NUACHTÁN KINDER | September 2021
Dear parents,
We all in the kinder garden team are full of joy and enthusiasm a new school year, that we are sure will be full of surprises, achievements, and challenges.
We appreciate the trust you have placed in us to contribute to the development of your children.
Welcome to the 2021-2022 school year!
How are gross motor skills related to a child’s intellectual development?
By Miss Irma Gaytán | Psychomotricity Kindergarten Teacher
Children develop different skills through the experiences they have throughout their lives and this development happens daily, from: running, jumping or walking.
When children know their body, their abilities and what they can do with these skills; they promote their motor development by stimulating all their senses to work the parts of their body and have a mind-body connection; especially if they do it from an early age.
By performing all of these actions, children will increase their confidence in all areas in their lives.
At school, they will work on fine motor skills such as: manipulating objects, grasping a pencil, using scissors, writing on a sheet of paper from left to right.
They will recognize their left and right side; this helps to work both brain hemispheres and to keep stimulating them in the daily tasks’ practice.
When children learn to recognize their body and know what they can do with it, they are more open to move in a safe, efficient, and smooth way, this will help them to perform tasks more easily.
Any task will be easier since the stimulation obtained will be the result of it.
Adapting to school after a pandemic
By Miss Iliana Romero | Spanish Academic Coordinator Kindergarten
Coming back to school each year is a big change for children.
After several months of rest, they must resume routines, duties, and face the demands of a new academic year.
And, although it seems that our children are used to going through it every year and they should be «used to it», every year is different, and we must not underestimate the complexity of the situation. In addition, this year, we must consider that children have been far from school since March and are now facing a new challenge on their return: going back to school in the context of a pandemic situation they have never experienced before.
A new source of stress that is accompanied by uncertainty, fear, and concern; both for children, and parents.
They all have the same thought in their heads:
«What if I catch the disease?
A question that at first glance seems common and logical, but has an underlying fear of physical harm and illness.
For most children, the thought of getting seriously ill or losing a loved one was not a common concern.
So, what can moms and dads do to help our children cope successfully with going back to school?
1. Encourage emotional communication and talk openly about any worries they may have.
It is recommended that you find a moment in which you can be alone, without interruptions, and ask them about their feelings regarding going back to school.
2. Try to convey calm and security.
Children reflect our own emotions, especially the youngest ones.
It is difficult in the current situation to give them the security with which we used to face the return to school. However, we must make a big effort to make them, as far as possible, feel confident about what we know today: the established preventive measures, timetables, personal hygiene protocols, etc.
3. Limit exposure to the media.
It is advisable to avoid receiving information from the media on a constant basis.
Although, at an intellectual level, they are capable of understanding and analyzing the news they receive, at an emotional level they do not have the same regulation strategies as adults and, it is possible that, in excess, it generates discomfort and anxiety.
By Andreina Pereda López | Psicoimagina.com
Detachment
My first days at Daycare
By Miss Ana Laura Arias | Daycare Coordinator
During the COVID-19 pandemic, self-isolation of families at home has provided many opportunities for family time and bonding between children and their parents or caregivers. However, this can also present some challenges for parents, as they are the ones who may return to work when children, especially infants and toddlers, have become attached to their caregivers and have become accustomed to staying home with their families.
When infants and toddlers are separated from their parents, they cry, cling, and may frantically look toward, or approach, their parents to reestablish closeness. These are adaptive reactions ever since the parents, whom the baby knows and trusts, provide protection and care.
When, for different circumstances, infants and toddlers are separated from their parents due to school, day care, etc. and the caregiver ceases to constantly meet their child’s needs, it causes the child not to develop a sense of trust, feeling insecure, and expecting to be displaced by others generating detachment. It is believed that the opposite of detachment, the “attachment”, is an adaptive evolutionary response as the infant’s need to be close to a caregiver ensures their survival.
It is normal and expected for infants and young children to experience discomfort when separated from their parents or primary caregivers. These reactions continue until the infant is reunited with his or her parents or, in the case of a longer separation, the infant eventually «wears out» and calms down. In addition to these more immediate reactions, toddlers, who may not yet have acquired language skills, may show their discomfort or concern by being more clingy, fussy, or having difficulty with sleeping and feeding routines. Young children adjusting to a new teacher or Daycare often show these reactions in the initial adjustment period.
Separation will be an area of challenge for both parents and children, parents may experience their own anxiety about children entering Daycare due to concerns about COVID-19 and their child’s reactions, they may inadvertently send signals of their own anxiety to the children.
At any age, and especially with infants and toddlers, caregivers as well as predictability in routines communicate a sense of familiarity. This can be reassuring and helpful during big transitions. Therefore, bringing children’s favorite toys and objects or having family’s photos in the nursery can help. If possible, parents can start with shorter days at daycare, rather than a full day, which allows children to become familiar with their environment and teacher.
It is important to mention that to achieve a safe detachment during this back-to-school period, you should previously inform your children that you will take them to another place where they will be closer to their classmates and will meet new people.
Also, explain the activities they will be doing while they are away from home and that you will be proudly and enthusiastically waiting to do together other activities that are important for both. It is also important to always welcome your child home with enthusiasm and initiate by talking about the positive experiences you had during the day. Then ask what made him/her the happiest while being at school.
Remember to always transmit confidence to your children when you leave them at the school, to show them all your love when they return home and to tell them how important they are to you.
Bibliography
J.BOWLBY, El apego y la perdida. Ed, Paidós, Barcelona, 1998 | hacerfamilia.com
Mom, my English teacher speaks to me in English!
By Miss Iliana Brien | Kindergarten English Coordinator
In English classes, teachers always use this second language; this can generate some anxiety in parents, who may wonder what will happen when their children want to express their needs, or the possibility that they may feel frustrated for not understanding what they are being told.
It is important to always remember that we avoid generating tension in the students, we understand and accept when they communicate in their mother tongue, while we stimulate them to repeat what they are trying to express in English, modeling how to do it without generating anxiety or distress in them.
Accompanied by images, gesticulation and all the necessary for the child to be able to interpret what is being said, the teacher patiently guides the child with the objective of achieving a successful communication.
The teacher seeks to create experiences, based on the communicative approach, which considers that the functions of language (i.e., what it is used for) should prevail over the forms of language (i.e., grammatical, or phonological correctness).
With high-frequency words and phrases (i.e., words and phrases that are repeated a substantial number of times in the daily routine, so that they are incorporated naturally) language acquisition begins.
What does “language acquisition” mean?
The term language acquisition describes the gradual development of the ability to express oneself in a language by using it naturally in various communicative situations. The acquisition of the mother tongue in children of all the linguistic communities of the planet occurs in the same way and without some languages being more difficult to acquire than others. *
Even before birth, children acquire their mother tongue by being exposed to their mother’s voice in the womb, since then their ear is adapting to the phonetics of such language.
After birth, a series of maturation processes begin, during which the words that are heard will be associated with images and concepts; for this, we adults gesticulate, always showing and accompanying our infants, repeating frequently, pointing, and helping them to link.
This contrasts with learning a language, where we start in an unnatural way, learning rules before we have incorporated and mechanized the speech of the language.
Second language acquisition today is geared towards this more natural type of learning process.
Thus, through exposure to the language accompanied by all the modulations, gestures, and associations that the teacher makes, the students will decode the meaning of what is being communicated to them.
During the English class the teacher speaks English, the positive results of this will be reflected in the short, medium, and long term.
* Quote: «Theories on the acquisition and learning of second languages»
