Early Childhood Education - Assignment Example

?Early EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PHILOSOPHY AND NEWSLETTER March 4, Early Childhood Education Philosophy My philosophy of Early Childhood Education is an eclectic version of several other philosophies, for example Montessori and Frobel. An early childhood education classroom should be a Language Arts room where children from the ages of two to five can use journals, reflective stories, logs and diaries. My program will also help the children learn and use thinking skills when participating in academic and creative activities. My philosophy is also one of Piaget and Erikson which is developmental and social where all skills can be used to implement the rules, goals, and the content of the curriculum that will part of the class dynamics. (Ornstein, 1998) Early Childhood Education . . . . 1. Should be about making discoveries 2. Should show experience is important in learning 3. Experiences that builds upon other skills learned 4. Should teach about the community 5. Should show how we fit into that community 6. Should be challenging 7. Should be engaging 8. Should show that making relationships is important 9. Is a time that we learn about and work towards explanations and reasons and find solutions 10. Will teach how to make decisions 11. Will give children a chance to make choices “According to Shileod and Bergson Early childhood education is to try and create an ideal adult by making reasoned choices and decisions to reach our goals and society’s goals. We will learn to see things in different ways, and to make connections that we need to learn. We will also not criticize or learn to criticize to speak our minds. We will learn and be able to observe, question, challenge, invent, speculate and explore.”(Cromwell, 2000) Activities for Learning Early Childhood Education must also develop positive self-esteem, show how to be nurturing and to use our natural resources to improve our survival in the community and the world and to be able to solve their own problems and children and adults will continue to always keep learning. Early childhood education should also show that learning never stops it just keeps happening. This field of education has children learn by Specific Skills or in increment. Children learn by training, practice and motivation. They will learn that failures are still learning and through failing we learn how to make our lives and relationships better. Early childhood education is a beginning and teaches that we want balance to what we can do and what we want to do. In my philosophy I want my teaching to be based on Discovery learning and Mastery learning. (Ornstein, 1998) Play is also important in the early childhood education. In a child care center for two to five year olds the teacher will have learning centers for the various content areas. In our center we will be using Science, Social Studies units along with Language activities to teach our children about the community around them. The activities will involve growing plants from seeds, then trying to figure out how these plants can help the community and the world around them. Play is another way that the children will learn in this child care center. The children will learn through play activities that are age appropriate that will teach them about cooperation and how to self-initiate ideas of their own. Play can be used in the content areas and the children can learn the necessary skill of learning how to question what is going on around them. Through play children will become aware and be sensitive to the happenings around them and make friends with the children of other cultures. Early childhood education also allows the children to make many choices and this will help them to improve their thinking skills and also to improve their persuasive skills. The children will also learn and use decision-making skills. This early childhood center will always be aware of the safety needs of the children for healthy living. The center will also be flexible and creative in our ways of teaching academics and social interactions. Everything that we will be doing in our center will be process learning. This means that with each skill there will a series of steps that will be followed to get to a specific result. The children will be learning the concepts of gathering, analyzing and through the processing of information they will learn to organize, sort, and label. These skills will have them learn to organize their ideas. Learning is an experience that brings understanding of the world around them and that we all have to learn to work together. In our center the children even at these young ages will be assembling a portfolio of their work to show the parents what they have learned while attending this early childhood education center. The activities that will be placed in this portfolio will show how they have learned physically, emotionally, socially and cognitively. Early Childhood Education is all about empowerment for our children and to be a productive member of society when they become adults. Through the various learning activities they will be able to see and understand the many differences that are present that is all around them in the community they live. We will also be teaching the children to be supportive of each other. Early childhood education is about how to make the necessary interpretations that they need to make and they will be doing this through Discovery learning and making observations. We know that all children are individuals and that they are unique in their ideas as well. They will learn about self and bring what they have learned from home to school and learn how to interact with others through the various activities that are presented. They will be learning to follow the rules and to cooperate and respect each other. We will see through our activities that we are all different and have certain abilities to understand what we are suppose to do and through receiving encouragement and learning cooperation we will maintain a security level so that we can be a creative, flexible in the ownership of what we are learning to do and to be in our lives. When teaching in our center the teachers are to be held accountable and responsible for the children in their care and that we have a purpose and that we should be allowed to question and that this will bring about changes that will improve their child’s classroom and the experiences that can be used in the community. Early childhood education teachers will learn and teach various communication skills that can bring about an understanding of self, social living, and cultural environments or to understand individual and group diversity. In Early Childhood Education the teachers are the ones that make interpretations and reflections as a part of the learning and teaching process. The teachers take the skills learned and the new skills to see how they will work in the classroom and the community and throughout all educational endeavors. (Allen, 1992) Conclusion Early childhood education learning activities will be creative and they will still be learning the academic skills like letters, numbers, colors, shapes, texture, and language skills. The child will learn these skills through social play, for example through role playing games like ‘store’, ‘school’, ‘hospital’. An early childhood education classroom must be fun, creative, and secure. It has to be a place that the child feels comfortable and likes being there. Activities will strive to teach cooperation, flexibility, proper interactions to be used at home and school. Encouragement will be given as much as possible to ensure that learning is occurring in the school. Newsletter Welcome Parents! This child care center for children of two to five years old will believe in the child’s curious nature for learning. Our center will be child centered and we will use play based activities to teach the children about plants, the community and ourselves. We will learn that we are all living things. Our center will be child-centered and will follow a philosophy like a Montessori school. It will use a Discovery learning philosophy where the children can investigate their interests and learn how things are connected. Children will be held accountable and responsible along with the teacher in learning what needs to be learned in and out of the school setting. So come and learn more about our surroundings. Newsletter Welcome Parents! I am a new child care teacher at this center that is for the ages of two to five year old children. The children will be studying plants, self and our community. We will learn to make many connections through discovery learning in science, math and language. The children will learn to be cooperative and learn to encourage others around us. We will be able to show the children what being a member of the community means. We will do this by mastering skills in math, science and language by playing games like ‘farmer’s market’. This game will include lessons in social studies where they will look at maps of their neighborhoods and find a good place for their ‘market’. They will try to grow their own goods and be able to use their number skills for selling their goods. They will use their language skills when communicating to their parents when they come and buy their goods. We believe that we are all individuals with our own special talents and will learn to work together. Our center will follow the philosophy of Piaget and his four stages of development, which are Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal operational. The children will learn through their senses and start to learn to master these skills through play and practice of social and academic skills. So come and bring your children and learn about what happens in our community. These two newsletters are variations that are welcoming parents and children to visit the new center and to see what we are all about from our philosophy to the lessons that we will be teaching from academics to social learning. The major ideas that will be taught cooperation, encouragement, flexibility through creative activities that will mastered with practice. Play will be a big part of our center, but it will be play with purpose. Teachers will be using the educational domains of Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor or knowledge learned, feelings found, or using the senses to learn. Family will be a big part of our center where parents will be encouraged to help when able. Reference Allen, J. (1992) Sociology for Teachers; Reflection as Critical to the Teacher; Social Science Press Cromwell, Ellen. (2000) “Extracts” Learning in Nurturing: Readiness in Early Childhood Education; a whole-child curriculum for ages 2-5; Ellen S. Cromwell 2nd edition Boston Allyn & Bacon Ornstein, Allan C. & Hunkins, Francis P. (1998) Curriculum Foundations, Principles, and Issues, Chapter Two Philosophical Foundations of Curriculum 3rd edition Allyn & Bacon. Read More