Initial Blog #2

Throughout this I have been working at a center called The Mary Jo Oldham Center for Child Study in Harrisburg IL. I am working with toddler aged children. Some of the children in the classroom have special needs and some don’t. I have enjoyed working with these children. I chose this group because this is the group I work with everyday. The toddler ages were from 15 months to 30 months. This group sure does keep the teachers busy. The children were energetic and so much fun. I guess you never know what there going to say.

For my research I have been looking into information about special education. These days it seems special education is becoming more popular than ever. For this observation I communicated with my director. In the center we are here to help our children get the best care as possible. Throughout the center we work together to set up programs and assessments for special needs children. Our center is always open for the therapists to come in and work with the children. We allow rooms for the therapists to work with the children.  After talking with the director about my topics she allowed me to sit in with a therapist and a child. I found this very interesting. During this time she observed the child. They are there to basically see what side affects of the child and to set goals to help the child.

During this time I interacted with the teachers and director asking ways in which they worked with the children and there special needs. The teachers and director work with the families to provide the best quality care for there children. They said the hardest thin when working with these children were trying to get parents involved. As professionals you would think they would want to be involved to help there children. Assessment is very important when working with special education children. These children need to be assessed to see where they are and to see there improvements over time. I look forward to continue working with these children and staff.

Interview (Module 1)

            My name is Megan Gulley I recently received a Lead Teacher Position. I am know a teacher in the Toddler Room. The kids in the classroom range from fifteen months to thirty months. Since I am working in a Toddler Room full time I have chose to write my research paper on this age group.

            For this interview interviewed a teacher and the director of the center. When discussing my papers with each of them, they said there is so much to learn and to talk about when it comes to this age group. They asked why I picked this age group and I told them I did because I work with them everyday and each day you learn new things about them. When it comes to the classroom there is not a dull moment and you are constantly learning new things about each child. Since we are a daycare we get new kids all of the time so there is always a change within the classroom.

            Some of the topics that I thought would be interesting to base my topic on was child abuse, special needs children, and there literacy skills. I think this is a wide range of material but all of these topics are common within this age group. When I spoke to the director she said some good topics would be special needs children, assessment, and the care of children. What kind of environment is it safe, high quality? When I talked to the teacher she said some topics could be parent involvement, assesment, and developmental needs. These are all very good topics, but the main question is, which ones refer to the toddlers more often.

Based on the interviews there is all kinds of discussions you can have with colleagues. When discussing children there is so much stuff you can discuss. I think its neat how different people come up with different discussions. This not only helps others but it gives them ideas and solutions to problems.

            Throughout the interview I had asked them what advocacy efforts are currently under way in your area of interest. They both basically said the same thing. They are trying to provide care for low income families. They want to be the ones who help families even if they are low income because everyone deserves the best care and education for there children. Another thing they both said was trying to educate the legislators to help the low income families. Over a period of time they are trying to pull childcare away and trying to get programs to quit helping them. The director stated that” This center is an on campus facility and we have a lot of students, which are low income families. We need the legislator tor realize that these families need help.”

            Some of the concerns they had about advocacy was people loosing the quality of care they deserve. Low income people can’t afford childcare well if they can’t get help with childcare then no job. Right know in the work force there is not that many job opportunities, no factories with large number of people, they are mostly small businesses. The people who are low income, at risk children, special needs, and abused children are the ones who need it most.  When people can’t afford childcare then there children miss out on a lot of things.

Its amazing to see what other people think is good topics for this age group. I think the list could go on and on. The director I interviewed and some very good interesting points. When you think of advocacy your kind of up in the air about different topics. After talking to the teacher and the director I understand the concept of advocacy especially in my age group.

Questions:

            What do you think would be good topics for Toddler age children?

            Is anyone else going to do there research paper on toddler age children?

Hello everyone!!

I wanted to say hi to everyone.. I finally figured the blogs out...