Are you introducing your children to math concepts or do you think they are too young? There is no such thing as too young! We can begin to plant the seeds of what we want children to learn from a very early age. Never underestimate the learning power of your child. How do you think we children who can play the piano or read at 1 or 2 years old? Its because somebody said, “hey let’s try this!”
Today I did a “live” video on Instagram showing the ways in which we can teach emerging counting and cardinality, recognizing, comparing and classifying patterns and algebraic thinking! The video is geared toward the parents and teachers of young children.
For me the best part was that I only used on tool to teach all of those skills! As a parent or a teacher of young children you can do the same thing. I will put a link to the counting bears that I used in my video, but you can also use things around the house like different size spoons, marbles, beans, beads, combs makeup brushes.
Take some time today and try the strategies that I shared with you and let me know how it goes!
The Common Core is a set of uniform learning standards that were created to describe the skills that students should have at each level of learning. The idea was that if we have one set of challenging academic standards then it would improve achievement and college readiness.
The standards are the same across the board in all but 7 states. Four of those seven states (AK, TX, NE, VA) never adopted the standards, while (OK, IN, SC) adopted the standards then changed their minds. Why is this important? Because if a family moved to a different state sometimes the rigor of the lessons was not the same, causing a gap in learning or engagement. For instance, in my senior year, I lived in Alabama. Before the move, all of my schoolings happened in Ohio. I only had two classes left to take in my senior year. Once I moved to Alabama, I was behind the curve and had to take a full load of classes to gain enough credits to graduate with my class. That is because the standards for learning in Ohio were not the same as the standards in Alabama.
There has been, and probably still is a lot of controversy around the implementation and understanding of the CC standards. This blog is not to debate the legitimacy of the standards but to work with what we have.
One complaint that was prevalent in the early childhood world was that some of the CC skills were too advanced for 1st and 2nd graders. They didn’t have the previous knowledge that was necessary to tackle those skills.
Children learn almost everything from what they experience in the world around them. Some things they know because we are teaching it directly, and some things they learn by watching and experiencing the world around them.
Have you ever told a child to “Stop running!” or “Don’t step in that puddle!” and they did the exact thing you told them not to do? That’s because of the way their brains are wired. We can’t change that, so instead, we must change our approach.
Rephrase your request in a positive way: Instead of saying, “No, don’t run, “try, “Please walk inside.”
Let your child know what he may do instead of telling him what he can’t do: Instead of, “No, you can’t have a cookie now,” try saying, “You may have a cookie after dinner. Instead of, “No! No throwing balls indoors,” try saying, “You can roll the ball indoors or take it outside and throw it. What’s your choice?”
Ask for your child’s help and thank him when he gets it right: Instead of, “No! I told you not to take your shoes off because we’re getting ready to go,” try saying, “You need your shoes on to go outside. Please help me find them so we can get ready to go. Thank you for helping me.”
Being mindful of how you phrase what you say will contribute to a more favorable environment for you and the child.
Today is the first day of school in my city. I have been an educator for over 27 years, and every year at this time, I feel a sense of excitement. I am excited about the new people I will meet and what students and teachers will learn this year.
This year, 2020, is different. I have two distinct feelings. I feel anxiety about how children will learn and their ability to adapt their learning to this new normal. I also feel excited about coming up with creative ways to circumvent the unique challenges that will arise.
During the next couple of weeks, we should practice the following:
Give ourselves, and our students grace. We will all make mistakes, get frustrated, and feel inadequate during this time. It’s ok!!! This is the first time any of us has spent the early days of school under these circumstances. If you plan something and it doesn’t work as you expected, change it!
Be encouraged. Every day look for things that bring you joy. Look for small wins. Look for joy and wins for your students.
Be intentional. When you wake up in the morning decide on the type of day you and your students will have. Redirect your thoughts and actions when they do not fit into your intentional plan for the day.
If anything, 2020 will make us better teachers and better learners.
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed and well-fed.
Did you know that trauma can have an impact on the brain far beyond childhood? Trauma is defined as a response to any problematic event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences. The event does not have to be real, for instance, a child believing there is a monster under the bed.
Unaddressed trauma can affect the brain in the following ways:
Smaller brain size
Less efficient processing
Impaired stress response
Changes in gene expression
Let me explain what this means in layman’s terms. The upper part of the brain grows and thrives when children have positive experiences. When children feel unsafe or threatened, then the lower part of the brain thrives. The upper part of the brain controls bonding, learning to talk, and getting along with others. The lower part of the brain possesses the survival instinct. This is not to say that both positions are not essential but that we want to show as much growth as possible in the upper region of the brain.
PTSD is a mental health condition that can develop as a result of trauma. It affects the child’s ability to regulate attention, awareness, and emotions. PTSD can develop as a result of less efficient processing.
Having a response to stress is the body’s way of protecting you. If your stress response is impaired, it opens the child up to headaches, sleep disorders, and a host of other ailments into adulthood like heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
Changes in gene expression, in simple terms, means that cells can be altered by trauma and, in turn, alter behaviors in that child.
1. Have high levels of energy! The children will respond to you in the same way you react to them. If you are smiling and excited, they will be too.
2. Use TPR or Total Physical Response. TPR is using actions to correspond with words; for instance, if you say the word, five also show five fingers or five objects.
3. Use props! Use props to enrich the lesson and hold their attention. What kind of props, you say? Use a puppet to read a story or a flannel board to show pics.
4. Integrate some movement into the lesson. Plan for and take breaks where you dance, stretch, or do yoga poses.
5. Use a physical reward that the children can see for times when they are doing what they are supposed to do. You can cut out stars and reward them as the lesson progresses.
a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.”a personal trauma like the death of a child”
physical injury.
I have been in my feelings for weeks now, really months. It is a combination of the two pandemics we are experiencing simultaneously. One of the things I have been thinking about quite a bit is the aftereffects of the epidemics. There will be trauma that we will have to deal with after this is over collectively.
I am bringing this up because I am sure that we do not always recognize the challenges that we endure in this life as a trauma. More importantly, as a black woman, we just look at trauma and problems as a regular part of life, not even realizing that it is/was a big deal.
For example, I once went to a new gynecologist. She gave me what seemed like a thousand pages of paperwork to fill out; then, she reviewed each page with me during our consultation. On page two of the paperwork, I indicated that I had a vaginal birth and cesarean birth. On page three, when it asked if I ever had major surgery, I said no.
That’s the look my doctor had when I said I had never had major surgery. You see, I didn’t make the connection in my mind that the cesarean delivery was major surgery. That was pretty mind-blowing since, during a cesarean, they numbed everything from my waist down so they could cut through skin, fat, and muscle just to pull out some organs and dump them in a bowl. After they remove the organs, they pull out the baby, pack the organs back in (most likely incorrectly) and then staple your wounds back together.
I suddenly realized that not only had I experienced a severe surgery, but that the operation, the circumstances surrounding the surgery, and the aftermath of the surgery were all traumatic. This leads me to the thought about black women doing the back-breaking, risky, complicated tasks and brushing them off as if they are nothing. Taking on all the most traumatic of things and never looking at it or identifying it as trauma. Not realizing that since it is trauma and we have not addressed it properly or even identified it as such, then it manifests itself in other ways in our lives. We wonder why we are so tired, angry, unmotivated, disoriented, frustrated, and did I say tired?
The surgery was a symptom of the primary trauma, which was that I was hospitalized for two months on complete bed rest and delivered a baby at the 6-month mark, and she only lived for 22 days. That entire experience was a “deeply distressing and disturbing experience,” aka trauma. Since then, I had to do some significant work to address my trauma and heal from it; I’m still working.
I remember thinking that I just wanted to go back to the old me, the way I used to be before the trauma. One of the most challenging lessons I had to learn during my healing was that I could not go back to her. The Shawness that existed before the trauma had was transformed into a new iteration of me. My healing and coping are connected to getting to know and understand the latest version of me.
Here is the takeaway-trauma is transformative in a way that is akin to the way your hands can transform a lump of clay. The trauma will push you and pull you and stretch you and mold you until you become new.
The Sassy Scholar 