Podcast's & The Developing Child

            Just when I think I have explored everything that's out there on Early Childhood I become reminded that I have only begun to touch the surface. This week I visited the Center On The Developing Child (Harvard, 2014) and I found a new location of pod casts. I have been a member of NAEYC for just over nine years, how have I missed that they have pod casts? This week I discovered that both of my top favorite sites have pod casts! Both NAEYC & Zero To Three have pod casts, I am so excited, not only for myself but for my clients. What a fabulous resource on such a wide range of topics dealing with Early Childhood AND it's FREE!
            Developing Child from Harvard has a variety of types of resources such as multi-media, reports, briefs, and articles. As an example of just one of the links on how the brain works, there were more articles and multi-media than I could get through. Each link has tons of information on it's particular area of Child Development. It also felt to me that there were different levels of information, such as some papers might have been directed more for the general public to read and be able to comprehend. While other material was clearly written for practitioner's, there was something for everybody.
            I very much enjoyed going through a variety of pod casts from NAEYC Radio (NAEYC, 2014). There was such a variety of topics. One of the pod casts that I listened to was on creating emotionally safe environments for children. It talked specifically about bullying and one of the suggestions was to teach assertiveness not aggressiveness and of course that the child that is doing the bullying is most likely learned this behavior from their environment and is using it as a defense mechanism. I would encourage anyone involved and interested in ECE or anyone that is a parent to check out these resources.

Jennifer Pore`

Harvard University, (2014). Center On The Developing Child. Retrieved from
     http:/developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative
NAEYC Radio. (2014). Retrieved from
     www.naeyc.org/newsroom/NAEYCradio

More on The Global Fund

            Today I will tell you about more of the interesting information I found on the website of The Global Fund (Global Fund, 2014). I will begin with what I had the most fun in learning, and that definitely is directly relevant to my current professional development. As I have continued to dig deeper into this organization I have found that I genuinely admire the work that they do. One of my discoveries this week is that they have books that they sell, and of course an amount of the profits are turned back to the foundation. I found the majority of them interesting and have actually gone onto Amazon Books and have purchased five of them. The ones that I chose had to do with multi-cultural kids and their art along with one book that walks you through a curriculum that has the class make up their own culture! I can't wait to get these in the mail! If you are interested you can go to The Global Fund website which is http://globalfundforchildren.org or you can go to Amazon and type Global Fund Books into the search bar.
            I didn't find anything that I felt was controversial but there was a photo story about Haiti. It is always such a shocking reminder of how well we have it here. Despite all of the hardship they have had to endure the majority of the photos were of people smiling! What resilience they must have.
           This website is very open about the amount of money that goes to grants to help children, how they come about the money and how it is disbursed. Even though I would not consider the foundation in the economic realm as the reason for the foundation I would say that it certainly fits into the financial piece of using money wisely and to the best advantage of the children. It would not be helpful to be short sighted and not be able to keep the foundation financially healthy.
            There were  a couple of other articles on the site that I enjoyed reading and would like to pass on. One was about a program they have called Creative Frames, this is were they celebrate the children's perspective's through technology media. The other article was on the impact and benefits of sports. There was a town in Ecuador that implemented their program that targeted 14 gangs and was successful in involving them in street soccer and the level of violent crimes took a huge dive.
            I have been enjoying this journey of following interesting information from all of the different sites that we have all picked. I hope I have enticed you to look at the this site, if not anything else check out the books, they would be a great multi-cultural addition to any early learning library.

Jennifer Pore`

The Global Fund for Children. (2014). Retrieved from
     http://www.globalfundforchildren.org on 03.23.2014.

Global Fund For Children

     I need to begin with an explanation of how I ended up writing about The Global Fund For Children (www.globalfundforchildren.org). In our first week of class I sent out three e-mails attempting to make contact with other early childhood professionals around the world. As of this morning I have had no replies. Maybe I wasn't engaging enough, maybe they are just too busy, regardless I have to move forward and hope that maybe they will contact me in the future. I went back to our week one assignment and attempted to log on to both of the alternative sites, I was kind of excited about hearing the pod casts. It was not to be, both links gave me a message of "not found". Pressing on I went to the last choice (crossing my fingers) and wah la The Global Fund For Children popped open!
     I am a firm believer in that Everything happens for a reason, and this little bit of frustration really panned out for me. This organization is amazing. This foundation was created in 1997 to help children around the world and by the end of 2013 has awarded "4,601 grants valued at 31.2 million to 614 organizations in 79 countries" (Global Fund For Children, 2014). They have a goal of reaching 10 million children by 2015. This organization gives immediate supports when tragedies happen of water, blankets excetera but their main mission is to be there for the children "after the immediate supports and media are gone" (Global Fund For Children, 2014). They research the area, find a local source and grant them along with providing support and resources to build their own local supports thereby providing long term success, kinda of like teaching the community to fish not just giving them a meal.
     Currently this organization is active in the following regions of the world:
East and Southeast Asia
Europe and Eurasia
Latin America and the Caribbean
Middle East and North Africa
North America
South Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
     You can sign up as I did to receive their monthly newsletter that is full of information and links to articles written from and about all over the world. I hope you find this site as interesting and worthwhile as I did.

Jennifer Pore`

The Global Fund For Children. Retrieved from
     http://www.globalfundforchildren.org on 03.22.2014.

Cultural Responsive Care & Diverstiy

     This week I would like to share the organization that I chose last week to research more and to learn more about. The organization is NAEYC, The National Association for the Education of Young Children. This organization is dedicated to informing and educating Early Childhood professionals on best practices and developmentally appropriate curriculum. They hold fabulous National Conferences along with many other trainings throughout the year that they offer. Becoming a member is very reasonable and receiving their copy of YC Young Children is worth the cost of membership alone. The magazine is always full of interesting articles directly related to our profession. The article that caught my eye in this months magazine was "I didn't know there were Black Cowboys" (McNair, 2014). When I read the title I knew then that the issue I would be choosing would be Culturally responsive care and education. It was a fun and interesting article about Literacy development specific to the impact on African American families when introduced to books on their culture. I was ashamed to realize that my classroom's book shelves do not hold the cultural diversity that I let myself believe. I have some more work to do. I am anxious to read other blogs from peers to see what other interesting websites are out there.


Jennifer Pore`

McNair, J. (2014). I Didn't Know There Were Black Cowboys: Introducing
     African American Families to African American Children's Literature. YC
     Young Children NAEYC, Retieved from
     http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naeyc/youngchildren_201403/index.php

NAEYC, (2014) The National Association for the Education of Young Children.
     Retrieved from http:/naeyc.org


 
   

Establishing New Contacts

     I am pretty excited to be starting this next adventure with my peers at Walden University. For the first stage of the blog assignment I have sent e-mails to three people/agencies.

"Early Years" was the first organizataion in support of young children and is currently the largest organiation in Northern Ireland. They have quite an array of programs to include Sesame Tree which is their local vesion of our Sesame Street.

The Early Childhood Council in New Zealand at admin@ecc.org.nz

Mr. Eric Atmore from The National Early Childhood Development Alliance at cecd@iafrica.com

     I will start with my tip first: read the entire assignment before jumping into the assignment. After I had frustrated myself in not being able to get an e-mail I took a break, started a load of laundry and read a peers blog before returning to the instructions for this weeks blog. Once I read through all of the instructions life became better for me and I was able to pick out the above address. Not surprisingly I haven't heard back from any of the e-mails that I sent out, if I do not get any replies I will be looking into the alternative for part 1.
     Part 2 was much easier for me. I knew right away that this would be a perfect opportunity to study NAEYC's website. I refer to it alot but know that I have only touched the surface of what they have to offer.
     I am looking forward to all kinds of interesting views on Early Childhood from all over the world!

Jennifer Pore`

"My Supports"

     I compare support to the foundation of a house. It is the solid wide spread base and beginning from where all the support to the building starts. Support builds our character and allows us the knowledge and strength to be successful in our endeavors. Those who have followed any of my writings probably already could guess that I am going to say that my family is the most important to me in all the world! My Mom and my Children have been my biggest inspiration. motivation and support. Other supports for me are my Newfoundlands, Husband, dear friends, other family members, myself and work. Another peer mentioned technology and that is very true for me as well. I live in a tiny frontier town with no stoplights and one small grocery store. I would not have my B.S. nor would I be able to work on my Masters let alone be writing this blog. I suppose I could even go as far as saying that nutrition, exercise and medical advances are also a large support for me.
      Friends and family give me emotional support, work gives me not only financial support but self-worth as well. My Newfies afford me comfort, company and unconditional love. My Children and Grandchildren give me motivation to live and be a great person, I am so proud of who they are as people and I am beyond proud to be a part of their lives.
     As for what life would be without these supports unfortunately I don't have to guess....it is miserable. I recently lost my Mom and the same week was told I had cancer. Going through months of surgery and radiation was terrible without my Mom. I moved into my Son's home back where I am from and where my Mom had lived in order to access the medical treatment that I needed. Which meant that I was away from friends, work, pets and my husband. To be in the town where I grew up and my Mom had been for over fifty years and not have her there with me was the most miserable. The only reason I survived is because of my children who were true Champions that took Great care of me both physically and emotionally and my Grandchildren whom I treasure.

Jenn
   

My Connections To Pl

     If I were to chose just two quotes that summarize my childhood they would be:
"Keep Company With Those Who Make You Better" (Unknown) & my new
favorite: "The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health"
(Almon, 2002). I can clearly look back on my younger years with a smile and
clearly be able to associate the importance play with a healthy self-esteem and
thirst to explore and learn as much as I can.
     When I was four and five years old I was the happiest I would ever be as a
child.r children every second. The neighborhood children would go to Bidwell
Park which was one block from my home and butted up against the Elementary
School. This park meandered through the whole town and the part that we lived closest to was the deer pen. We would take the stale bread and hand feed the deer, then have a picnic that was packed by our folks and sit in the clearing and watch the deer and squirrels play. This park was like living 5 minutes from Sherwood Forest! I spent practically all my free time in this park. Capton Bidwell had brought trees from all over his travels and planted in the park. There was also a stream running right through the middle of the park with camp areas and swimming holes. The older children where responsible for us little ones and as we grew older we became responsible for those younger than use.
     I miss those times but know that I am extremely lucky to have had the experience! In order for my children to have similar experiences I made time to go to places where they could run, explore and feel free, even though I was present. I feel we can do similar things by being purposeful in how we set up our class environments and in the resources and materials that we use. I am a firm believer in play, down time, art, and rejuvenating oneself. I feel this is partially due to all the freedom and great experiences that I had as a young child but also greatly due to a Mom who was kind and supportive. She was always supportive and encouraged us to use our imagination. I am very aware of the need to express myself and to "play". I can tell when I have neglected myself and the tense feelings become too much. That's when I take time for me and I can feel myself become productive and full of ideas again. Every child deserves to have their Sherwood Forest.
    I have included a couple of materials that I use in class to help encourage the children's imaginations.

Jennifer Pore`

Almon., K. (2002). The Vital Role of play in early childhood education.
     Gateways, 43, Retrieved from
     http://waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAPlayAlmon.pdf
www.http://hazelnut.com
www.http://magiccabin.com
www.http://melissaanddoug.com