Thank you!

Thanks to all who attended and helped out at Voices Day. It was a great time and lots of fun. We heard from Rep. Slawik, Sen. Bonoff, and Sen. Clark... all great champions for early childhood. Jack Pearson was there to tell a couple of stories and there was even an appearance by Clifford!

If you didn't make it, don't worry! There is still time to make your voice heard. Call your legislator and ask them to maintain investments in early childhood and keep little kids a top priority. Find your Minnesota Legislators here.

Plan to come back to the Capitol with us for Voices next year!

Voices for Children Advocacy Day tomorrow!

If you are around the Twin Cities tomorrow, March 27, join us at the State Capitol in St Paul for Voices for Children Advocacy Day from 10 -11am. This annual event is a time for parents, teachers, early care and education professionals and other from across the state to stand up an be counted as a voice for children. We'll have storytelling, crafts from the Minnesota Children's Museum and an appearance by Clifford the Big Red Dog!

If you can't come to the Capitol, your voice is still important. Call your legislator and leave the following message:

"Early childhood has made great strides in recent years, yet many families and children continue to lack access to high quality early care and education. As the state faces a deficit and a recession, now is the time to ensure that parents can access high quality early learning choices for their children to prepare them for school and for life. Our children, our families, our communities, and our state will benefit. Invest now!"

Let us know how it goes! Come back to this page and leave comments sharing your experience at Voices day.

How can I help my child be ready to learn? Approaches to Learning

This is the next post in a series based on the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress: Minnesota’s Early Learning Standards. These Indicators are what can be expected of children aged 3 to 5.

Series introduction

This post we’ll focus on approaches to learning, the second of the six domains. See my post on the first domain, Social and Emotional Development.

This domain is about both the styles and attitudes of gaining information as well as promoting a positive disposition toward exploring new things. The five components of this domain are curiosity, risk-taking, imagination and invention, persistence, and reflection and interpretation. We’ll take a little time with each component and share what families and caregivers can do to support this domain. The indicators for each component are taken directly from the ECIP manual.

Curiosity

Preschool-aged children often show a lot of curiosity. Children are developing normally in this domain when they:

1. Show eagerness and a sense of wonder as a learner
2. Show interest in discovering and learning new things

Families can encourage curiosity by encouraging children’s interests and providing a variety of learning environments and experiences both inside the home and on family outings.

Teachers and caregivers support this domain when they provide a variety of opportunities for learning and approaches to teaching that appeal to the full range of children’s abilities and learning styles.

Risk-taking

A healthy amount of risk-taking is an important part of exploring and learning new things. Children are progressing in this domain when they:

1. Choose new as wells as a variety of familiar activities
2. Use a variety of strategies to solve problems

Families can assist children in risk-taking by encouraging them to creatively solve problems and to try out new things. Parents can also intentionally introduce everyday objects including toys that can be used in more than one way. (see Life Bags) and monitoring children’s use of media such as computers/internet, television and movies.

Teachers and caregivers can provide opportunities for risk-taking by creating environments that give an appropriate amount of stimulation for children to try new activities while recognizing children’s individual differences and interests.

Imagination and Invention

Discovering new things takes a bit of imagination. Children demonstrate imagination when they:
1. Approach tasks and experiences with flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness
2. Use new ways or novel strategies to solve problems or explore objects
3. Try out various pretend roles in play or with make-believe objects

Families support children in this domain by providing a variety of activities and materials that are both new and familiar for children to explore without fear of making mistakes as well as encouraging pretend play.

Teachers and caregivers can encourage children in imagination and invention by giving children opportunities to experiment and explore without fear of making mistakes; providing tasks where the goal is to produce different results or strategies rather than right or wrong; encourage children when they demonstrate flexibility and inventiveness.

Persistence

One can only learn something when they take the time to truly understand it. Children demonstrate persistence when they:
1. Work at a task despite distractions or interruptions
2. Seek and/or accept help or information when needed
3. Demonstrate ability to complete a task or stay engage in an experience

Families can assist children in developing persistence by allowing space and time for children to give attention to age-appropriate tasks without being interrupted and responding to children’s requests for help without being intrusive.

Teachers and caregivers support children in this domain when they set up a learning environment to limit distractions and provide enough time for children to sustain their attention and engage fully in activities.

Reflection and Interpretation

Taking time to reflect on new experiences and information is key to gaining understanding. Children are developing normally in this component when they:
1. Think about events and experiences and apply this knowledge to new situations
2. Generate ideas, suggestions and/or make predictions

Families can create opportunities for children to develop their reflection by encouraging children to share their thoughts and ideas as well as asking questions for children to think about what they have seen, heard and done. Parents can also model thinking “out loud” and involving children in planning family activities.

Teacher and caregivers can facilitate children’s development in this component by allowing time for children to process and express thoughts and feelings about experiences through such methods as discussion, art, journaling or conversation and help children to think and talk about what they are learning.

To support all aspects of children’s approaches to learning, community members can provide a variety of activities and safe environments appropriate for families with young children such as libraries, parks, festivals and fairs that give young children opportunities to explore as well as giving opportunities for families to participate in community problem solving processes.

And policy makers can encourage cooperation and collaboration across systems and ensure that environments with activities for families with young children are affordable and accessible.

What do you think? How do you encourage children in their various approaches to learning?

Check back next time as we explore language and literacy development.

Wilder Research: early learning condidtions among low-income families

In preparation for their mini-conference on April 10 in St Paul, the Wilder Foundation has released a report on the early learning conditions for children from low-income families in Minneapolis, St Paul, Blue Earth and Nicollet counties. The purpose of the study is to determine where children are at in regards to their early learning before the start of MELF projects in their areas.

Click here to view the report summary.

The Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF) is funding a variety of pilot projects in these areas, including Early Childhood Scholarships in St Paul, 500 Under 5 in North Minneapolis, and Early Learning Allowances in Blue Earth and Nicollet counties. Each of these areas is also a test site for Minnesota's Parent Aware Rating System.

For more information about this report and other Wilder Research, click here.

Policy makers, play dough and Pre-K

Our friend Karissa at Inside Pre-K has a post about the importance of sharing what goes on in her classroom to administrators and community members. This sharing is so important because so many of the decisions made about early childhood programs, especially their funding, are made by people who do not spend much time in early learning settings -- legislators, school board members, administrators and even community members.

As Karissa notes, it's important that early childhood teachers and caregivers be strong advocates for their programs. By inviting decision makers to your early learning setting, you are taking a big step toward ensuring quality early learning choices for all. Those who are making the decisions will then be able to do their job based on first-hand knowledge about what goes on in early childhood classrooms.

The Minnesota Legislature is taking a spring break March 20- March 24. This is a perfect time to invite your Legislators to visit your program, since they won't be as busy with committee hears and other meetings. If your Legislator is busy, don't worry! The summer and fall are also great times to invite policy makers and other leaders to your programs. Check out Ready 4 K's page on meeting with your Legislator (the second page has information explicitly about site visits).

How do I know my child is developing normally? Social and Emotional Development

This is the next post in a series based on the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress: Minnesota’s Early Learning Standards. These Indicators are what can be expected of children aged 3 to 5.

Series introduction

We’ll start of the main content of this series by looking at the first of the six domains of the indicators of progress: Social and Emotional Development.

The social and emotional development domain relates to how children feel about themselves and their interactions with peers and adults. This domain has three components: emotional development, self concept and social competence and relationships.

Central to this domain are the skills necessary for children to make friends, solve conflicts and function well in groups. Many educators feel that this domain is especially important in ensuring that kids will be ready to learn when they start kindergarten.

Emotional Development

This component centers around children’s ability to understand, describe, express and appropriately regulate their own emotions as well as respond to others’ emotions. A child aged three to four should be able to:

1. Demonstrate increasing competency in recognizing and describing own emotions
2. Demonstrate increasing use of words instead of actions to express emotions
3. Begin to understand and respond to others’ emotions
4. Begin to show self-regulation to handle emotions appropriately
5. Explore a wide range of emotions in different ways (eg through play, art, music, dance)
6. Respond to praise, limits and correction.

Families can support children in their emotional development by taking time to listen to their children and responding with warmth and assurance. Helping children to identify and understand their emotions and encouraging children to talk about their feelings will lead to strong emotional development as will modeling constructive conflict resolution and coping strategies.

Teachers and caregivers facilitate strong emotional development by establishing warm, caring and engaged relationships with each child. Teachers and caregivers create can provide many opportunities for strong emotional development including schedules and routines that promote self-control, opportunities for children to practice stress-reduction strategies, and opportunities for children to discuss and understand their feelings and the feelings of others..

Self-Concept

To demonstrate development in this component, a child will show independence and develop awareness of her or his own characteristics, likes and dislikes, and begin to understand own cultural identity and gender. A preschool should be able to:

1. Begin to experiment with own potential and show confidence in own abilities
2. Demonstrate increasing self-direction and independence
3. Develop awareness of self as having certain abilities, characteristics and preferences
4. Begin to develop awareness, knowledge and acceptance of own gender and cultural identity

Families can help build self-concept by recognizing children’s interests and make suggestions for activities to support their interests. Families can encourage children to try new things by exploring and learning together and support children’s awareness of and pride in their cultural heritage.

Teachers and caregivers can allow children to experiment with their growing independence and provide opportunities for children to be exposed to a wide variety of experiences. Teachers can demonstrate respect for individuals and groups of people as well as support children’s developing understanding of their gender and cultural identity and provide opportunities for children to learn about cultures – their own and others.

Social Competence and Relationships

Children developing normally in this component will interact easily with peers and adults in group settings. A preschooler should be able to:

1. Interact easily with one or more children
2. Interact easily with familiar adults
3. Approach others with expectations of positive interactions
4. Begin to participate successfully as a member of a group
5. Use play to explore, practice and understand social roles and relationships
6. Begin to understand others’ rights and privileges
7. Sustain interaction by cooperating, helping, sharing and expressing interest
8. Seek adult help when needed for emotional support, physical assistance, social interaction and approval
9. Use words and other constructive strategies to resolve conflicts

Families can build social competence and strong relationships by helping children to practice listening and talking, to understand and appreciate similarities and differences among people, and to develop an understanding of the feelings, actions, and ideas of others.

Teachers and caregivers can support social competence by providing opportunities for children to practice listening and talking to others, and helping children to develop an understanding of the feelings, actions, and ideas of others. Teachers can also plan activities to build a sense of belonging and community with children, encourage children’s understanding of others’ rights and privileges, and provide information, opportunities and support to help children develop constructive conflict management strategies.

For all thee components, Community members and policy makers support this domain by recognizing the importance of social and emotional development for early learning and creating opportunities for families that encourage positive development. Community members and policy makers can advocate for high quality, developmentally and culturally appropriate early learning opportunities available and affordable for all families and ensure linkages between early learning and other programs that serve families such as health, mental health and social services.

This is a quick summary of the social and emotional development domain. For more detailed information, see the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress. Also, Ready 4 K has produced a paper describing the importance of social and emotional development for school readiness.

Check back next week as we explore Approaches to Learning.