Early Childhood Care and Education and Activities of Pre School Education Essay

Introduction: Early Childhood care and Education (ECCE). â€Å"A Child is born without barriers. It’s needs are integrated and it is we who choose to compartmentalize them into health, nutrition, or education. Yet the child itself cannot isolate its hunger for food from its hunger for affection or its hunger for knowledge. † ECCE comprises of three terms which can be defined as under: †¢Early childhood. The period that presents developmental continuum starts from conception to 8 years. NCERT has extended it to 8 years with the aim to ensure a gradual and smooth transition from pre-primary to primary education, which is structured, requires effective interface. †¢Care:- This term has been added in recognition of the fact that young children need care and nurturing. In addition to their health and nutritional needs, their psychological and emotional needs also have to be met adequately for their holistic development. †¢Education:-The term education covers learning, a process of acquiring knowledge, skills, habits and of course focuses to prepare child to entire formal educational system. Form the above definition of ECCE one can easily understand that: †¢Developments during this stage – physical, language, cognitive and socio- emotional have several inter-related dimensions †¢Each of these influence one another and are developing simultaneously †¢Promoting a synergistic approach is the best way to ensure holistic development and learning in the child during early years. Developmentally Appropriate Activities for PSE Period Since the approach to be adopted during this stage has to be non formal, activity based, play way as such certain activities for different developments are suggested as under: Physical Development: Gross motor development Walking, running, jumping, creeping, crawling, rolling, swinging, hopping, climbing (ascending & descending) rhythmic movements, throwing, catching and kicking a ball, walking forward and backward, balancing on foot etc. Fine Motor Development. Threading beads, tearing/ cutting and pasting bits of paper on a given figure, playing with blocks, drawing, coloring using crayons, painting using brush, printing, paper folding, clay work, sorting, pattern making, using manipulative material, pouring, playing with blocks, puzzles and jigsaw Playing with pebbles, buttons, twigs, leaves, shells, bottle caps, petals of flowers etc could be manipulated by a teacher. For example a figure could be drawn on the floor and the child could be asked to arrange the outline with the pebbles etc. Language Development: a) Conversation. 1. Free conversation â€Å"What is your name? † â€Å"What did you see on your way to school? † Market place, school ground, life at home, life in the fields (for rural children), exhibition (for urban children) etc. Children should be encouraged to narrate their personal experiences. b) Story-Telling. While narrating a story a teacher must bear certain points in mind: †¢The children must be seated in a semi circle so that the teacher is not too far from any one of them. †¢The story should be according to the interest of the children. It should be related to the experiences they have in their day-to-day life like dogs, cats, cows, parents, sisters, friends, neighbours etc. †¢Story should not be violent, as children tend to get scared easily. †¢If the story permits voice modulation must be done for instance there must be a difference in the sound made by a cat or a dog. †¢The story must be short and precise as it is difficult to hold the attention of children for a long time. †¢The vocabulary used should be simple and according to the ability of the children since they become restless and lose interest in the story. †¢ The teacher should also in between introduce new words so that the vocabulary of the children increases. †¢Story telling without any aids: If able to narrate the story with facial expressions, voice modulations, no aids are required. Children will enjoy the story. †¢Story telling with aids: Pictures and cards, Picture books, Puppets, Dramatization and Rhymes and songs Pre- Reading a) Verbal Discrimination Name a few objects and ask the children to identify the odd one e. g. Cow, Goat, Bus, Lion . Cabbage, cauliflower, apple, potato. b) Visual Auditory Discrimination Visual auditory discrimination cards with chart paper or card board (size 9†x 3†). Three pictures starting with the same sound and one object starting with a different sound. E. g. Apple, axe, ant, ball, etc. c) Pre-Writing a) Joining Dots. b) Colouring in enclosed spaces. Development of Five Senses among Children. a) Sense of Sight ?Visual Discrimination (odd one out). ?Visual Coordination (matching). ?Classification cards. b) Sense of Hearing: (Auditory) ? Meditation ?Whispering Game ?Birds Fly 3. Sense of Smell ?Nature walk or smell walk ?Bring strong smelling objects to the classroom C) Sense of Taste ?Bring samples of food articles to the classroom. ?â€Å"Be quick†- tell the name of a sour thing. ? Picture Cards 5 Sense of Touch: ?Sorting with easily available objects in the environment ? Touch cards ?Feely bag or Magic bag Development of Cognitive Skills among children. Steps to be followed for the development of cognitive skills ? Observation ? Memory ? Classification ? Sequential Thinking ? Reasoning ? Problem solving Certain activities with PLM for cognitive development are as under Matching. Matching the children’s clothes. †¢Using different dominoes like colour, shape, dot, number, alphabet dominoes etc. Run to colours Colour visual discrimination cards Seriation cards Creative activities through which Cognitive skills get enhanced: †¢Paper folding, Paper tearing/cutting and pasting, Pasting leaves. Pasting feathers, Pasting petals of flowers, Clay modeling, Colouring with crayons/pencil colours on drawn outlines, Finger painting, Pattern making, Vegetable printing, (using vegetable cutout like ladies finger/potato etc),Placing pebbles or beads on outlines drawn on floor or paper etc. Socio- Emotional Development ?Guided Play ?Unguided play or spontaneous play ?Collection ?Excursions Health and Nutrition ?Personal hygiene/cleanliness ?Nutrition It is in place to mention here that the activities categorized in different developmental domains have direct effect on other developments Thanks.