Blog July 12th
It takes a village to raise a child , we all have heard this several times. But do we ever think what does it take to create a village ? In a village every grown up plays a valued role in education, health, welfare and development of a child.
As being in the field of Early Childhood Education for my part since the last few months I have been working on my project, based on the enrichment of children’s social and emotional development through outdoor play. After seeing children who are afraid of insects and animals, sitting on the grass, playing in the sand /mud, and getting dirty. I recognized the need to raise the awareness about the importance of these outdoor activities. Children have become more inclined towards playing computer games, video games , watching movies or engaging in sedentary activities rather than enjoying outdoors and observing nature. Due to various factors including both parents working , safety and security reasons, children spending maximum time in daycares, traffic, lack of parks and nature areas new constructions etc. Children have become alarmingly nature deficit. Next to a mother, Nature can be the best teacher. Children learn science, mathematics, social skills , develop emotional skills , learn to value life and even strt thinking about God and religion.
We can all agree that nature is incredibly therapeutic. Just like us adults, children do go through numerous stresses in their daily life. Keeping this in mind, I introduced my young students to outdoor activities. We started taking nature walks, rain or shine more often. We watched birds, looked for deer tracks, bugs,& worms, and touched snails in rain, played on tree stumps,looked for rabbits and squirrels.The Children enjoyed the outdoors and wanted to spend more time outdoors rather than indoors. They Forgot about movies and computer games. Inspired by their new interest in outdoor play, I designed the first portion of my pilot project to include children’s direct interaction with nature. What a better way to do this than planting a vegetable garden. We prepared the soil-bed and together, selected the vegetables we wanted to plant. As you can see children excitedly participated in this project. Every day they checked on the vegetable garden and together we watched the plants grow and bear vegetables. They loved picking chillies, bell pepper, and peas.
The second portion of my pilot project incorporated collaborative outdoor activities between adults and children. As we know it is impossible to raise a child in a village that does not involve the family of children. After the success of the gardening activity, I wanted adults to realize the numerous benefits associated with their children’s direct interaction with nature . To do this, I organized a potluck picnic in a nature park, inviting the children’s parents and grand parents. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed socializing with other parents and children as well as playing with their children while emersed in natural environment.. Children explored the park with the parents and were fascinated by the towering trees , ducks , the sound of the stream , and different animals. Both children and parents recalled the enjoyment they experienced outdoors in the nature park ,and also the joy being interacting with other parents and children. I felt as my efforts of bringing children and parents outdoors is accomplished when they all asked me to go for nature walks and picnics again.
Later I asked the children to express their experiences with nature through art. I was amazed to see the expressions I received in children’s art work. They told stories , draw pictures and also pretend played as animals. I believe through nature interaction children develop better problem solving, social, emotional and cognitive skills as they do in structured play areas and activities.. As Helle Nebelong ,Danish landscape architect mentions, “I am convinced that standardised play equipment is dangerous. When the distance between all the rungs on the climbing net or the ladder is exactly the same, the child has no need to concentrate on where he puts his feet. This lesson cannot be carried over into all the knobbly and asymmetrical forms with which one is confronted throughout life.” Nature Nurtures learning.
I got food for my thoughts from several wonderful articles and as well from the work of wonderful researchers who have worked hard for children’s benefit as well as from the teaching and guidance of my professors. I would like to mention few of the articles and books that helped me most in my project, “A Final report to the Forestry Commmision UK by Tim Gill about “Growing Adventure”, with whom I am in contact and plans to join him in his work for bringing children out in woods. As well as from Elizabeth Goodenough’s book , “A Place for Play”, And Richard Louv’s book ,Last Child in the Woods”.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Thankyou for reading my Project blog
I thank you all for reading my blog and leaving your comments on it. please keep reading and sending your thoughts about my project. Thankyou , to Shannan for being so helpful,supportive, considerate and patient with me . i learned this all from you as well, it helps me in becoming better teacher.
Bibliography
v Bingley, A.F., Milligan, C. (2004) Climbing trees and building dens: mental health and well-being in young adults and the long-term effects of childhood play experience End of project report.
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ihr/publications/amandabingley/climbing_trees_and_building_dens.pdf
v Bailey, R., (2006) Physical Education and Sports in Schools: A Review of Benefits and OutComes. The Journal of School Health, Vol. 76, No. 8. P. 397-401 .
v Cheryl B , T., (winter 2008) The value of an Out-Door Education Experience. Vol.10, No.1 http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-wi08/pr-wi08_RealityCheck.cfm
v ColeMan, K.J., Geller, K.,S., Rosenkranz, R R., Dzewaltowski, D A., (2008) Physical Activity and Healthy Eating in the After-School Environment. Journal of School Health , Vol.78, No.12
v Frumkin,H., and Louv, R. (2007) The powerful Link Between Conserving Land and Preserving Health. http://atfiles.org/files/pdf/FrumkinLouv.pdf
v Freema, M., & mathison , S.,(2009) Researching Children’s Experiences. The Guilford Press NY. New York.
v Gill,T., (march 2006) Growing Adventure : Final report to the ForestryCommissionUK
v Gill, T., ( 2005) If You Go Down The Woods Today, The Ecologist 35 no. 8. Pgs_ 62-9
v Gostev, M., & Weiss, F.M. (2007). First hand nature: a classroom environment that encourages direct observation of nature helps develop young students’ scientific literacy. (Muscota New School). Science and Children. , p.48.retreived March 24 2009, from Genral One File via Gale: http//find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodld=IPS
v Goodenough, E,.A Place For Play (2008) national Institute for play.
v Long, S., Volk, D., Gregory, E., (2007) Intentionality and Expertise: learning from Observations of Children at Play in Multilingual, Multicultural Contexts. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, vol. 38, Issue 3,pp. 239-259.
v Louv, R., (2005) Last Child in the Woods Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, Workman publishing, NY , New York.
v Little, H., & Wyver, S. (June 2008). Outdoor play: does avoiding the risk reduce the benefits? (report) Australian Journal of Early Childhood. , Vol.33,2.p.33(8).Retrieved March 24, 2009, From general One File via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodld=IPS http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/australian_journal_of_early_childhood/ajec_index_abstracts/outdoor_play_does_avoiding_the_risks_reduce_the_benefits.html
v O’ Brien,Liz (2009) Learning OutDoors: The Forest school approach, Education 3-13, Vol.37,No.1,p.45-60. This article was downloaded by:[ Wayne State university] on 27 May 2009, DOI:10.1080/03004270802291798 http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/03004270802291798
v Piper, P.,S., & Tag, S.,(2003) Father Nature : Fathers as guides to the natural World. University of Iowa Press.
v Rivkin, Mary S. (2000) Outdoor Experiences for Young Children. ERIC Digest. www.eric.ed.gov
v Russoniello,C V., Skalko, T K., McGhee,S A., Bingham-Alexander,D.,& Beatley, J. (summer 2002). Childhood posttraumatic stress disorder and efforts to cope after Hurricane Floyd. Behavioral Medicine. 28,2.p.61(11). Retrieved March 24 ,2009, from General One File via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodld=IPS
v Spodek, B.,& Sarancho, O., N.,(2006) Hand Book of Research On The Education Of Young Children. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,Inc. New Jersey.
v Sigmund, E., Croix, M, De Ste.,Miklankova,L., Fromel,K.(april 2007) Physical activity patterns of Kindergarten children in comparison to teenagers and young adults. European Journal of Public Health, Vol. 17, No.6, p, 646-651 doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckm033 http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/17/6/646
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Collaborative interaction with nature.
It was interesting and fullfilling to see parents and children enjoying the nature together, and as well as recalling their childhood times enjoying in woods. children were excited to be in nature park and explore nature.
Review of my project in photographs.
i introduced more nature and outdoor activities in my day care. Taking children for nature walks and looking for bugs and observing small plants and insects. Going for rain walks feeling rain drops on our faces and jumping in puddles, picking up snails, watching them slither on wet path.Listening to rain sounds.Finding deer tracks, playing on tree stumps in woods.As Richard Louv mention a qoute of John Burroughs in his book ,The Last Child in Woods, " I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more". i agree with Richard louv that children need nature to develop mentally and physically healthy so they can learn and be creative. Children's early experiences with nature influences the child's long-term comfort and association and respect towards natural world. If a child learns to respect and love nature at early age, he will grow up as an adult who will respect environment.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Chapter 22nd. Hand Book.Family Context in Early Childhood.
Chapter 22: Family Context in Early Childhood .
I chose to read chapter 22 in Hand Book, I see it as very important topic in our society of multi-cultures . In our schools we see children from different culture and backgrounds. Along with them they bring their cultures and effects of their family life into the class. I admired Buddha’s quote saying,
“ A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another . If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden”.
____ Buddha
This chapter explains the importance of family and its influences on children’s development as well as how children affect family’s ecology. Besides child-family interaction to the well being of a child, educators also play an important role. It is important for an educator to learn how they can better understand and interact with families. To develop a connection between school and families, a positive atmosphere must be established between the families and school that conveys the message that “mutual respect and interdependence of home, school, and community are essential to children’s development” (McAfee, 1993,p.21). To establish such environment there should be mutual trust among school and families.
In this matter government has been playing it’s role as well by promoting early childhood programs such as National Education Goals Panel ,1999, IDEA:US Congresss,1999, and Title 1 (US Department of education, 1997) all included in their programs a mandate of family involvement in school issues. In early Childhood programs, home visitation has been promoted to connect families with schools. There are several other early childhood programs that are working to connect families with schools.
I learned in this chapter, how rituals and routines are important in child’s development. As it is mentioned in one section of this chapter, “When routines are disrupted, it is a hassle. When rituals are disrupted, there is a threat to group identity”. Children who experience routines at home also are more likely to have easy transition to school from home. Because if a child is use to of routines at home it will be easy for him to respond to orderly atmosphere as well as children ae raised in families who practice their rituals regularly give their child more stable emotional atmosphere. Which helps a child show better academic performance in later life.
Dr. Benjamin Spock strongly supported the central role of parents (primarily mothers )in directly shaping their child’s development (Spock, 1955). Such as mothers depression, ill health ,poor economic condition, and being single parent does disrupts mother –child interaction.Financial status and emotional distress of mothers doeas effect child’s cognitive and behavioral development. Bronfenbrenner (1997 clearly explained and notified the multiple ecologies that root within each other and play an important role in child development. Most proximal to the child’s experience are interactions within the family context. Bed time stories are good example of parent child interaction and it supports development of learning language. Reading bedtimes stories in early childhood time has been found to be associated with better academic performance in the early school years (Serpell,Sonnenschein, baker, and Ganapathy,2002; Whitehurst et al.,1988). As in Eastern cultures ,the stories themselves usually focus on some message that is to be delivered to children indirectly, such as responsibility, and respect for elders. Myself belonging to Eastern culture reminds me of my childhood time when after dinner the whole family sits together and enjoyed green tea while papa and my mom use to tell us stories and it always had some message of responsibility, courage, respect for elders and love for young ones and also to be a good muslim. Some of the stories are so deeply rooted in me that they became part of my personality. I still cherish those rituals and routines of my childhood times. Also whenever our grandparents, aunts and uncles were with us they would join us in telling family stories/their childhood stories with a message. I also remember we use to wait for our family and religious rituals eagerly and the whole family use to join together and would come and stay in our house. Which made me realize the importance of sharing and tolerating extended family members and taking care of their needs as well. I encourage same rituals and routines in my family and enjoy carrying them as my family tradition. Also I very much encourage family and school interaction. Parents join us in our day care rituals such as Birthdays, summer party, and end of the year party which are few of our rituals that we practice every year. Parents/grandparents and children wait for these celebrations as well as very much enjoy to be together on all these occasions. Our Rochester hills librarian’s quarterly story reading visit, and our mealtimes and nap times ,as well as our everyday reading stories are few of our routines that we regularly practice and I noticed it does bring order in mine and children’s life and children feel relax and happy. After reading this chapter I paid more attention in observing children in my day care and noticed that those children are more whinnie and craby whose mothers worry for their sickness and those who are not regular in their routines and rituals. Specially children with such environment at home show mothers more tantrums than at school .But parent only does not influence the child’s development ,It’s a mutual effect how parent and care givers as well as child himself experience the environment and influence each other. Through our day care routines and rituals we have brought awareness to some extent in our day care parents about the importance of reading bedtime stories and following routines and rituals at home.
I chose to read chapter 22 in Hand Book, I see it as very important topic in our society of multi-cultures . In our schools we see children from different culture and backgrounds. Along with them they bring their cultures and effects of their family life into the class. I admired Buddha’s quote saying,
“ A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another . If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden”.
____ Buddha
This chapter explains the importance of family and its influences on children’s development as well as how children affect family’s ecology. Besides child-family interaction to the well being of a child, educators also play an important role. It is important for an educator to learn how they can better understand and interact with families. To develop a connection between school and families, a positive atmosphere must be established between the families and school that conveys the message that “mutual respect and interdependence of home, school, and community are essential to children’s development” (McAfee, 1993,p.21). To establish such environment there should be mutual trust among school and families.
In this matter government has been playing it’s role as well by promoting early childhood programs such as National Education Goals Panel ,1999, IDEA:US Congresss,1999, and Title 1 (US Department of education, 1997) all included in their programs a mandate of family involvement in school issues. In early Childhood programs, home visitation has been promoted to connect families with schools. There are several other early childhood programs that are working to connect families with schools.
I learned in this chapter, how rituals and routines are important in child’s development. As it is mentioned in one section of this chapter, “When routines are disrupted, it is a hassle. When rituals are disrupted, there is a threat to group identity”. Children who experience routines at home also are more likely to have easy transition to school from home. Because if a child is use to of routines at home it will be easy for him to respond to orderly atmosphere as well as children ae raised in families who practice their rituals regularly give their child more stable emotional atmosphere. Which helps a child show better academic performance in later life.
Dr. Benjamin Spock strongly supported the central role of parents (primarily mothers )in directly shaping their child’s development (Spock, 1955). Such as mothers depression, ill health ,poor economic condition, and being single parent does disrupts mother –child interaction.Financial status and emotional distress of mothers doeas effect child’s cognitive and behavioral development. Bronfenbrenner (1997 clearly explained and notified the multiple ecologies that root within each other and play an important role in child development. Most proximal to the child’s experience are interactions within the family context. Bed time stories are good example of parent child interaction and it supports development of learning language. Reading bedtimes stories in early childhood time has been found to be associated with better academic performance in the early school years (Serpell,Sonnenschein, baker, and Ganapathy,2002; Whitehurst et al.,1988). As in Eastern cultures ,the stories themselves usually focus on some message that is to be delivered to children indirectly, such as responsibility, and respect for elders. Myself belonging to Eastern culture reminds me of my childhood time when after dinner the whole family sits together and enjoyed green tea while papa and my mom use to tell us stories and it always had some message of responsibility, courage, respect for elders and love for young ones and also to be a good muslim. Some of the stories are so deeply rooted in me that they became part of my personality. I still cherish those rituals and routines of my childhood times. Also whenever our grandparents, aunts and uncles were with us they would join us in telling family stories/their childhood stories with a message. I also remember we use to wait for our family and religious rituals eagerly and the whole family use to join together and would come and stay in our house. Which made me realize the importance of sharing and tolerating extended family members and taking care of their needs as well. I encourage same rituals and routines in my family and enjoy carrying them as my family tradition. Also I very much encourage family and school interaction. Parents join us in our day care rituals such as Birthdays, summer party, and end of the year party which are few of our rituals that we practice every year. Parents/grandparents and children wait for these celebrations as well as very much enjoy to be together on all these occasions. Our Rochester hills librarian’s quarterly story reading visit, and our mealtimes and nap times ,as well as our everyday reading stories are few of our routines that we regularly practice and I noticed it does bring order in mine and children’s life and children feel relax and happy. After reading this chapter I paid more attention in observing children in my day care and noticed that those children are more whinnie and craby whose mothers worry for their sickness and those who are not regular in their routines and rituals. Specially children with such environment at home show mothers more tantrums than at school .But parent only does not influence the child’s development ,It’s a mutual effect how parent and care givers as well as child himself experience the environment and influence each other. Through our day care routines and rituals we have brought awareness to some extent in our day care parents about the importance of reading bedtime stories and following routines and rituals at home.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Chapter 16, Multicultural Education
Chapter 16 reflection.:
It is an interesting chapter as well as important . Since last decade or so our culture is becoming increasingly diverse at very fast rate. As this chapter is all about multicultural education and the efforts that has been put forth by the government to promote multicultural education in schools and promoting research on this subject at all levels of education.
Multi-cultural movement which was geared by several African-American scholars such as James Bank, Geneva Gay, & Carl Grant in 1970s, became a force in education. Multiculturism also embodied “Cultural Plurism”, a model in which specific groups maintain uniqueness of their cultures, it helped in enhancing the whole society.
As the focus of multicultural education was to bring individual awareness and respect for people of all races and cultures, also to help people develop racial and ethnic identities. Although there is decline in racist acts, which were sometimes back were officially allowed, but despite of that we still see racism and prejudice among our society. I my self being the first generation from different culture and society, can understand the pressures on people/children who go through this stress of being victims of racism and prejudice.
In my day care I have children from different cultures and races, and I did see some incidence among young children , such as I had a little black girl and some of the children would not sit by her at lunch time or at art or circle time. It was sad. Actually it was not the fault of a child who said that, it is what he heard at home from their adults. As early studies suggest (Lambert& Klineberg,1967; Piaget & Weil, 1951), most young children do not grasp the relationships between nations, national origin, and traditions and do not have a concept of ,”cultures”. I had another incident when one of the students came to me and said, “Appi don’t ever let Russians enter your house, they are not good”. I had a Russian student in my day care. After noticing all these little people ‘s talks I started playing a game of going on trips (a pretend play) every week we use to go to some country and talk about how they live , what do they eat, wear, where they pray etc.( their cultures and traditions) and places to see. We use to watch movies from around the world, every parent or grand parent was invited turn by turn to tell us about their culture and childhood times. Also if some of them went on trips back home I asked them to bring pictures and something depicting their culture. As my son went to Africa and I asked him to show us the pictures of people of Nigeria and children enjoyed his pictures very much. We did invite parents over on different occasions so parents /adults of all races do interact as well and leave a positive impact on their children’s mind.. We did introduce music of all cultures in our care and children as well as myself enjoyed the music from Russia, Indai Pakistan, China, Africa , Polish and American and also from Mexico. All this took us some time to make it as part of our day care but gradually it has become a tradition in my day care. We often do cultural potluck in our care and parents bring food of their country and tell us something about themselves and their culture. Last time when parents/grandparents came over to join us to see children’s garden some grand parents told us the stories how they came over and experienced tough times but later established themselves. It has made my day care very much free of racism and prjudice. All parents and children respect each others cultures and enjoy learning about them as well as some words of language. As I talk some words in Russian to my little 2 yr old, such as “Neplach” means don’t cry or “Kushay” meaning eat. Rest of the children join me and says these words as well as they have learnt my language. I always read them a book by Ashley Brayn, What a wonderful world “ which is my favorite one along with many other multicultural books to teach children to respect and be aware of other cultures and their values. I very much enjoy introducing multi cultures to my young ones and seeing them enjoy learning about different people and their living styles.
It is an interesting chapter as well as important . Since last decade or so our culture is becoming increasingly diverse at very fast rate. As this chapter is all about multicultural education and the efforts that has been put forth by the government to promote multicultural education in schools and promoting research on this subject at all levels of education.
Multi-cultural movement which was geared by several African-American scholars such as James Bank, Geneva Gay, & Carl Grant in 1970s, became a force in education. Multiculturism also embodied “Cultural Plurism”, a model in which specific groups maintain uniqueness of their cultures, it helped in enhancing the whole society.
As the focus of multicultural education was to bring individual awareness and respect for people of all races and cultures, also to help people develop racial and ethnic identities. Although there is decline in racist acts, which were sometimes back were officially allowed, but despite of that we still see racism and prejudice among our society. I my self being the first generation from different culture and society, can understand the pressures on people/children who go through this stress of being victims of racism and prejudice.
In my day care I have children from different cultures and races, and I did see some incidence among young children , such as I had a little black girl and some of the children would not sit by her at lunch time or at art or circle time. It was sad. Actually it was not the fault of a child who said that, it is what he heard at home from their adults. As early studies suggest (Lambert& Klineberg,1967; Piaget & Weil, 1951), most young children do not grasp the relationships between nations, national origin, and traditions and do not have a concept of ,”cultures”. I had another incident when one of the students came to me and said, “Appi don’t ever let Russians enter your house, they are not good”. I had a Russian student in my day care. After noticing all these little people ‘s talks I started playing a game of going on trips (a pretend play) every week we use to go to some country and talk about how they live , what do they eat, wear, where they pray etc.( their cultures and traditions) and places to see. We use to watch movies from around the world, every parent or grand parent was invited turn by turn to tell us about their culture and childhood times. Also if some of them went on trips back home I asked them to bring pictures and something depicting their culture. As my son went to Africa and I asked him to show us the pictures of people of Nigeria and children enjoyed his pictures very much. We did invite parents over on different occasions so parents /adults of all races do interact as well and leave a positive impact on their children’s mind.. We did introduce music of all cultures in our care and children as well as myself enjoyed the music from Russia, Indai Pakistan, China, Africa , Polish and American and also from Mexico. All this took us some time to make it as part of our day care but gradually it has become a tradition in my day care. We often do cultural potluck in our care and parents bring food of their country and tell us something about themselves and their culture. Last time when parents/grandparents came over to join us to see children’s garden some grand parents told us the stories how they came over and experienced tough times but later established themselves. It has made my day care very much free of racism and prjudice. All parents and children respect each others cultures and enjoy learning about them as well as some words of language. As I talk some words in Russian to my little 2 yr old, such as “Neplach” means don’t cry or “Kushay” meaning eat. Rest of the children join me and says these words as well as they have learnt my language. I always read them a book by Ashley Brayn, What a wonderful world “ which is my favorite one along with many other multicultural books to teach children to respect and be aware of other cultures and their values. I very much enjoy introducing multi cultures to my young ones and seeing them enjoy learning about different people and their living styles.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Reflection on Chapter 10 & 15
Chapter 10
Within last decade our society has become much more diverse. Government at the National, State and local levels have introduced new interventions to improve the early childhood literacy development.
I have spent most of my life in Pakistan and view this from a different cultural perspective. I care for young children from all around the world; China, India, and Russia. Similarly, my other team members are from Nepal and Mexico. It is important to have a diverse group n the class.Because when children are among children from different cultural backgrounds, who feel shy as well to the environment, they do not feel alienated.
Teachers should learn some words and short sentences from their students’ parents. A child from another culture and language can feel comfortable and be relaxed . if he hears familiar language in unfamiliar environment and finds it easy to adjust. I use to care for a Chinese girl who did not speak any English. In her home parents spoke Chinese. In the case of this Chinese girl it was difficult to learn English and Chinese . She did not want to socialize or participate in any activity accept painting or art work. I asked the mother if she can give me some Picture book for children with words in English and Chinese. Sharing bilingual story books worked very well in our group.. I also used my computer to translate English into different languages for the purpose of communicating with bilingual children. In turn I learned a few words in Chinese and other languages. This strategy worked well with the child and she felt happy and confident. She looked at me with surprise and happiness when I used some words in Chinese. I started using words in Chinese to other children and she liked the idea. This girl started telling children words from her book of pictures.
I asked the parents about their holidays and about their culture. Late in the week we did art work related to their holiday.s Children learned new words and had variety of art work to express themselves. As it is mentioned in this chapter, “ Elley (1997) showed that vocabulary knowledge was developed incidentally from listening to stories in school, even when there is no explanations from the teacher.”
Chapter 15:-
Pretend play has been under consideration by researchers in the field of childhood development since 1920’s. pretense play has roots that lead to piaget’s work and observations .Pretend play has always been a source of expression for children and source of information for the teacher. As Piaget(1946/1962)did the observations of his own child, a 15 month old who used a fringed cloth as a pretend pillow and pretended being sleeping by blinking her eyes time to time,Piaget’s observations that pretense play begin somewhere around 12 and 15 months were confirmed by later researches (Nicholich, 1977). .Pretend play has always been a source of expression for children and source of information for the teacher. .An adult/ teacher can learn a lot about the child’s cultural, domestic environment and social background as well as their mental state through their pretend play as Piaget showed through his observations.. Through pretend play children get engage into social interactions and develop language and literacy skills. From the age of 18months to 2 yrs very important changes occur in children
1) increase in the frequency of pretend play
2) lessening of solitary pretend play.
At this age pretend play is valued and encouraged. By the 2nd yr children involve familiar adults or siblings/ friends, replica objects such as dolls and toys in their pretend play.
I asked one of the the parents during my practicum interviews about the importance of play. I asked “ What do you play with your child or what does your child likes to play indoors?” and how they play with their children“When weather does not permit to go outside?”. Most of the parents of girls said she likes to play tea party games and baby doll pretend games. In the sample of people I interviewed, boys preferred to portray their dads. It is important to get children engaged in pretend play and to teach them the values to develop communication, language and problem solving skills. Children express their dreams and desires through pretend play.
In my day care I observe children show their feelings, as they pretend play with toys showing one toy in mom or dad’s character and one as themselves.They do pretend play as the baby is sleeping and every one has to be quite because the baby is sleeping, changing diaper, feed time all this kind of pretend play exposes child’s home environment and their state of satisfaction with their surroundings. Additionally , children learn about cultures from pretend play as children in my care copy me , and wear my scarf and pretend to be me, use some of my language words that they hear from me. In a diverse environment children learn about different cultures through pretend play.We can teach children through pretend play as well, because they will remember more when they get involved in some pretend play and learning becomes more enjoyable and memorable event.
I wanted to teach a child that a super hero game could be positive and not played as harshly and rough. This way no one gets hurt. I got invoved in a superhero pretend game with children and incorporated little mellow approach to playing. As a result they liked the idea and adopted it.
Adult participation in pretend play with children is also of importance to a child because usually you switch roles in it and learns how a child feels and children learn how an adult feels. As I explained earlier children take my scarf and pretend to be me (the Teacher)and I take over their role and pretend to be like one of them. It’s fun learning experience. It was an interesting chapter regarding Pretend Play. I hope to see benefits of pretend play in children’s development as I work closely with them.
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