I recently found this article via a Twitter post: Has technology changed the way children play? I found the article interesting and thought I would share it here. Please post your comments about her thoughts and ideas on technology and children’s play times.
There must be a balance between technology and outdoor play times. Children need to get outside and experience nature. They need to run and jump and climb. Exercise is a healthy way to overcome childhood obesity issues. There are many things children can learn from outdoor play. There are many ways to learn from seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, and even tasting things in nature.
There is a new generation of children though and some of them learn differently. These iGeneration children don’t learn like your grandparents or your parents or even like you. They learn digitally and technologically.
We must balance those outdoor hands-on experiences with technological experiences with which this generation relates. Allow children time to play outside as well as allow them technology time. There are apps for almost everything. Whatever children are learning and studying, get an app for them to study and learn on their computer or phone.
Meet children where their interests are while giving them full life experiences.
At the beginning of our school year, we have been getting to know our friends in class and learning how to cooperate. The early childhood students had fun with the 3-legged walk. We made it a walk and not a run to make it more age-appropriate for 3 year olds and safer, so no one fell or pulled a friend down by going too fast.
Two friends stood side by side while the teacher tied two legs together, one leg for each student. They had to cooperate with one another to walk across the room, holding hands or arms around their friend and moving their tied legs at the same time and pace.
We did a demonstration in the early childhood class to talk about what to do when preschoolers ‘forget’ to share and wait their turns for toys.
I had one student pretend she is playing with a toy on the carpet. I had another student come up to her and act like she wants that toy and try to take it from her.
I asked the first student: What should you say to your friend? She told her friend: I’m using this toy. I had this toy already.
I asked the second student: Now, what should you do? She said: I have to wait until she is finished with that toy. I reminded her that there are other toys in the box that she can also use right now and maybe the two friends can play together with all the toys.
Of course, that demonstration works in circle time with the teacher right there guiding the students along and prompting them. The real test of conflict resolution is when they are playing on their own in centers. For the most part, though, they get it and make the right choices when the time comes. If they don’t, one of their friends will remind them of the right choices.
This weekend many of us will remember and reflect on the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Where were you? What were you doing? What did you do when you heard the news?
I remember where I was. I was teaching my pre-kindergarten class in Tampa, Florida. I had not been at work very long that morning when I heard that an airplane crashed into a building. I was walking my students down the hallway towards morning chapel.
The first news I heard of the tragedy was that it was nothing more than a bad accident. As more things happened on that terrible day, I heard that it was no accident. It was a terrorist attack on our country.
That was going to be a big day in my class. Two students were turning 5 years old and both brought cupcakes to share with their classmates. We were going to have cupcakes for morning snack and for afternoon snack. It was going to be a real treat to get double cupcakes that day. I can still remember those students. Another student had just celebrated his 5th birthday on September 9. Very memorable times in young lives.
We didn’t get much done academically that day. We finished chapel as normal and returned to our classroom, only to learn of more and more bad news. We did not share any of the news with the students as they would not understand and were too young to understand exactly what was happening.
A co-worker’s dad and brother were commercial airline pilots. Her dad was off that day but her brother was flying. As I recall, she didn’t know where he was until later in the day.
Parents quickly began to pick up their children. They said they just wanted their family close to them.
Adults will never forget that tragic day in the USA. However, children and teens either do not know or have very little memory of what happened. See this post here to read some responses. As we remember 9/11 ten years later, leave a comment about where you were and what you were doing and how you are sharing with those who do not know or remember. It is important to remember and teach history.
In the spring of that school year at the school where I taught pre-k, we held our graduation ceremony. We decided to do a patriotic ceremony to celebrate and remember the families and victims of that tragic day that started the school year. The pre-k graduates performed patriotic America songs. They recited the Pledge of Allegiance and the Preamble to the Constitution. They performed songs about God’s love for America. We had letters from many of the government officials at that time: Former president George W. Bush and Laura Bush, Florida’s governor at the time Jeb Bush and his wife, Columba. We invited our area congressman to join us for the graduation celebration. He had planned to attend but was retained in Washington, D.C., on committee responsibilities that night and could not make it back in time. He sent his assistant in his place. She gave our graduates and school a plague. We gave her the congressman’s honorary pre-k diploma. It was a very special memorable night.
Be the first person to comment on this post to win this great illustrated children’s book. As children are about to start back to school, many children will promote to a new class or group at church, too.
Going from small preschool classes of young children all about the same age (4-5′s) to a much larger school-age group of children (K-5th) can be very overwhelming to some children. These young children have been used to their preschool classes with small tables and chairs and lots of toys. Now they are old enough to go to kindergarten or 1st grade at school, and they are ready to promote to the children’s department at church.
This book will help them with the transition and expectations. Of course, each church is different in structure and format, but children will get the general idea.
Be the first to comment on this post to win an autographed copy of the book. Then you can share it with others and order more copies from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
