Block Center
(http://www.environments.com/media/blfa_files/EIST202.pdf), A staff training aid, Pg 3, Environments, Inc.

2) Florida VPK Performance Standards. 2006. Charts and Materials for VPK Classrooms

(http://www.earlylearningcoalitionsarasota.org/vpk/pdf08/VPK%20Classroom%20Materials%20List%20updated%20_2_. pdf), Early Learning Coalition of Sarasota County

3) Diane Trister Dodge, Laura J. Colker and Cate Heroman. 2010. The Creative Curriculum for Preschool. 5th. Ed. Teaching Strategies, LLC, Washington, DC.

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Kids, Learning And You (KLAY) Prep Schools and Daycare is a chain of high-end preparatory schools catering to preschoolers. We provide world-class daycare facilities too. KLAY’s teaching and learning philosophy is based on Multiple Intelligences and experiential learning. Our school has adopted the theory of Multiple Intelligences into our curriculum to ensure that children learn concepts in the way best suited to their abilities.

KLAY understands that interpersonal intelligence goes beyond basic conversation and people skills. People with Interpersonal Intelligence, also known as “People Smart” learners, are good at understanding others’ emotions and learn best by helping others

KLAY’s way to identify People Smart children

• Like to – have many friends. Talk to people, join groups.
• Are good at – understanding people, leading others, organising, communicating.
• Learn best by – sharing, comparing, relating, cooperating.

KLAY utilises different learning centres and also ensures that more group and team activities are conducted to cater to the ‘people smart’ learners. Interpersonal learners enjoy collaborative work and thrive on building friendships and relationships. Thus, KLAY organises planned activities to facilitate learning for ‘people smart’ children in different ways:

Sand Play and Learning

Sand zone is the most inviting learning centre for any child, and sand play not only helps in developing fine and gross motor development but also promotes social skills. KLAY realizes that ‘People Smart’ children learn best when they work together, as they are good in sharing, compromising, and negotiating, and the Sand Zone acts as the best resource to encourage this.

Water Play and Learning

Splish Splash is always fun and every preschooler enjoys it both as an indoor and outdoor play. KLAY utilizes Water Zone as a medium to encourage the development of Interpersonal Intelligence in children as water play provides opportunities for extended learning and encourages the development of eye/hand coordination through pouring, stirring, squirting, etc. KLAY understands that water play builds social and emotional development, and hence is the best way to help ‘people smart’ children learn concepts.

Blocks Play and Learning

To build and to breakdown is not only fun for children, but also a great learning opportunity. KLAY utilises Block Zone to help ‘people smart’ children have fun and learn the curriculum too.

Role Play and Learning

Children learn by pretending to be someone or something, and its fun. KLAY’s role-play activities provide an opportunity for learners to play in groups, negotiate roles, and cooperate with each other to recreate real-life experiences—or just pretend to be animals and roar around.

Outdoor Play and Learning

Every child loves to play outdoors, but KLAY knows how to make outdoor play fun, while creating a learning opportunity out of it. Children can imitate animals crawling and moving all around, or fuzzy caterpillars or worms wiggling on the ground.

Indoor Group Activity and Learning

Apart from different zone activities, KLAY encourages group activities and teamwork to develop interpersonal skills in every child, be it working on a group collage or sorting beads to make a necklace.

To Sum Up

KLAY realizes that regardless of each child’s preferred mode of learning, all are gifted with all the nine bits of intelligence. So, KLAY hones every child’s interpersonal intelligence by incorporating many activities into their curriculum.

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Books have turned into kindles, games are being played on iPads, and even spending time with friends has become virtual. Welcome to the digital age! In this dynamic digital era, is there any value or importance of more traditional habits – specifically writing?

An article on BBC News quotes Sally Payne, head paediatric occupational therapist at the Heart of England foundation NHS Trust, “Children coming into school are being given a pencil but, increasingly, they are not able to hold it because they don’t have the fundamental movement skills.” Shocking, isn’t it?

There is no denying that children’s habits are changing, but the fundamental need for activities that help developing fine motor skills should not be done away with. While it may be easier to engage children in screen time, it is more beneficial to them if they spend time engaged in muscle-building exercises.

An activity as easy (to you and me, and every other grown human) as holding a pencil uses many of our fine muscles to grip the pencil and move it. Repeatedly practicing writing also develops the muscle memory associated with gripping and finger/wrist movement.

Fine motor skills are essential for performing everyday life skills like brushing, fastening and unfastening buttons, opening boxes, moving objects etc. They are also essential for various academic skills such as cutting and pasting, drawing andcolouring etc. Without optimal development of fine motor skills, children may find it difficult to develop appropriate independence in life skills later on in life.

How to identify whether your little one needs more support with fine motor skills?

If your little one struggles with fine motor skills, they might exhibit the following traits:

• Lollipop style pencil grip after the age of 7
• Disinterest towards colouring/writing skills
• Have difficulty when using scissors
• Find it difficult to perform precise manipulation tasks like fastening buttons or tying shoelaces
• Dislike precise hand-eye coordination tasks like building blocks
• Leave the task halfway when engaged in fine motor tasks

How can you help your little one hone their fine motor skills?

# Focus on Pre-writing skills

Be aware of the fact

Pre-writings skills not only help in development of writing but also stimulate the front part of brain which focuses on analytical skills like reasoning and logic.

The best way to support your child in writing is to focus on pre-writing skills right from infancy. Newspaper tearing, pasting, finger tracing, air formations of alphabets are some examples of pre-writing skills. Find a prep school for your child which has elements of pre-writing skills as integral part of curriculum.

# Writing is Progressive

Writing is an ever-evolving process and as a parent, you should allow the child to make choices in writing. Hand dominance and correct grip of pencil take time to evolve. Over-correcting your child while writing is detrimental. For your understanding, look at the picture below:

This kind of progression is very common among children and therefore, kindly restrict yourself in correcting your child’s lollipop style (Cylindrical Grasp) of pencil holding. Focus on building confidence in learning. Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford talks in depth about how growth mindset helps in higher academic achievements including writing skills. The correct grip will come around the age of 7 years, let your child explore his/her style till then.

# Limit touch screen time

Over exposure to touch screens (tabs and mobiles) may delay the process of tripod grasp among children. Therefore, please keep a watch while giving screen time to children. Preschools that have ZERO screen exposures to children can be of great help for you.

# Finger isolation activities

Spend some time with your little ones practicing tasks that use just a few fingers at a time, eg: finger tracing on alphabets, counting on fingers, poking, chopping vegetables, peeling peas or peanuts etc. These moments are exactly opposite of touch screen moments and thus, help immensely in developing right grips for pencils.

# Manipulation activities

Indian households are known to support writing and reading skills immensely by focusing on providing an atmosphere for children which is full of gross motor activities. Activities such as kneading, mopping, pick up Spoons from floor, segregate forks from spoons, sand and water play, modelling with play dough, closing/opening jarsencourage gross motor muscle development.The gross motor (large muscles) development is the basis on which fine motor development develops. So, Spend more time on upcycling old boxes, egg cartons, plastic jars, wool, paper etc with your children.

Dear parents, let your child develop the writing skills at his/her pace. Over instructing your child is counterproductive. So, don’t forget to breathe and relax! Even though you may be engaged in a learning activity with your little ones, try to make it an exciting and fun experience for you and your little ones!

-Meghna Yadav
Head, Training and Development
Founding Years Private Limited

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Abstract: Young children are curious little individuals who learn by imagining and doing and one of the tools that helps satisfy this curiosity is pretending, exploring, discovering and learning by play. There are different types of play that children are a part of in a preschool and role play is one amongst it.

Role play area is an important part of the preschool classrooms as this area helps nurture a child’s imagination; improves their social skills, creativity and develops their intellectual abilities. This area is an excellent tool that teachers can use to their benefit to help children learn many valuable lessons as well as giving them an opportunity to understand how the real world works by letting them act out the following:

• Real life experiences such as travelling in a bus or visiting a shop or visiting a garden

• Every day scenarios at home such as cooking in the kitchen or dressing up dolls

• Imaginary situations such as visiting the underwater creatures, visiting the moon

Apart from giving children the opportunity to act our scenarios the role play area can also be used to teach or reinforce different concepts across literacy and numeracy such as vowels and consonants, blends, addition, subtraction etc. We will attempt to showcase some examples during this workshop on how a role play area can be used effectively in a class room.

Keywords: Curriculum; Dramatic/Pretend play; Learning center; Preschool; Role play;

Introduction

Young children like to engage in fantasy play at any place and any time when left to their own means. This fantasy play is also known as pretend play or dramatic play or role play. They can pretend to be in another place or to be another person or an animal or bird or pretend to do anything else they want. Usually they pretend to take on roles of significant adults in their lives such as parents, teachers, doctors, policemen etc. Normally children use pretend play as a method to relate to the world around them and make some sense out of it.

Role play stimulates children to not only pretend as others they know but also to develop social and emotional skills like taking turns, playing cooperatively and express appropriate emotions. This center also enhances physical development of a child in terms of eye-hand coordination while dressing up. Role play also plays an important role in improving language and listening skills as many activities are in a group setting. The center also promotes cognitive learning, creative thinking and problem solving in children through cause and effect when they pretend play as a shopkeeper or a ticket seller etc.

Materials and Methods

Setting up a role play center

Location
1. A large area of the classroom so that children can move around without getting in each other’s way
2. Away from traffic and in a corner of the classroom
3. Area can be demarcated by classroom shelves, walls and furniture

4. Closer to other noisy activity centers such as block center or sand and water center so that materials can be shared between block center and role play center

Furnishings
1. Child familiar furniture (kitchen set up, bedroom set up etc.)

2. Versatile furniture that can be used to create settings according to themes (puppet set up, fruit stall, ocean, garden etc.)

3. A separate shelf for storing role play materials

Suggested Materials
1. Accessories (hats, shoes, head bands, jewelry etc.)
2. Puppets
3. Child size home set up
4. Props (animals, birds, transport, people, fruits, vegetables)

5. Any other materials relevant to the activity

Different Ways of Integrating Role Play in Learning

The role-play centre is central to a Childs’ healthy development and learning during the early years which is why it is very important that the role play center is fully integrated with the classroom themes/units of inquiry. We have successfully integrated the role play center into our curriculum and here are some examples.

1) Being Literate (Literacy):

Activity: Ask children to list out words starting with letter ‘a’ and pretend as any of those. Example: ant, astronaut, alligator, artist, acrobat

Learning objective: Child recollects words starting with the letter ‘a’, expanding child’s vocabulary as well as oral language when they describe their actions and experience to their teacher and peers.

2) Being Numerate:
Activity (Refer Figure 4): Pretend play as a buyer visiting a shop keeper selling different brands of chocolates. The buyer will have to only choose letter ‘a’ brand chocolates and buy them by paying the exact amount quoted by the shopkeeper. Learning objective: Counting, associating quantity with number, using money, problem solving and letter and number recognition.

Other than the objective mentioned above, role play area can also be used to teach, addition, subtraction, matching, and planning.

3) Being Knowledgeable:
Activity: (Refer Figure 1 and Figure 2) Find, explore as well as pretend to be a bug in your garden

Learning objective: Children are able to explore and identify bugs and revisit the learnt concept about insects. This provides children with an opportunity to expand their knowledge about bugs. Example: counting number of legs, body parts etc. Role play center helps integrate concepts in the learning process of knowledge and understanding of the world (Science and social science concepts). Examples – grocery store, race track, or even their own school.

Conclusions

As far as the topic of integrating the role play center in the everyday curriculum is concerned the only limit to your impact is your imagination and commitment.

References

1) A Publication of the Environments Professional Group. 2002. Pretend play (http://www.environments.com/media/blfa_files/EIST192.pdf), A staff training aid, Environments, Inc.

2) Diane Trister Dodge, Laura J. Colker and Cate Heroman. 2010. The Creative Curriculum for Preschool. 5th. Ed. Teaching Strategies, LLC, Washington, DC.

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Kids, Learning And You- KLAY Prep Schools and Day care, are a chain of high end preparatory schools catering to preschoolers. We provide world class day care facilities too. KLAY’s teaching and learning philosophy is based on Multiple Intelligence and experiential learning. Our school has adapted the theory of Multiple Intelligences into our curriculum to ensure that children learn the concepts in the best way suited to their ability.

At KLAY, we identify bodily/kinesthetic intelligent (also known as ‘body smart’) children through the following signs. Such children

Like to – move around, touch and talk, use body language

Are good at – physical activities (sports/ dance/acting), enjoys creating things with their hands (crafts) and activities that need excellent physical coordination

Learn best by – touching, moving, interacting with space, processing knowledge through bodily sensations, doing rather than hearing or seeing

KLAY utilizes the Block Centre, Role Play Centre, Outdoor, Music and Movement, etc. to cater to body smart/kinesthetically intelligent children while ensuring that the curriculum objectives are met.

Blocks Play and Learning

Most young children and kinesthetically intelligent children in particular, are fascinated by blocks irrespective of whether they have played with blocks before or not. KLAY challenges children to experiment with different patterns, by including vehicles, people as well as animals in their play area. Block centre activities at KLAY not only serve as an area to learn new things, but also as a reinforcement area or an area of pure discovery for children.

In addition to being a free play area that helps in the creative and socio-emotional development of the child, the block centre is used to incorporate the theme being taught. For example, for language learning, alphabet formations are taped on the floor and children are asked to place the blocks on the letters to learn the letter formations. For a Math theme, we encourage children to count the number of blocks that can be placed on letter or make a pattern with blocks on the letter, etc.

Role Play and Learning

Kinesthetically intelligent children like to learn by imagining and doing; one of the tools that help is pretending, exploring, discovering and learning by role play.

It helps nurture a child’s imagination; improves social skills and creativity. KLAY uses role play to help Kinesthetic children learn how the real world works by letting them act out the following:

• Real life experiences such as visiting a shop to buy things
• Every day scenarios at home such as cooking in the kitchen
• Imaginary situations such as visiting the underwater creatures, visiting the moon.

Outdoor Play and Learning

At KLAY the outdoor area is integrated in the learning process to ensure the kinesthetic children are learning while playing. For instance, to teach the concept of colours, children will be given an assortment of different coloured balls and asked to pick any specific colour ball to play with. To understand letter formations, body smart children will be asked to walk on or cycle on large letters drawn on the floor.

Music and Movement and Learning

Music and movement in the KLAY classroom is another important part of a child’s day. It helps develop self-esteem, gross motor skills, social skills, listening skills and ensure the concepts are integrated through music and movement. KLAY has developed its own set of theme-related songs and actions which helps to integrate the curriculum and caters to the needs of not only the musical intelligence but also to the kinesthetic children.

To sum up

At KLAY, The curriculum is integrated well across different learning centres so that not only kinesthetic children, but children with any type of intelligence can explore, play, have fun and learn in the process.

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For the past year and a half now, we have been focusing on the various kinds of intelligences, as described by Dr. Howard Gardner in his Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Our articles explored the different intelligences, the signs that could indicate that your child was strong in a certain kind of intelligence, and tips to hone that intelligence.

The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) proposes that children have different types of intelligences (Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Bodily-Kinaesthetic, and so on) and hence, learn differently. Howcan this theory be applied in real life? To understand its use and application in schools and at home, we spoke to Malini Bharadhwaj, Academic Head of Klay School, which integrates MI theory within its teaching strategy. Bharadhwaj begins by pointing out that MI can be applied even in a large country like India. “If teachers would just take some time to plan and implement lesson plans, then MI wouldn’t be very hard to introduce, even in a large classroom with say 40-50 students, which is the average size of an Indian class,” claims Bharadhwaj. In our country, we still encourage our children to take up a specific ‘serious’ stream after Grade 10, say science or commerce, without really considering children’s aptitudes. If schools were to use MI within their systems, parents would have a better understanding of their child’s talents and strengths. Consequently, a child would be free to pursue an education or career best suited to her intelligence, rather than being forced into a particular popular subject or stream. “Therefore,” says Bharadhwaj, “Schools like Klay School that choose to involve the parents of the students, are educating not only children, but the parents as well.”Parents can play an important role in using MI practices and ideas when interacting with their children at home. Here are some simple ideas— read through these, and they should encourage you to be creative and come up with similar tactics to hone your child’s intelligence, and use MI to enrich her learning in all areas.

Is your child struggling with maths, but is musically inclined? She might learn better if you used the tune of a catchy rhyme like ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’, but with the words replaced with numbers. Or an older child can be encouraged to set the key points of a newly learnt concept to music !

Engage your child’s interest in various ways; for example instead of just saying ‘A is for Apple’, show her  a   picture card or an image of someone holding an apple. When she is playing, ask her to pretend that a red ball is an apple. This, essentially, reinforces the concept of the letter ‘A’ in varied ways.

Encourage experimentation and hands-on learning. For instance, looking for and closely observing actual butterfly eggs to study the life cycle of a butterfly, or teaching children how the government functions by role-playing a model government with roles for each family member. This could also be a fun activity for family time!

If your child struggles with dates and names in history, consider acting out the historical periods together to help her learn and remember better.

Children who struggle with geography or science can be taught outdoors, where the things they are studying about are actually all around them. This makes the learning visual.

“MI is very inclusive,” points out Bharadhwaj. “Under the MI method, not only is the child who can learn just by sitting in the classroom gaining information, but the child who can understand concepts using music or play-acting will learn as well. In general, in a class of 50-60 students, only around 5% of the children understand immediately; others often struggle to learn. Teaching within an MI framework offers them various ways to learn, and every student will find at least one strategy that works for her.”

ParentEdge has explored MI in detail in previous issues and given you some ideas of how you can use this learning system at home with your children. Now it is up to you, parents, to be creative, think differently, and come up with ideas on how you can enrich your child’s learning by nurturing your child’s unique intelligence. The time you invest in this will be well worth the effort, lessening academic stress on your child, and helping her develop a more rounded personality.

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