Week 4: Early Childhood Education Program Review
Week 4: Early Childhood Education Program Review
Head Start
LINK: https://youtu.be/nNFL4dlXtoQ
The participants of the Head Start Program usually range in ages of 0 to 3 years of age
but can include ages up to 5 as well as pregnant women. Free play and teacher interaction are
big contributions to this program as well as encouragement of social interactions for the
children.
For the pregnant women it is center focused on the dos and don’ts of healthy prenatal
development. In addition to these, they also offer a home visit option in which a teacher will
come to the child’s home with the goal of not only teaching the child but educating the parent on
how to help their little one meet all their milestones. To top off the Head Start Program they
offer food to fill the bellies of these children who are sometimes coming from less fortunate
situations where parents are sometimes not able to provide a descent meal three times a day
every day.
Montessori
LINK: https://youtu.be/_ktR43Z9UcU
The Montessori approach states that children cannot learn with out any movement. This
video best describes it in saying that when an adult is given a new phone, they have to touch it
explore it to learn how to use it this is the same for children. The next principal described is
that children should not be told you have to do this in this way with these materials and instead
should offer the child options like would you prefer this color piece of paper or that color piece
of paper or would you like markers, crayons, or pencils? By offering the child a choice you are
giving them a “sense of control” over their learning experience and helping the child to become
, more engaged in the learning process. Self-motivation is the goal for this approach and because
of this it is not suggested that the teacher offers incentives for good work or behavior as this
tends to take away from the self-motivated learning and push a more dependent learning style.
This approach also offers wider age groups in a classroom setting as to allow children to learn
from each other and take on new roles like leadership. One more principal of the Montessori
approach is allowing children to learn in context. For example, if the children are learning
about plant life the teacher could take the children outside to examine different plants or
conduct an experiment like planting a lima bean and watching the growth throughout the week
in the classroom window.
Reggio Emilia
LINK:
https://youtu.be/7n2hCebmT4c
The Reggio Emilia approach is one that describes the children as being little scientist
the classroom environment is set up to allow children to come in and investigate and explore
what interest them using “real life experiences” to promote their learning. The teacher’s role is
to guide the children by means of support and by providing a prosperous learning environment.
The teachers will observe and allow children to make mistakes and in doing so allow children
to learn how to resolve conflict through teamwork. The Reggio Emilia approach is center
focused on project-based learning. Project based learning can start as a group project and then
be divided up into an individual project to be completed. The idea is to get children interested
and spark curiosity allowing them to asking questions and provide responses. Say for instance
the children are sitting around a table and the teacher has a bowl of water with multiple objects
laying next to it the teacher might pick up a rock and ask the children do you think the rock
with float or sink when dropped into the water then ask why do you think it sunk to the
bottom? Next the teacher might allow children to drop a few items into the water individually.
All the while they are having fun while learning about buoyancy. This approach is also big on