Posts tagged Early Childhood Education

Primary school: Blue Moon Montessori

By on February 10, 2012

    I owe Cape Town’s Child Magazine and their comprehensive listing of pre-schools  for this one.  I would have never found the school on my own (and it turns out I couldn’t even find it with my GPS – thank goodness Jacky was able to direct me over the phone).

    Hidden away in a quiet bend in Galway Road, Heathfield is the Blue Moon Montessori School set in a quaint little garden. The school building is pretty enough from the outside,  but it was the inside that really impressed me.  Big open flowing spaces filled with light streaming in from the wall to wall windows.  And here’s the big surprise … it was relatively quiet.  Busy:  with children walking, moving, eating, painting everywhere – but quiet!?! Text book example of organised chaos.

    I realised that my preconceived ideas about the Montessori education system may have been way off.  I have never quite been able to fully grasp the concept of self-directed activity in a pre-school classroom, it seemed completely contradictory to what I had always thought education to be, but today I saw it in action and it worked!  I also saw two other practices in the classroom that completely astounded me: Firstly, all the educational materials were stored in glass containers.  Glass + 3 year olds = danger? Doesn’t it? But Jacky was ready for me.  When I asked her about it her answer was wonderfully simple: “We use glass because it breaks.  That is the lesson isn’t it? We can’t always keep children away from glass objects, but we can teach them how to handle glass carefully so that it does not break”.  The second practice was that of helping yourself to snack – today’s snack was a delicious looking fruit salad -when you feel like it. Whoa! I had expected that this would cause a stampede of little bodies, all fighting to get to the food first.  But what I saw was the complete opposite, a pretty little girl dishing up her snack by herself … and then washing her own plate! Double Whoa!!! It inspired me to read up more about the Montessori philosophy and the more I read the more it seems to make sense.

    I spent my entire school career in a traditional, sit-still-and-listen, only-do-what-I-tell-you-to type of educational system (and I think I turned out kinda okay? – I hope? ), but in my professional career I have been intensely disillusioned by the results of this kind of educational setting.  It simply does not produce independent thinkers and is not conducive to the development of true leadership.  What I saw today at Blue Moon Montessori has given me some hope that reaching these ideals might just be possible.  Later, I found this quote by Maria Montessori and I couldn’t help feeling like Maria and I were kindred spirits: “Establishing lasting peace is the work of education, all politics can do is keep us out of war”.

    Even better news is that Blue Moon Montessori now also have a foundation phase group (6-9 years) and I’m really hoping that they consider starting a senior primary (9 – 12 year) group.

    If you are considering a Montessori education for your child, I would strongly recommend that you have a look at this school.  Contact Jacky on 021 712 0221 or ask to visit them on their campus.

    This entry is filed under Early Childhood Development, Education, Report on schools and tagged , .

    Kids learning: The wonder of play dough

    By on February 7, 2012

      Kids learning about the world through the wonder of play dough.

      I’m not a night owl.  In fact, most nights I battle to stay awake past 8pm. But last Wednesday evening I found myself in the kitchen at 11:30pm happily humming to myself and shuffling along in my slippers – making play dough. I would have probably kept going till dawn had I not run out flour!

      I never seem to tire of seeing how a pot full of runny gunk can turn into that wonderful, pliable, mouldable, stretch-break-and-reunitable substance known as play dough.  And it seems to have the same effect on kids.  In my teaching days I always relied on hauling out my big tub of play dough at the end of a difficult day to calm the kids down – and it worked every time. It also has immense educational value and so, I’ve decided to share with you my play dough recipe and some ideas on how to use it – have fun!

      To make playdough you will need:

      2 cup of cake flour (NOT the self-raising kind)

      1 cup of salt

      2 cups of water

      2 tablespoons of oil

      2 tablespoons of cream of tartar

      1 teaspoon of food colouring in your favourite colour

      Mix all the ingredients well in a medium sized pot and  place the pot on the stove. Stir over medium heat until the liquid thickens and becomes pliable then take the pot off of the stove and wait for your play dough to cool down. Ta-da: As easy as that!

      Some ideas on how to use your play dough:

      • Using primary colours to mix secondary colours: This must be one of my all time favourite party tricks (at least 5 years olds seem to find it pretty amusing). Make three batches of play dough in the primary colours (red, blue and yellow) and then break off equally sized portions from each colour. In your hands, mix and knead together two colours at a time and watch the colour change to a secondary colour.  This is a great way to demonstrate to your kids that red + blue = purple; red + yellow = orange; blue + yellow = green and then also that red + blue + yellow = brown. I also like to make a batch of white play dough (just leave out the food colouring) and use this to create lighter shades of each colour and of course, you’ll need to mix white and red to make every little girl’s favourite colour: pink.
      • Enhance your child’s sensory experience  by adding a few drops of food essence or some aromatherapy oils to the ingredients when you make your play dough to tickle his olfactory (smell) sense or add different grains and legumes such as rice, sago, butter beans or lentils to your batch of already made play dough to stimulate his tactile (touch) sense.
      • Make a batch of play dough in your child’s favourite colour (although the colour therapists would probably recommend that you use calming colours such as blue, green or purple) and add a few drops of lavender aromatherapy oil to it.  Give it to him to play with when he’s feeling a little stressed or needs to calm down.  This also works as a stress reliever for tired moms – you might even want to keep a small ball of this dough in your desk drawer at work.
      • Use cookie cutters, plastic eating utensils, dough rollers, old curlers, and just about anything you can think of to make different shapes and patterns in your play dough.  The pliability of play dough also makes it a great tool to teach children about different shapes: for instance, if you stretch out the sides of a square you get a rectangle and in the same way you get a cylinder when you roll up the sides of a rectangle.
      • All that tearing, kneading, rolling and pinching is wonderful to help develop and strengthen the fine motor muscles in your child’s fingers, hands and wrists.
      • Let your imagination run wild. There is not a monster, creature or fantasy figure that cannot be crafted with a little bit of creative thought and a brightly coloured batch of play dough.
      • If you have a school aged child, have him create his letters, sight words, spelling words and numbers out of play dough instead of the boring old pen and paper method.  Not only will he have tons of fun doing it, but he’ll have consolidated the lesson a whole lot better  having experienced the concepts in their 3-dimensional form.
      • In the same way, play dough can be used very effectively to demonstrate the concepts of division and fractions to school aged-children

       

      This entry is filed under Early Childhood Development, Education and tagged , , , , , .

      Grow a tale: Parent workshop

      By on February 2, 2012

        Story telling is an art as old as the hills and children of all ages love listening to stories.  A good story can inspire, teach and even heal and playtherapists often use stories in the form of narrative therapy with young children.

        If you live in the Cape Town area, consider joining Lisa Cohen for an interactive storytelling evening and learn how to enhance your storytelling abilities so that your child receives stories in the best way possible!
        In this workshop, Lisa focuses on:
        - reading stories to children in captivating and enchanting ways
        - harnessing your own imagination and creative expression
        - making up or improvising stories to tell your child in any special moment/difficulty/celebration
        - learning to listen and connect with your child
        - having fun with the art of storytelling!

        When: Thursday 16th February 2012
        Time: 7:30 – 9:30pm
        Where: TBA
        Cost: R120
        Booking essential!

        Contact lisa@growatale.co.za or 083 6444980

        This entry is filed under Early Childhood Development, Emotional Development, Social Development, Therapy and tagged , .

        Early Childhood Education benefits all

        By on December 21, 2011

          Early Childhood Education benefits all

          It is widely known that the most significant growth en development happens in the early years of a child’s life. It is during this time that the foundation for life long learning is laid. Children’s experiences in infancy and early childhood will have extensive influences on their physical and neurobiological development, and these will drive biological, psychological and social responses throughout the entire human lifespan.

          But, early childhood education has much greater value than simply improving the learning potential of individual children.  The real value lies in the undisputed fact that Early Childhood Education (ECE) contributes to the development of healthy children and they in turn contribute to the development of healthy societies.

          According to the medical journal, The Lancet (as quoted by Gordon Alexander in the Mail & Guardian of 18 November 2011): “Early childhood is the most effective time to intervene to address inequalities and to break the cycle of inter-generational poverty”.  The implications for a developing country like South Africa, where the majority of the population live in relative poverty are enormous.  The study found that getting half of the children into pre-school or early childhood education programmes in 73 low-income and middle-income countries (including South Africa) would have an eventual economic benefit of $33-billion.

          South Africa has made big strides towards progress in this area, but we still have some way to go.  According to a recent report by UNICEF, in the past five years the number of children enrolled in ECD centres in this country has risen from 16% to 43%.

          When you consider that Early Childhood Development could give a 17 fold return on investment if a country increased early childhood enrollment to 50%, one is faced with the stark reality that we, as a society cannot afford to postpone investing in the education of our young children.

          This entry is filed under Early Childhood Development, Education and tagged , .

          Early Language Development

          By on November 2, 2011

            Early Language Development:

            Conversational skills start as early as birth when babies have face-to-face interactions with their parents.  These are particularly frequent and become very exciting at about 3 – 6 months of age when babies make more frequent eye contact, smile, make funny faces, coo and make funny sounds.

            Psychologists analysed early verbal interactions between infants and their parents and found that many of these early “converstions”:

            • Have pre-speech sounds (including both vowels & consonants)
            • Include all the universal facial expressions (which appear as early as 5 months in utero)
            • Are characterised by expressive hand gestures

            Infants also display non-verbal communication behaviour very similar to that of adults such as  pauses in speech, looking at parents and looking away again, using hand gestures and facial expressions.

            Toddlers also make use of  “declarative pointing” (pointing to share information with adults).  If adults share their toddlers’ interest and pay attention to the object pointed at, infants are likely to point more frequently and tend to prolong pointing.  But, if adults do not look at the infants or at the object that they are pointing to, the infants point less often and spend less time trying to engage the parent’s attention..

            This entry is filed under Early Childhood Development and tagged , .

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