Early Childhood Education

executive summary By Varadharajan R

Characteristics of early childhood:

• It is a problem age or troublesome age for parents since most of them are centered around the baby's physical care. In childhood, behavior problems become more frequent and more troublesome than the physical care problems in babyhood. Since the behavior problems dominate the early childhood, the young children develop distinctive personalities and aspire for independence.
• The dependency during babyhood changes to independence on attaining childhood age. Anyhow, when alone, the children are seen to play with toys.
• It is the pre gang age during which the children learn the foundations of social behavior. As a general rule, during the pre school years, children find social contacts with members of their own sex more pleasurable than those with members of the opposite sex.
• It is an imitative age. Imitative nature develops creative talents.
• The other children, by contrast, are relatively silent who are named as `Silent Sams'
• It is an ideal age to learn various skills by repeated trials and adventurous attempts. The skills are learned easily and quickly.
• Moral development is on a slow level. This is because the intellectual development has not reached the point where the children can learn or apply the abstract principles of right and wrong.
• Question asking behavior is another important concern.

The Value of Imagination in Early Childhood
Executive summary By Kari Hoopes

A child's imagination is an important learning tool in their growth. Through imaginative play they learn in-directly about real-life situations, develop their vocabulary, and develop the ability to create, organize and perceive.

When a small child holds a doll or stuffed animal in their arms and pretends it is a baby they are learning about a real life situation. Place stuffed animals and pictures of animals all around the house to be discovered. Teach the child new animal names, count how many animals you find, look up fun facts about the animals on the computer or in a book. Through developing their imaginations, children also become capable of creating a concept, organizing their thoughts about it, and then perceiving it into their play. It has been said that "A child's work is play."