Karen Debord, Ann A. Hertzler
Virginia Cooperative Extension
- How
do children become responsible?
- How
do children learn to manage and be independent?
- How
do they gain self-confidence, discover new ideas, and learn
to figure things out?
- How
are food habits formed?
By interacting
with their surroundings, children are able to examine, question,
and understand things around them and begin to build basic
concepts, learning through exploration, discovering variety
in foods, and developing sound nutrition habits. Parents,
teachers, and child care providers can accumulate new ideas
for planning exciting learning adventures for young children
through food experiences. Understanding the developmental
levels of young children is critical in order to plan effective
learning activities.
Human
development research says that a cycle of growth and change
can be predicted in children during the first 9 years of life.
Learning about development typical of children within this
age span provides a structure for teachers to plan developmentally
appropriate learning experiences and for parents to understand
their child in an effort to develop practical expectations
for children's accomplishments and actions.
Age
appropriateness refers to the predictable sequences of growth
occurring in young children. Individual appropriateness adds
the understanding that children are unique with individual
patterns for growth and development. Rather than the child
being molded to a particular learning environment, the learning
setting should be adjusted for the child's interests and abilities.
Food
experiences include both science and nutrition learning. There
are a variety of thinking, interacting, and rearranging skills
to be learned while engaging children in food activities learning:
- concepts
of empty, full, pouring, scooping, measuring, straining,
and heating are principles applied in science
- protein
foods (meat, milk, and eggs) need to be stored at cold temperatures
or sickness can result
- signs
of good and poor food quality
- nutrients
needed for health and growth
- nutrients
associated with health risks
In this
series, the developmental skills in the preschool years are
divided into three general levels:
- 2-3
years = naming and identifying
- 3-5
years = sorting and classifying
- 4-6
years = ordering, sequencing and comprehension
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The
first year
From
birth to about age 2, infants are concerned with making personal
connections with others who are important in their worlds.
They are trying to make sense out of the things around them
and to develop a sense of trust. Attachment to adult caregivers,
however, makes it possible for infants to build a sense of
loving and caring necessary to develop future relationships.
During this time, children do not believe that things exist
unless they can see them. Only as children experiment through
touching, dropping, pushing, and pulling do they begin to
build what they know.
The
preschool years These
years are the most significant in a person's life for the
development of thinking skills. During this time, language
develops very fast, children begin to understand symbols and
socialization, real concepts (love, feelings, hot, dirty,
dangerous) become more meaningful.
Toddling,
exploring, and pounding are often worrisome to parents but
traits which are normal during this stage. Skills are being
developed when children touch, feel, look, mix-up, turn over,
and throw. Exploration and the need to test independence seem
to dominate during this time. Independent actions often create
a power struggle in an effort for children to discover new
things; however, tests of independence should be expected,
planned for, and anticipated with balance in the environment.
Independence
is the primary emotional stage during the early preschool
years. With the importance of toilet training and language
development, caregivers should be sensitive to developing
independence and not shame and doubt. Use of guilt and severe
punishments in reaction to acts of normal development can
be harmful during this important period.
Learning
to be independent paves the way for the child to develop a
healthy sense of initiative, drive, or motivation. Children
who learn to start their own activities lay the groundwork
for positive and productive school experiences. Again, exploration,
questioning, and investigation play a major role in development.
In the
early preschool years, children are experimenting with language
as they learn to name objects, to identify pictures, labels
and symbols, and to combine words and ideas while communicating,
negotiating, and making decisions with playmates.
As children
advance in their thought processes, the preschooler should
be able to begin to use simple classification (putting like
things together by color, shape). More advanced classification
follows (animals include cows, chickens, dogs; and birds include
robins, eagles, and blue jays).
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A pleasant
tone, an appropriate environmental setting, and positive interactions
foster a secure learning climate. Using words such as "please"
and "thank-you" during mealtime, while giving an
example of passing foods, provides a model for what is expected.
Use of redirection, cooperation, and choice promotes greater
successes than negatives, punishment, and extended waiting
times for young children making mistakes or for those who
have not learned the concept of self-control.
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Parents
can gain skills which benefit their parenting by being directly
involved in their children's learning. Whether at home or
as part of a group child care setting, parents can actively
be involved with children. They can do this by sharing personal
experiences, work, or hobby activities, interacting through
reading and talking, and supervising children during special
trips. More extensively, parents can actively be involved
in their child's learning by sharing philosophies, and assisting
with child care programs in an advisory role. Communication
with parents about daily activities through bulletin boards,
door posters, schedules, and newsletters enhances parent involvement
and teacher-parent communication. This in turn raises the
quality of the child's and the family's learning experience.
To assist
children with their independence and knowledge growth, adults
can ask open-ended questions to encourage children to think,
to discover meanings, and to form new interpretations. Young
children are very egocentric, seeing the world through their
eyes only. Having patience for developmental sequences to
unfold is challenging but enlightening. Examples of questions
might be:
- What
do you think we should do about that?
- Why
do you think that happened?
- How
could we use this?
- Can
we do it a different way?
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There
are many types of families. Single-parent families, dual career
families, blended families, and extended families. Most families
usually share some mealtime experience and responsibilities
to some degree. Meal time, shopping time, and food preparation
times are excellent times to model appropriate social behaviors,
teach food concepts, and cultivate nutritious food habits.
Learning through food experiences is an ideal way to prepare
children to respect family and individual diversity. The appreciation
of differences can and should be integrated into the total
array of learning activities for young children. Showcasing
holidays or featuring one country each week is referred to
as the "tourist approach" to multicultural education.
This approach, although better than no attention to diversity,
communicates the feeling of differences as opposed to integrating
difference wholly into the learning.
A few
examples of ways to integrate diversity into the classroom:
Include chopsticks, a wok, wooden bowls and rice bowls in
the kitchen area; include a cross representation of dolls
in housekeeping and figurines in the block area for play;
critically read books for stereotyping or traditional gender
roles; provide skin tone paints and alternative colors during
seasonal and secular holidays.
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Play
in early childhood is primarily dramatic in nature. Pretend
play experiences become more social with age. Play stages
move from solitary play in the first two years of life to
social and pretend play during the latter part of the third
year; replaced by games with rules around the age of 7. The
following section is intended as a suggestion or cue listing
of ideas for incorporating creative play into activities for
young children.
Creative
and Dramatic Play
These
are times for children to put into action the world as they
see it,to reinforce concepts and clarify ideas, to explore
cultural diversity and ethnic differences through materials,
props, music, art and language. During play, children can
express feelings and ideas, discover new ways to do things,
and pretend. Caring for dolls and driving cars, playing work
or house in the sandbox or a play area are familiar experiences.
Through dramatic play children sort out ideas about what is
happening around them, find satisfaction, and often resolve
conflict. These are excellent ways for adults to learn what
children are thinking. Interacting by preparing the environment
and posing thought provoking questions allows children to
learn while expressing their feelings.
Role
Playing, Skits, and Puppet Shows
These
are all forms of dramatic play. Each provides children the
opportunity to play back experiences learned on a field trip
or from other special activities. Play areas can be designated
a grocery store, work place, hospital, kitchen, restaurant,
bakeries, and so forth.
Prop
Boxes
Prop
Boxes are cardboard or plastic boxes with theme materials
for children to play with in dramatic play activities. Real
life things in the prop box provide children a chance to experiment
and play out interpretations of what children are learning.
Ask families for ideas and contributions. Check that items
are clean and safe for use in prop boxes. Community businesses
often contribute items for prop boxes (restaurants, hospitals,
banks, lawn care).
Art
Activities
can introduce food related concepts or summarize ideas about
field trips. Muffins or salads can be decorated or designed
for special events. Children can mold clay or play dough to
look like different foods; fingerpaint with fingerpaints or
pudding; make collages from seeds, nut shells, pastas, or
grains; and draw pictures or make murals to tell about their
field trip to the orchard or about special events. Children
can make natural dyes from berries, grapes, onion skins, red
bee s, or purple cabbage to be used with vegetable prints
(potato or citrus fruit) or to color eggs.
Storytelling
Children
can tell stories in the form of art work and/or written words.
Write the child's words for the story to accompany art work.
Use various media to allow children self-expression. Many
foods lend themselves to collages, fingerpainting, dyes, prints,
etc.
Music
Beating
on pots and pans, listening to various melodies, witnessing
the movement of people or their environment, and integrating
culturally diverse rhythms, beats, and styles are all forms
of music. Jingles, simple tunes and rhymes about brushing
teeth, foods growing, or daily routines are fun for children.
They will enjoy creative dance whether copying the movement
of those around them or pretending to be the wind blowing
through the fields; water drops falling, bouncing and rolling
off food or food bubbling and cooking.
Puzzles
Puzzles
help children identify shapes and name new objects. Simple
puzzles of wood or thick cardboard for preschoolers provide
a manipulative activity older preschoolers find engaging.
Use pictures or outlines of food, of farm animals, or of people.
Make each object a puzzle part. Three or four puzzle parts
may seem simple to the adult, but the child will need time
to figure out shapes and how to fit the pieces in place. Although
you might write the names of key nutrients on foods (calcium on milk and cheese, iron and protein on meat and dried beans,
vitamin A on broccoli, and vitamin C on citrus), the skill
of reading and comprehending the use of nutrients by the body
is developmentally appropriate for older preschoolers.
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Disclaimer
and Reproduction Information: Information in NASD does not represent
NIOSH policy. Information included in NASD appears by permission
of the author and/or copyright holder. More
NASD Review: 04/2002
Karen
Debord, Extension Specialist, Family and Child Development,
University of Missouri, Columbia
Ann A. Hertzler, Extension Specialist, Human Nutrition and Foods,
Virginia Tech
Publication Number
348-651
,
May 1996
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