Popular Categories
Health Issues
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.
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.
People
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.
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.
Play
Children encounter risks on a daily basis and are engaged in an intense learning process about life's risks and uncertainties. Risk involves the chance of an adverse outcome, which could result in injury. Minor scrapes and bruises are a natural result of the very nature of play. They help children "learn from experience" and gain an understanding of the consequences of their actions as well as the extent of their abilities.
The Teacher Tom blog is authored by Tom Hobson, the sole teacher at the Woodland Park Cooperative Preschool in Seattle, Washington. Writing a personal blog that is separate from but inspired by his daily activities at the preschool, Tom writes about "teaching and learning from preschoolers."
The sensorimotor stage is the first of four stages proposed by Jean Piaget to describe the cognitive development of infants, children, and adolescents. The sensorimotor stage typically describes children’s cognitive development from birth to 2 years of age.
Nature play is child-initiated, unstructured play in "wild" areas, like the vacant lot next door, the neighborhood park, or a wooded area with a stream. Playing outdoors is one of the things that characterize childhood, giving children the opportunity to explore, discover, practice, wonder, change, create, and learn about the world around them.
Pop Warner Little Scholars, Inc. (PWLS) is a nonprofit football, cheer, and dance program for youth ages 5-16. PWLS requires all participants to maintain academic standards, recognizing that scholastics and athletics "go hand in hand." While they provide fun athletic learning opportunities in football, cheer, and dance, they also emphasize "the ideals of sportsmanship, scholarship and physical fitness."
