The Joy of Knowledge

I had planned to write on a different topic this week but I am so blown away by circumstances that are currently occurring at the daycare that I am compelled and excited to share them with you!

We have always had high expectations for all our children in all developmental areas and place some emphasis on general knowledge in our daycare.  Last year, besides our academic program, our special project for the four and five year olds was “The World”.

We have large color maps of the United States of America and the world throughout the daycare.  It just so happened that we selected geography as that year’s project. Not only did the children learn the names of all the states, but also the continents and the oceans of the world. The individual memory skills in the children varied from 70% to 100% knowledge.

Then we decided to create a globe so they would visually understand the shape of the world.

We started with a large yoga ball and after several failed attempts to shrink a world map and glue it to the ball (arts and crafts are not my area of expertise!) I realized I had the solution in house.  I had my grandson, who is an artist; draw the outline of all the countries on the ball and then the children painted them. The experience for them was so amazing in terms of their personal accomplishment and their emotional and cognitive connection to the world. 

The finished globe is now hanging in the daycare.  The children share it with everyone who visits us with great detail for their parents.

However, my real story is that this year we decided to study the human body for the same group.  We are working with several media sources; large posters covering the main areas of the body, skeletal, digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems and then a full human body skeleton.  These are posted over the chalk boards on project days.

Here is the ongoing surprise!  It is the two and three year olds who ask if this day is a project day and want to be involved! When I realized they were serious and persistent, I decided to include them for as long a time as their attention span allowed.

I have always believed that children are capable of amazing things, but now I have a two year old talking to her dad about the digestive system and an eighteen month old excited to show his mom the skeleton.

My excitement is not about bragging about their abilities, but instead realizing that they are building longer attention spans, memory skills, interactive skills, levels of curiosity and best of all: have a joy and pride of knowledge which will be with them for a lifetime!

Make learning, visual, fun, challenging, non-competitive and above all interesting! Enjoy!

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