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Foreign Language at Goddard School

Friday, December 18th, 2009

At The Goddard School of Cedar Park, English is not necessarily the primary language for a child! Here are some suggestions on second language development for young children.
To start out with you begin easily when they are born speaking and singing to them in both English and the second or even third language of our choice. As you continue to do this you will notice your infant paying close attention to both languages and soon it will become very natural for them to hear this.

As the baby continues to grow you can start to associate words with actions or items. For example, if you are playing with a stuffed dog you can say the word in English as well as Spanish and do it repeatedly. You can do with just about anything you do with your baby and toddler. As you feed them you can tell them what they are eating and say the words “spoon” or “fork” in the foreign language as well.

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Exposing an infant or young child to a learning environment, such as The Goddard School, that makes learning languages fun and exciting without being rigid like other learning methods can also be beneficial. Besides becoming accustomed to the new language they are also getting social interaction with other babies and children their age.

There are so many advantages that come with your infant and toddler learning a second language! It is very important to give them the chance to learn early in life – this will make it easier when they begin more formal language classes in school and expose them to the richness of other cultures in the world around us.

Visit our website @ http://www.goddardschool.com//Schools/Cedar-Park-TX/Schools.gspx & follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/GoddardSchoolCP

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Toddlers and Infants Reap Benefits with Learning Second Languages

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

At The Goddard School of Cedar Park, it’s not unusual to hear languages other than English spoken by our children. Like most parents when we first have our children and they are small infants and toddlers we often get caught up in all the emotions of seeing their adorable faces and marveling over the little things they do like clapping their hands together for the first time or taking those first steps. However we often forget that their little minds are like sponges and how beneficial it is for them to learn more advanced things such as second languages. Some homes are naturally bilingual but for other homes they often leave learning second languages up to the school or something for the instructors or teachers to do. Let’s take a look at all the advantages that come with teaching infants and toddlers second languages at home while they are still little.

A picture of a young child
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Studies have been going on for many years that show how beneficial teaching a new language to babies and young children can be. From the second they are born up until they are five years old children are able to absorb new materials very easily. This short window of opportunity is often overlooked. Instead of focusing on the simple things your child is likely to learn on their own one should consider trying to teach them a second language. It is not very difficult to do and there are many small steps you can take to get a head start.

You can begin teaching second languages when they are just small infants. Babies can understand a great deal even before they are able to communicate. Just as a baby first learns to speak and say the basic words like “Ma-Ma” and “Da-Da” they are also able to learn words of other languages just as easily. As their brain develops they are able to track certain sounds, contours and rhythms of words and languages.

I’ll continue with some more ideas on second languages in my next blog. Visit our website @ http://www.goddardschool.com//Schools/Cedar-Park-TX/Schools.gspx & follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/GoddardSchoolCP

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Potty Training Tips

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

At The Goddard School of Cedar Park, potty training is a frequent topic that comes up with parents. So Are you ready to throw out the diapers for good? Common signs that a child is ready to start using the potty are showing interest in the bathroom, letting you know when it’s time for a diaper change, and making funny facial expressions when he goes in his diaper. Another sign that he’s ready is waking up from a nap with a dry diaper. This shows that he is making a subconscious decision not to wet himself. If your child is showing any of these signs, it may be time to start potty training. Potty training can be a rocky road, but here are some potty training tips to make the ride go smoothly.

Just like Daddy...
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Transitioning from diapers to the potty chair can be a scary time for a toddler. Anything new has the tendency to frighten toddlers, so you should do your best to ensure your child that this is not a bad thing. Make it fun. One of the best potty training tips is to present the potty chair like it’s a special gift just for him. Wrap it up in pretty paper, with a big colorful bow, and let your child open it like a present. You’d be amazed at how excited a toddler can get over a potty chair. This will make his introduction to the potty a happy experience, instead of a frightening one.

Another great potty training tip is to make it a point to sit your child on the potty several times a day, even if you’re not sure he needs to go. Toddlers don’t yet know their bodies well enough to decide whether they need to use the potty, so you will have to take some control over this until your child is able to recognize when he needs to go. If you need to, set a timer to go off every ten or fifteen minutes.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times over, but you can never go wrong with lots, and lots of praise. Kids love to get special attention from their parents. Before he’s even gotten the hang of it, tell your child he did a great job just for trying. The first time he actually goes in the potty make a huge deal out of it. Clap your hands, and excitedly say “hooray! You went pee pee in the potty like a big kid!” You can even make up your own potty song. There are some hilarious potty songs on the web. Just search youtube for potty training tips, and potty songs.

The reward system is tried and true. Using special prizes is the easiest, and most obvious way to motivate your child to use the potty. You can use stickers, candy, or even something unique that he shows an interest in. If your child loves cars, go to the dollar store and buy a variety package of matchbox cars. Just use what you know about your toddler to make him want to use the potty.

The most valuable potty training tip I can give you is to stay consistent. Don’t get discouraged. If you’re on the go a lot, you may want to purchase an extra potty chair to keep in your car. Remember, toddlers are creatures of habit, and keeping up with a routine is very important to them.

Visit our website @ http://www.goddardschool.com//Schools/Cedar-Park-TX/Schools.gspx & follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/GoddardSchoolCP

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Goddard School – routines and discipline

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Goddard School parents often ask about the role of discipline in their child’s development. Routines and rituals are an important element of this topic. Read on for ideas by child development expert, Dr. Kyle Pruett.

Dr. Kyle D. Pruett, M.
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Routines and Rituals by Kyle D. Pruett, M.D
Ah, routines and rituals…such comforts against the one universal truth that life is nothing but change. Our children seem to get this sooner than we parents. When they struggle as infants to get the day and night thing down, they are teaching us how important and soothing the predictable is when tired, hungry, cranky and the like. As toddlers, we watch in amazement as they doggedly line up their shoes, trucks or dolls in the face of a little uncertainty and in search of the reassuring symmetry of order. These are not simple entertainments, but powerful and effective coping strategies that, if we are lucky, they never quite give up. Some of the uses of the psychological calendar of anticipation and predictability:

-By 18 months:  Children know the routines of everyday life and are very reassured by them: dressing, mealtimes, play, school, bath time, and finally bedtime with a story and a kiss. These are an antidote to the uncertainties of this period of rapid growth.
- By 24 to 26 months:  Children have a reliable sense of the week’s rhythms, and appreciate the difference between a weekday and a weekend.
- By 42 months:  Children begin to anticipate the predictable patterns of the year and its changing seasons, family gatherings, holidays, and birthdays.

All the while they are soaking up the beginnings of culture and ethnic diversity in such vital rituals.

Routines and rituals are especially important (and sometimes hardest) to maintain when a child is ill, or the family is going through a stressful time. Routines around food, clothing, bathing, going to school and sleep can be soothing precisely because they don’t vary in the face of change.  The ultimate routine or ritual is mealtime. Children learn about what matters in life in a regular, predictable, culture-rich and (one hopes) nutritious environment. Plan it and protect it.

Ultimately, they (and we) give up most of these early comforts, going the way of the blankie and binkie. The next generation of routine and ritual comforts owe their efficacy to these early and more primitive coping strategies.  So honor and promote them while you may. They disappear all too soon.

Kyle D. Pruett, M.D. is an advisor for The Goddard School®. Dr. Pruett is an authority on child development who has been practicing child and family psychiatry for over twenty-five years. He is a clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale University’s Child Study Center.

Visit our website @ http://www.goddardschool.com//Schools/Cedar-Park-TX/Schools.gspx & follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/GoddardSchoolCP

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What Your Child Learns Through Play-Part II

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

At The Goddard School of Cedar Park, we take play “seriously!”  Here are some things we (and you as a parent) will observe.

Get Set (30 to 36 months): Just like the name states, get set for more play. The Get Set child is truly developing an identity. He knows his own name – first and last – and can tell you where his friends are playing. Get Setters know ‘they can do it’ and want to be like adults. They will share and wait turns, communicate in short sentences and demonstrate their personal understanding of the world around them in their play. Get Set children will soak up any information you share with them. They can understand words like “under” and “over” and the description of how a plant grows. Art is no longer about exploring the material itself, but rather what they can do with the material. They will even paint with the opposite side of the paint brush just to see what it will create. Get set for your child to amaze you with his knowledge of good hygiene and specific book choices. A Get Set child can also multi-task now; try singing and doing the motions to the song or have a conversation while he paints.

Two children with instrument. Międzyzdroje.
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Preschool (36 months +): This is the age of expectations. The preschool child’s play looks like going to work. As he mingles among the Interest Centers he is also playing out a role. Preschoolers have a large vocabulary and understand the intonations of language. As they act out a role, they will try on different emotions and see how they fit into their own personality. Preschoolers have begun to connect the spoken word to written language and can orally retell a favorite story. They are interested in cause and effect and can identify their colors, shapes, sizes and weights; and they want to explore what happens when they change them. A preschool child may remain in a particular Interest Center for long periods of time until he has exhausted his curiosity. Don’t forget to stand back because the preschool child also needs his space to move. Watch as he develops rhythm and tempo as both an individual or group learner. Either way, preschoolers are movers and shakers.

Pre-Kindergarten (48 months +): Complexity is the nature of the Pre-K classroom. Pre-Kindergarteners are complex social beings wanting to play with specific friends and still identifying when they want to do it alone. They can recognize how objects and people are the same and different simultaneously, and they can appreciate those attributes. Playing is beginning to turn into concepts. For instance, all of the exploration at the water table develops into an understanding of water – floating, sinking, absorbing, dissolving, etc. Pre-K children use their four years of play experience to develop an identifiable knowledge – they can match by relationships and verbalize invisible concepts, such as time and calendars. They no longer need to see or hold the toy to play; they can recall previous experiences and use the knowledge. While listening to music they can name the instrument, move to the beat and sing along. In Pre-K, phonemic awareness and the written word are magical – writing words is play.

Visit our website at http://www.goddardschool.com//Schools/Cedar-Park-TX/Schools.gspx and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/GoddardSchoolCP

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What Your Child Learns Through Play

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

At The Goddard School of Cedar Park, play is an important part of your child’s development.

There are a myriad of developmental skills that children learn through play. From their infant to Pre-Kindergarten stages, children are experiencing and learning new things each and every day. With play consuming most of their time, there are different things children learn during every stage of their growth.

Infant to Six Months: Everything is a baby’s first. For example, the first time a baby opens his eyes in his bassinet, he discovers something new – an animal on his mobile. The next morning, there it is again. Will it be there tomorrow? Yes, and then baby learns to trust that when he opens his eyes he will always see the mobile’s giraffe looking back at him. Babies will engage in play first by responding to sounds, then by following objects and people with their eyes. Your baby will demonstrate his memory by repeating an action that made you laugh yesterday. Once infants can hold a rattle a whole new world opens up – you will watch them turn it over, bang it, shake it and even taste it. Rolling over also widens a baby’s world from what is placed before him to 360 degrees of eye-catching curiosity. The new world is fun.

Six Months to One Year: Baby is now his own driving force to play. He no longer needs an adult or older sibling to spark his interest. Rolling over and sitting up has created choices and as he discovers how to move from lying to sitting, he is covering ground and taking aim at his own source of interest. Place toys within and outside of your baby’s reach to encourage self-discovery and motion. Your child is brilliant and will look at a familiar object when called by name. Babies not only want to turn objects around, they want to talk to them and use them the way you tell them to use them. See my hands! You say “clap” with a smile on your face and baby wants to clap and smile, too.

First Steps (12 to 18 months): No longer a baby, a First Stepper “steps” into everything. A First Step child will play with water, smell a flower (which is not as easy as you think) and recognize animals like the ones from the mobile. He will join in the conversation with simple words and phrases and respond to “bye, bye,” with an unsolicited wave. One-year-olds love to demonstrate their knowledge – they will point to anything you name and find body parts, like their ears, when they cannot even see them. They have learned to trust their own experiences with their ears. Your one-year-old will play with you and imitate your actions. Watch your child reflect your love a baby doll with “hugs and kisses” and help you the way you have guided him.

Toddler (18-30 months): A toddler’s world is all about ME – “Me do it”! This demonstration of independence is an exercise in trusting the child’s own limits. A toddler will speak on a play phone and answer questions such as “Why?” and “Where?” Playing is on his terms – when and how. Toddlers love new experiences, too. They have graduated from ‘turning it over and tasting it’ to doing it right. A toddler will put a puzzle together, hold crayons in his hand, hum and sing as he plays, and join activities without prompting. Give your toddler plenty of opportunities to join in imaginary play – pour from one cup to another and manipulate play dough.

My next blog will continue this topic for 30 months through 4 years old.

Visit our website at http://www.goddardschool.com//Schools/Cedar-Park-TX/Schools.gspx and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/GoddardSchoolCP

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True Toys and Their Positive Effects on Children

Monday, September 28th, 2009
Play dough
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True toys have no bells or whistles, they do not do anything and you do not turn them on. Most toys today have taken the fun out of imaginative play. Manipulating toys and giving them life develops reasoning and problem-solving skills as well as creates a base of simple knowledge of how things work.

Infants
Rattles – Fine motor development toy of the century. Grasping, repetitive motion that creates a desired outcome, music, hand-eye coordination and focusing visually on a moving object are all part of infant learning. Have rattles handy in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes and sounds.

One-Year-Olds
Blocks, blocks and more blocks – Spatial relationships, size and shape discrimination leads to early math skills, fine motor control as well as cause and effect. This true toy is fun at any age! A child may spend hours building and knocking down blocks while developing science skills including balance, gravity and concepts of weight.

Two-Year-Olds
Paint and play-dough – It is messy and that is why they like it so much. This tactile experience will open the doors of creativity and thinking. Let them mix the colors, use different tools and add to the experience by playing some music in the background. Finger paint, paintbrushes and textured paint can be mixed with a variety of painting surfaces for further explanation.

Three-Year-Olds
A ball – Look at everything you can do with a ball – kick it, catch it, sit on it, bounce it, dribble it, play alone or with someone. A ball develops gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination and encourages healthy practices. A child needs to learn to handle a ball before they can handle a pencil.

Four- to Five-Year-Olds
Dramatic Play – Dramatic play is more than dress-up. It is a shovel, a whisk, a pad of paper. It is a pile of dirt, an old tire and a cardboard box. The sky is the limit – if your children have seen it, they want to explore it. Cut the cord off an old landline telephone and let them look inside as the telephone repair man. True toys for a four year old are simply real life items. These toys will allow children to try on new personalities and play out roles.

Visit our website at http://www.goddardschool.com//Schools/Cedar-Park-TX/Schools.gspx for more info.

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