Explain Why It Is Important To Help Children Develop Cognitive Skills
Chapter 5
1. Why is important to help children develop cognitive skills during the preschool year?
According to Rike, Izumi-Taylor, and Moberly (2008), it is the richness of a child’s experiences that directly affects the development of the brain. They say: “[R]ecent brain and educational research clearly shows these neural pathways can be made richer and stronger through appropriate early care and challenging experiences that take place in carefully designed, nourishing environments” (p. 23). The learning centers you arranged according to ideas in Chapter 3 have set the stage. The activities you and the children carry out can provide the experiences.
2. How do children use their senses to explore the world around them?
Preschool children are born explorers. Even as infants, they come with all the necessary equipment to be great …show more content…
discoverers: inquisitive eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, lips, ears, fingers, and toes. In addition to such an array of sensory apparatus, each child also starts out with a strong natural drive or curiosity to put this equipment to good use. They want to find out about everything. Young children are forever trying to poke, pry, bite, chew, lick, rub, pinch, sniff, stare at, listen to, or examine playfully in great detail any object or situation they come into contact with. As noted in Chapter 3, we call this initial investigation of new things manipulation.
3. What can we do to reawaken the curiosity of children who seem ti have lost their sense of wonder?
Planning activities to promote this important characteristic. Find ways to motivate uninterested children in as many of these activities as possible. Bringing in several pieces of tree bark you have found: a piece of sycamore bark (this tree sheds its bark periodically), a piece of maple bark, a piece of shagbark hickory bark, or any one of a number of other tree barks (e.g., white birch, willow, cottonwood, or pine).
Keeping track on a children curiosity checklist of each child who notices these new items, asks questions about them, or handles them. When several children have shown this interest, gather these youngsters into a small group in your science discovery center along with one or two other children who have shown little interest.
4. How can field trips to nearby locations promote cognitive development?
The immediate environment of the center offers unlimited opportunities for children to explore and discover.
Humphryes (2000) suggests, “Observation excursions are fun with all ages of children. While out in a natural setting like your backyard or playground, ask the children to observe one selected item, such as a stream, a one-square-foot microcosm (use a string to mark this), or a cloud, for five minutes. Then ask them: Is it alive? How do you know? What does it feel like? Does it move? What does it do? If you kept it, what would happen? If you stepped on it, what would happen?”
Field trips need not be elaborate, all-day, long-distance affairs. Brief ventures out or around the building are best because this is the environment the children are most directly involved with and want to find out about. Their own personal environment is always more meaningful to children than a visit to a remote and distant site they may never see again.
5. How can you follow up on children’s science interests with materials in the classroom? Give specific examples.
• Bringing in a container of bottled water from the supermarket for her Discovery Center
• Field trips.
• Recycling.
• Making a natural filter in a flower pot with blotting paper, sand, and gravel.
• using an aquarium pump and filter to clean the water
6.What do the concepts of size, shape, color, and number have to do with children’s cognitive development?
Size Children’s brains seem to pay special attention to the relationships between things. The concept of size is one of those relationships. Learning to understand the property of size helps children make sense out of the new things they are discovering. There are various orders of size, usually thought of in terms of opposites: big-little, large-small, tall-short, long-short, wide-narrow, thick-thin, fat-thin, or deep-shallow. Direct comparison of objects based on these aspects seems one of the best ways for youngsters to learn size.
Shape
Research shows that children develop concepts in a certain sequence. The concept of shape is one of the earliest to be formed. Young children begin to discriminate objects on the basis of their shape quite early. Be sure to focus on this one concept alone when you first present the idea of shape. Then give children plenty of time and opportunity to make the concept a part of their thinking process before going on to the next concept. In every instance, activities should involve familiar concrete objects at first, not drawings on ditto sheets or in workbooks.
Color
Although young children seem to talk about colors first, research shows that they develop the color concept shortly after that of shape. Children also name the colors before truly understanding what they mean. You can help them to clarify color concepts just as you did with shapes by starting with one color at a time and providing them with all kinds of games and activities relating to that color. One color at a time, start with the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue because young children seem to recognize these colors most easily. Then, one at a time, introduce the secondary colors of green, then orange when Halloween comes, and pink for Valentine’s Day.
Number
Children encounter the spoken form of numbers long before they understand their meaning. Many can count accurately to 10 or even 20 without having the slightest idea of what 6 or 13 means. They are counting by rote, in other words, repeating a memorized series of number words in a given sequence. This is how learning to count begins. Nursery rhymes such as “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” encourage this skill. Is counting really so important for young children? Yes. As Unglaub (1997) puts it, “Why is the ability to count rationally so important? If unable to count rationally, the child is not ready to start more formal activities that lead to mathematical concepts” (p. 48)—in other words, high-level thinking and problem solving.
Children encounter the spoken form of numbers long before they understand their meaning. Many can count accurately to 10 or even 20 without having the slightest idea of what 6 or 13 means. They are counting by rote, in other words, repeating a memorized series of number words in a given sequence. This is how learning to count begins. Nursery rhymes such as “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” encourage this skill. Is counting really so important for young children? Yes. As Unglaub (1997) puts it, “Why is the ability to count rationally so important? If unable to count rationally, the child is not ready to start more formal activities that lead to mathematical concepts” (p. 48)—in other words, high-level thinking and problem solving.
7. How can children in your classroom learn the meaning of numbers?
They need to learn the concept of one-to-one correspondence—that is, that each number represents one thing. They can start by counting their fingers. How many are there? Don’t assume young children know the answer is “5” on one hand or “10” on both (and it may not be for every child). Then they can count the small group of children in each curriculum area. From there they can practice counting dolls, toys, or any other three-dimensional object that is meaningful to them. Be sure they touch each object they count. Children also love to play board games. Bring in simple ones where a player must make an object move a certain number of spaces.
8. Why is important for children learn sorting and classification skills? How can they do it in your classroom?
Young children see objects in general before they notice specific details. You can help them develop perceptual and thinking skills through activities that encourage them to find the objects in a group that are the same. They will be looking at the items in general and not for specific details at first. You may need to help them determine what makes the objects alike. You may also need to provide many concrete three-dimensional games and materials (never workbooks or ditto sheets) in the manipulative/math center that call on children to sort out the items that are alike. Plastic sorting chips, disks, cubes, beads, dinosaurs, bears, or fruits are a few of the collections available. Or bring in your own sorting collections of buttons, seashells, or nuts, along with a basket to hold the collection and several plastic bowls for sorting.
9.
What is metacognition, and how cab you help children to use it?
Metacognition is thinking about thinking. Adults seem to do this automatically. They pose questions in their minds like these: What will happen next? What if I do this? How do I know this? Why should I do this and not that? Do children also reflect on their own thinking? They need to stop and think before they answer a question or start in a new direction. You can help engage them in metacognition by asking some of the questions just posed.
In the carnation experiment the teacher asked the children, not what will happen, but “What do you think will happen?” when she stood the white flower in a glass of red liquid. The children hypothesized (guessed) a number of possibilities, which the teacher wrote down. The teacher then asked them why they thought so. Most had based their answers on their own knowledge or experience. They were not just shouting out an answer but were thinking about different possibilities. Picture books can also help children think about thinking if teachers choose appropriate books and pose thought-provoking
questions.
10. Give an example of a question children might ask about the environment that you do not know the answer to. How would you handle this? Be specific.
I will tell him that we will find a book about it if I don’t know the answer. It can became a class project to find out the answer.
.
1. Why is important to help children develop cognitive skills during the preschool year?
According to Rike, Izumi-Taylor, and Moberly (2008), it is the richness of a child’s experiences that directly affects the development of the brain. They say: “[R]ecent brain and educational research clearly shows these neural pathways can be made richer and stronger through appropriate early care and challenging experiences that take place in carefully designed, nourishing environments” (p. 23). The learning centers you arranged according to ideas in Chapter 3 have set the stage. The activities you and the children carry out can provide the experiences.
2. How do children use their senses to explore the world around them?
Preschool children are born explorers. Even as infants, they come with all the necessary equipment to be great …show more content…
discoverers: inquisitive eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, lips, ears, fingers, and toes. In addition to such an array of sensory apparatus, each child also starts out with a strong natural drive or curiosity to put this equipment to good use. They want to find out about everything. Young children are forever trying to poke, pry, bite, chew, lick, rub, pinch, sniff, stare at, listen to, or examine playfully in great detail any object or situation they come into contact with. As noted in Chapter 3, we call this initial investigation of new things manipulation.
3. What can we do to reawaken the curiosity of children who seem ti have lost their sense of wonder?
Planning activities to promote this important characteristic. Find ways to motivate uninterested children in as many of these activities as possible. Bringing in several pieces of tree bark you have found: a piece of sycamore bark (this tree sheds its bark periodically), a piece of maple bark, a piece of shagbark hickory bark, or any one of a number of other tree barks (e.g., white birch, willow, cottonwood, or pine).
Keeping track on a children curiosity checklist of each child who notices these new items, asks questions about them, or handles them. When several children have shown this interest, gather these youngsters into a small group in your science discovery center along with one or two other children who have shown little interest.
4. How can field trips to nearby locations promote cognitive development?
The immediate environment of the center offers unlimited opportunities for children to explore and discover.
Humphryes (2000) suggests, “Observation excursions are fun with all ages of children. While out in a natural setting like your backyard or playground, ask the children to observe one selected item, such as a stream, a one-square-foot microcosm (use a string to mark this), or a cloud, for five minutes. Then ask them: Is it alive? How do you know? What does it feel like? Does it move? What does it do? If you kept it, what would happen? If you stepped on it, what would happen?”
Field trips need not be elaborate, all-day, long-distance affairs. Brief ventures out or around the building are best because this is the environment the children are most directly involved with and want to find out about. Their own personal environment is always more meaningful to children than a visit to a remote and distant site they may never see again.
5. How can you follow up on children’s science interests with materials in the classroom? Give specific examples.
• Bringing in a container of bottled water from the supermarket for her Discovery Center
• Field trips.
• Recycling.
• Making a natural filter in a flower pot with blotting paper, sand, and gravel.
• using an aquarium pump and filter to clean the water
6.What do the concepts of size, shape, color, and number have to do with children’s cognitive development?
Size Children’s brains seem to pay special attention to the relationships between things. The concept of size is one of those relationships. Learning to understand the property of size helps children make sense out of the new things they are discovering. There are various orders of size, usually thought of in terms of opposites: big-little, large-small, tall-short, long-short, wide-narrow, thick-thin, fat-thin, or deep-shallow. Direct comparison of objects based on these aspects seems one of the best ways for youngsters to learn size.
Shape
Research shows that children develop concepts in a certain sequence. The concept of shape is one of the earliest to be formed. Young children begin to discriminate objects on the basis of their shape quite early. Be sure to focus on this one concept alone when you first present the idea of shape. Then give children plenty of time and opportunity to make the concept a part of their thinking process before going on to the next concept. In every instance, activities should involve familiar concrete objects at first, not drawings on ditto sheets or in workbooks.
Color
Although young children seem to talk about colors first, research shows that they develop the color concept shortly after that of shape. Children also name the colors before truly understanding what they mean. You can help them to clarify color concepts just as you did with shapes by starting with one color at a time and providing them with all kinds of games and activities relating to that color. One color at a time, start with the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue because young children seem to recognize these colors most easily. Then, one at a time, introduce the secondary colors of green, then orange when Halloween comes, and pink for Valentine’s Day.
Number
Children encounter the spoken form of numbers long before they understand their meaning. Many can count accurately to 10 or even 20 without having the slightest idea of what 6 or 13 means. They are counting by rote, in other words, repeating a memorized series of number words in a given sequence. This is how learning to count begins. Nursery rhymes such as “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” encourage this skill. Is counting really so important for young children? Yes. As Unglaub (1997) puts it, “Why is the ability to count rationally so important? If unable to count rationally, the child is not ready to start more formal activities that lead to mathematical concepts” (p. 48)—in other words, high-level thinking and problem solving.
Children encounter the spoken form of numbers long before they understand their meaning. Many can count accurately to 10 or even 20 without having the slightest idea of what 6 or 13 means. They are counting by rote, in other words, repeating a memorized series of number words in a given sequence. This is how learning to count begins. Nursery rhymes such as “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” encourage this skill. Is counting really so important for young children? Yes. As Unglaub (1997) puts it, “Why is the ability to count rationally so important? If unable to count rationally, the child is not ready to start more formal activities that lead to mathematical concepts” (p. 48)—in other words, high-level thinking and problem solving.
7. How can children in your classroom learn the meaning of numbers?
They need to learn the concept of one-to-one correspondence—that is, that each number represents one thing. They can start by counting their fingers. How many are there? Don’t assume young children know the answer is “5” on one hand or “10” on both (and it may not be for every child). Then they can count the small group of children in each curriculum area. From there they can practice counting dolls, toys, or any other three-dimensional object that is meaningful to them. Be sure they touch each object they count. Children also love to play board games. Bring in simple ones where a player must make an object move a certain number of spaces.
8. Why is important for children learn sorting and classification skills? How can they do it in your classroom?
Young children see objects in general before they notice specific details. You can help them develop perceptual and thinking skills through activities that encourage them to find the objects in a group that are the same. They will be looking at the items in general and not for specific details at first. You may need to help them determine what makes the objects alike. You may also need to provide many concrete three-dimensional games and materials (never workbooks or ditto sheets) in the manipulative/math center that call on children to sort out the items that are alike. Plastic sorting chips, disks, cubes, beads, dinosaurs, bears, or fruits are a few of the collections available. Or bring in your own sorting collections of buttons, seashells, or nuts, along with a basket to hold the collection and several plastic bowls for sorting.
9.
What is metacognition, and how cab you help children to use it?
Metacognition is thinking about thinking. Adults seem to do this automatically. They pose questions in their minds like these: What will happen next? What if I do this? How do I know this? Why should I do this and not that? Do children also reflect on their own thinking? They need to stop and think before they answer a question or start in a new direction. You can help engage them in metacognition by asking some of the questions just posed.
In the carnation experiment the teacher asked the children, not what will happen, but “What do you think will happen?” when she stood the white flower in a glass of red liquid. The children hypothesized (guessed) a number of possibilities, which the teacher wrote down. The teacher then asked them why they thought so. Most had based their answers on their own knowledge or experience. They were not just shouting out an answer but were thinking about different possibilities. Picture books can also help children think about thinking if teachers choose appropriate books and pose thought-provoking
questions.
10. Give an example of a question children might ask about the environment that you do not know the answer to. How would you handle this? Be specific.
I will tell him that we will find a book about it if I don’t know the answer. It can became a class project to find out the answer.
.