Health Issues
The formal operational stage is the last of four stages proposed by Jean Piaget to describe the cognitive development of infants, children, and adolescents. The formal operational stage occurs with children from 12 years into adulthood. Emerging abstract thought and hypothetical reasoning mark this stage of cognitive development.
Emotional development refers to the ability to recognize, express, and manage feelings at different stages of life and to have empathy for the feelings of others. Emotional development is largely affected by relationships with parents, siblings, and peers.
Peer pressure occurs when an individual experiences persuasion to participate in the same activities as those in their peer group, or to adopt similar values, beliefs, and goals as the group. For a child, their peer group is usually, but not always, of the same age group.
Children move through a developmental progression in the acquisition of motor skills. There are four phases of motor development: the reflexive movement phase, the rudimentary movement phase, the fundamental movement phase, and the specialized movement phase. The fundamental movement phase occurs between the ages of 2 and 7 as children gain control over their gross motor and fine motor skills.
People
Friedrich Froebel was truly a pioneer in early childhood education. He established a new type of school for three and four year old children in 1837, which he called a child's garden or kindergarten. Prior to this there had been no educational training for children under the age of seven.
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a social and educational reformer and writer in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He believed that society could best be changed by education and that reform began with assisting the individual students to help themselves.
Play
Play = Learning: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children’s Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth was edited by Dorothy G. Singer, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek.
Stephen Tyng Mather was the founding Director of the National Park Service and an early supporter of state parks. It was said that he "sacrificed his money, his health, his time, his opportunities for wealth, in order that he might promote that which will mean so much to the people of this country in the future."
The novelty playground era is the time period in playground history when play spaces departed from the typical basic metal play equipment, concrete pipe designs, and asphalt surfacing of the early 20th century to designs with bright colors and thematic, sculptured play structures.
Functional play has been described as the first play of children. Beginning in infancy, as a child learns to control his actions and make things happen, he finds enjoyment in shaking a rattle, splashing in the bath, and dropping objects repeatedly from his high chair.
