{"id":1557,"date":"2023-11-09T15:20:19","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T15:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2024-06-02T21:41:40","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T21:41:40","slug":"importance-of-concept-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/importance-of-concept-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Importance of Concept Development"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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We continue to talk about what a quality early childhood program strives for.\u00a0 We know that during a child\u2019s first five years, their brains develop faster and more significantly than during any other time in their life.\u00a0 We also know that every aspect of life depends on problem-solving skills.\u00a0 It is the foundation to success in school, personal relationships and throughout life.\u00a0 Early educators need to teach and stretch children\u2019s problem-solving skills on a daily basis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Research-based curricula, such as Creative Curriculum, guides our teaching staff to help children develop thinking skills and gain a deeper understanding of concepts.\u00a0 Concepts are the ”big ideas” that children learn as they engage in a range of experiences.\u00a0 Teachers need to challenge children to think about the \u201chow and why\u201d of learning.\u00a0 We want children to learn to problem solve rather than just getting the right answer.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0a baby drinks milk.\u00a0 As the baby grows older, the baby drinks water as well.\u00a0The concept of ‘liquids that can be drunk’ expands as the child drinks different liquids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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When we think about concept development, we are focusing on the following areas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • Analysis and reasoning: Asking children open-ended questions that have more than one right answer.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Creating: Engaging children in planning, brainstorming, and generating ideas.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Integration: Helping children connect new information to past knowledge.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Connections to the real world: Helping children connect learning experiences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    How can the teaching staff set up the environment to promote concept development?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    • Establish a daily schedule that allows time for children to make choices and engage in open-ended exploration.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Establish indoor and outdoor environments that promote active hands-on exploration.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Encourage children to come up with their own ideas such as \u201cWhat are you building with the blocks?\u00a0 How might we use these materials?\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Provide opportunities for children to plan how they might investigate a concept and carry out that investigation such that the children are interested in the different styles of buildings they see. Together, you create a web and then plan how to learn more about architecture.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • When beginning a new study, such as trees or insects, asks children to share what they already know about the topic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • During routines, help children make connections to past experiences such as during snack time, the teacher asks children to think about what fruit they have eaten before that comes from a tree.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Connect themes to the lives of the children in their settings such as in the gardening study, focus on plants that children have seen in their homes and communities.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • During a read-aloud, help children make connections between the story and their lives such as when reading \u201cThe Three Little Pigs\u201d, ask children what their houses are built with.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Make predictions with interactive stories such as \u201cWhat do you think will happen next? Why?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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      Hands-on, open-ended math and science activities include prompts for children to predict, hypothesize, test and reason.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at an example for teaching children the concept of more and less:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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      • Provide 2 dice and ask the child to roll them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Check the number on both dice and ask the child to explain it using the words more and less.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • For example, if they get 5 and 3, they can say that 5 is greater than 3 or 3 is smaller than 5.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Repeat the activity by rolling the dice again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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        Many children learn best when they can visualize a concept.\u00a0 For each number, write the number itself and a drawing that represents it.\u00a0 If you teach the number 2, for example, draw two eyes, two apples, or two flowers.\u00a0 Ask the child to show you 2 small cubes or 2 fingers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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        Children learning to ask questions, express their feelings and convey their needs are most important for their success socially and academically during their early childhood years.\u00a0 We must continue to set up our learning environment to promote children to problem solve.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        We continue to talk about what a quality early childhood program strives for.\u00a0 We know that during a child\u2019s first five years, their brains develop faster and more significantly than during any other time in their life.\u00a0 We also know that every aspect of life depends on problem-solving skills.\u00a0 It is the foundation to success […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-childcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1567,"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions\/1567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayyestochildcare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}