For my Valentine: The Wedding Song
Who’s your valentine? Watch this Hallmark Valentine’s Day commercial. Your valentine is the one you want to sit next to, play with, get in trouble with, share life with… Click the link and then click the commercial titled “Avocado.”
Here is my Valentine: David Phillips
No matter what career path you choose, you can make a difference in someone’s life. You never know what words you will say or what actions you will do. Those words and actions may be just what someone needs.
Check out this post Making a Difference from a professor/author.
An example of making a difference in someone’s life happened to David and me during our first year of marriage in our first church where David was pastor.
David was the pastor of a very small rural church in Louisiana during our first year of marriage. I was the volunteer children’s minister with a very small group of children. I led the children in a Bible study, did a children’s sermon, and started a children’s choir. All with a variety of ages of children. We were only at this church for about a year when God moved us on to other things. We did not keep in touch with anyone from that church after we moved.
Then 13 years later David received an email from a young girl who was involved in the children’s ministry group. She had searched for our names on the Internet, found David’s contact information, and contacted him. She said she never forgot us and the impact we had on her life. She reminded us that I shared the plan of salvation with her at the age of 10 and David baptized her. She did not attend church with her family at the time. Her mom would drop her off at church time and come back to pick her up.
She is now married to a pastor, has a nursing degree and works as a nurse, and recently had their first baby. Her mom is now actively involved in our former church and has gotten many of her friends involved as well.
What a blessing it was to know that we did make a difference. Keep on keeping on — keep on making a difference. You may not know what kind of difference for many years later.
During the Delaware blizzard of February 2010, even though we couldn’t get out of our driveway very easily and we battled the blowing snow and the entire state was closed for the day, we continued to provide a safe corner for one of God’s little birds. He found his way to our front porch, in the corner right outside our front door, shielded from the blowing wind and snow.
Preschoolers learn through play. They play and learn together. How do teachers (school teachers and church teachers) organize classrooms so preschoolers can play and learn together and prevent challenging behaviors? “They can develop a positive
relationship with each child, structure the physical and social classroom environments to support positive interactions, and teach individual children speci?c social skills that they lack.” Teachers must have well-planned learning centers available for preschoolers to engage in play and learning with each other. The placement of the centers is important to engage the preschoolers in how and with what they will play. The number of items in each center is important. Teachers must have enough items in each center to engage their learning abilities and attention. The materials in each center must promote the learning the teachers want to teach. And lastly, teachers must display images (posters) of preschoolers playing, getting along, and enjoying play time.
Read this article for further ideas on preschool play and learn.
Move over Millennials. You’re old. The iGeneration is moving in. “The iGeneration believes anything is possible.” Read this article on the newest classification of young children: iGeneration.
Are we ready and able to keep up with this generation that has information ready and available at their fingertips at a moments notice?
It’s a common fact that children (especially young preschool-age children) learn through play. Play must include learning activities that are fun for the preschoolers and enhance their learning abilities at the same time.
Read this recent article from NAEYC on ‘Playing to Learn.’
This is an excellent article written by an author claiming to be pro-choice but would choose pro-life and the side of the Tebow’s. Read on…
The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Some days we just wish would end and be over. Some days we can’t see any good coming out of them. One thing leads to another and worse gives in to worse. But, never fear! Cloudy days are ok. We must ‘face the clouds to see the silver lining.’ That’s What Faith Can Do.
We get so busy sometimes —running errands, going to work, getting home from work –gotta get things done. We get frustrated when someone gets in our way and slows us up. Do we really take the time to think about why that person “got in our way?” What’s going on in their lives? Next time we’re busy working our to-do lists, let’s take the time to think of others and what’s happening with them. Maybe we can share a helping hand or a smile with them.
Watch and listen to this song. Do you understand what others are going through, too?
As an early childhood teacher, I am required to complete a certain amount of training hours each year. The district kindergarten centers in my state provide three nights of training: one in the fall, one in the winter, and one in the spring. The trainings are free, easy access from work and home, and they provide a light dinner. It is very easy to rack up training hours through our district. Generally, they are good training sessions and I come away with good information and helpful hints and tips to take back to my classroom.
Last night I attended the winter training session. Last fall the kindergarten center staff took a survey on what kinds of trainings some of the early childhood teachers would like to have. The result: what to do with children with behavior challenges.
All teachers need help with behavior-challenged students. It was a good session last night … except I received the help and tips last spring from these same district professionals.
I had a student in my class who was very intelligent and educationally above the line, way ahead in the ballgame. Emotionally and socially he was not even in the dugout. This downfall had a great affect on him. He struggled with what do with himself when he didn’t get his way or another student got to a game or toy before he did. He became very aggressive to the point of hurting others. At this time he was 3 years old. He would knock over an entire shelf about 4 feet long full of wooden blocks. He would throw the blocks across the room. When removed from the situation to calm down, he would kick and hit and pinch teachers trying to work with him.
My director and school owner had helped me and worked with me with this student till we had exhausted our ideas and knowledge. We called in help from the school district. One professional came to my class to observe his behavior then we had a meeting with his parents. This was not the first parent meeting. Of course, we met with them before calling in reinforcements.
The district behavioral expert set up some testing sessions for this student –emotionally, psychologically, and academically. The results: he’s a genius. Oh, we knew that. Academically he’s ok. It’s when he is in a group that he loses control and doesn’t understand how to interact with others or wait his turn or control his emotions.
This student has since moved up to the pre-kindergarten class and continues to have emotional and social challenges. There are many days when he has difficulty controlling his aggressive behavior and hits others, sometimes even to the point of putting his hands around their necks.
Now back to the training session last night. The information they gave was good but not good enough for a large group session. It is too difficult to know how to handle children with challenging behavior issues in a large group training session. We must work those things out and brainstorm ideas and techniques on an individual basis. Each child is different. Each child learns differently. My studies of learning styles tell me to investigate how each child learns and go from there to help them with their behavior challenges.
The block-thrower student I mentioned in the above paragraphs learns best on a individual basis and likes the attention of teachers. He can work in a small group of students but large circle time groups are sometimes too much and overwhelming to him.
Other students that I have this current school year learn best in large circle time groups. One boy loves reading words from the word wall and doing letter identification during a large group time but is not much into individual center time and will resort to his all-time favorite activity of playing with blocks and making roads for cars. That’s a good activity for learning social play and constructing, measuring, and building, but not good to do day after day. He’s on track for kindergarten though based on multiple ways and styles he learns.
By the way, I must have made an impact on the block-thrower student and his parents. Even though he isn’t in my class this year, they still gave me a gift card at Christmas and wrote a nice note about how special I was to their son.
Bottom line: It’s all about learning styles and meeting students’ needs where they are and where they learn best.