After School Care Kansa | Promoting Creativity - Process vs. Product

 

As adults, we are concerned with the outcomes or the product of our efforts. We want the report to look nice, the cookies to taste great, or the hedges to be perfectly straight. We participate in few activities just for the fun of doing them. This is due in part to the fact that we are not still learning most of these activities.

If you remember when you first learned to play tennis or use a computer you needed a little time to play with it and explore what happens if you did it this way or that way. It is the same for your child. He is learning new things all the time and needs the freedom to try things out without worrying about the product.

Luckily, young children naturally are more involved with the process or the doing than they are with the end product or results. That’s why your child might draw all day long and not be able to tell you what he drew or pour sand back and forth between containers for hours in the sandbox and not get bored. He may stack blocks and knock them down and stack them over and over again. Your child is learning about beginning writing skills, cause and effect, textures, and trying to master a skill. He is finding out that doing for oneself is very satisfying and that builds confidence.

The daily notes that you receive each day from your child’s preschool should highlight the activities that your child participated in that day. Sometimes there will be an end product and sometimes the outcome will be that he learned to pedal a tricycle, made sandcastles outside or learned a new song in music. Be sure and ask your child to tell you about the activities that he enjoyed that day. So be patient and allow your child time to grow and learn through various types of processes that are a part of the task. This is truly learning through play.

 Source: Crème: The Scoop, Fall 2010, Volume 8 Number 4

Want to give your child the best preschool experience?

Check your local area here - virginia's best daycare, Colorado’s top daycare, new jersey’s top childcare

Best Daycare in Virginia | Developing Healthy Habits in Children

 

Day Care Center Role in Developing Healthy Habits in Kids

According to a survey conducted by The Academy of Pediatrics Association, 89.9% of pediatricians believe that the diseases we get as adults (heart disease, hypertension, obesity and diabetes) may be prevented by emphasizing physical fitness in childhood.

Active play is the key to children’s lifelong health and fitness. There are simple fitness strategies that are preventative, effective and can even be fun. In the parenting book Your Active Child, author Rae Pica identifies five fitness factors that affect anyone’s health – child or adult’s. They are cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition (percentage of lean body tissue to fat). 

Your child can develop positive fitness factors if you provide the following each day:

•        Wholesome, nutrient-filled meals and snacks

•        Reasonable amounts of developmentally appropriate physical activity

•        Adequate hours of sleep 

Your child will need daily playful activity that engages both large and small muscles. He or she will build body, mind, and self-esteem while discovering all the amazing things the body can do.

At Crème de la Crème we help you set the stage for the fitness factors listed above. During outdoor time as well as in the Creative Movement Studio or Gym, we provide space for children to creep, crawl, roll, walk, run, hop, skip and jump. We encourage them to move over, under and through things; pivot to change direction and twist, bend, balance, stretch, sway and dodge. We also provide opportunities for active play with balls, beanbags, trikes, hula hoops, sand and dirt digging tools, Frisbees, plastic and foam bowling pins, scarves for dancing to music and toy musical instruments for marching.

Source: Creme de la Creme: The Scoop, Spring 2010, Volume 8 Number 2

Want to give your child the best preschool experience?

Check your local area here - virginia's best daycare, Colorado’s top daycare, new jersey’s top childcare

Colorado’s top Childcare | Developing Self-Esteem in Children

 

Child Care: Fostering Self-Esteem in your Child

Children need to develop positive self-esteem to feel good about whom they are. We know that young children gain confidence as they accomplish difficult tasks. As they work through the stages of development, new challenges and tasks present themselves every day. Confidence is built as children learn to tie their own shoes, spell their names, or complete a puzzle.

 

Self-confidence is fostered at Crème by providing children challenging activities that they can master and giving them real decisions and choices about their learning. One of the ways we do that is by offering different interest areas throughout the classroom. In each of these areas is a variety of materials and activities. In the Primary Classroom for example, children can choose the area they would like to play in and the materials they would like to play with. They might choose to paint at the easel or put a puzzle together. When they play in the block area they may choose to build a tower with the blocks or create a road to drive a toy car along. Through this freedom, they begin to understand that their decisions have value.

As a parent you can be a partner in building your child’s self-esteem. Giving your child responsibilities at home and increasing the responsibilities with age help to build a child’s self-esteem. Encouraging a child by giving specific feedback is also effective. An acknowledgement of a job well done – for example, “I’ve noticed you carefully folded all of your socks and put them away” – has more meaning to a child than a quick, general “Good job.”

Early childhood expert Lillian Katz reminds us that esteem is conveyed to children when adults treat them with respect. We respect children when we ask them for their views and preferences and when we provide opportunities for real decisions and choices about those things that matter to them.

 Source:  Creme de la Creme: The Scoop, Winter 2010, Volume 8 Number 1

Want to give your child the best preschool experience?

Check your local area here - virginia's best daycare, Colorado’s top daycare, new jersey’s top childcare