Building and Understanding the Emotional World of Children

Harvard Graduate School of Education, professor Paul Harris is interested in the early development of cognition, emotion and imagination. His recent book, The Work of the Imagination, gathers together several years of research carried out at Oxford University.

Paul Harris has spent many years of his career focused on researching imagination and Childhood development. I have shared a few links with you below. The information he has gathered is amazing.


http://gseweb.harvard.edu/news/features/harris09012002.html

http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/learning/learning001a.html

Administration of Children and Families

The Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance, supports low-income working families through child care financial assistance and promotes children's learning by improving the quality of early care and education and afterschool programs.

In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, a bipartisan education reform bill. The goal of the Act was for every child to be reading at grade level by third grade. No Child Left Behind focuses specific attention on services for children who are more likely to fall behind in reading, such as children from low-income families or children who are English language learners.

President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush recognized that efforts to achieve the goals of No Child Left Behind must start before children enter kindergarten. In April 2002, the Bush Administration announced the Good Start, Grow Smart (GSGS) initiative to help States and local communities strengthen early learning for young children. The goal of GSGS is to ensure that young children enter kindergarten with the skills they will need to succeed at reading and other early learning activities.

PBS Kids

I think we are all familiar with PBS kids netowork or at least Sesame Street, Big Bird etc. PBS is dedicated to helping children develop their full potential. There website has resources,links, and suggestions to help in engaging your child in creativity. I love to see my 2 year olds face when he watches Sesame street. I hope that you enjoy the quality of the PBS site as much as I have.

http://www.pbs.org/wholechild/providers/play.html

What Can I do as a Parent

I work two jobs, go to school and am raising 4 children. I struggle with trying to find time to get all done. I wish there was more time in the day to foster creativity in my children though I know they do it on their own. I read this article by a few of the psychologists that make up "THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS" I have linked to the article below. It gives great resources on how to get involved in fostering creativity in your child. Take a peek and see what you can do as a parent.

http://www.amphi.com/~psych/creative.html

Learning Log

Thank you for another wonderful and fulfilling experience. I have never been a blogger though I am very computer savy. I just never saw any interest in it. I am very happy with the site I created and hope that maybe others will begin to read it.

I enjoyed my time in class and meeting all of you. I enjoyed looking around a room full of passionate and determined women. I tried to balance so many things in my life and sometimes I just want to give up. You all gave me strength to continue to move on with my dreams. I enjoyed the level of committment and enthusiasm you all brought to the table.

I have such limited time in my life with family, work and school. Catherine, you have always allowed your students to research and design projects based on the passion they hold inside of them. You have always embraced the passion I have for my children and I am grateful for that.

You have been extremely supportive of me over the semesters I have attended Cambridge College. I hope that in the future I will be able to build upon the skills that we have learned in your class.

Thank you all for sharing your passion and life experiences. You have all been an inspiration!

The child’s imagination – what a powerful force!

A child’s imagination is untamed. Parenting should not tame it but encourage it. Your child can use his imagination for play, for goal setting and much more.
Here are some parenting tips for encouraging imagination and imaginative play in your child.

This is a great website. You can connect with other parents as well as learn goal setting for your children. Take a peek! I think you will enjoy it.

http://www.kidsgoals.com/child-imagination.shtml

The Development of a Capacity for Imagination in Early Childhood
Linda C. Mayes, M.D. and Donald J. Cohen, M.D.

Imagination as a mental capacity is part of a line of development that begins in the earliest symbiotic interactions between mother and infant, takes further shape as the child moves from dyadic to triadic relations, and culminates in a fully mature capacity to reflect upon in thought one's wishes and feelings vis-à-vis multiple others. Particularly for the 3-to 5-year-old child, imagination represents a special mode of mental functioning which allows him to expand his internal object world, motivates him toward increasingly complex relationships with others, and is a central precondition for the creation of the self-defining fantasies characteristic of the oedipal phase. The central neurocognitive precondition for an imaginative capacity is the ability to distinguish thought from action and understand that others as well as oneself are motivated to act because of mental states such as feelings, beliefs, and fantasies. In this paper, we present a view of imagination that integrates observations from psychoanalytically informed studies of the emergence of fantasy
http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=PSC.047.0023A