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Welcome to this month's issue of the Better Kid Care E-Newsletter - A newsletter for those caring for children.
Notable Quote: "All my life through, the new sights of nature made me rejoice like a child" -- Madam Marie Curie
In response to recent events, the Disaster Resource page is available for information to assist children and providers affected by Hurricane Katrina.
The following tip is from Lori Spadaro. Lori works at Overbrook Preschool in Havertown, PA, with a pre-kindergarten group (ages 4-5).
"I work with pre-kindergarten age children and have found that this is very helpful when time for clean-up. Have some of the children (may be a rotating assignment) be "inspectors". The inspectors will get a pad and pencil and check the areas to be cleaned up. They can announce their arrival with a salute, and the children cleaning that area will love to stand at attention, ready for inspection. When the inspectors are done, they give the cleaner-uppers a pretend star and comment on the work well done. It's really fun and the place gets cleaned up quickly."
Where do you find the best ideas on caring for children? From child care providers, of course! Do you have a great tip or good thing? Send us your best tips in writing and your tip may end up in our newsletter! If your tip is chosen for the newsletter, you will receive a little something from the Better Kid Care Program. Mail tips with your return address, place of work, and the number and ages of those you care for to:
Better Kid Care Program
Tips from Child Care Providers
253 Easterly Parkway
State College, PA 16801
E-mail to: crb16@psu.edu
Children and nature have always been connected. We all are connected to the natural world. The natural world is one of the best environments for children to explore, absorb, and enjoy. As those who care for young children, are we supporting the connection children need to have with nature? Some researchers suggest that children seem to be exposed less and less to the open invitations of nature.
Today's children are on tight schedules, with child care, school, and extracurricular activities. Even if the children are outdoors, the activity is usually structured, and not one of free adventure and immersion into nature. Often, outdoor experiences are for a short period of time only. As adults working with young children, we need to find ways to support not only our own connection with nature, but the children's as well.
Nature's Invitations
When young children are exposed to nature, they see the beauty just as we do--but more importantly, they begin to interact with its offerings. Children are fascinated with nature. Nature has the teaching ability to provoke children into thought, action, and formulating their own ideas. When children are involved in experiences with nature, they are absorbed and completely attentive to what is at hand. This exposure to nature can be simply going for a walk, playing in the yard, or hiking in the woods. There are many advantages to all types of exposure to nature.
Children begin to wonder in nature. Natural materials such as pinecones, grass, rocks, leaves, rain, spider webs, sticks, frogs, fossils, dirt, seashells, pebbles, and sand provide endless possibilities for play and imagination. These materials don't come with directions: The children come up with ideas of how to use them. What are they? What can they do? How do they feel? What do they look like? How does it move? How does it grow? What can I do with this? What might happen if I do this?
How Can Adults Help
Nature and its materials present exciting possibilities and challenges. Adults can help children by providing natural environments to explore and adding tools to enhance explorations, such as shovels, magnifying glasses, pencils and paper, cameras, and related resources. It is important to observe where and what the children are interested in and support those interests by asking open-ended questions. What did you discover? How does it feel? What does it look like? Do you like how it feels? How does it move? What should we do? Take time to think of what will encourage the children to think about their observations and to describe what they are thinking.
It is vital that adults share the natural world with children by planning related activities, but it is important for children to have the opportunity to discover nature on their own. When children connect with nature and freely explore its components, they develop their own personal relationship with nature. It is this relationship that will carry meaning into their understanding of nature.
Nature's Gifts Allowing and encouraging children to revisit their experiences supports the opportunity to further their investigations. Children need consistent contact with nature and ample time to explore and become familiar. Nature also inspires physical challenges: climbing over a rock, walking up a hill, rolling down a hill, swinging from a branch, jumping in a puddle, or scooping and digging dirt. With the rise of childhood obesity, nature is a positive encourager to physical well-being.
Nature provides us with a sense of calm and adds visual images of beauty and creativity. Children become observant and make use of their senses, such as listening to leaves in the wind, or looking at spiders' fancily weaved webs, or hearing the call of a bird. Even though open spaces in nature invite children for wonderful spurts of running, jumping, and climbing, they also invite children to slow down and take a look.
Providing children opportunities to care for nature, such as watering plants, feeding animals, picking up trash, and treating "creatures" gently, supports a sense of respecting nature and developing empathy. It also creates opportunities for children to work together. Experiences such as these help build lifelong skills and provide children with a connection that may in the future support caring for their environment, as well as each other.
Nature can also be brought back to the child care facility or classroom. Some early educators use many components of nature in their indoor environments. Tree stumps are used for sitting or for the block area. Water, sand, and dirt are explored, measured, and poured. Tree branches are suspended from the ceiling and are a source for displaying children's artwork. Loose materials, such as pinecones, stones, seashells, leaves, and twigs are displayed in baskets for children's imaginations to provide an idea. Nature's artifacts, such as feathers, a bug's shell, fossils, or a bird's nest, are used for exploring. Bringing nature to the classroom reinforces its beauty, purpose, and its gifts.
Better Kid Care resources are available for child care providers by contacting your local Penn State Cooperative Extension office.
Exciting Backyard Science Activities
Backyard Discoveries
Pets in Child Care?
Gardening with Young Children: Dig in!
Learn Lots on Your TimeEnjoy the following highlights from one of the many Better Kid Care Distance Education Lessons. Participate in Distance Education training in the convenience of your home.
The Ups and Downs of Outdoor Play
We know it's important for children to explore the natural world. For child care providers this often means a trip to the playground or the backyard. When you open the door to the outside, children rush out, eager to climb, swing, and slide. Child care providers know how valuable outdoor play can be for children: It builds strong bodies and imaginative minds and makes happier and better behaved children. But the fun can end in tears or even with a serious accident. These areas must be safe and secure for the children in your care.
Did you know that nearly 40 percent of all playground accidents might have been prevented if the children had been properly supervised? One of the most important responsibilities in child care is keeping children safe and well supervised while on playground equipment. By learning how to supervise young children safely, you can help prevent accidents.
It's very important to prepare for a trip to the playground, to know what to look for when checking the playground for safety, and how to keep children safe outside. If you would like to learn how to do this, keep costs down, and provide great activities for outdoor play, the Distance Education lesson The Ups and Downs of Outdoor Play will help you make the outdoors a safe and exciting place for the children to explore. Click on the link to read this lesson in its entirety and to review the educational video.
The Better Kid Care Distance Education Program awards . . .
. . . for completion of Distance Education lessons, the New Staff Orientation, and Home-Based Caregiver Orientation.
To view a complete listing of all distance education lessons and additional information and resources, visit the Better Kid Care Distance Education page.
Meets the Keystone STARS Core Series Training Requirements - This three part series shows how to establish, run and maintain a successful child care business and presents important information about understanding and supporting the developmental needs of each child.
Part 1 - Family Child Care...It's a Business
Part 2 - Understanding and Supporting Children's Physical and Cognitive Development
Part 3 - Understanding and Supporting Children's Language and Social/Emotional Development
Visit: Home-Based Caregiver Orientation to view materials online.
Receive the videos and workbooks in the mail. Complete the entire series and return assignments to the Better Kid Care office for review to earn six Department of Public Welfare/PA Pathways training hours. To order: 1-800-452-9108 or betterkidcare@psu.edu
Reading aloud with children is a wonderful activity. Children of all ages love to be read to. Support the love of reading for children in your care by trying the following books:
Book of Nature, by R. Kidman-Cox, ISBN 0746005636, published by Educational Development Corporation. Book of Nature provides many visual photographs to add to the descriptions provided. Nature is beautifully represented for young children.
Waiting for Wings, by Lois Ehlert, ISBN 0152026088, published by Harcourt Children's Publishing. The life cycle of the butterfly is portrayed in Ehlert's style of beautifully layered cut-out shapes. She even includes instructions for planting your own butterfly garden.
A Quiet Place, by Douglas Wood, ISBN 068976092, published by Aladdin. We all need to find quiet places sometimes. Find out where the young boy in the story goes to find quiet.
If You Find a Rock, by Peggy Christian, ISBN 0152393390, published by Harcourt Children's Publishing. Discover the wonder of rocks!
Contact your local children's library or your local Penn State Cooperative Extension office to find out about more books on making friends and child care. Reading with children creates lifelong readers. Enjoy your time reading with children!
The National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities recommends that it's time to change how we view a child's growth. Do you know all the ways you should measure your child's growth? We naturally think of height and weight, but from birth to five years, your child should reach milestones in how he plays, learns, speaks, and acts. A delay in any of these areas could be a sign of a developmental problem, even autism. The good news is, the earlier it's recognized the more you can do to help your child reach her full potential.
Learn the signs. Act early. is CDC's multifaceted national awareness campaign on developmental delays and milestones to educate parents, health care professionals, child care providers, teachers, and others who influence the lives of people with developmental disabilities. The program includes parent education materials for use in clinical settings that can be downloaded or ordered free of charge. For more information contact the Center for Disease Control online or call 1-800-CDC-INFO.
New Dates and Topics!
The Penn State Better Kid Care Program has developed a new and exciting season of interesting, helpful satellite topics for 2005-2006. Join with many other caregivers in experiencing live satellite training workshops, offered through the Penn State Better Kid Care Program, in Pennsylvania and across the United States . To participate in these workshops, visit the Satellite Workshop link.
October 6, 2005 - How to Work with Active Children
December 1, 2005 - Avoid Behavior Problems -- Teach Self-Control
March 23, 2006 - Hot Topics for Center Directors
April 6, 2006 - Parents: Friends or Foes?
May 11, 2006 - How to Get Parents on Your Team
Do you have questions about caring for other people's children, such as:
Call the Better Kid Care Mentoring Line at 800-859-8340 or e-mail your questions to betterkidcare@psu.edu for information about child care and children's issues.
New Staff Orientation curriculum is available to child care centers in Pennsylvania. This curriculum is specifically designed for new staff members in child care centers. Included are a thirty-page workbook and thirty units on seven videotapes. The easy-to-understand information is reinforced with activities and assignments. Units are designed to be used during nap time or other small blocks of time as staff/child ratios permit. Meets the Keystone STARS Performance Standards. Click on the New Staff Orientation link for more information and to view the materials online.
Better Kid Care Kit - Do you provide care for children in your home? Have you signed up to receive a Better Kid Care Kit yet? Complete our online registration form and receive material in the mail.
The University of Maine has a new resource for child care providers, titled Growing Ideas Tipsheets. Be sure to check out this quick reference tip sheets on many relevant topics related to early childhood care and education.
Would you like to receive this newsletter? New subscribers can join and have this newsletter delivered to their e-mail mailbox by sending mail to: BetterKidCareNews-subscribe-request@lists.psu.edu. (No subject or message text is required. The system picks up the name and address from the e-mail headers.)
Look for information on painting experiences with young children.