Sharing Web Sources

I chose www.zerotothree.org.   This is a national non-profit organization.  This organization gives newsletters and provides information on their website to support early childhood educators with updates for training.  They also provide support for early childhood policy makers and parents to promote the health and development of children.

This week news -letter and website is focusing on early language and literacy.  This caught my attention because in each of my courses, we have discussed the importance of language and literacy for the entire family.  We have also discussed incorporating the children’s home language into the early childhood classroom.  The webinar on early language literacy from the web-site, stated that around 8 months, children start to experiment with sound to communicate.  I have actually seen babies as young as 3 months start to observe adults mouths and attempt to babble and communicate.  Therefore, it is never too early to start developing a child’s language skills.  This webinar gave great tips for helping to develop a child’s language and literacy.  One of the first tips expressed in the webinar was to establish a positive teacher-child relationship.  I am finding out that in order to care for children, this is one of the most important steps of all and is normally mentioned in fostering healthy developments first.  Another tip that was shared through the webinar was creating individually appropriate and meaningful things through the use of books and toys.  The webinar was very useful and gave me a lot of ideas to implement in the classroom.

 If anyone is interested in listening to the webinar, you can go to www.zerotothree.org and follow the link at the middle of the page under the topic of early language literacy.

Issues and Trends

Part I.  Establishing Professional Contacts-

So far,I have been networking with the early chilhood professional I know to find and establish contacts from outside of the U.S.  My attempts have been unsuccessful.  Therefore, I then went to the NAEYC website to find contacts from other areas.  I have sent e-mails out to the selected areas and people listed on the website.  I am waiting for a response.  If this fails, my next alternative will be to select the alternate assignment for establishing contacts.

Part II.  Expanding Resources-

I chose http://www.zerotothree.org/ as one of my main resources.  I chose this site because of the newsletters that are published to the website as well as the ones they send out to your e-mail or home for free.  I like this website because they have a lot of information for professionals and parents.  I also love to read their articles.

My Supports

I would view my daily life as constantly multi-tasking.  I am a mother of 3 children that are home schooled.  I run a small daycare, attending graduate school, handling family issues, and a semi-social life.  I just started this business going on 2 years now.  With any new business, their are struggles that occurr normally within the first two years of operation.  Therefore, without the support of my family and children, I would not be able to substain in this business.  Since I have many things going on in my life, my mother, fiance, and children keep me focused by helping with the chores around the house, cooking dinner,funding, and reminding me of things I need to do. They also let me know when I have taken on too much.  I need this because I am the type of person that will  I feel that a support system is needed with the many demands in my life.  The benefits of having a support system is that I am able to multi-task and accomplish many of my goals that will benefit my family and my community.  Without my support system, I know I would not have accomplished many of my goals thus far.  I know people who do not have support systems like mines.  They what to accomplish some of the same goals but can not due to the lack of support.  It saddens me to think how my life would be without my support system because I rely on them to keep me going.  Therefore, without my children, fiance, mother, and family, I can honestly say that my life would drastically change for the worst.

I imagined being challenged with a disability that impairs your physical ability to do anything for yourself such as talk, walk, move your hands freely, and controll your physical motions.  I chose this type of challenge because many of my family members, my uncle, aunt, and grandmother, have passed away from such disability after living physically impaired half of their life.  I think back on the support they needed and it was love, patience, kindness, support of family members and nurses 24 hours 7 days a week.  One of the most important support factors I would need is acceptance.  I would need the people around me to accept me for who I am and not be burdened down by the many needs that I had.  I would need to be in an inclusive environment that was handicapped accessible.  The activities may need to be altered a bit but at least I would have the opportunity to explore them.  Without the support of these programs, family members, nurses and specialized equipment, my existance would be short lived.  When I relate to my family members who actually lived this disease, I can now understand why they appreciated the help of everyone who surrounded them.  Without the constant care of the nurses and family members,  they would not have lived as long as they have. 

Chantrell: "My Connections to Play"

Chantrell: "My Connections to Play"

"My Connections to Play"

"Children need the freedom and time to play.  Play is not a luxury.  Play is a necessity." Kay Redfield Jamison

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." Plato

When I was a little girl, my family supported play by purchasing the types of items I loved to play with.  I grew up in a close family with plenty of children.  My family would take all of the children to different places that allowed us to be creative and play in our surroundings.  My aunts would make authentic doll houses for me to be creative with.  My mother would introduce me to different types of items to use my imagination with.  I feel that my entire family always encouraged all of the children in my family to play and most importantly, to be creative.  Whenever I wanted to try something new, my family would encourage me to try it.  They never stopped me from playing!  My family would assist me with building things while letting me be creative.

I feel that play today has lost the since of creativity and imagination.  When I was younger, I would play with my peers or alone for hours at a time.  Now, it seems that children expect to be guided in play.  I can recall having one video game system that I hardly played with because it just seemed too boring for me.   The children today have several video game systems that don't stimulate the growing child.  I notice children who have the same items that I would play with but the difference would be that they did not understand what to do with it.  I feel that if the educators and parents don't allow children the chance to explore then our future inventors will be lost.

The role of play in my childhood gave me the confidence to know that I can dream big and do anything.  It gave me the courage to know that nothing is impossible!  Without play in my childhood, I might not be where I am today.  I was given the opportunity to explore creativity and imagination on my own terms.  I feel that play must be reevaluated by adults in order for our children to truly play.

Public Health Topic: Immunization

 

 

This topic is meaningful to me because I always kept all of my children appointments especially the ones that included vaccinations. Now that I am in the child care field, I am learning
that their are so many children that have not been immunized. I recently have a
family member who wanted to enroll her two children into my daycare. It was then
that I learned her children had not been immunized since she brought them home
from the hospital which was 2-3 years ago. I found this information to be
esstonishing to me because her children aren't protected. I also know that their
are many people who do not believe in immunizing their children due to religious
reasons or personaly beliefs.

Immunizations for children in the U.S. are
doubled the amount for children in the Western countries (Generation rescue,
2009). A study was performed to see if the higher vaccination requirements lead
to autism and under 5 mortality rate. At the end of the study, the idea that
vaccinations cause autism was dismissed due to the implications that a lesser
vaccination requirement would increase infant mortality and other diseases
(Generation rescue, 2009). Iceland and Sweden have a vaccination requirement of
11 manadatory shots. Iceland infant mortality rate is 3.9 and Sweden is 4.0 per
1,000 children. Although these rates are low compared to the United States
additional studies are needed to actually reduce the amount of required
immunizations in the U.S.

This information could change the amount of
immunizations that are required for children in the U.S. to begin daycare.
Considering their isn't enough evidence to support this theory, I still feel
that parents should be knowledgable about the importance of vaccinating.


Generation rescue inc., (2009) Retrieved on November 11, 2010 from www.rescuepost.com/file/gr-autism_and_vaccines_world_special

Hello Class,

Hello everyone,

I am looking forward to working with everyone in group 2 of this course.  I am a current daycare owner/provider in Baltimore, Maryland.  I also have three children of my own.  I have recently decided to enter into the childcare field (2 years now).  I had been in the healthcare field for about 10 years.  I decided to enter early childhood because I have always been surrounded by children with my mother owning her daycare for 12 years now.  This has truly been one of the best life decisions I have made thus far.  I enjoy my "work" and love caring for children.  I feel that I have found my purpose in life which is to make a difference in the lives of others.