Brain Building in Action Community Fair educates parents of preschool children

By Ling-Mei Wong

 

The Brain Building in Action Community Fair took place April 9 at the ABCD Chinese Church Head Start at 112 Shawmut Avenue.

The event included breakfast, performances and dancing. Live demonstrations from community partners showed how to prepare healthy mango salsa and how to select educational toys for children.

The Brain Building in Action Community Fair took place April 9 at the ABCD Chinese Church Head Start. (Image courtesy of ABCD Chinese Church Head Start.)

“Language is the greatest brain building there is and this was a great event,” said Julie Hirschler, senior research scientist, National Head Start for Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness, and representative of the Education Development Center in Waltham. She was interested in how the ABCD Chinese Church Head Start taught language, as many families were Chinese and did not speak English at home.

Community organizations had booths at the fair to inform parents about their services, such as Tufts Medical Center, Boston Children’s Museum and YMCA.

“We’re engaging parents to be the first teachers of their children, as one in four children under age six live in non-English speaking households,” said Samuel Tsoi, program coordinator for the Office for Refugees and Immigrants. The organization has partnered with the Department of Early Education and Care to offer training to immigrant families with preschool-age children. The “New Start” training includes how children acquire languages, basics of immigration law and immigrant rights to education. The next event will take place May 17, with more information at www.newamericanchildren.org.

For additional information about Brain Building in Action, please visit the website at www.brainbuildinginprogress.org, or contact (617) 624-8104 or info@brainbuildinginprogress.org.

Preschool implements nutritional program for fighting childhood obesity

By Hao Lu

 

Although the nation has long been aware of its childhood obesity problem, not every school is taking action. Children of America, an educational child care center with 570 schools in 12 states across the country, however, is going beyond standard childcare. The academy has been implementing its Mind and Body Matters Program since last September, providing classes to children from six weeks to 12 years old.

“Nutrition is very, very big today,” said Thad Pryor, CEO of Children of America.

The Mind and Body Matters Program consists of three elements, which are the Just Read Program, the Nutrition Program, and the Presidential Fitness Campaign Program. All of the programs aim to bring children a mentally and physically healthy school life starting from early age.

Image courtesy of Flickr user doublexuan.

“We don’t have any fried food in our schools,” Pryor said. “We have wheat bread, wheat pasta, fruit and vegetables. We give a healthy serving to our children. We give them nutritional food that balances the diet and we teach them how to eat properly.”

“If you are in a hurry and have to take your child to eat fast food, what is healthier? Is it the hamburger or the chicken nuggets?” Pryor asked.

“Most of the parents would say chicken nuggets, but they are wrong. Because of the fat in fried food, the hamburger is actually healthier to the child,” he said. “Our nutritionist, Jamie Windrow, gives tips like this to the parents every week in her nutrition blog, letting them know what is healthy to the child.”

On the school’s website, a monthly diet menu calendar gives parents a brief sense of what their children are eating at school every day. Instead of serving students burgers and unhealthy fried food, the school provides a variety of choices such as wheat buns and pasta, diced chicken, beef crumbles, broccoli, milk, yogurt, fruits and vegetables.

In addition to teaching children how to eat properly through their nutrition program, the school also has a physical fitness program for children older than three to start doing exercises such as jumping jacks, sit ups and push ups. This stems from the idea that fitness could become a healthy part of every child’s life.

“I was one of those children that were left behind. When I was little I had dyslexia. I didn’t go to college. I barely graduated high school,” said Pryor. “I got into this business because I want to help children and I want to make sure children were able to read, to eat well, to take care of their body properly. My idea [for this program] comes from the struggles that I’ve had in my life, and I’m trying to make a difference to the young children that go to our schools.”

Currently Children of America has three locations in Massachusetts. For more information, please visit the school’s website: http://childrenofamerica.com/.

Preschool Corner: Learning to understand young children

Buds & Blossom Early Education and Care Center staff attended the “Making A Difference for Children” training in Waltham.

By Sue Quinlan, Program Director of Buds & Blossoms

Buds & Blossoms Early Education and Care Center staff recently attended a professional development training in Waltham called “Making A Difference for Children.”

The training was presented by the Applebaum Training Institute. The training included the following topics:

1. Boys will be boys! – From the womb to growing up, the truth about boy and girl differences was covered, including differences in the brain, nature, nurture, culture, chance, hand-eye coordination, verbal skills and activity levels.

2. STOP ASAP! – This session looked at how to get and hold the attention of children quickly and easily. The training covered the five big reasons that children misbehave and what to do about it, along with how to win respect from children.

3. Once Upon a Storybook Time – Great ideas for expanding language and literacy through stories were discussed. The session featured storytelling tips to guarantee success and fun ways to have children participate.

4. Curriculum Ideas that Pop! – Several ideas were mentioned, including “Mother Goose is on the loose” and “Humpty Dumpty got up to play” in an updated way. Teachers were taught how to spark wonder in the eyes of children and fun ways to play with blocks, boxes, clay and squishy stuff. The seminar covered circle activities that popped with fun and learning, such as pasta picnics and theme magic.

5. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – Staff were trained to recognize signs and symptoms of ASD. Proven powerful strategies to help children succeed were explored, along with teaching strategies that prevent problems before they happen.

6. Bully Alert! – Bullying is a growing problem in young children. Recognizing and responding to bullying behaviors was a focus of this session, along with bully-proofing strategies for the classroom. Staff looked at skills children needed to avoid being victims. The seminar also covered how to get rid of the bullying bug and developing kindness in children.

7. Celebration of strategies for differentiating instruction – All children learn differently. This session covered “take back and use” ideas to help all children succeed, with practical strategies for managing a classroom with mixed abilities. Curriculum ideas to meet individual children’s needs were discussed.

 

To Praise or Not to Praise?

By Leslie Pilder

The current director of Buds & Blossoms Early Education and Care Center, Leslie has decades of experience in early childhood education including having been the director of a preschool in Manhattan.  Leslie has an M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education, certification from The American Montessori Society, and many years working with teachers, parents, and students of early childhood education.  She also has an M.A. in Adolescent Rites of Passage from New York University, where she worked for several years as a field facilitator in the /Teaching for Success/ program, designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning in Head Start centers across New York City.

It is very common these days to hear parents saying, “Good job!” to their young children for everything from putting their hats on, to eating their dinner, to cleaning up their toys. Not all observers of behavior find this useful. Alfie Kohn, who has studied motivation and punishment in schools and in the corporate world, has found that praise of this sort often backfires, creating children (and in comparable situations, adults) who are afraid to try things they think they may fail at. Praise, it turns out, may do more harm than good.

Praise can actually reduce achievement! Kohn and other researches have found that children who are told they did a good job on a project, often are timid about the next project they do; it turns out they second guess themselves about whether the next project will be met with the same approval. (The same thing tends to happen with corporate employees!) One theory for why this happens is that the child becomes less focused on the process (and enjoyment) of the project and is more concerned about whether it will be good enough for the adult to notice. Praise can kill pleasure and can make the child less willing to take chances and be creative. [Kohn, Young Children, (2001)]

In the article, “Pitfalls of Perfectionism” [Marano, Psychology Today (April 2008) ] the author observes that praise can lead children to be slaves of success; they become focused on doing well by someone else’s standards and this creates self-doubt, which undermines achievement. Material rewards are also very destructive, in that the reward becomes the child’s goal, instead of the enjoyment and meaning of the job itself. Enjoying what we do for its own sake, is one of the foundations of good mental health and emotional well-being.

Now no one is saying that children don’t deserve our love and support. Giving them good feedback about their behaviors and accomplishments is part of what parents and caregivers do. But how do we guide our children if we don’t use praise?

Both Kohn and Marano agree that with children one should learn to reward the process the child has gone through and their efforts. So, instead of saying to the child: “Good job!” we might say, “You worked really hard on that!” If a project or homework assignment comes out especially well, a parent might ask, “Why do you think this turned out so well?” or ask the child “What did you do that made this work out?” Sometimes it is enough simply to notice the child, without actually praising her; saying “You did it!” gives the acknowledgement without the judgment. “You finished your painting!” or “You made your bed!” tells the child that his hard work has been noticed, without the evaluative affect of praise.

Talking less and listening more is a great thing to try with kids. Ask them what they like about their work (or accomplishment) instead of telling them what you like about it; ask, “What was the hardest thing you had to do for this homework assignment?” or “How did you figure that out?” Let them find in themselves the pride of accomplishment.

And sometimes, you might just try saying nothing.

 

The Special Medical Edition

The Sampan’s special medical edition is out on stands now! As part of the newspaper’s ongoing efforts to provide the Asian American community with health and healthcare information, this edition covers all three of the Sampan’s areas of concern: Obesity, Diabetes and Smoking Cessation. In addition to information on quitting smoking, eating a better diet and new diabetes research, a few of Sampan’s columnists have written informative pieces on their areas of expertise and links to healthcare. We hope you find the Sampan’s medical edition useful! Click on the sections you’d like to look at!

The Preschool Corner – Bilingual Learners

By Leslie Pilder

The current director of Buds & Blossoms Early Education and Care Center, Leslie Pilder has decades of experience in early childhood education including having been the director of a preschool in Manhattan.  Pilder has an M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education, certification from The American Montessori Society, and many years working with teachers, parents, and students of early childhood education.  She also has an M.A. in Adolescent Rites of Passage from New York University, where she worked for several years as a field facilitator in the /Teaching for Success/ program, designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning in Head Start centers across New York City.

 

Children all over the world learn to speak the language of their families. We have lots of knowledge about how this happens, but it’s still undeniably a mystery. We know one thing for sure: children learn to speak in the context of community; that is, they need people to talk to them! No one learns to speak by listening to TV or tape recordings. Talking with children and near children, is how youngsters learn to understand and use language. Reading to young children, especially when they are sitting on your lap and looking at the book, also seems to help children learn their first language.

One interesting thing is that the human brain seems hard-wired for learning grammar. Children don’t just copy what they hear; if that were true, they would never say something they had never heard before! Children begin to find the patterns of the language they are hearing and they make sense out of them. No scientist can tell you exactly how this works, but most agree it works the same in all languages. Children first learn nouns and names (Daddy, apple, baby); later they create simple sentences (“Me do!”); in all languages the sequence of grammatical learning is the same.

In all cultures parents tend to speak in a higher pitch to babies and young children. Why do we do this? Children don’t copy the sounds of non-human things: they don’t make the mistake of barking like the dog or whistling like the tea kettle. They focus on human voices and are drawn to the higher pitched voices of their mothers. Scientists call this ‘motherese’. So the next time you feel silly when you are cooing to a baby in a high voice, don’t worry! You’re doing exactly what the baby needs.

But what about children who are learning two or more languages at the same time? This process is very complicated! Children are learning two (or more) sets of sounds, tones, vocabulary, and grammar. Generally we find that children who are learning two languages begin speaking a little later than children who speak only one, but this is nothing to worry about! Once they begin to speak, they will speak both languages fluently. Learning languages in infancy is natural and easy for children.

In fact, this early ability to learn languages is so special that some experts believe that learning a second language should be part of the curriculum of all preschool programs! According to The Harvard Center on the Developing Child, the younger the child, the more the capacity to master more than one language. “If education policies were guided by what we know about the development of the brain,” they say, “second-language learning would be a preschool priority.”
(Harvard Center on the Developing Child, “The Timing and Quality of Early Experiences Combine to Shape Brain Architecture” from: ChildCareExchange.com.)