This lesson is meant to be used at the start of a Child Development or Early Childhood Services course, to get students exploring the importance of early childhood.
Learning Goals
Students will analyze factors, conditions, and support systems that impact child growth and development.
Students will explore the importance of early childhood through multiple reflective learning experiences, digging into the question, "How do early childhood experiences shape a community?" The end goal is to get students hooked to explore the content of the course!
Learning Goals/Outcomes:
Students will analyze factors, conditions, and support systems that impact child growth and development.
Summative Assessment printed handout for each student (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eMLW_bjUmC2D9Gy0XyZCWGzJYr0BP0Qu/view?usp=sharing)
Closure reflection printed handout for each student (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EXwMLUmlPp4ITypLa4nxxSWSUvKoyjM2 )
All other resource links within the lesson do not need printed for students
Time Required for Lesson:
5-50 minute class periods
Lab Set-up:
Post privilege statement cards (provided in lesson) around the room.
Benefits/Explanation/Career Readiness Standards:
NE Career Pathway: Early Childhood and Education Services Pathway
NE Career Ready Standards Integration: 4. Makes sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 5. Uses critical thinking. 8. Works productively in teams and demonstrates cultural competency. 10. Manages personal career development. 11. Attends to personal and financial well-being.
FCCLA Integration: National Program Families First, STAR Focus on Children, Illustrated Talk, Advocacy
Technology Use: YES
Instructional Plan:
Anticipatory Set/Pre-Activity:
Go through the entire Privilege exercise from http://www.differencematters.info/uploads/pdf/privilege-beads-exercise.pdf with your students. If you don't want to purchase beads, you can use a notecard per student and have them tally for each yes versus taking a bead. Stop when you get to the Discussion section.
You can use the discussion questions within the exercise, or use the following follow up questions to transition into the importance of early childhood concept for this lesson: How did this make you feel? Was this fair? How did your privilege influence your ability to perform a task? How did the teacher play a role in this? What did you have control over? What did you not? What happened to your motivation? How does privilege connect to power?
Transition to Activities: Have the class imagine a kid coming to kindergarten with many beads versus little, but expected to perform the same as other students. Discuss equity. Use the example of driving on a highway versus a dirt road, which path is going to get you there the quickest/safest. How does this compare to children coming into school with different privileges from their upbringing? Ask students, "What could these privilege beads represent for prenatal-preschool (an example could be being read to, adult interaction, safe home, proper nutrition, etc.)...that is what we will be learning and uncovering throughout this entire course! That is what will give you the power to be an effective parent, caregiver, childcare worker, etc.
Activities (i.e. instructions, lesson, lab or project):
Pose the Driving Question: How do early childhood experiences shape a community? Then have students do the following on a sheet of paper: Ask as many questions as you can. Do not stop to judge, discuss, edit, or answer any question. Write down every question exactly as it was asked. Change any statements into questions. Categorize every question: O open ended and C closed ended. Then have the class prioritize questions for the course to uncover. As a class, compile a class master Driving Question Landing Document, where these questions can be hubbed and edited throughout the course. This could be on a poster or in a google doc, whatever platform works best for your classroom.
Connecting to Self: Transition students to reflect upon their own childhood/upbringing. Have them think about their early childhood days while listening to the lyrics of this song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An-Im0LL0XU . Stop the song at 1 min. 30 seconds. What lyrics stood out to you? What made you think? What parts of your past came to mind? How did your upbringing influence the person you are today? Then have students write a reflection over the question, "What hopes and dreams do you have for your future child?"
Abecedarian Study: Transition students to think about factors, conditions, and services that are most influential on children. Ask the why behind their answers. Have students create a chart on a blank sheet of paper with 3 columns. Each column should be headed as Factors, Conditions, Services. As a class view the Ted Talk, The Healthy Child, Assembly Required: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fXf3CCyhLGU#t=12 . (12 minutes). As students are viewing this video, have them write down factors, conditions, and services that impact children. Then discuss key takeaways at the end of the Ted Talk as a class.
Article: Next have students continue adding to their list of factors, conditions, and services while reading the article Maltreatment and the Developing Child by Bruce Perry from http://www.lfcc.on.ca/mccain/perry.pdf .
Protective Factors: Next have students continue this process of adding to their chart while exploring and reading through Bring Up Nebraska's Protective Factors. http://www.bringupnebraska.org/protective-factors
Revisit Driving Question: After researching and learning from all of these resources, have students review their charts, share out key takeaways, and revisit the driving question. As a class: Have our class questions been answered? What questions are still a question? What additional questions do we have?
Assessment/Closure:
Formative: Have students create a 1 page artifact that shows creative expression themed around the “Importance of Early Childhood.” The artifact must cover all key themes from the learning activities in this lesson. By CREATIVE EXPRESSION, we mean students will think critically and creatively and communicate their ideas powerfully, persuasively, and artistically. To demonstrate creative expression, the student must construct and make a work of art with personal meaning and intent and explains the connection of the work of art to the unit learning goals.
Summative: Have students complete the Importance of Early Childhood Summative Assessment https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eMLW_bjUmC2D9Gy0XyZCWGzJYr0BP0Qu/view?usp=sharing, using this rubric as the instruction guide.
Closure:
Have students complete the personal connections reflection. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EXwMLUmlPp4ITypLa4nxxSWSUvKoyjM2
Supplemental Information:
Modifications:
Adapt according to students IEP's. Suggestions would be highlight reading resources and creating guided notes for the 3 column chart versus students writing in/grabbing everything.
Safety Precautions:
Preview privilege card stations with schools views/flexibility on certain topics.
Learning Domain: Early Childhood Education and Services
Standard: Evaluate conditions (medical, living environment, financial, social, etc.) affecting individuals and families with a variety of disadvantaging conditions.
Gregory, Mallory. "Importance of Early Childhood". OER Commons. Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, 12 Jul. 2019. Web. 03 May 2024. <https://oercommons.org/authoring/55742-importance-of-early-childhood>.
Gregory, M. (2019, July 12). Importance of Early Childhood. OER Commons. Retrieved May 03, 2024, from https://oercommons.org/authoring/55742-importance-of-early-childhood.