SFL DAP #5

Joy Prior
SFL
DAP #5
In the next part, the authors describe children’s development and developmentally appropriate practices for 3-through 5-year olds. If you have spent any time around children during this age, you will know that they often come up with delightfully original responses and are curious and active. These characteristics of early childhood can be cherished and respected as we come to better understand why they think and act as they do. In turn, this knowledge can help us plan the kinds of environment and learning experiences that will enhance and deepen their growing understanding of the world in which they live.

DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE PRACTICES FOR 3-THROUGH 5-YEAR OLDS

Read pages 111-183 of the DAP manual and respond to the following questions:

1. List several reasons why a narrow focus on academic skills is problematic during the preschool years. (3 points)
Preschoolers thrive in environments full of diversity, “in environments that encourage them to experiment with new materials, roles, and ideas through various projects and especially through play;” (113)
Need times to express and identify emotions in play, peer interactions, and one-on-one time with teacher “they have great interest in feelings and are better able to express and label their emotions and identify others’ emotions;” (113)
Developing cognitive abilities, but their abilities are limited to what they know, there should be time to experiment and learn how to identify these new words and symbols in daily casual settings, “they make some important gains in cognition, allowing them the pleasure of representing their world in pretend play, symbols, objects, drawings, and words;” (113)
They need time to learn new words and practice vocabulary “give a rich language environment, they show astonishing gains in language skills.” (113)

2. Thoroughly detail 5 key components of physical development of 3-5 year olds. (3 points)
Physical growth and maturation: bodies are no long babies, but developing into children. “All children develop a less toddler-like trunk and become less top-heavy. Growth in this period takes place mostly in the trunk and legs… gain six pounds and two to three inches per year... all 20 baby teeth have emerged,” (114)

Sensation and perception: they have intense sensations including sight, hearing, and taste but “in spite of their physical capacities for excellent sensation and perception, their processing of the incoming information is less than complete; children have yet to develop some of the cognitive strategies and language refinements needed to interpret and communicate the sensory data.” (115)

Gross motor development: they are learning about their physical bodies and limitations which can be developed in sports or simply enjoying movement for movement’s sake. “In general, younger preschoolers are just beginning to work on skills such as balancing, jumping, and hopping and reach challenged by an obstacle course or the like; older preschoolers will find these tasks easier.” (116)

Fine motor development: learning how to use hands and fingers to do smaller more detailed activities. “they make progress through opportunities for open-ended activities that develop their hand muscles and fine motor skills, such as exploring drawing and painting, working with play dough and clay or constructing with Duplo’s or Legos.” (117)

Promoting physical development in preschool: daily activities should include opportunities not simply for children to develop motor skills in play, but for them to learn new and practice various levels of motor skills in a constructed environment. “While children may develop many of their physical capabilities through play, they also need planned movement activities, explicit instruction (both verbal and modeled), and structured physical skill development opportunities to guide them in becoming physically active and healthy for a lifetime.” (117)

3. How much time does the NASPE recommend that children should have structured and unstructured physical activity accumulated on a daily basis? (1 point)
“the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (2002) recommends that preschoolers accumulate daily at least 60 minutes of structured physical activity (e.g., in short bouts of 15 minutes each) and between 60 minutes and several hours of unstructured physical activity. They should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at any time (except for sleep, of course).” (117)

*Assume you are substituting in a preschool and are in charge of finding two gross motor activities and two fine motor activities. List some activities you would consider using. (3 points)
Gross
Play music in the classroom that has different tempos and have all of the student’s stand up and copy each other’s dance steps.
Have the student’s play charades in front of the classroom. After the animal has been guessed have all of the students imitate that particular animal around the classroom until the next student’s turn.
Fine motor
Bring play dough, various sized containers, and oddly shaped objects for the student’s to practice forming and molding the play dough how they want.
Have the students rip up old magazine pictures and glue them on a piece of paper in the shape and color of the rainbow

4. What are 5 key components of social and emotional development in preschool aged children? (3 points)
Social interactions, relationship with teachers and peers, and friendships: want to have friends and interactions with teachers and peers. They begin in dramatic play, and develop language and literacy skills that will determine how they perceive relationships for the reminder of their life. (121)

Development of prosaically behavior: as children learn to self-regulate and to have positive interactions with those around them they are better about to focus on distress, making plans, and can take action when needed. (122)

Aggression and other challenging behaviors: children learn that hitting, biting, and a toughing tantrum is not a positive way to get what you want, and are more likely to use relationship aggression or bullying. (122)

Sense of self in relation to others: the younger children realize that they are an individual but use physical things to identify themselves such as what they have or look like, while older children begin to identify themselves with what others say about them psychologically. (123)

Development of emotional competence: ability to express emotions and ideas through facial, gestures, and symbols such as pride, guilt, and shame. They also have the ability to identify the emotions of others around them. (123)

Development of conscience: develop an understanding of what is socially acceptable behavior and what is not. This forms what they believe is right and wrong and will determine how they make choices in their latter life. (125)
Stress, coping, and resilience: they learn that they feel stressed when something feels overwhelming, but if they are not given the correct trust and guidance to learn how to breathe through a hurt knee, or to attempt a difficult task they do not gain the self-control needed to handle stressful situations. (125)


5. In the cognitive development section, the authors address 7 areas of executive functioning in preschoolers aged 3-5. Identify all 7 areas. (2 points) Choose 2 areas to further develop by connecting what you know from the reading with the information we have learned about the brain and the educational theorists we have discussed.(4 points)
a. attention (132)
b. memory (132)
c. Mental representation (133)
d. logic and characteristics of thought (134)
The theorists Piaget strongly believe that children develop in stages and that they need opportunities to experience new things. He did not believe that in the early childhood stages children had the capacity to take another person’s perspective, or any other perspective than their own for that matter. Consequently much of what a child believes is to an adult illogical.
e. reasoning (135)
f. concept acquisition and classification (135)
The theorists Vygotsky believed that children learn from the social environment that they have. He believed that an adult should scaffold a child to the next level of an activity or thought. In order for a child to obtain the next level of thought they must be able to clearly classify and categorize what is happening around them at the level that they are at.
g. magical thinking (137)

6. Explain 3-5 ideas of what can be done to promote cognitive development during the preschool years. (2 points)
Scaffolding: “for example, as a child struggles with a puzzle piece, instead of directly showing him how to place the piece, the teacher might say, “what color is it? Where do you see that color on the puzzle?” (137)
Identify meanings for symbols by repeating what that symbol means in various mediums, “for instance, by encouraging children to plan and review their work and to represent what they know verbally pictorially, and through other modes and media.” (138)
Engage children in play time were they can practice what they have learned, “including attention and memory gains and increase self-regulation. To develop these skills, preschoolers particular need to engage in sociodramatic play that is intentional, imaginative, and extended.” (138)

7. Identify 2 components that teachers can use to promote cognitive skills in teaching math. How are these two ideas developmentally appropriate based on the universal norms of this age group? (2 points)
“teachers also help children connect various mathematics topics to one another.”(138) when a teacher helps a child to make connections between math and their daily life or other subjects that they care about the teacher is understands the level at which a child is able to label and identify various objects, ideas, and thoughts into a category that they can identify from past experiences with and value. As they learn how to remember the various mathematical concepts a child increases their memory. No longer are they limited to putting one thing in each category, but they can learn that hands have five fingers, and feet have five fingers. Memory (132)
“most good mathematics activities also develop language and vocabulary” (138) children at this age are eager to learn how to identify objects in the world around them. They understand that things have qualities and that we have labels, symbols, and words to describe those things. Mathematics is a new way for a child to learn about the world. Mental representation (133)

8. Identify 2 components that teachers can use to promote cognitive skills in teaching science. How are these two ideas developmentally appropriate based on the universal norms of this age group? (2 points)
a. “Encourages children to reflect on, represent, and document their experiences and share and discuss their ideas with others.” (141) as children discus what happened in the experiment or the activity they learn that there are reasons things happen. They also learn through the social interaction that other’s view the same experiment that they did, and were able to gather other details they did not see. This teaches them better reasoning (135)
b. “Provides access to science experiences for all children.” (141) some children have greater opportunities because of various reasons, but all children deserve the chance to learn. By having activities like science that are exciting and engaging for all of the children the students learn how to focus on one subject and are able to expand their attention span even if their natural environment does not promote a longer attention span. (132)

9. Identify 3-5 things that teachers can do to expand children’s language and literacy development.
(2 points)
Understand that children use private speech as a form of solving a problem or handling stress. Gradually private speech becomes internalize, but until then a teacher should encourage children to “talk out” what is bothering them. (142)
Expand a child’s vocabulary “knowledgeable teachers also recognize the value of expanding chlidren’s vocabulary in the course of studying topics of interest. For example, when children study transportation, they learn words such as vehicle, enormous, haul, and propeller.” (145)
Define words that a child might not encounter daily, “briefly describe each word in everyday language, use synonyms, and encourage children to use the word in applicable contexts.” (145)
Identify that print is used in a variety of contexts: menus, books, highway signs, and the child’s daily life. Print performs a variety of functions, recognizing paring in the environment, distinguishing separate words,” (147)

10. List the seven age-related differences in children’s language development (see page 143):
(2 points)
a. “the range of differences in vocabulary, sentence length, conversation, oral presentation, nonverbal behaviors, syntactical complexity, and ways of organizing thought.” (143)


11. In the “Examples to Consider” section (pages 149-183), each age break down is addressed with accompanying ”developmentally appropriate” and “in contrast” examples of how children develop and learn. Indicate here if you completed the reading (or how much you completed) to receive your points for this question. Completed all of the reading (5 points)




*List two or more items of inappropriate practice which especially interested you, surprised you, concerned you, or with which you disagree. (2 points)
“Teachers don’t make extra effort to talk to children who are shy or hesitant,” (157)
“Teachers use a “holiday curriculum” or build units on other themes with only surface appeal,” (161) I just want to know how to properly organize a “holiday curriculum” or further clarification of what would be considered a “holiday curriculum. Thank you!