Why Curiosity Matters

Bruce Perry (2001) says curiosity drives exploration and results in discovery, which leads to pleasure and repetition. Repetition leads to mastery and confidence, which in turn leads to continued exploration. This cycle is the foundation of learning. Curiosity is the catalyst.

Curiosity	results in	Exploration
Exploration	results in	Discovery
Discovery	results in	Pleasure
Pleasure	results in	Repetition
Repetition	results in	Mastery
Mastery	results in	New Skills
New Skills	results in	Confidence
Confidence	results in	Self-Esteem
Self-Esteem	results in	Security
Security	results in	More Exploration
Perry, Bruce (2001) 'Curiosity: The Fuel of Development." Early Childhood Today, NY, Scholastic.

Doggie, Doggie Where’s Your Bone?

This is a great hands-on game for reinforcing the use of word families spelling patterns. Children sort words into word families as they help their dogs find their bones. Children dig in the sand and try to put bones that are cut in half together to make words.

Promoting Confidence in Young Children before Starting School

As a parent and educator of young children, one thing I desire for them is to enter school life prepared and armed with the skills they need to be successful. The most important skill that comes to mind is the ability to be confident.

Confidence is a feeling of emotional security that results from faith in oneself. It is a firm belief in one's powers, abilities or capacities.

Parents and teachers play a major role in developing young children's confidence. Adults' reactions tell children if they approve or disapprove of their efforts, which in turn influence children's self-evaluation. If children are encouraged to problem solve and their efforts in addition to their successes are recognized their confidence is being promoted.

Criticism and blame diminish confidence. Verbal and physical abuse damage children's feelings of emotional security and faith in themselves. If we desire for children to be confident, we must model the behavior. Self confident people are optimistic, independent, proud of their efforts, able to handle criticism, and emotionally mature. Self-confident people also inspire self-confidence in others.

We must help children to understand that life is full of ups and downs. They need to understand that when they encounter obstacles sometimes they will succeed and sometimes they will fail in overcoming them. This makes them realists, not perfectionists. If children always fail, they will lose the validation they need to develop confidence. If they always succeed, they will not know how to react to failure. Real confidence requires an understanding of the possibility of failure while still pursuing a solution.

Here are some things you can do to develop a child's confidence skills:

• Describe one of your challenges during the course of the day with children.
  


• When you are faced with a problem talk about it with the children.
  


• Make sure the children know the meaning of the word confidence.
  


• Encourage children to try something new and challenging.
  


• When a child accomplishes a difficult task, encourage them to write or draw a picture about it then create a class book about various successes including your own.
  


• Avoid perfectionism. It leads children to believe that anything less than perfect is unacceptable.
  


• Encourage persistence and allow ample enough time for children to focus on tasks.
  


• Take time to listen and respond constructively to children's work.
  


• Provide lots of opportunities for children to practice problem solving. When children solve problems, they feel confident.
  


• Foster creative and critical thinking skills by encouraging children to use objects in new ways.
  


• Encourage children to talk out loud when solving problems.
  

The skill of being confident develops over time. That's why it's important to start teaching this skill at an early age. It is an attitude that reflects a positive and realistic perception of self and abilities. Confidence is learned, not inherited, and is develops from inside out. Each one of us builds our own level of confidence, layer by layer, from the experiences we encounter and how we manage these experiences. Confident children meet challenges with optimism and persistence. They are able to make decisions and choices without the influence of adults or peers.

Why Is Quality Play Important?

Play is essential to early learning; children need to be actively involved in their play in order to develop basic learning skills. Doctors and teachers say its how your young child learns about herself and her world.

QUALITY PLAY PROMOTES CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

The most important part of your child's healthy development is safe, trusting relationships with you and the other caregivers in her life. Interacting with your child through positive, supportive play experiences will help her gain the confidence she needs to build loving and healthy relationships.

QUALITY PLAY PROMOTES LANGUAGE

One of the greatest achievements in the first three years of life is the development of language. Talking with your baby and toddler about what is happening around him while playing and responding to his sounds, words, and gestures lays the foundation for healthy brain development, as well as future success learning how to read and write at school.

QUALITY PLAY PROMOTES CREATIVITY

Creative play experiences come from your child's interests and abilities. It's the process that's important in creative play--what they do, not the product they make in the end. Current brain research shows that children learn best when the experiment and discover for themselves rather than being shown by adults.

QUALITY PLAY PROMOTES PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

It's important that you provide time for active play in a safe, open space with materials that allow children to move their bodies and use their senses. Limit time spent in car seats, swings, and other restricted spaces.

QUALITY PLAY PROMOTES THINKING SKILLS

Quality play gives your child the opportunity to learn concepts and problem solving strategies which are critical for future academic learning in science, math and literacy.

QUALITY PLAY PROMOTES SOCIAL SKILLS

Through play, your child will learn how to get along with others. Although your young child may not be developmentally ready to "play" with other children, interactive experiences will help set the foundation for true friendships.

Wearing Shoes in Your Home is a Health Hazard

 

When you walk through almost any part of a city, and even in the suburbs, your shoes pick up a multitude of unwanted hangers-on. If you wear those shoes in your home, you run the risk of endangering your family's health by spreading viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, other pathogens, allergens and toxic substances.

Items such as these may be commonly found on sidewalks and streets:

• Remnants of feces from dogs, cats, rodents, birds, other wildlife and sometimes even humans.
  
• Urine from the same sources.
  
• Excretions such as saliva, mucus, sweat and sometimes, blood or vomit.
  
• Remains from insects and rodents.
  
• Remnants of garbage including food waste and toxic cleaning products.
  
• Residue from insecticides, oils, gasoline and grease.
  

Even indoor space such as the floors of restrooms is frequently contaminated with urine and hospitals or doctor's office is fertile hotspots for a variety of germs that may end up on your shoes. Soil around homes and parks may be contaminated with lead, pesticides, lawn chemicals and toxic wood preservatives.

Residue from humans and animals may contain common viruses and pathogens such as hepatitis, herpes, E. coli, tetanus, rabies, strep, hantavirus, or cold and flu causing germs. Garbage residue may carry traces of toxic products such as formaldehyde, industrial chemicals, dyes and lead. According to Dr. Leo Galland author of "Power Healing", lead tracked into a home and accumulated in carpet dust often exceeds levels requiring clean up at Superfund toxic sites.

These items may be on the ground in very small deposits that are unnoticeable to the naked eye. Shoe souls are generally made of leather, rubber or other porous materials that allow the absorption of microscopic substances. Wiping shoes on a doormat or rug may remove some of the larger materials, but will not eliminate microscopic germs.

Once inside your home, contaminated shoes become a conduit for disease, spreading germs to carpets and even hard-surfaced floors. If you walk on those floors later without shoes, the germ can spread to your feet and be carried to other places such as your bed. If children are allowed to play on the floor, germs can easily spread to their hands, clothing and mouths.

In his book "The Secret Life of Germs", Phillip M. Tierno, Jr., Ph.D. suggests a simple way to avoid this hazard: "One should adopt the hygienic Japanese practice of having separate footwear for outdoors and indoors, and leaving the outdoor shoes at the threshold".

(Permission granted for reprinting by Paul Rebhan)

Children's Ability to Relate to Others Really Matters

Children's relationships with adults and peers provide a powerful social context that influences their behavior. Children observe and model the behaviors they see in others, especially close to them. Children's families, friends outside of school, schools, neighborhoods, and culture also provide powerful contexts from which they will development their social skills and intelligence. Children learn how to relate to one another and to adults by interacting with them. Children cannot learn what they need to become socially adept by interacting only with adults. Negotiating, sharing, and compromising are best learned from interactions with peers.

Social and Emotional Intelligence

All children need social and emotional skills so they can learn and be successful in school and in life. To be successful academically, children need to learn how to control their emotions and how to work in groups; these skills are necessary to thrive in school or any other learning situation. Children who can control their impulses and behaviors are much better prepared to listen and learn.

Society values an individual's cognitive capabilities; yet many people do not stop to consider how individuals actually develop these skills. We want children to be successful in school, and, generally, good grades are measures of success. We may assume that good grades are the results of superior cognitive abilities. However, children need to learn to pay attention and listen so they can develop the thinking skills necessary to become successful students. Paying attention and listening require children to control impulses, delay gratification, and focus on a task. All of these are related to social and emotional development.

Individuals who are socially intelligent are able to:

• Assess the feelings of others;



• Relate to the feelings, motive, and concerns of others;



• Read and respond to social cues; and



• Negotiate and resolve conflicts.

Individuals who are emotionally intelligent are able to:

• Identify and label feelings,



• Express feelings,



• Assess the intensity of feelings,



• Manage feelings,



• Delay gratification,



• Control impulses,



• Know the difference between feelings and actions, and



• Manage stress

( Source: Seven Skills For School Sucess, Pam Schiller)