Holistic Child

Working with children allows me to observe their interactions with one another, their families, their teachers, and how they learn and what they learn. Children learn at different paces and learn things faster than other things. Children are excited to learn and often times do not know that they are learning when they are learning.

Children's physical development and cognitive development should be assessed at different times throughout their childhood development. How a child perceives something, how they talk, form sentences, comprehend directions, learn new concepts, take directions, and other similar activities that allow an educator to assess their development. A child should be assessed on how they play with others, if they are able to take things apart and put them together, if they are able to jump, run, skip, climb, their balance, their timing, the way they use a ball whether it is to bouncing it, dribbling it, throwing it, and all types of outside play. Children should be able to show their fine motor and their large motor skills through these activities. All should be assessed so that caregivers and educators know that they are developing the successful way that they should be.

China does not consider academics until the child is age five. However, the children are provided with many different opportunities in the school day. They use their playground more during the day for physical and large motor skill activities. There are classrooms at schools as well as rooms with beds for naps in the afternoon. Their school day may start at 8am and end at 5pm. The children are provided with many subjects during the day including math, writing, reading, history, art, music and other subjects that the teacher sees fit. Children use manipulatives to show how they learn to count and pattern blocks. The Chinese offer quite the school day for children. America does not provide many if any schools like that.

http://www.pbs.org/kcts/preciouschildren/earlyed/read_vaughan.html