Early Childhood Education

This three year old (left)
and a five year old (right)
 are both learning to
 distinguish between shapes.
Both students are in stage 2
of early childhood learning.

      Early childhood education refers to the formal teaching of young children by people outside the family or in settings outside the home. "Early childhood" is usually defined as before the age of normal schooling – five years in most nations, though the U.S. National Association for the Education of Young Children defines "early childhood" as before the age of eight.

      Early Childhood education focuses on children learning through play, based on the research and philosophy of Jean Piaget. This belief is centered on the "power of play". It has been thought that children learn more efficiently and gain more knowledge through play-based activities such as dramatic play, art, and social games. This theory stems children's natural curiosity and tendencies to "make believe", mixing in educational lessons.

      Preschool education and kindergarten emphasize learning around the ages of 3–6 years. The terms "day care" and "child care" do not convey the educational aspects, although many childcare centers use more educational approaches. The distinction between childcare centers and kindergartens has all but disappeared in countries that require staff in different early childhood facilities to have a teaching qualification.

      Researchers and early childhood educators both view the parents as an integral part of the early childhood education process. Often educators refer to parents as the child's "first and best teacher".

The assignment shown above is not just
entertaining; it serves a very important
purpose in the development of small
motor skills. This four year old is
learning "how" to work with her fingers.
In the future, she will be asked to per-
form the same movements with a
pencil and a eraser.

      It is very important for parents to stay engaged in their child's learning process even if they are getting most of their education from a daycare, day home, school etc. The knowledge learned from a parent will be more cherished and remembered by a child then if any other person taught them, especially at an early age. Early childhood education is crucial to child development and should be entered into cautiously with someone you trust will benefit your child.

      Much of the first two years of life are spent in the creation of a child's first "sense of self"; most children are able to differentiate between themselves and others by their second year. This is a crucial part of the child's ability to determine how they should function in relation to other people. Early care must emphasize links to family, home culture, and home language by uniquely caring for each child.

      Children who lack sufficient nurturing, nutrition, interaction with a parent or caregiver, and stimulus during this crucial period may be left with developmental deficits, as has been reported in Russian and Romanian orphanages. Children must receive attention and affection to develop in a healthy manner. There is a false belief that more hours of formal education for a very young child confers greater benefits than a balance between formal education and family time. A systematic, international review suggests that the benefits of early childhood education come from the experience of participation; more than 2.5 hours a day does not greatly add to child development outcomes, especially when it detracts from other experiences and family contact.

      The Developmental Interaction Approach is based on the theories of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, John Dewey, and Lucy Sprague Mitchell. The approach aims to involve children in acquiring competence via learning through discovery.

Very young students are positively motivated to learn by two basic instincts, pleasure and acceptance.
This little three year old is manipulating brightly colored bits of ribbon and fuzzy pom-poms in order
 to create a collage. She thinks that crayons, paper and glue are materials to play with. However,
 these art supplies will shape her ability to communicate and to also find pleasure in doing so.
 Teachers, parents and caregivers will encourage her productivity and voice their approval frequently
 in order to strengthen her will to manipulate the materials more and more as she matures.

        There are five developmental domains of childhood development:

1. Physical This section refers to how well your child is developing physically. You should keep an eye on their eyesight and how their motor skills are developing; they should be able to do small crafts and puzzles.
2. Social This section refers to the connections they've made with people and how well they are interacting with them.
3. Emotional This section refers to the emotional connections and amount of self-confidence they have.
4. Language Development This section refers to how well they communicate with people. Also how they represent their feelings and emotions.
5. Cognitive Skills This section refers to how the child lives in their everyday environment and how they solve everyday problems.

      There are three very basic, age appropriate, stages of early learning:

     1. Ages 1-3 Years Old: Learning through the discovery of knowledge:

• exploring the five senses
• kinesthetic memory
• discovery of basic motor skills
• identifying self and others
• experiments with making sounds and copying sounds

     2. Ages 3-5 Years Old: Learning though the processing of knowledge:

• identification, definition, categorization of knowledge
• development of basic motor skills
• social engagement with others i. e. “acceptable behaviors”
• learning to read faces, emotions 
• differentiate between good and bad conduct in oneself and others
• learning to make specific sound associated with language

     3. Ages 6-9 Years Old: Learning through manipulation of knowledge:

• fine tuning (controlling) large and small motor skills
• cause & effect social interaction and feelings (Cause and effect theory in academic subjects begins in grade 4; the children approx. 10 years of age.)
• Basic academic identification and applications: Integrated studies in multiple academic studies: math, science, art, history, literacy/reading and language (how do subjects compliment each other or relate to each other)
• working in a group to achieve a common goal
• learning to both speak and identify the language preferences of one's own people and also languages foreign to one's own people
• developing and adapting sophisticated memory cues, processes

Watch a candid and inspirational discussion with teachers from the Georgia Wolf Trap / Alliance Theatre community - including the social, academic, and emotional impact of Wolf Trap's early childhood arts education program. Parents can see how an "art rich" curriculum is developed for early learners.

• "Early Childhood Education Certification Schools".
• "Early Childhood Care and Education". UNESCO.
• "National Institute for Early Education Research".
• "Early Childhood Education". National Education Association.
• "Heckman Equation for Investing in Early Human Development".
• "International Montessori Index".

Stages of Artistic Development

      Visit http://thevirtualinstructor.com for more art lessons like this one. Learn the stages of artistic development and how knowing them will help your drawing improvement.

      As young students develop, their art passes through a number of stages. It is thought that all children pass through these stages:

a.) Scribbling: From about their first birthday children achieve the fine motor control to handle a crayon. At first they scribble. The youngest child scribbles with a series of left and right motions, later up, down and then circular motions are added. The child appears to get considerable pleasure from watching the line or the colors appear. Often however children do not pay attention to the edges of the page and the lines go beyond the confines of the page. Children are often also interested in body painting and, given the opportunity, will draw on their hands or smear paint on their faces.
      Later, from about their second birthday, controlled scribbling starts. Children produce patterns of simple shapes: circles, crosses and star-bursts. They also become interested in arrangement and can produce simple collages of colored paper, or place stones in patterns. Once children have established controlled scribbling they begin to name their scribbles.

b.) Pre-symbolism: From about age three, the child begins to combine circles and lines to make simple figures. At first, people are drawn without a body and with arms emerging directly from the head. The eyes are often drawn large, filling up most of the face, and hands and feet are omitted. At this stage it may be impossible to identify the subject of the art without the child's help.
      Later drawings from this stage show figures drawn floating in space and sized to reflect the child's view of their importance. Most children at this age are not concerned with producing a realistic picture.

c.) Symbolism: In this stage of a child's development, they create a vocabulary of images. Thus when a child draws a picture of a cat, they will always draw the same basic image, perhaps modified (this cat has stripes that one has dots, for example). This stage of drawing begins at around age five. The basic shapes are called symbols or schema.
      Each child develops his/her own set of symbols, which are based on their understanding of what is being drawn rather than on observation. Each child's symbols are therefore unique to the child. By this age, most children develop a "person" symbol which has a properly defined head, trunk and limbs which are in some sort of rough proportion.
      Before this stage the objects that child would draw would appear to float in space, but at about five to six years old the child introduces a baseline with which to organize their space. This baseline is often a green line (representing grass) at the bottom of the paper. The figures stand on this line. Slightly older children may also add secondary baselines for background objects and a skyline to hold the sun and clouds.
      It is at this stage that cultural influences become more important. Children not only draw from life, but also copy images in their surroundings. They may draw copies of cartoons. Children also become more aware of the story-telling possibilities in a picture. The earliest understanding of a more realistic representation of space, such as using perspective, usually comes from copying.

d.) Realism: As children mature they begin to find their symbols limiting. They realize that their schema for a person is not flexible enough, and just doesn't look like the real thing. At this stage, which begins at nine or ten years old, the child will lend greater importance to whether the drawing looks like the object being drawn.
      This can be a frustrating time for some children, as their aspirations outstrip their abilities and knowledge. Some children give up on drawing almost entirely. However others become skilled, and it is at this stage that formal artistic training can benefit the child most. The baseline is dropped and the child can learn to use rules such as perspective to organize space better. Story-telling also becomes more refined and children will start to use formal devices such as the comic strip.

Cut and Paste The Yellow School Bus

The yellow school bus project appears to be nothing more than child's play.
But does it serve a purpose more important than mere entertainment?

      Earlier this week, our young students experienced their first cut and paste art lesson. During the lesson, we discovered how much dexterity each child possessed. Each student was also observed while given a set of simple tasks:

• Could the student remain seated during a ten to fifteen minute project?
• Did he or she listen to directions attentively while the teacher was speaking?
• Did the student follow the directions to the best of their ability?
• How did he or she handle the scissors or glue stick?
• Did the student appear to identify the colors easily? (yellow, black, grey, white, and red)
• Did the student know and/or name the shapes?
• Did the student appear happy or frustrated by the activity?
• How much did the students engage with children sitting at the same table?
• Did the student loose interest quickly?

      This kind of informal assessment helps teachers evaluate how much to expect initially of their students and to what point their learning skills need to progress within a reasonable time frame. It is typical to ask very young children to perform a simple series of tasks at the beginning of a school year in order to make this general analysis. Parents should not be alarmed to learn of it because it is a sign of quality control on the part of the staff. It means that your child's environment with be adjusted to their specific needs. Your son or daughter's growth and welfare will be ensured by those who are trained to meet his or her individual constitution. This is one of the primary differences between childcare/daycare and early learning.

Pinchers Not Grippers!

      Did you know that the way your preschooler holds his or her crayons will affect their handwriting development in the future? Some students experience difficulty in manipulating a pencil when they begin to write in kindergarten. They "grip" their pencils as though they are holding a baseball bat. Ouch, that can cause writer's cramp for certain!

      Parents can help their children by training them early without even seeming to pay attention to the problem. That's right! It is an easy fix, but you must be willing to fight the schoolroom taboo. You must break their crayons. Yes, I understand that this is considered transgression across all kiddom but one must make sacrifices for the good of many or maybe just a few, for a limited time only. When little people are forced to hold tiny crayons, they will pinch not grip. This is an automatic result and also an easy way to break bad little habits.

• Handwriting development for small children
• How Handwriting Works
• Helping Children Develop Handwriting Skills
• Correct Pencil Grip