Observing Communication

Blog Week 3: Observing Communication This week, I chose to observe my father-in-law interacting with my three year olds (Owen and Ella). Don (my father-in-law) was sitting on the floor with the children. Ella was playing with her babies and feeding them. Don asked her questions about the doll’s name and what she was feeding them. Owen was playing with cars. He was lining them up according to color. Don asked Owen the color names of the cars. Don asked Ella if her baby liked cars. Ella responded “yes”. Don asked Owen if he and Ella could play with him. Together, they set the baby against the wall and placed several cars in front of the doll. Owen matched the colors to the color the baby was wearing (blue). Don commented about the matching colors. **************************************** Effective Communication Strategies Observed: • Don got down to their physical level to interact with them. • Don respected what they were playing and asked if he could join them. • Don asked questions about the activity that extended their language. For example, he talked about the parts of the cars or the body parts of the doll. • Don also engaged Owen in touching the doll (it has hair). Owen has sensory issues and often flinches when touching unfamiliar objects. Don guided him, but let Owen pull away when he was nervous. ******************************* Owen and Ella (as well as my older son, Noah) enjoy interacting with their grandparents. They are very blessed to have grandparents that enjoy spending time with them and helping them gain developmental skills. All of my children have distinct interests and Don encouraged them to play with each other beyond parallel play. He reinforced correct responses (by saying “good job”) and corrected them when needed. ****************************** As a mother, I love to allow my kids to pick what we play together. Of course, I also chose activities that can work on a specific skill (such as sorting, matching, or even manipulating fine motor skills). As a parent, teacher, and even babysitter, I always sit on the ground with the child. I like to look at the environment from their perspective. A plus side, if a toy is lost, this is an excellent way to help find it! ************** I also love asking children questions as we are playing to help gain knowledge about their current skills as well as offer new information about the activity.

Creating Affirming Environments

Creating Affirming Environments Creating an authentic early childhood setting is something that I think is important for the comfort level of the child and their family. If I were to have an early childhood home setting, I would have a sign-in or information area. This area would have a binder for sign-in and a calendar/bulletin board for information for the family. I would also have an area for children to adjust to the environment. For example, if the child were still tired and not ready to play, I would have an area for them to relax. This would also help the child feel more comfortable. It is important that I would be able to see the child, but also attend to the other children who are ready for the day. In my home, the front room would be used for a “quiet” corner and the connecting room would be filled with children. I would also have an area for center time. This area would be big enough for us to gather and learn about our daily skills and discuss our day. This area would have photos and signs on the walls. The photos would be diverse and show varying cultures, photos of the children attending the center, photos of my family, and photos of varying abilities. I believe that this is important to help create a family feel for the environment. I would also have an area that each family could pick items for display that they enjoy doing or they would use to help describe themselves. We would change this every two weeks. This would allow the children and families to have several times throughout the year that they could use items to help other families and staff get to know them better. I think that in the pretend/dramatic play area, I would have a variety of costumes and careers that the children could explore. The dolls would also include a variety of ethnicities and not just “token” examples (dolls that just change the color and not features). I have several dolls from my travels around the world that would be very beneficial in displaying real examples of clothing and features. I would reach out to other countries early childhood professionals to obtain games, dolls, and other examples from their country that they would use to represent their area. Another aspect that I would love to incorporate would be a section with community activities. It is beneficial to include "children and adults from the various racial and ethnic identity groups in your community" (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010, p. 43). I would ask families to post events that they like to attend in the community as well. It forms good rapport with families when you see them outside of the educational setting. I noticed several wonderful examples from the video this week. I liked the sign-in area for transfer of information. I also liked the family of the month area. This would help build and strengthen positive rapport. I also liked the "quiet" transition area that she mentioned. This would be helpful for families to know that if their child is still tired that they could have time to wake-up since some families have to drop their kids off early. I enjoyed the video! References Derman-Sparks, L. & Edwards, J.O. (2010). Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves. National Association for the Education of Young Children. Laureate Education, (n.d.). Retrieved from www.waldenu.edu

Week 1 (6358)

Hello! We are starting a new class and I am eager to learn new strategies regarding anti-bias education. People can be different a limitless ways. My oldest son this week had to create an anti-bullying poster for their sharing project at school. Noah is in Kindergarten and did not even know what a bully was. I began our conversation with talking about how a bully makes fun of others, what it means to be a good friend, and what to do if he experiences bullying or witnesses it. Noah and I discussed why someone would make fun of others. I told him it was because bullies were making fun of others being different. Noah attends a Catholic school and he decided his poster should say, "Bullies make fun of people because they are different. God made us all different. Be kind." Those were the words of a six year old. Very honest and true. The next day, he asked me if people would make fun of our other son (Owen, age 3)for having a large scar on his head from his recent brain surgery. I told him that some people might. This comment upset him. He asked me why people had to be mean. This is one reason why I hope to become a proactive part of anti-bias education.

(Photo of Noah and Owen in the hospital.)