Be the voice for children 🤍

As parents, early childhood educators, and caregivers we wish with all our hearts to see our children thriving and developing healthful in all ages, aspects, and stages of their lives. We want our work wonderfully done! That's when we refer to the holistic development approach. The holistic development approach means that we focus on all aspects of the development of children, not just their academic performance. The holistic development of a child refers to the overall growth and progress of a child in various aspects of their life, including physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and moral domains. It recognizes that children are complex beings, and their development is interconnected and interdependent across these different areas. Areas connected to the holistic development The areas connected to holistic development are described separately for understanding, but it is essential to keep thinking about the child as a whole and how the experiences that encourage development a...

In the summertime, activities involving the sun, beach, relaxation, outdoors, and vacations come to our minds almost instantly with the fact that there is no school. We dream about it every day for the whole year. We plan everything expecting to minimize situations that could affect, harm, or damage our dream vacation. After all, we deserve breaks that relax us from all our daily stress and work. But that is not just for us. Children want it too! They also deserve to have fun and enjoyable family moments. Planning a vacation with kids can be a wonderful experience if we do it carefully and take into consideration all their needs. Otherwise, it could be torn into a nightmare. The benefits of having a family vacation are suitable for adults and children if it is well-planned. The sense of peace of mind, relaxation, and stress-free time is worth this blog post reading! Welcome enjoyment, bye-bye stress! Recently I spent a wonderful 7 days cruise with my son. We were amazed by the...

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is a psychiatric disorder that primarily affects children and adolescents. It is characterized by a persistent pattern of disobedient, argumentative, and defiant behavior towards authority figures, such as parents, teachers, and other adults. This behavior goes beyond the normal range of oppositional and defiant behavior typically seen in children. In this last academic year (2022-2023) I worked in my kindergarten classroom with an ODD student. We experienced a wide variety of challenges but on the other hand a lot more moments of learning, understanding, growth, and love. I grew as a professional. I grew as a person.  I had to take time for me to learn and read about ODD to help and support this student and the rest of the group. Luckily, I count on a professional staff of multiple disciplines that was very supportive every day. All our efforts resulted in a student who completed the kindergarten grade with great progress and learning. It was no...

Sensory stimulation connects the use of the senses of visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), tactile (touching), gustatory (tasting), and olfactory (smelling). The use of the senses has been demonstrated that promote and encourage learning, brain development, and growth during the early years. The lack of sensory stimulation can be detrimental to the development of babies and young children. This damage persists during adulthood. There are a lot of activities that stimulate the senses creating brain connections that are discussed and recommended in this blog post. Sensory stimulation and sensory play demand to be done constantly as the child develops and grows to obtain the best benefit in the short and long term. What is sensory stimulation? Sensory stimulation is the input one person receives when one or more of the senses are influenced, activated, or as the concept itself, stimulated. Sensory stimulation theory states that effective learning appears when the senses are stimulated...

This whole year of virtual teaching will be remembered as the most challenging time (or close to that) for educators and administrators. Also, for students and families facing equal challenges. Those challenges resulted in learning a lot from ourselves and others. The coronavirus pandemic brought us learning and moments of reflection in all aspects that involve our lives. Even more, we need to be clear that virtual teaching and remote learning will remain with us. There were a lot of positive experiences in that! I hope that for each educator involved in virtual teaching, the experience had become as strengthening and empowering as it was for me. From here on, I am not the same teacher... I grew professionally, I got inspired, and I engaged better and more profoundly with my students and their families. That is something I'm going to continue practicing and being aware of. As a kindergarten teacher, I had beautiful and unforgettable moments with all students. I also understood each...

Nutrition is an essential component in brain development, especially during pregnancy and during the early years, which is the time of most rapid brain formation and development of cognitive, physical, and socio-emotional skills. But it is also important throughout the lifespan. However, deficiencies in nutrition during pregnancy and early years may produce damage to these skills and development affecting school productivity and adulthood. Nutrition deficiencies also depend on factors, like experiences and input from the environment, the timing of nutrient deprivation, the degree of nutrient deficiency, and the possibility of recovery. Brain formation and development in early stages About 22 days after conception, the neural plate and neural tube begin to form, which later becomes the brain and spinal cord. Adequate nutrition including nutrients like folic acid, copper, and vitamin A is crucial in this formation and development. Approximately seven weeks later, cell division creates ne...

People can point out many and many reasons to justify the origin of a conflict. Frequently we can hear about a strong or harsh tone of voice, a defiant attitude to communicate, offensive facial gestures, and so on. One of them could be a motive to begin violent communication. The mental state of the person is a potentially sensitive element here. What is Nonviolent Communication (NVC)? Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a valuable approach to encourage support among communication and human connection developed by  Marshall Rosenberg . The approach is grounded in Gandhi's principle of non-violence. Practicing NVC allows us to learn to hear our needs and the needs of others emphasizing deep listening and being compassionate and empathetic. NVC is powerfully transformative and often seen as a spiritual practice to develop skills for helping families and communities and contribute to the well-being of all of us. NVC includes the clarification of what we observe, the emotions we are...

In my last post Encouraging creative activities for young children , I discussed how creativity benefits child development, growth, and learning. I shared some tips for parents and caregivers to encourage arts for children in-home activities, including exposure to materials and art supplies and the encouragement for children to arts respecting their muse and vision. I also recommended some suggestions for how to approach a quality conversation avoiding pressure, fomenting appreciation, and respect for other people's works and art expressions, and lastly, when children gain that appreciation and respect, I suggested encouraging their interest in arts by planning a visit to a museum, an art school, gallery, or a studio to see different art exhibitions. In this post, I want to concentrate on useful tips to introduce children to drawing, painting, and photography. In my experience, these forms of art are very interesting for children and they love to practice them. There are other area...

During this pandemic time due to COVID-19, having our children at home and looking constantly for on-hand activities to keep them busy and entertained and at the same time contributing to their development and learning is not an easy task. Many parents may feel stressed, tired, and maybe guilty because of these feelings. But you are not alone. There are a lot of parents and caregivers feeling the same as you are! Electronic devices are one of the most used tools during this time not just for gaming and entertainment, but for the new modalities in education, referring to virtual, online, and remote learning. Experts urge parents and caregivers to limit the usage hours of phones, computers, tablets, and video games because of the increment in sedentary behavior, health conditions, and obesity. Even, though it's recommended to limit the usage to a maximum of two hours per day for children and teens, for young children, ages 2 to 5, the recommended limit is one hour per day. From the h...