While looking through the website I chose, http://www.childrensdefense.org/about-us/ I found a section called Early Childhood Education and Care. Under that section, there is a link called Advocate and Family Resources and in that page there is a list of links that they call Early Care and Education Resources. Under that page there is a link called Child Trends and when you follow that link, you get to http://www.childtrends.org/ which is a website full of current research of trends in the field of early childhood. Some of the topics there are things like poverty, child development,education, child welfare and fatherhood & parenting to name a few.
This part of the Children's Defense Fund website is a great area for us as we go through this course. I was also able to review briefly a few of the articles by the Children's Defense Fund and I did not find anything I would consider controversial. The amount of information is a bit overwhelming but I am pleased with the decision I made to research this website over the next few weeks.
In my time reviewing the site I did not find much about economists or neuroscience but there was plenty about politics, legislation and policies. I read about full-day Kindergarten and how the trend is changing to full day Kindergarten for all Kindergartners. At the center where I work now, we offer the only full day Kindergarten in our town but the children who attend, are those who need full day care because of parents being at work. These children often transition from the full-day day care setting that is run in another part of the building so the long day is not much of an adjustment for them. I had not realized that having a full day Kindergarten program was going to be the trend for the future and that having a full day is so beneficial for children. My daughter will probably go to a full day Kindergarten next year and because she is at my center with me now, I believe she will adjust easily to Kindergarten. We will see!
We are using the same website. It is so fascinating--I love it! Thanks for sharing the link. Check out my blog to read a great news article from Jackson Mississippi. My daughter is at my center with me and will go to Kindergarten next year too!! They grow too fast!!
ReplyDeleteThey do grow too fast! It all is very bitter-sweet for me :) Thanks for posting!
DeleteMy daughters attended full day kindergarten in the local public school. We moved the year before my son was to enter and in our new town only half day kindergarten was offered. I can tell you there is a world of difference. I became and substitute in the district and would often be requested by the kindergarten teacher. There were days because of the scheduling of specials like music and gym, which are of vital importance, but they fell on the same day there was about 30 minutes left for the children to be in their class. If it had been an all day program there would be time for all areas of the curriculum every day.
ReplyDeleteMichele,
DeleteI never thought about that! Good point about the specials. My husband teaches PE too! Shame on me, haha! Anyways, I hope my daughter gets to go to the whole day program. I think she will love it!