Saturday, September 17, 2011

National Association for the Education of Young Children

National Association for the Education of Young Children
The goal of NAEYC is to serve and act on behalf of the needs, rights and well-being of all young children with primary focus on the provision of educational and developmental services and resources.  The goals are focused on improving professional practice and working conditions in early childhood education, supporting early childhood programs by working to achieve a high-quality system of early childhood education, and building a high-performing, inclusive organization of groups and individuals who are committed to promoting excellence in early childhood education for all young children. 
The website has several links to articles on various topics. The one that catches my attention is "Moving Bodies, Building Minds" written by Michelle L. Marigliano and Michele J. Russo. The article states how creative movement is an ideal way to help young children develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. The article says that children are extremely active and physical and dance is a great way to help increase learning.  I think it is interested how creative you can be with children's learning and education. This article relates to the diversity improvisions that may come into play while we move into a more diverse education environment. Dancing can be shared with different cultures and listening to different music will promote connecting in diverse demographics. 

Saturday, August 6, 2011

My Supports

Support means to maintain a person, family, institution, etc. with the necessities of existence or to provide for. On a daily basis, I receive emotional support, practical support, physical support and sometimes monetary support.  Receiving support means a lot because it makes you feel that you are cared for and appreciated. When I'm at work, I get frustrated sometimes and my assistant teacher is there to provide me with kind words to lift me up. When I'm at home, my hubby provides me with practical, emotional, physical and monetary support. He helps me with our baby, household chores, help pay the bills and his duties as a husband. I also receive support from my parents. They give me emotional support and sometimes they give me monetary support to purchase things for my son. Those are their grandparent duties. :-) Without all of these people supporting me, I wouldn't be the person that I am today. I also have great friends who give me emotional and preactical support especially when I came home from the hospital with my new baby. They were very supportive. They came over and cooked for my hubby and I and they asked did my baby have everything that he needed. That made me love them even more because it means a lot to have help when you can do anything for yourself.

When I first got married, six months later my hubby was laid off. I was so stressed because we had to go into our savings. When my mom and dad found out, they begin to help us out tremendously by giving us money to pay bills,etc. This was a great challenge because I didn't want them to help but we needed their help. They helped until my hubby went back to work. We are so grateful to have great parents and in-laws. Support is somthing that I've always shown anyone around me whether they are a stranger or relative. I always provide encouraging words to people. Being supportive is a great thing and I love when I can be supportive to someone.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

My Connections to Play

When I was younger, play was supported by all family members.  I remember being at my grandmother's house and she would let my cousin and myself go outside to play with our friend from across the street. We played jump rope, hop scotch, kickball, and we skated. When I was 7 years old, my cousin taught me how to skate and I have been skating since then. Play is a lt different now than when I was growing up. When I look at the children today, they don't go outside anymore because of all he technology that's available to them such as video games and computers.There is not physical play unless they are at school and that's why there is so much obesity in children today. I feel that parents need to make sure that their child is getting some physical play each day or at least 3-4 times a week to keep the child healthy. Beow, is a picture of some things that I enjoyed playing with when I was younger. The first picture is my brother, and two cousins playing video games. The second picture is a  pair of skates because I use to skate often with my cousin Shayla. The third picture is a jumping rope because we use to have jump rope contest and I would win some and she would win some. The last pictures is super mario brother because we played super mario brothers all the time.




Sunday, July 10, 2011

Relationship Reflection





A relationship is a relation between people. Each of us has a variety of relationships with other people in our lives. Each of us has casual acquaintances. People we know a little bit about, but not too much. With socal networks like Facebook growing, people have more and more of these casual acquaintances. Then we have friends, people we communicate regularly with. All of us have friends at work, in our neighborhoods, at our schools or in our church. We have less friends than casual acquaintances. Then we have close friends, people that we share with on a deeper level what’s going on in our lives. Most people don’t have a lot of close friends, but our close friends are important to us. Some are closer than others. Then we have business partners, people that we are in business with.

Research shows that people who have a strong social network tend to live longer, the heart and blood pressure of people with healthy relationships respond better to stress, strong social networks are associated with a healthier endocrine system and healthier cardiovascular functioning, and healthy social networks enhance the immune system's ability to fight off infectious diseases.

The relationship can be a business relationship and a casual relationship. In the pictures above, I showed different examples of the relationships that I have with them. These are pictures of my family. We all have positive and strong relationships/partnerships. All of these people help contribute to my succes. They all are positive and I feel that is one great factor that they all have. I always associate myself around positive people because it affects me in a positive or negative way.  Relationships can have a great impact on your life so we should always have healthy relationships.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A Note of Thanks and Support

First I would like to thank God who is the head of my life. I went through some issues after having my baby with my blood pressure and I thank God for giving me the strength to continue with this class and fulfill my newly motherly duties at the same time. It was stressful at times but it was worth it.

Then I would like to thank my colleagues for sharing their experiences which have strengthened my understanding about a lot of things. Also, thanks for all of the comments and insights on my discussions. It helped me to hear the views of others so that I coukld see different views of certain topics. I feel like I gave my colleages the same things sucha s great feedback on discussion and blogs.

I wish all of my colleagues nothing but success in their future endeavors. I wish them all to become future leaders in the early childhood field.

I would also like to thank my professor who was also great and very helpful with whatever questions or issues that I had. Walden couldn't have any better professors and I'm glad to be apart of this University


Sincerely,

Crystal Preston




"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children."
Charles R. Swindoll
"Life, love, and laughter - what priceless gifts to give our children."
Phyllis Dryden

Monday, February 14, 2011

NAEYC Code of Ethics

Ethical Responsibilities to Families
Ideals
I-2.1—To be familiar with the knowledge base related to
working effectively with families and to stay informed
through continuing education and training.

I-2.2—To develop relationships of mutual trust and
create partnerships with the families we serve.

I-2.3—To welcome all family members and encourage
them to participate in the program.

These three are important because
families are of primary importance in children’s
development. Because the family and the early childhood
practitioner have a common interest in the child’s
well-being, we acknowledge a primary responsibility to
bring about communication, cooperation, and collaboration
between the home and early childhood program
in ways that enhance the child’s development.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Testing for Intelligence

In early childhood,  children should be assessed but not measured on their ability to do something.  I feel that they should be assessed on the 5 developmental domains which are fine motor, gross motor, social/emotional, language and cogntive. I also feel that the satndarized test are good to see what a child knows but it shouldn't determine big milestones in a child's life such as graduation or entering college. A test doesn't always your abilities and strengths. Someone may be a good test taker and another person may not be. For example, in high school I was a student who made A's and B's and my cousin was a student who made A's, B's, C's and D's. She was a nonchalant person when it came to taking a standarized test and I was nervous during that time. We both took the GHSGT which is the Georgia High School Graduation Test and she passed all of her test. I didn't pass Science or Social Studies. This is an example of good test takers and bad test takers. I currently have test anxiety and I get nervous when taking a timed test.
School-aged children are assessed all over the world and the country that I'm interested in getting information about is Japan. In Japan, children are assessed and measured in school. The focus of Japanese parents and teachers is to prepare students for two important tests: one at the end of ninth grade, which determines whether a student goes to a vocational school, a first-rate public college-preparatory high school, a second rate high school or an expensive private school; and another at the end of the 12th grade to gain entrance to university. This is similar to the schools in the US.  Also, national achievement tests are given to primary school sixth graders and third year middle school students. In some cases, the test require students to not only give an answer but their calculations.
When it comes to children being assessed,  one of my big concerns is giving the smaller children test. When they are four to eight years old, I feel that they don't understand how important it is when comes to taking standardized tests so it shouldn't be measured.
Reference:
 

Friday, January 28, 2011

A Touching Story

About 2 years ago, my husband and I attended a network marketing meeting that dealt with financial services. The speaker was a multi million dollar earner. We sat in the second row at the meeting and we took copious notes while he spoke. There was a little girl on the front row that I saw with one of his staff. She was a pretty little girl who I assume was about 9 years old. Well the speaker began to speak about this little girl that he met in the elevator with her mom. He said that he told the little girl hello and she didn't respond to him so he said hello again, still no response. Then he whispered hello in her ear. Still he got no response so he thought she was ignoring him. One of his staff told him that the little girl was deaf and he was very hurt because he didn't know. The part that was so touching to me was that there was a surgery that the child could get but the parents couldn't afford it so what he did was paid for the entire surgery and hired someone to teach her sign language so now her hearing is coming back and she has her own teacher. When I heard this story, it brought tears to my eyes because he was so grateful to the little girl and her family and the mom was so happy.

Quotes

We as professionals in the early childhood field have an opportunity to shape a child's life for the better so that's what makes me passionate about this field.
~Sandy Escobido~

I think my passion comes from wanting to make a difference.
~Raymond Hernandez~

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.  ~Stacia Tauscher

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Stressors

What is a stressor?

According to the medical-dicationary.com, stress is defined as an organism's total response to environmental demands or pressures. When stress was first studied in the 1950s, the term was used to denote both the causes and the experienced effects of these pressures. More recently, however, the word stressor has been used for the stimulus that provokes a stress response. One recurrent disagreement among researchers concerns the definition of stress in humans. Is it primarily an external response that can be measured by changes in glandular secretions, skin reactions, and other physical functions, or is it an internal interpretation of, or reaction to, a stressor; or is it both?

During my childhood years, I went through a time when I had a stressor inmy life. When I was in the third grade, I was bullied by an older boy on my bus. He would ask me for candy everyday and I would bring it because he was very mean. He never hit me or anything but it was just emotional abuse. It was a while before I told my mom but when I did, it all stopped because she talked with the bus driver and let her know what was going on and never bothered me again. He just said that he was just playing with me but it didn't seem that way. That was the only stressor that I went theough as a child.

I had a friend in middle school who had a stressor called poverty. Poverty can have several different meanings. It's having little or no money and few or no material possessions. She struggled financially but me and my mom would always go and get her and spend lots of time with her. My mom would also buy her clothes and shoes and give her money. My mom was like a second mother to her. She even started calling my mom "mom. She wanted attention and she would cry out for it. In the 8th grade, she got pregnant and she stated that "now I'll have someone to love me" which was sad. She had a baby girl and her attitude got better and my mom still continued to help her. She is now doing great! Her daughter is now in middle school making good grades and she is doing a great job as a mom.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Personal Childhood Web

This is my Personal Childhood Web. In this blog, you will read about the 3 people that had the greatest influence in my life.

1. My Mom- She wasalways  the person who inspired me to do my best no matter what. She always spent time with me and exposed me to all great things. She raised me to always be a leader and not a follower and that has stuck with me today. She stayed home with me until I went to childcare at age 3 because she was very protective. She remains that way today with me and especially my brother. She is the best mom in the world. She is part of the reason why I'm continuing my education today.

2. My Stepfather- He came into my life when I was 8 years old and has been a father to me since then. He has always been there for me. WHen I couldn't go to my mom and talk about certain things, he would always be a good listener to me. Even though he is my stepfather, I never have looked at him like a stepfather because he has always treated me like his own daughter. I have a brother who is his biological child but he treats us the same. I've always loved that trait in him because I never felt like he treated me different because I wasn't his biological child. He is the best father in the world. He is part of the reason why I'm continuing my education today.

3. My Aunt Prince- She is my mom's oldest sister. She has always taught me that education is the key to success. When I was younger, my cousin and I would go and stay with her for the summer and she would make us write a paper on a topic of choice before we could go. She is a retired teacher who has a great love for kids and education. She is also a great cook. She always cooks great meals when we go to visit her in Florida. She is one of my favorite aunts. SHe is part of the reason why I'm continuing my education today.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Childbirth Experience

Before I start, I want to say that it wasn't a surprise to me that in the United States almost 100% of births take place in a controlled and/or clinical setting. When I realized that people outside of the United States the majority of births occur at home, that was a little scary to me because of the complications that could occur. I gave birth to my first child about 2 weeks ago so this week's blog will be about me and my baby. In this blog, I will share my thoughts regarding birth, the procedure that I had to go through and the complications that I had and the the differences of labor and delivery in the US and other countries.

First, I would like to share my thoughts on birth. Birthing my child was a real experience that I will always remember. During my first trimester, I got sick everyday. I lost 7 lbs because I wasn't eating a lot. I couldn't deal with smells because they would make me nausea. After that trimester, I was fine up until my 8th month. During my 8th month, I got preeclampsia which put me in the hospital because my blood pressure was elevated, liver enzymes were abnormal and I had severe swelling in my feet and legs. I stayed in the hospital for 16 days until the birth of my baby. On Christmas Day, I was in the hospital but I'm glad they kept me because it snowed and I live about 35 minutes from the hospital so it would've been difficult to travel.

The day of my delivery, I was taken down to labor and delivery and was prepared to deliver. At 12:00 noon, I was given Petocin then at 4:00 pm, my doctor broke my water. I delivered my son at 1:14 am. I was in pain off and on because my epidural wore off. From what I had to go through, I don't want to experience that again. From all of that, my adorable, healthy baby boy came and I wouldn't trade him for anything. My doctor mentioned postpartum to me but here I am going into my second week and I'm doing great.. My son is also doing great.  
  
One of the questions was what do I think of births occuring at home. I don't agree with that because of the complications that could occur. The reason why I chose the hospital that I chose was because if me or my baby had any complications, we would get the care we needed at that location so I took that very serious. .

Another question was to choose a region of the world or a country, other than the U.S., and find out how births happen there. One thing I learned is in Western and other cultures, some families view the placenta as a special part of birth, since it has been the child's life support for so many months. Some parents like to see and touch this organ. The placenta may be eaten by the newborn's family unlike in the US, we don't eat the placenta.

What other stressors that surround birth might influence a child’s development? Taking drugs could influence a child's development in many ways according what the drug is.

What kinds of support and/or intervention surrounding a child’s birth may foster healthy development? Support from the spouse, family members and friends play a big support role. My spouse was very helpful from the beginning to the end and I also had supportive family and friends that were right there.  


SIDS

I chose SIDS as the topic that is meaingful to me because I have a newborn and I've heard some scary stories about SIDS.

One of the stories that I heard recently was a parent put her 6 week old baby in daycare and the baby died the first day at the center. They called this SIDS. When I heard this, it was very scary because at the time I was about 6 months pregnant with my first child. Now that my baby is here, I tried to get as much information on this topic.

According to American Academy of Pediatrics, "SIDS is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Its the unexplained death of a baby younger than 1 year". It also states that the safest way to sleep: place the baby on his back, babies who sleep on their stomachs are at a higher risk for SIDS, side sleeping is not as safe as back sleeping and is not advised.

The infant mortality rate is the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births. The neonatal period extends from birth through day 27. The post-neonatal period extends from day 28 through day 364. SIDS Rates In 1996, there were 2,051 reported infant deaths in Canada. Of these deaths, 168 (8.2%) were attributed to SIDS.Since 1980, the overall rate of SIDS deaths in Canada has been steadily declining from 1.2 per 1,000 live births in 1980 to 0.5 per 1,000 live births in 1996 SIDS Rates Canada, 1980-1996 Source: Statistics Canada. Mortality: summary list of causes, 1980-1995. Statistics Canada. Canadian Vital Statistics System, 1996.In 1996, SIDS was the leading cause of post-neonatal mortality in Canada, accounting for 26% of all post-neonatal deaths. Birth defects, the second leading cause, accounted for 23% of post-neonatal deaths. As both the post-neonatal mortality rate and the SIDS rate have declined, the proportion of post-neonatal mortality attributed to SIDS has remained steady since 1980In comparison to other developed countries, the 1996 Canadian SIDS rate of 0.5 per 1,000 live births is lower than the rate in Australia (0.9 per 1,000 live births), USA (0.8 per 1,000 live births) and England/Wales (0.7 per 1,000 live births). However, the Canadian rate remains higher than rates reported in Japan (0.4 per 1,000 live births) and the Netherlands (0.3 per 1,000 live births)

This information has taught me ways to prevent SIDS. I was already familiar with some of the ways but not all of them. It will help me with my newborn and I can share this with upcoming mothers.