Children with technologies.

Which is the best age to expose computer to young children?

Some says 5 years old. The others says primary level.

*There is no right or wrong answer, it depends on yourself, when you wanted to introduce it to your child.

Nowadays, young children below age of 5 been already exposed to computer and also other technologies such as hand phones, play station, iPOd and others and those can categorized as their toys. During my days, I think "game boy" was one of the popular tech toy for us to play but, now they have "PSP". I'm not saying playing with those are bad, there are always advantage and disadvantage of it. Playing with computer or others can get really addicted for young children as they grow up. As I was reading "Star Two" newspaper, there was a section on "how computer can dampen our thinking because we depend too much on computer". I thought this is pretty serious to young children if they get addicted to it and it can also lead to obesity if the child doesn't exercise. The best way is always set limit to your child when he/she wants to play the computer and always stay with your child. Besides that, parents should involve themselves more with children as in stay active so, children can also have healthy lifestyle. Here's a website that I think can help parents and children enjoy http://familyfun.go.com/ .

Although technologies can color up their life and it's part of their life. I think that children should expose to nature and let them freely explore the world. You might never know that the nature are getting distinguish in the coming years and robots are built.

I came across a video on youtube about the technologies are affecting the children's growth and development. There are also some suggestion made by Michael Rich (in the video), on how parents can help their children in using the media appropriately.

Professional Teacher.

What are the characteristics of a professional teacher or educator?

In Early Childhood Education, the term of professional refers to an intrinsic code of ethics, values, commitment and responsibilities that guide thoughts and actions. We learned this during "Becoming an Early Childhood Professional" class. We also did an assignment on it in a group of 5 and the assignment require us to sort of promote Early Childhood Education. We also describe each letter in Professional and we came out with this with the other members of the group.

P - PATIENCE

R - RESPONSIBILITY

O - OBSERVANT

F - FLEXIBILITY

E - ENTHUSIASM

S - SENSITIVE

S - SELF-DISCIPLINE

I - INITIATIVE

O - OPTIMISM

N - NON-JUDGMENTAL

A - AWARENESS

L - LEADERSHIP

Teacher can be sensitive (emotional) here because they are being with children and children always needs comfort when they are away from their parents. It's important for teachers not to be judgmental and non-bias because we have to be fair and give equity to all children despite their different background, races and culture. Leadership is always needed because teacher needs to lead the large group of children while being observant. We think these characteristics are needed to be a professional teacher/educator it because to keep the standard and quality. Besides that, it's also to gain trust from parents and their children.

Children with eating problems.

Children with eating problems *click*

Having problem feeding your child? We came across an article on parenting about children's eating problem. We think this article is important because eating habits can affect children's physical, learning and health indirectly. In the article it also suggested few ways for parents to help their children in eat healthily.
We remembered that there was one section on children's eating habit that we learned during "Health, Safety and Nutrition" class. It's true that parents are always the number one role model for young children beside teachers. This is because parents are the one with them during their infant times and parents models their behavior towards the children. During meals, parents needs to show positive reaction towards the foods and the way they eat this is because it will influence their children. We all know children loves attraction and meals needs to be creative enough to capture their eyes and appetite. Another element that is very important is that parents should not force their child to eat something they don't like because this will make the child dislike the food more. Parents should just encourage them slowly. This are some of the lessons we learned in the class. Hope this help those parents who have difficulty with their child's eating habit.

Working experience.

Now I am in the fourth semester, but I just start to work and it’s my first experience working in a kindergarten. I started working on 21st Jun 2010. It was just one week till now. Through this week, I have learnt lots of lessons and its not easy to handle children. Since I really involve myself with the children , I get to understand them more by not only reading the notes given by the lecturer. The notes and lessons in the class, I can see and really feel it through my body and all this are called hands-on experience where I really experience the real situation. This is because I can see the whole process of children’s playing and learning. Of course not everything that I learned in the class comes out exactly in the real situation, it will be different and it prepares you to face it. Last few days, there was a case which normally happens in kindergarten. There was a three-year-old child, who named Yu Han likes to hit people with her hand. She was taking a book and wanted to find a corner to sit down and read. Another child who named Agasti, came and straight away took away the book that Yu Han was reading. Here comes her bad habit – she hit Agasti with her hand. Agasti cried. As I was taught “Every movement is a teachable moment.” I use this at that moment. I asked Yu Han to say sorry to Agasti face to face and eyes to eyes. Training them to admit their false and learn to forgive people at this moment too. Then the next time, it won’t happen again. Even if this kind of matter happened again, they will learn how to apologize and forgive people. If teach and guide the children at the right moment at once, they will gain the experience and lesson. Make them remember what is right and what should do and also manners should be taught carefully because it’s important to respect the others to gain back their respect. Our lecturers always remind us to always set ground rules at the beginning of the class so, that the children follows it. Another side note is that teacher should be firm, not too soft nor tough on children.

Wii helps children in physical development?

Another video I came across on youtube. Nowadays, the technologies out there are so helpful in every way that everyone is depending on them. It's fascinating to be watching young children growing up with awesome tech games. In my days, there weren't anything like this. In the video it seems like Wii does help children in their physical skills especially in gross motor skills. In my opinion, I think by playing Wii can help in enhancing children's Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS). But, its expensive to afford it for some families and there are always other options in helping to enhance children's gross motor skills besides using Wii. Teacher or parents can organize games or mini sports for the children to play.

What do you think?

Our experience in interviewing.

Interview and observation are also an important element in our course where we are required to observe and evaluate on the children's development and the center's planning and organization. This is also an opportunity for students to take a look on how the planning and organization looks like and able to to evaluate.

Interview in Klang.

We are currently in the fourth semester and taking the subject Planning and Organising Early Childhood Care and Educational Settings. There is an assignment which we are required to complete an interview with the principal of a center or kindergarten. So, we decided to visit a kindergarten and a childcare centre in Klang. Before we went for the interview, we had prepared questions for the principal to answer since our assignment require us to understand how the planning works and the questions will lead us to the answers. We called the principal and made an appointment with her. For those who are new to the course, it’s important to call and sometimes there are centers and kindergarten that doesn’t allow students to enter. The centre is located in Bandar Botanic, Klang. It’s very wide and big and it’s not normal to us because their centre consists of 2 corner houses, just beside each other) There are 3 directors who graduated from Taiwan and they have over 10 years of experience in this field. We are very surprise because they graduated from Taiwan. They emphasis on integrate thematic approach and makes the children enjoys learning because there are different theme each week for children to learn, explore as well as hands-on experiences. We must always remembered that children learn best when they have hands-on experiences because they gained new knowledge on what they have explore. It's just like we're doing an experiment, we always come up with a solution to solve the problem and there is where we learned new things. It's just same for the children. Apart from that, we were so surprise while talking to the principal! Haha… She was very welcoming, although she was busy with her work, but, she still lend us some time and the way she talk were soft, gentle and friendly. We are very thankful to her. She even asked us to work in her center and we were quite shocked about it. We would like to, but, it was to far for us. At the end, there was time she had to go, but she still tried to continue with us even she was busy that time and she always relate on her experience and knowledge. This is good because we get to know and learn more things about the situations just like lecturer sharing their experiences. Somehow, we think that it’s hard to find another principal as good as her and it’s a good place for us to experience and give our thoughts on their center ☺ .