I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone that I have gone through this program with. As I started it back in 2010, I didn't think that I would ever finish. I persevered and even took 3 classes at one time. As a single mom and having to work full time while going to school, this was very challenging but I am actually going to finish.
I now know that I perseverance is a very important factor in becoming an advocate and I know that I have it in me to make it happen. Anything that I am passionate about in Early Childhood, I will be an advocate for.
Thank you to Professor McDevitt for talking to me and giving me some helpful advice. Thank you to Professor Puntil-Wilcek for all the helpful feedback on my research paper. Thank you to all my my classmates for posting some very insightful blogs and discussions. I have learned a lot from just reading from those.
Good luck to everyone in their Early Childhood careers!!!

Enlisting and Providing Support

• Questions you have with which your colleagues may be able to provide help and support
• Resources and information you are seeking
• Resources and/or information you have found helpful and insightful

This is probably the hardest assignment that I have ever worked on. I think that what I am having the biggest problem with is writing the plan it self. In my mind, I know what I want to do and what I want to accomplish but to put it into writing and action is another story. Does anyone have any helpful hints? Also, How is everyone presenting your plan to your group? I have found some information on the NEA (National Education Association) website. It lists lots of different issues and actions that may be helpful to some of you like child nutrition and IDEA/special education. 

Hello Again! My personal advocacy journey

I am back for round two of my Early childhood Internship. This blog is titled "My personal advocacy Journey". I have learned a lot about being passionate for something and fighting to make a change. I think that is what advocacy is all about. 

“Its hard to wait around for something you know might never happen; but its harder to give up when you know its everything you want.” – Unknown(Brown 2012)

Sometimes you may think that it may never happen but you will never know unless you try to make it happen. The harder you try, the better of a chance you have to succeed.

• What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate?
• I am inspired to make a difference. I have always wanted to do something in my life to make a difference in someone else's and this plan may be able to do that. My reading plan could inspire parents to read more to their children so that the children can be successful in school 
• What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?
• my challenge that I am facing is the organization of the advocacy plan. I know that once i get it well thought out and planned then I will be able to implement it fine. I am not the most organized person and work best under pressure and at the last minute. I think that is what I am used to. I need to learn to plan more in life and things may go a lot smoother. 
• What do you believe will be most effective in helping you overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan?
• Time would be my most valuable asset to overcoming this challenge. i need to set aside a certain amount of time to work on my plan so that I can get it done and make it work. 
• How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?
• I can share as much knowledge as I have in their advocacy plan topic and give them whatever helpful advice I have myself. I can give them positive feedback to keep them on the right track. I hope that others can do the same for me. i am willing to listen and learn to what ever people have to say.

Brown, Joel retrieved from http://addicted2success.com/quotes/37-inspirational-quotes-that-will-change-your-life/ 2012

starting my last course.....EDU 455

This Blog post is the beginning of EDU 455, the second half of the Internship at Kendall College.
Thank You

Thank You and Good Luck!!!!

I want to give everyone in this Internship class a great big round of applause. We are half done with the Intern and 1 quarter left before we are completely finished. This quarter was a lot of work and a lot of new information to learn. I want to thank everyone for being very informative and insightful. I learned a lot from each blog post that I read. I wish you all good luck with your careers and I hope that you can make a difference in the lives of children in some way. I want to thank Professor Sisie Puntil-Wilcek for being very helpful, patient, knowledgable and insigntful. Your feedback has been wonderful.  It has been a great class.

Observing and Interacting With Families of the Children in Your Setting

Blog #4 Christina Graves
2/25/13

I observed and interacted with my parents in my own classroom as I start to prepare for an month long reading project in March. To celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss and Read Across America, the national effort to get people to read to children, I am planning a reading event of my own. I am having a Mystery reader come into the class to read each day of March, hopefully. This all is up to how many parents I get to volunteer. It should be pretty interesting. So, in preparation for this, I have been interacting with parents, director of our center, director of the Y and other community helpers. I am trying to get a fireman to come. Well, I introduced it by putting the information on the parent board which is right inside the classroom door on Thursday. Today, Monday, I have one parent signed up and a few more saying they will. One said she saw it but didn’t read it so she read it today and hopefully thinking about it.

One learning experience that I have had is that it is not easy to get parents to volunteer for something even so simple as one book. I was wondering if I should use a little bribery and get like may be a coupon from DQ or Macdonald’s or something if they come and read. This leads to one insight that I have gained from interacting with the families. I have had a few that were totally excited. One mom is getting both grandparents involved but most seem to be ignoring the event all together. I hope it will just take some time for them to plan and schedule the time. One the other hand, the managers and directors at The Ymca are all getting involved in this. I have 3 already and hoping for more.

Observing and Interacting With Program Director(s) and Other Administrative Staff in Your Settings

February 12, 2013

Christina Graves

The program director at the YMCA Kidcare Station is Ms. Linda and she definitely has a busy job. In the last two weeks that I have observed her, she reorganized the menus for all the meals, billed, collected and entered payments for tuition, webinar trainings, and whatever spontaneous problems or situations came about.

One insight that I saw during this time that is related to reading to children is the parental involvement (or lack of) and lack of commitment to their child’s education. Ms. Linda told me that she has seen parents barely walk in the door of the classroom to sign them in, let alone walk them to the bathroom to make sure they wash their hands like they should. She can’t imagine that these same parents would read to their children on a daily basis. Ms. Linda also is in charge of the Scholastic book orders that parents can get. This month, the order only had one parent get any books. . I know that the Ymca is all about advocating to get the children healthy and active. They are working on the Strong Kids campaign right now and Ms. Linda has to get so much money from people. It is quite a chore but people seem to believe that this is important for children. If only we can get the importance of reading to children and how it will help them grow mentally and socially as well as physically,  being a teacher would be a lot easier for the fact that parents would be on board to help.

Observing and Interacting With Professionals, Children, and Families in an Early Childhood Setting

 

Name:  Christina graves

Date:1 / 24 / 13
Name of Program/Setting:  YMCA  day care

L.C., the director of The Y gave me several reasons to read to children and they include “bonding, develop listening skills and learn to inquire and answer questions relating to reading topics.”

Some of the suggestions that she mentioned was that

she also suggested that you “talk to your children about things they see like as your putting away groceries. For example, you would talk about the labels. One problem these days is that  some of the electronic devices can help them read so parents don’t really have to do anything but parents should do it together

I also asked a Kindergarten teacher to share her thoughts on this subject and she gave me a packet that she sends home to her parents at the beginning of the year that includes information on reading to your children. She wants to encourage her parents to take part in their children’s education. The package includes a page that is titled

“How you child learns to read”. It includes a great analogy about basketball and reading. It states that “if you want to teach your child about the game of basketball, how would you go about it? If you hand him a ball, he knows what a ball is. If you teach him to dribble, you have taught him one skill. If you teach him to pass the ball, he knows another. However, he still doesn’t know what the game of basketball is.

If you take him to a basketball game where he can see the players, the coach, the crowd the plays being put into action, the ball being dribbled and passed, then he knows what the game of basketball. After seeing the big picture, your child can see where dribbling, passing, and learning the strategies of the game fit in. It is the same with reading. Reading with your child lets him know what reading is. …….”

I have found several websites to help me in my research and one of the  two insights, experiences, or quotes that I have learned from one of them  comes from one of these and that is:

•  Reading to your child helps you bond with him or her
• Reading together promotes increased communication between you and your child.
• Pre-school children who are exposed to language by hearing words that are read to him/her and in conversation tend to do better in school.
• Reading to your child promotes longer attention span.

Reading with your child helps him/her build listening skills and imagination
http://blogs.greenbay.k12.wi.us/sullivanlmc/2010/12/16/youre-never-too-old-too-wacky-too-wild-to-pick-up-a-book-and-read-with-a-child-dr-seuss/)

the other is of a personal experience that happened to me this week which incorporated books into everyday experiences to help the children understand what is going one better…….Thursday night, my two dogs went missing. They got out of the backyard and when I got home from work they were gone. After looking for an hour or so, I found out they were out the pound and I had to get them in the morning. I was late to work the next day so I had to tell my class what happened. To make it easier to understand and help visualize, I brought in 3 or 4 dog books to read.

 

I am working at YMCA daycare in my home town of Galesburg, Illinois to do my field experience. We have ages of children from 6 weeks up to 5 years old in our center. The staff at The Y includes all levels of early childhood professionals from CDA to Associates Degree to Bachelors degree. I wasn't sure who would be the best to interview so I asked everyone what their thoughts were on issues in Early Childhood. Everyone agreed that parental involvement is definately a big issue. this would also relate to the issue of reading to children that I am contemplating on writing about. Deb, who has a CDA says "parental involvement is an issue now because parents work schedules interfere with them being involved and they lack the materials like books." (D. Raes, personal communication, Jan. 14 2013)  One more issue that they all agreed on is the lack of respect for others that the children seem to have right now. All in all, i am hearing, parental involvement, lack of respect and my own choice of reading to children. I don't think that i am going to let these interviews influence me too much on choosing a topic for my advocacy plan. I really feel that the choice that I decided on comes from the heart and I would be very passionate and interested in this topic.
Reading to your children is important and several related topics come to mind. One of them being the skills/ benefits that they gain from being read to at an early age. Second, the reasons why children are not being read to and what we need to do to change this. Third, parental involvement is a related issue in reading to children. Early Childhood educators can encourage parents to do this by sending home activities  and books to read.
 I have a good topic but I need to do some more research on the subject to become a better advocate. This should be an interesting time this quarter.

Hello

Hello, everyone out there!!! This is the start of my Internship at Kendall College. I am an Early Childhood Education Major. My blog is an Advocacy Action Plan on a topic that we feel is important for obviously children since I am an education major. My topic that I am an advocate for if you haven't guessed my my blog title is reading. I am very passionate on how important reading to your children even as babies can be. I have taught at the preschool level for 9 years so I have met lots of children and families. I also have two children of my very own and I am a single mother.