NAEYC Standard One

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PROMOTING CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING

I understand that I must be  grounded in a child development knowledge base. I use my understanding of young children’s characteristics and needs and of the multiple interacting influences on children’s development and learning to create environments that are healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging for each child.

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Key Elements:

1a. Knowing and understanding young children’s characteristics and needs from birth through age 8

1b. Knowing and understanding the multiple influences on development and learning

1c. Using developmental knowledge to create healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging learning   

       environments for young children

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Artifact- Stages of Art

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Key Element 1a Knowing and understanding young children's characteristics and needs from birth to age 8.  As an educator it is important to be knowledgeable about the children’s different stages of art. As children mature in age and have more art experiences, they learn how to use line, color, shape/form, and texture to communicate thoughts and feelings, visually. As children learn about the principles of visual organization, unity, variety, balance, repetition, rhythm, pattern, emphasis, proportion, perspective, composition and movement, their artwork becomes more sophisticated. Each child’s artwork will be different and unique to display their developmental skill set.  All children develop differently and should be allowed the tools needed at all ages to strengthen those skills.  More importantly creative and mental growth will be the outline of the stages of a child’s artistic development throughout childhood. The Stages of Art required me to collect 50 drawings from children ages birth to eight years of age. Sort those drawings into five different stages Disordered and Random Scribbling, Controlled Scribbling, Named Scribbling, Pre-schematic.  Completing this assignment helped me to understand young children and the developmental stage of their art.  It also helped me plan developmentally appropriate activities for children that would be unique to their needs. This assignment allowed me to determine where the children are both socially and emotionally. I can use this assignment to identify if a child has some developmental delays that need to be addressed.

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Artifact- Children's Book Review

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Key Element 1b Knowing and understanding the multiple influences on development and learning. As an education, it is important to be knowledgeable about developmentally appropriate practice and guidance. It is an approach to teaching grounded in the research on how young children develop and learn and in what is known about effective early education. To promote young children’s optimal learning and development the educator must guide the child.  Educators must be able to meet young children where they are, both as individually and collectively. Educators must know the child’s development and learning ability along with their learning style to be able to assist them to meet their developmental milestones.  It is equally as important for teachers to know what is individually appropriate for each child, and know what is culturally important. The three children’s book reviews required me to take a more in-depth look at the content and pictures with in the reading material that is displayed, taught, and given to the children daily. I used these three books to evaluate stereotypes, discriminations, biases that could be imbedded inside that go un-noticed. This artifact could influence children’s development and learning in a positive or negative way. Discrimination ultimately results in treating individuals or groups unfairly based on perceived differences and inferiority. Negative stereotypes, such as perceiving others of certain races or genders inherently less skilled or capable, often lead to discrimination. 

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Artifact- Prop Box

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Key Element 1c: Using developmental knowledge to create healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging learning environments. As a teacher it is important to have extensions to the typical centers that are set up in and outside of the classroom environment. Prop boxes are one way to make that happen.   Prop boxes are used as an organization tool for materials in dramatic play areas. Prop boxes render the means to ensure that teachers have a readily available supply of ideas and material for the thematic centers. A prop box contains materials and equipment that encourage children to explore various roles.  The prop box proves the importance of having a creative, and supportive activity by giving children the opportunity to gains the experiences of birthday parties.  Birthdays provides a challenging learning environment while it provides cognitive development as the children are using map and writing skills. They are using social and emotional l development while communicating and cooperating with other classmates. Language skills are used when the children planning to their excursions.  I learned through this activity that not all cultures celebrate birthdays the way Americans celebrate.  This gave me an opportunity to add other items into the birthday prop box to incorporate the way others celebrate their birthday. I learned that the materials should be non-sexist and multicultural and should contain as many real-life things and articles as possible. When using Prop Boxes in the classroom, I found that not only was the children’s play enhanced by using the materials, but their language and social interaction also increased. Lastly, I learned that all of the materials should be things that children can play with independently, materials should be safe for children to play with, and should be as realistic as possible.

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