Learning Something New

I know I haven’t written about the babies in a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy with work and school. Lately, at the end of the day I don’t feel like writing. My weekly favorites have been missing as well because it was quicker and easier for me to get them using the twitter client I have to use. That hasn’t been working properly for a while so I haven’t had time to go through my tweets manually from the website. Anyway, I hope to get back to blogging regularly soon, but if I’m not writing much it’s because I’m busy.

The babies are doing well. Baby L is now crawling. His new favorite thing is to look out the window and bang on it. He’ll sit in front of the window and babble to himself. Today, we tried letting him walk with a push toy, but he’s not ready. He doesn’t understand that he has to put one foot in front of the other. He was fascinated with how the wheels turned on the toy. He kept spinning the wheels and rolling the toy back and forth. Most of the time, he was hitting me with it, but at least he was enjoying himself. He’s also been introduced to a lot of new foods in the past few weeks. He was extremely picky before, but now he’ll eat just about anything. Another game he likes now is when I role a ball away from him, he’ll crawl after it. He’ll bring the ball back to me so we can play again. He’s also replaced Crawling Baby at the gate as you come into the room. He likes to stand there and see what’s going on. We have to move him every time we want to get in or out.

Crawling Baby is now walking. I saw him take a few steps a few weeks ago. Now he’s almost running, but he usually falls because he’s going too fast. Yesterday, he grabbed my hand and we walked around the room a few times. He got new shoes this week which he loves. We know this because he doesn’t even try to take them off. He didn’t like the sandals he had before. I think the shoes give him better balance. Anyway, he likes to walk back and forth across the room from me to the couch. He’ll do that with anyone who will sit and wait for him. In September he will be transitioned to the toddler room. It’s crazy that he’s moving up already. Today he got to play with shaving cream and some paint. He liked the squishy feeling of it and got it all over the place.

Baby C is also crawling now. She also walks while holding on to things. She was having fun walking in front of a push toy today. She’s also learned to clap her hands which she does often. She’ll babble when I clap her hands for her, but when she does it herself, she’s very quiet like she’s concentrating. She’s teething right now so she wanted to snuggle for most of the day. I also played games with her and Baby L on the big ball where I’d lift them over the ball and back down to the floor. I’d sit them up on the ball and bounce the ball while holding on to them so they wouldn’t fall. They seem to like anything to do with the big ball.

Baby K has gotten better about being at the center, but I haven’t seen her much. She’s leaving later in August. Baby M and Baby J can sit up by themselves now, but I haven’t seen much of them either. Baby M naps a lot when he’s there. He’s also slower to warm up to unfamiliar people so he doesn’t interact as much with me except when it’s my time to feed him. He doesn’t mind that, but he squirms a lot and it takes a while for him to finish the bottle. They are all growing and learning so fast. By the next time I see them, I’m sure they will have learned something new.

Assignment: My Connections to Play

"Creative play is like a spring that bubbles up from deep within a child."" - Joan Almon
“Play is the highest form of research.” - Albert Einstein


When I was about four or five, my favorite toys were my dolls and kitchen set. I had a ton of accessories for the dolls. I enjoyed pretending to care for the babies. I named them all and there were a couple that I took everywhere with me. Before I could remember, my grandmother got me my first doll. My mom and grandmother told me that I couldn’t stand the feeling of her hair so they had to cut it off. After that, I’d actually play with the doll, but when I was about five, I got a new doll that I called Kelly who was my favorite for the next couple of years. The last thing I remember about playing with those two dolls is dressing them up in my old baby clothes. I also had a few sets of blocks that I played with often. I’d build houses, roads, castles and cages for my plastic animals. I’ve always enjoyed creating things and I’d usually start projects by myself. I’d use cardboard boxes, paint, paper scraps; anything really that I could make something out of.






For outdoor play, my favorite thing at home and preschool was the sand box. At preschool, there sand was full of clay. I remember finding as many pieces of clay as I could and putting them in a bucket. My grandfather built my sand box at home. There, I’d spend hours building sand castles, filling buckets of sand and making roads. Many of my memories of play took place outside. In elementary school, my favorite place to play was the beach with my best friend. We’d either go to a beach by her house or another beach in town. We swam, got knocked over by ocean waves and walked along the beach looking for shells and sea glass. I had quite a sea glass and shell collection back then. In the winter, I remember playing in the snow. I’d help my mom shovel, build snowmen, make snow angels, jump into snow banks and slide down big hills. I think I’d be a different person today without all those play experiences. I think children need a variety of play experiences to make them well-rounded.



Photo found from here.

Unfortunately, these days, children don’t get the same opportunities to play. Much of their time is taken up by technology, structured activities or sports and many children don’t even live near their friends. That makes it hard for them to play outside of school. Parents have more safety concerns than ever before. Whether they are valid or not, they are a big reason for keeping kids inside. At school, there is no time left for play because of the push for learning math and literacy at an earlier age. Children are less connected with nature now. I learned a lot from playing in nature when I was a kid because nature is hands on and can be experienced with all the senses. Today’s children don’t get enough time outside and most of the ones who do stay in playgrounds. I hope that children can start to connect with nature, explore natural settings like beaches or the woods and that they have a variety of play experiences instead of only with video games or the small amount of time they might get at school. My hope for the future is that play can be returned to children’s homes and classrooms.

Relationship Reflection

When thinking about this assignment, I realized there weren’t many people to talk about in my relationship reflection. I used to be close to my grandfather before he passed away and I had a few close friends during school, but we’ve grown apart over the years. They have their own lives now. It’s difficult to maintain relationships when the people are moving in totally different directions. There are a couple of people I’ll talk about here who are important to me. This is weird for me because it’s hard to put the way I feel about these relationships into words. It’s not something I’m used to talking about.


My boyfriend, Carlos:
I can talk to him about pretty much anything. If I have a problem, I can ask for advice. He supports me in the things I want to do, makes me laugh and helps me out with whatever comes up.

Then there is my mom. She’s a kind and hard working person. She was there for my brothers and I when we needed something. She’s always pushed me to do my best, has been my advocate throughout school and I can also ask her for help if I need anything.

Other important people in my life are the children I work with. At each place I’ve worked at, there are always one or two children who I really connect with. First, it was Maddie and Shy and now it’s Crawling Baby and Baby L. It’s not that I want to show favoritism or that I don’t like the other children because I do, but there are always a few who stand out. These children have all been different, but they are the reason I like my job. They have entertained me, taught me new things and I’m always happy to see them.

I’ve always had better relationships with animals than people because animals love unconditionally, they aren’t judgmental and they provide comfort. When you’ve had a bad day, they know it and can cheer you up. This has been the case since I’ve had my first dog, Sully. He was abused by previous owners, but we took him in and showed him a good home. He was sensitive, but protective.



When I lost Sully, my cat Doorknob became my best buddy. Seeing him could always put me in a better mood. I left home for my first semester of college. The night I came home for the holidays, he jumped up in my lap. That was the only time he ever sat in anyone’s lap. It was obvious he missed me. I have so many great memories of him.




My current pets are cats named Diamond and Mellow. I’ve had Diamond since she was a kitten and Mellow since he was one year old. Diamond especially has a strong bond with me. She gets mad if I leave for any longer than a few hours. They run to the door and are happy to see me when I come home. They provide me with entertainment, joy, comfort and friendship. In return, I give them a good home and make sure all their needs are being met.


I’m lucky to have these amazing people and animals in my life.

Make Him Laugh

Today, the babies were busy. I played with Baby L and Crawling Baby for most of the morning. Crawling Baby played in the tunnel, bounced on the big ball and walked around with a push toy. He’s getting even better at walking. He was able to walk while hanging on to the couch. When he got to the end, he grabbed the bouncer and finally was able to walk towards the window. He likes watching the kids and when I went over to him, he cried for me to open the door. He wanted to go outside, but it wasn’t very nice out this morning. We played peak-a-boo with the big ball which he thought was funny. A lot of stuff we do is repetition from day to day or week to week, but that’s what the babies need.

While I played with Baby L, Crawling Baby was busy reading. He likes to flip through books and babble to himself. It’s funny to watch because sometimes he’ll look at the same book and babble for at least ten minutes. Lately, he’s been showing more of an interest in books. For a few minutes, he was sharing his book with Baby L. It was sideways while they were looking at it, but they kept feeling the textures on the pages. Baby L would try to take it away, but I did my best to keep it between them so they could both look at it. They didn’t mind. I don’t expect them to share because they don’t understand how, but as long as it wasn’t frustrating them, I thought it was okay. For a long time, Baby L played with different rattles and spinning toys. I found a mini phone on the shelf which I was going to give to them, but when I tried to see if you could lift up the phone, the thing snapped in half. Luckily, no one noticed and I just shoed it to another teacher who threw it away. I figured it was poorly made since I didn’t pull the phone that hard.

During lunch, I fed Crawling Baby. He was so disappointed with the soft tacos that he barely ate and eventually, he put his head down and fell asleep. At snack time though, he wanted more and more yogurt. After two bowls, we decided that was enough because he wouldn’t drink his milk either. Since he still seemed sad and tired, I’d make funny faces right before each spoonful of yogurt to make him laugh. He usually tries to feed himself, but luckily, after a couple of spoonfuls, he realized that he couldn’t pick yogurt up from the table. He started to cry again later because another teacher had wiped his nose. He hates things like that. Anyway, he was standing holding on to the couch and my hand and I was sitting half way on the couch. I purposefully slid off the couch to make it look like I fell and he thought that was so funny. He pulled my hand to help me up and we started all over again, but this time, he’d pull my hand to make me fall off. Finally, he saw Baby L standing in front of the mirror so he went over there and almost knocked him over.

Baby L can use the shelf or the wooden bar in front of the mirror to pull himself up. He did that for the first time today. Baby C can also walk holding on to the couch, but instead of crawling, she roles everywhere. They brought out one new toy that I thought was cool. It’s an inflatable duck that you put water in and there are little things floating around inside. The babies liked watching the floating things and hitting the duck so the water made a little splashing noise. That’s the closest thing to water play we’ve done so far except Crawling Baby finding some puddles outside. Overall it was a pretty good day.

Music and Sand

Today I spent a few hours with the toddlers, but since there were a couple extra teachers, I spent most of the time in the classroom cleaning and taking care of other things while the kids were either napping or outside. Towards the end of the day when there were only two kids left, one of the girls decided she wanted to play the drum. It’s a medium sized drum with two sticks. We both took one. Her drumming was loud of course so I showed her that she could drum quietly as well which didn’t last long. She kept trying to put the sticks back into holders on the drum, but she couldn’t quite push them in. I’d get them started for her, but then she realized it worked better if she pushed them in with her foot. We also tested what the sticks sounded like when moved across the drum and on three different balls. After a while she pushed them away and went back to loud drumming with both sticks. One of the supervisors came in and told her that she loved her music. They had one of those stability balls in the room so she loved bouncing on that too. She thought it was fun to fall off. This girl usually gets into trouble almost every day, but today she was doing great. She didn’t get in trouble at all and on the playground, she skipped around telling everyone how happy she was.

I stopped by the infant room to see if the teacher in there needed help. Crawling Baby came over to the gate and started to whine at me so I picked him up and talked to him for a few minutes. When I went to put him down, he started to cry so I tried to get him to play with a couple toys, but then the teacher suggested I take him to the sand box. He was happy out there. He liked watching me shovel sand into a bucket. I’d do it in different ways. Sometimes, I’d slowly let the sand fall into the bucket or quickly dump it in which he thought was funny. I started to dump the bucket because I thought he’d enjoy seeing the big pile of sand, but he didn’t want me to. He wanted me to keep shoveling and patting. I started to tell him about the texture of the sand when he spotted his mom on the preschool playground. I held his hands and we walked over to her. She told me how much Crawling Baby loves the sand box, but I think he was glad to be going home.

Weekly Favorites for June 26, 2011

1.
Sink and Float Activity Plus Extentions.
The simple sink and float activity with all sorts of neat extentions.

2.
Let's Build a Flower Shop!
A fun dramatic play activity.

3.
Edible Sand
A few creative summer snacks.

4.
Bubbles and Light
A fun light table activity using bubbles.

5.
Making color Wheels in Preschool
An activity to help children learn colors.

6.
Sea Shell I Spy Bottle
An ocean themed I spy bottle for summer.

7.
The Worlds Best Bubbles
An easy recipe for homemade bubbles.

8.
At the Beach Cupcakes
A cute beach themed snack.

9.
Infant Activities.
A few activities for babies one year and under.

10.
Layered Ball Scavenger Hunt.
A great fine motor activity.

First Steps

Today was a long day. Most of the babies were fussy and I was tired. We were going to go for another walk, but things got in the way. We spent a lot of time outside on the playground though. Baby L had fun playing in the sand box and Baby C was happy on the swing. It was funny how the babies were fussy and unhappy inside, but when they were outside, they were happy. It was a nice day because it wasn’t too hot or too cold. Crawling Baby wasn’t himself this morning. He played a little bit, but wasn’t all over the place like usual. After lunch, they took his temperature and found that he had a fever so his mom came to get him.

While playing this morning, he stood up using the shelf and took two or three steps on his own. One of the teachers said he did that yesterday as well, but these were his first steps that I saw. I think he’ll be walking within the next few weeks. In August, they might be moving up to the toddler room. I told him that I’d have to go visit. They grow so fast!

Assignment: Child Development

I chose the following resources to demonstrate important concepts and skills within the field of child development.
Here’s a video demonstrating the beginnings of social development for babies. Even babies can have buddies. Babies become interested in each other and learn to imitate.

The following story demonstrates the beginnings of developing empathy in infants. This link also includes extra resources. Developing empathy is important because children who are kind to others feel better about themselves.
An Act of Infant Kindness
I found this poem about play; the building block of child development. Play is how children learn skills from each developmental domain. The poem shows physical, cognitive and social skills. Play is enjoyable to children, but it also prepares them to be successful in the future.
When I am building with the blocks please don't say I'm "just playing".
For you see, I'm learning as I play, about balance and shapes.
Who knows, I may be an architect someday.
When I'm getting all dressed up, setting the table, caring for the babies, don't get the idea I'm "just playing".
For, you see, I'm learning as I play;
I may be a mother or a father someday.
When you see me up to my elbows in paint or standing at an easel, or molding and shaping clay, please don't let me hear you say, "He is just playing".
For, you see, I'm learning as I play.
I'm expressing myself and being creative.
I may be an artist or an inventor someday.
When you see me sitting in a chair "reading" to an imaginary audience, please don't laugh and think I'm "just playing".
For, you see, I'm learning as I play.
I may be a teacher someday.
When you see me combing the bushes for bugs, or packing my pockets with choice things I find, don't pass it off as "just play".
For you see, I'm learning as I play.
I may be a scientist someday.
When you see me engrossed in a puzzle or some "plaything" at my school, please don't feel the time is wasted in "play".
For, you see, I'm learning as I play. I'm learning to solve problems and concentrate.
I may be in business someday.
When you see me cooking or tasting foods please don't think that because I enjoy it, it is "just play".
I'm learning to follow direction and see differences.
I may be a cook someday.
When you see me learning to skip, hop, run and move my body, please don't say I'm "just playing".
For, you see, I'm learning as I play. I'm learning how my body works.
I may be a doctor, nurse or athlete someday.
When you ask me what I've done at school today, and I say, "I just played", please don't misunderstand me.
For you see, I'm learning as I play. I'm learning to enjoy and be successful in my work.
I'm preparing for tomorrow.
Today, I am a child and my work is play.
Author unknown.
I found it here.
There are so many resources I could choose from and it was hard to narrow it down to three, but I picked pieces of child development that are interesting to me.

Weekly Favorites for June 19, 2011

Here are my favorites for the week. I hope you enjoy them.



1.
Melted Hot Rocks from Irresistible Ideas for play based learning.
A neat project using rocks and melted wax.

2.
Book Pages Turned Placemats from Pocketful of Posies.
Here's an idea for old books that are falling apart.

3.
Stained Glass collage from handmade Beginnings.
A simple project using a variety of materials.

4.
DIY Light Table for Preschool from Teach Preschool.
Also check out her Mini Light Box.
A great inexpensive idea for making your own light box.

5.
Candy Sensory Tub from Counting Coconuts.
A fun candy sensory tub.

6.
Montessori-Inspired Ocean Unit for Summer Learning and Fun from LivingMontessoriNow.com.
A resource for a bunch of ocean themed activities.

7.
Ice Tunnels: Bring on the Summer Fun! from Art and Creativity.
A fun summer activity using ice, salt and food coloring.

8.
Fun Food Friday Somewhere Over the Rainbow from Meet the Dubiens.
An edible rainbow!

9.
Stuffed Heart Collage Card. from The Imagination Tree.
A Father's day idea. It could be used for other greeting cards as well.

10.
Pudding Beach Cups from Sun Scholars.
A creative beach themed snack.

11.
Noodle Beads from Crafty Soccer Mom.
A simple and inexpensive craft.

Splash

Today, we did mostly the usual stuff with the babies. There were only four of them. This morning, Crawling Baby was the only one awake so we brought him outside to the sand box. He liked tipping a bucket over and moving a shovel around in the sand. I took another shovel and showed him how to put sand in the bucket, but he was more interested in tipping it over. That’s okay though, he’s just getting used to the sand. As he was crawling around the playground, he found a puddle which he enjoyed playing in. His clothes were soaked afterward and he got cold, but he really likes playing in the water. On the infant playground, there’s a hill and on one side, there’s a slide that goes from the top to the bottom. Crawling Baby had fun sliding down, but he wanted to crawl up the slide instead of crawling back up the hill. I watched him try and try for at least ten minutes. Eventually, he did it on his own! I was surprised that he didn’t get frustrated and give up. He fussed a few times and I’d walk down the hill to where he was on the slide. He’d look over at me and then get back to what he was doing. He was happy to reach the top.

This morning, Crawling Baby started hiding in a tunnel. This tunnel is underneath this wooden play pen type thing. It’s a wide tunnel that has two sections. It has four entrances, but two of them are blocked off by walls, but it’s easy for them to crawl in and out. I was sitting in the middle of the room and he started babbling from the tunnel to get my attention. I peaked in the tunnel and he’d laugh. Then I’d hide and he’d peak out at me. This went on for a few minutes until he found a rubber duck inside the tunnel. He threw it out at me and I threw it back in. It’d bounce around a little and he’d laugh. To make it more of a challenge, I started throwing the duck to the back part of the tunnel. Crawling Baby would go back there to get it, but he’d still throw it the same distance. Instead of it landing near me like he wanted, it’d only land in the front part of the tunnel so he’d have to throw it two or three times. That didn’t last long. It was kind of frustrating for him so he went back to only sitting in the front part of the tunnel. After that, he wanted to sit on my lap and we looked at books. He misses his morning nap that he doesn’t get anymore.
In the afternoon, Baby L and Baby C loved catching bubbles. The other teacher would blow the bubbles and Baby C would role after them. Baby L kept reaching up with his hands. Baby C would babble and Baby L would giggle if there was a big bubble. I knew the toddlers went nuts for them, but I had never seen how the babies reacted to them. It was too bad Crawling Baby was napping because it would’ve been funny to see him chase and pop them.
The other teacher also brought out this mat that when you crawl or walk on it, it makes different sounds. There are bell and honking sounds, but at the end, there’s a splash sound. Baby C liked rolling over the mat and wasn’t quite sure where the sounds were coming from, but she enjoyed it the most out of everyone. Crawling Baby figured out that the sounds come out from this plastic box. He’d hit the footprints and realized that’s how it makes the sound, but surprisingly he didn’t crawl on it. Baby L just sat next to it and hit the footprints that were closest to him. I’d hit the other ones so he could hear the other sounds. I think their favorite was the splash, but they liked the other sounds too and kept dragging the mat all over the place. The babies had a fun day!