Early Childhood Philosophies

Great Essays
In Early Childhood programs, there are different philosophies and curriculums that are based on early childhood theorists and programs such as Margaret McMillan, and Reggio Emilia program in Italy. Alberta’s current beliefs in early childhood education is that all children should be given the opportunity to learn through their play as they grow to become a mighty learners, and we, as educators need to develop a professional way of interacting with young children. As we are interacting with young children we are observing and documenting their play and development in a variety of different ways. Documenting, and keeping records is a way for the educators to communicate with the children’s family members of their development. Also, educators need to provide supporting environment for the children and their family members as they are going through a new change while joining early childhood programs. Alberta’s early childhood education’s curriculum refers to an emergent curriculum that goes beyond the traditional curriculum. Emergent curriculum is based on the interests and thinking of the learners. (Dietze & Kashin, 2015, p. 18) Emergent curriculums have a basic guideline plan, but there is room for change and to explore a different way of providing and displaying new learning experiences. With a canned curriculum, everything is planned out step by step with no wiggle room to change or add to the plan. As the children are learning through their play they are becoming a mighty learner and citizen by being strong, resourceful, and capable in their open-ended activities. These activities give the children a variety of options to manipulate, create, and use their imagination to explore new things in a play areas. In Lethbridge College, Parent Preschool Programs (PPP) they offer a variety of play areas such as sand, water, language, art, blocks, kitchen, and drama play. In each play area there is a theme, and children picture books that relate to the theme that the children can relate to, and learn from. When picking open-ended activities the educator needs to think about the children’s developmental domains: social, physical, intellectual, creative, and emotional. Also, educators need to think about open-ended questions to extend the children’s thinking. By giving open-ended activities the options are endless, and they help the children to develop more in their creativity developmental domain. Early childhood educators believe that children need to be respected by educators, and family members. To respect children we need to refer them as children not the slang term kids or cute nicknames such as sweetie or buddy, because their names are a part of the children’s self-identity. We need to respect children by being at their eye level. This will help children not to feel afraid or feel like we are towering over them to intimidate them. As we interact with the children we need to also remember to tell the children what we are going to do before doing it. For example when they need to wipe their nose we need to ask them or offer the Kleenex to them to wipe their nose. This is another form of respecting the children. Contrary to popular beliefs it is inappropriate to say no, don’t, or shouldn’t, …show more content…
Saying “Good job” or “Great job” is meaningless because children don’t understand what it means. You could say, “Look at all the colours you used to draw,” this is giving a description of the children’s actions. You could also ask open-ended questions during or after the activity. If children are getting praised all the time it can create issues such as praise junkies, manipulation, develop self-esteem problems, and setting children up for failure to be perfect all the time. (Keilty, J. 2015. Introduction to Early Childhood …show more content…
In my experience of writing observations, and anecdotal records for practicum, I have referred to Jean Piaget theories, and the Play, Participation, and Possibilities - An Early Learning And Child Care Curriculum Framework For Alberta, on more than one occasion. This is where I have learned and referred to Mighty Learners: Nurturing Children’s Dispositions To Learn: playing and playful, seeking, participating, persisting, and caring. In my Observation and Recording class we were given the opportunity to observe a RIE class of infants to learn how to write observations, and anecdotal recordings. (Makovichuk, L., Hewes, J., Lirette, P., & Thomas, N. 2014 pp.

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