Rexdale's Cradle Rockers

Identifying Choking Hazards

Choking can happen to anyone, but young children are particularly vulnerable. In 2000 the CDC reported 160 choking deaths for children who had ingested or inhaled foreign objects. September is Baby Safety Month and it is also Back To School month; it’s an ideal time to provide child care staff and parents information about how to prevent these choking accidents so that everyone is on the same page and everyone is on the alert.

Choking incidents affect many young children each year. The CDC estimates that for every choking death there are approximately 110 children treated for a choking incident. Those surviving children are at risk for permanent brain damage and respiratory track infections. The CDC also reported that slightly over 10% of children who sought medical treatment for a choking incident were eventually transferred to another medical facility to receive further treatment. Choking is no joke. It can have life-changing results.

To underscore the seriousness of choking, the CDC published statistics (2003) which were gathered by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (operated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission). This report indicates:

In 2003 there were 149 child choking deaths reported for children aged 4 years and younger.

In 2001, there were 17,437 children age 14 and under who were seen in Emergency Rooms. Of those seen, 10,438 had choked on food while 5,513 had choked on nonfood items.

Education in preventing choking accidents is of key importance and schools are often the first to have an opportunity to educate parents in this area. Many of these incidents could have been prevented with a little understanding of what components go into creating an ideal choking situation.

First, children are not a miniature adults no matter how sophisticated or physically mature they may seem. Their bodies are developing; they are not yet fully developed. For example, the size of a child’s esophagus is about the size of an adult’s little pinky finger. The child often has not developed molars for grinding food, or having molars may not have jaw muscles sufficiently developed for chewing properly. The child is exploring his world by putting things into his mouth. School is a social place so there are many distractions that can affect a child’s eating patterns.

One of the most difficult things for caregivers to accept is that choking hazards don’t come with neon signs. They come wrapped up in everyday normal objects. These objects seem so normal that they are often overlooked.

Schools that provide meals for child have greater control over what will be served. This creates a situation where menus can be easily planned and monitored with choking problems, just like allergy problems, can be addressed. Schools that permit parents to send in a child’s food often find resistance from parents in adhering to limiting dangerous food items. They serve these items at home without incident, they verify that their child can handle these food items, and sometimes they just want to send them in because a child likes it.

Schools are a form of group living even if it is only a few hours a day. What one child may have successfully eaten at home does not mean it is safe for school. Children laugh and squirrel-away their food. They “steal” food from each other.

Some may recall the recent 2009 choking death of a 2-year-old girl attending the Carousel Day School in Hicksville (Long Island, NY). She had taken a baby carrot out of her teacher’s bag and choked. The police report indicated that the child was in a classroom with about a dozen children all of whom were being supervised by a teacher and two teacher aides.

The American Academy of Pediatrics created a list of potential choking foods for small children:

grapes, cherry tomatoes, cherries - round size can easily stick in the throat

raw vegetables such as carrots, celery - hard and irregularly shaped foods

Nuts

hard or sticky candy

popcorn - the dry texture and kernels are problematic

spoonfuls of peanut butter

hot dogs and sausages - their round size is the problem

Children can also easily choke on non-food items:

coins

marbles

watch batteries (the ones that look like buttons)

pen or marker caps

cars with small rubber wheels that come off

small balls or foam balls that can be compressed to a size small enough to fit in a child's mouth

Uninflected or broken latex balloons (the CDC reports balloons account for 7 to 10 deaths a year)

Bean bag chairs (the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recorded reports of five deaths from bean bag chairs as a result of children choking on the small foam pellets inside)

We can establish some safe strategies to combat this danger.

First, made sure everyone who has access to your child has had CPR and First Aid Training. This will include teaching staff, babysitters, grandparents, and parents. This is an area where we have full control. Even people who think they will never need and couldn’t use his training do quickly fall back on it when the emergency arises. Knowledge is power and provides clarity and confidence in an emergency.

Think about the food you are serving and how it can be served in the safest way.

Feed children only when they are seated.

Talk about taking small bites and chewing the food properly.

Above all, watch the children eat.

Do not give your child toys that are not recommended for his age and if there is an older child in the house be sure these toys are kept away from the younger child. Use the toilet paper roll rule: If it fits inside the toilet paper roll (1.25-inch circle or is smaller than 2.25 inches long) it’s unsafe for children under the age of 4 years.

The American Academy of Pediatrics offers suggests on preparing these foods so that they can be safely consumed by small children. They also provide tips on preventing non-food choking accidents. (American Academy of Pediatrics safety guidelines for parents

http://www.aap.org/family/toybroc.htm, and (http://www.aap.org/family/choking.htm).

For child care teachers and administrators helping parents understand the serious nature of choking and actually enforcing these guidelines at a school can be difficult. Some parents have no difficulty complying while others offer outright resistance or passive resistance. The first rule for school personnel is to “Keep Everyone Safe”. It is not to do a parent a favor or keep a parent happy by serving a choking hazard. It requires a lot of patience and fortitude to keep everyone safe, but it’s our job.

　

What's In A Piece of Wood?

Early childhood people talk a lot about using blocks in the classroom. Almost all educational conferences include seminars to help teachers setup and use great block centers. And judging by the teacher response, there is great enthusiasm for learning about how to setup a great block area in the classroom.

Actually we should begin by not thinking of them as block centers. Somehow limiting it to a name that represents pieces of wooden shapes just doesn’t tell the tale. We might want to think of them as elementary centers for the study of geometry and physics. Sounds silly? Maybe not.

Most classrooms will be equipped with the mathematically correct blocks for building. Theyre usually purchased from the standard school supply catalog. Theyre designed to help children discover the mathematical relationships to each other. Print friendly block centers will have labels and pictures so children can easily sort blocks and return them to their appropriate storage space after play is done.

But what really brings a block center to life is an ample supply of accessories. People, street signs, boats, trains, and airplanes make creative building exciting. Adding levers and pulleys for the children to use brings about a burst of building on another level. Suddenly internal building construction is possible as the children create elevators and use pulleys to construct their buildings. Adding water, yes water, to the block center helps children solve problems creating bridges. This is getting to be fun now. Have any batteries they can use to rig up a lighting system in their buildings?

One of the major educational suppliers now offers accessory blocks in the shapes of familiar skylines from around the world. Theres just no limit to the building potential here as well as learning about other people in distant lands.

While few schools have the space, having a dedicated block room is something to fight for. There the building can go on day after day with children having the time to develop and add to their projects. Elevators, plumbing systems and lighting systems will definitely begin to appear as well as handwritten sign on their stores.

After children have invested so much time developing their building project its really advantageous to record it through photography. The class may decide to keep a photo journal of all the projects they build during the year. Its also fun to videotape the buildings progress and review it later with the class.

Working in the block corner requires planning, patience, sharing and imagination. The child learns to develop a thought. Then, usually with the cooperation of classmates, learns to develop his plan to bring that thought to reality. Along the way, as in grownup life, there will be times when compromises and adjustments must be made. Another learning moment.

The child has the opportunity to move: from the abstract to the concrete. Then, the child has the opportunity to move from the concrete (when something didnt work they way he expected it to and an adjustment is necessary) to the abstract…back to the drawing board.

Sometimes teachers express how much effort it takes to keep all the blocks looking neat in the classroom, or cites a child who inappropriately throws blocks across the room. All these are legitimate classroom managerial concerns.

Nevertheless, just as Rome wasnt built in a day, the teacher doesnt have to develop the block corner in a day. Blocks and their accessories may be introduced as the children have time to learn how to work with them. Block corners can and should evolve.

Allowing children the time and space to physically manipulate their world lays a strong foundation for all necessary academic and social skills. Learning how the physical world works and explaining it to ourselves and others can come from a rich block corner experience.

The Good Kid's High

There’s a deadly game that kids play without knowing the deadly consequences. Although this game has been around for years, the Internet has made it possible for kids to see instructional videos as well as see other kids playing this game. Any interested party can go to www.YouTube.com, search for any one of the game’s names and up will pop a variety of these videos. In some videos you will be able to hear the kids talking about keeping their participation secret from their parents; in at least one you are able to hear a parent yelling at her daughter to stop “falling” so much. Other videos record personal experiences after participation in the game.

The CDC publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, reported 82 child deaths between the years 1995 to 2007 that could be credited to asphyxiation games. These kids were between the ages of 6 and 19. The game has many names: Space Monkey, the Funky Chicken Dance, the Black Out game, the Scarf game, Cloud Nine, Airplaning, Tingling, the Dream game, Gasp, the Purple Dragon, the Fainting game, the Pass Out game, and the Flat Liner game. With names like these you may have heard kids talking about it and never even realized what it was.

Why do kids do this? First, most have no idea how this activity deprives their brains of oxygen. Second, for some it is a matter of peer pressure or curiosity. It’s fun to get a “high”. This “high” is easy to do, quick, and you don’t have to worry about getting in trouble with alcohol or drugs…that’s why it’s called “the good kid’s high”. It’s a free feeling of intoxication or a new type of “self-medication”.

The majority of deaths being reported are kids in their pre-teen and early teenage years. Just how extensive participation is in this activity is difficult to determined. In the past, Medical Examiners who investigated the death of a child with a belt or tie around his neck were mostly likely calling the death a suicide. However, reports coming from younger siblings who witnessed their brother or sister playing the game have confirmed this may not tell the entire story. One 7-year-old told his parents that his brother was just playing Space Monkey by himself. For early childhood teachers and administrators this is an alarm bell that won’t stop ringing. Some of our very young and impressionable students may be witnessing this activity and begin to imitate it.

An article from Injury Prevention (an international peer review journal for health professionals and others in injury prevention) discusses a report by Dr. Andres Macnab, a Vancouver pediatrician from the University of British Columbia. He investigated a series of young children found strangled to death in continuous cloth towel dispensers. These cloth towel dispensers were located in school restrooms. Dr. Macnab determined some of these kids were playing asphyxiation games. Interestingly enough, some of the videos kids have posted on YouTube were filmed in school restrooms. It only takes a little privacy and a very little time to play this game.

As educators and parents we need to be on the alert for some common “tell-tale“ signs of kids participating in this activity. These signs often include slang references to playing the game (using the cute names that may go unnoticed by teachers and parents). Kids may have bloodshot eyes, neck marks, complain of severe headaches or appear to be disorientate after being alone. For parents, an unexplained item in a kid‘s possession may be a cue that things just aren‘t right: belts, bungee cords, dog leashes, or scarves in their bedrooms or book bags. Bedroom doors that are locked for no apparent reason. And, all adults need to be paying attention to a sudden interest kids talking about or asking questions about being unconscious.

　

In addition to causing destruction of brain cells due to oxygen deprivation, these games can cause strokes and seizures as the previously restricted blood rushes back into the brain causing neurological confusion. Participants have reported serious falls resulting in head injuries and broken bones as well as losing control of their bodily functions. It is suffocation roulette.

　

Growing up is not an easy task. The road to adulthood is not easily navigated. Kids face all kinds of pressures that they often are too shy or embarrassed to share. They are in the process of learning to make good decisions and often haven’t learned to gather all the facts. They often ignore the facts for a moment of woozy feeling, this video moment of their friends looking and acting silly. Dr. Tom Andrews, New Hampshire’s Chief Medical Examiner has estimated that 20% of our teenagers participate in this game.

Providing education on this subject is critical. An excellent website is:

http://www.stop-the-choking-game.com Their name, GASP is an acronym for Games Adolescents Shouldn’t Play and is filled with factual information about this important topic.

The Early Childhood Writing Corner

Remember that feeling you get when you walk into Staples or Office Depot or any specialty stationary store? Hold onto that feeling when you are thinking about preparing a really fun writing area for your classroom. Remember what it is about your shopping experience that makes looking at all the papers and supplies so much fun. You want your writing corner to be that much for your students.

Include:

* many different sizes, shapes, colors and weights of papers

* have a variety of envelopes

* look for different pencils, pens, colored pencils, chalk, erasers

* supply rulers, protractors, and small hand-held pencil sharpeners

* tape, glue, staplers and staple remover, masking tape

* a hole punch - there are many hole punches that make different shapes

* lined paper in a tablet

* scratch pads

* Magic Slates, real slate boards, or erasable marker boards

* ink pads and ink stamps

* scissors

* cardboard stock, oak tag

* real stamps (recycle cancelled stamps from discarded letters)

* pictionary

All these items do not need to be present all the time. In fact, mixing up the variety of papers and envelopes can add excitement to the center as there can always be something new to find.

Next consider creating a very simple portfolio with different written materials. One section might be a sample of menus, simple letters, brochures, job applications, receipts, and addressed envelopes. You may need to enlarge these items so your young learner can easily look at them.

As the children begin to write down their shopping lists or take orders they can (if they want to) look at the general form of these items. Some will try to imitate the form while others may have no interest at all. Having an opportunity to see what “grown-ups” use in their work is very exciting for children.

And remember, while the writing corner may have a designated area in the classroom, it can not be confined to any one physical location in the class. Pencils, papers, rulers, and scratch pads need to be everywhere - a reminder that we can save our thoughts and share information by writing it down.

What's In A Name: the Domestic Center

It used to be known as the Doll Center. It used to be known as the housekeeping Center. But those names really never did capture the relevance or the importance of the learning that goes on in that part of the early childhood classroom.

The term “domestic” really implies having an intimate status with the home. It’s the one great area in life, as in the classroom, where every child has had some prior experience. It’s definition includes girls as well as the boys, excludes no one regardless of race, age or disability. Everyone has a place at the table in the Domestic Center.

As teachers we can plan to expand on learning activities in the Domestic Center in the following ways.

1. Be vigilant in providing the common tools used in the Domestic Center. This means there must be enough standard equipment to interest children. One chair and one table do not a Domestic Center make. Likewise, broken equipment must be discarded and replaced

2. The standard equipment must include dolls…and lots of them. The list should include anatomically correct dolls, dolls representing the different ethnicities and cultures of the world, and dolls representing the different occupations of the world. By doing this, the teacher can indirectly “set-the-table” for everyone to have an opportunity to explore, report or rehearse intra-familia as well as inter-familia stories.

3. Dress up clothes need to be provided for boys and girls with appropriate accessories such as: briefcases, purses, wallets, hats, glasses, scarves and wigs.

4. It’s important to provide appropriate storage areas that children can easily use for their equipment and props. It’s not much fun to find dolls and dishes and dress up clothes piles into a milk crate. Helping children discover how to respect their property and the property of others is an important learning opportunity.

5. The Domestic Center needs to be fluid. Equipment and supporting props should be changed to enhance activities. For example, during Fire Prevention Week perhaps additional dress up clothes and props can be provided. One day the Domestic Center may be designated as “Mary’s House” and she can decorate it her way. On Joey’s birthday perhaps it will be designated “Joey’s House” and so forth.

6. However the Domestic Center is organized, it must be “print friendly”. Labeling items in English and another language relevant to students helps them learn to retrieve information from the labels and pictures you have posted.

7. And lastly, the Domestic Center can be one of the most important sources of information gathering for the teacher. In the Domestic Center children freely “tell it like it is” for them during their play. The alert teacher will readily see what is on each child’s mind.

Since the teacher is not an active participant in the Domestic Center the children will have the time they need to explore social situations and discover their own unique approaches to problem solving. For the children, it’s a process of reporting, confirming, adjusting their information. It’s a chance for them to anticipate and predict. It’s a safe place to reflect and revise newly acquired knowledge; it’s a safe place to get immediate feedback and advice from their peers. It’s a social laboratory where the day’s challenges are met with child’s play.

Coins in the Classroom

I haven’t met the child who isn’t interested in money. Although I haven’t read any scholarly papers indicating it, I admit to thinking children instinctively know coins feed piggy banks and coins have value. Since they know coins have value, they have interest. They have little or no concept of how parents get these coins. One child I knew asked her mother, “Why doesn’t he (the homeless street person) just get some money from the ATM?” She thought money was made and dispensed at the ATM, free, not only for everyone’s convenience but also for their on-demand consumption.

As educators, we are always conscious to developmental issues and how we can use our knowledge of a child’s development to develop our classroom curriculum. We know that children are born with vision. We must provide them with time and opportunities to learn how to “see”. This developmental work begins almost at birth. During the first two years of a child’s life visual acuity and the ability to distinguish details in the visual field improve significantly. The child moves from attending to the contrasting borders of a parent’s face to being able to distinguish the parent’s face from other objects. He begins to follow movement and learns to physically coordinate eye movements so that the visual stimulation he’s taking in can be mentally organized.

In early preschool education we place value on helping the child learn to become part of a group, take turns, and follow instructions. We want to “prepare” the child for formal training in reading and math so we plan our curriculum to develop skills necessary for the child to become successful. We plan the “practice” so necessary for the development.

There is considerable learning to be had from incorporating numismatic events into the classroom. All the activities can help children learn and practice focusing and sustaining their attention on printed matter. And, numismatic activities offer the possibility of working in a group or working individually.

Some of the lessons coins can offer in the classroom are:

1. Sorting Skills: Children can sort money by size, color, shape, or design. Having the ability to pick up this 3-D object and study it is quite different than trying to focus on printed matter on a flat piece of paper. While depth perception development begins somewhere between the 3-5^th months of life it requires a lot of practice before a child is prepared to effectively taken on printed matter.

2. Classification Skills: Children can learn to categorize and distinguish coins from non-coins according to predetermined characteristics. Developing a criteria, children can use the dates, mint marks, numerals, letters and artwork on the coins (or non-coins) to classify each object. This mini-focusing allows for a time to focus and a time to relax the eyes.

3. Sequencing Skills: Learning how to organize words, numerals, or events in a coherent and meaning way is an important pre-reading and pre-math skill. Placing coins in sequence according to value or size helps the child make decisions. And, it’s always fu to solve math problems using the coins. Deciding how many different coins can be used to equal the value of a dime or quarter is a concrete way for the early learner to understand math.

The goal is to provide an opportunity for young children, many of whom find it difficult to sit still, to practice eye-hand coordination, eye movement and visual acuity. Using familiar 3-D objects, such as coins, can really pep up a learning opportunity. Even children who are not yet developmentally to sit for a reading lesson may find these short bursts of focusing on details and attending to a task are do-able.

　

　

　

Classroom Togetherness

Most child care centers have some specified time in their daily schedule for all the children to come together. Sometimes it’s called sharing time, meeting time, or group time.

It’s during group time that the experienced teacher engages her students personally and often individually to create a classroom sense of community. When attendance is taken and she discovers a child not present, she asks the class if anyone knows why Johnny didn’t come to school today. Then she may tell them, “Johnny’s mother told me yesterday he was taking his grandparents to the airport. We’ll see him at lunch time.”

It’s a very comforting thought to absolutely know you are important in the group; to absolutely know that you will be missed; and to absolutely know your classmates are expecting you. You belong.

When the teacher talks about Johnny’s delayed arrival she may have an opportunity to expand vocabulary and model language. She may ask if anyone has been to the airport or if any other classmates have grandparents who fly to see them. She’s facilitating the children’s opportunity to share experiences.

If she knew Johnny was going to the airport, perhaps she added new items in the block corner or a small suitcase or briefcase to the domestic corner. In the writing corner she may have placed sample tickets and vacation pamphlets and encouraged the children to tell of their own airport adventures.

When Johnny arrives at lunch time, she will pick up on the earlier group time cues the children have given her, and Johnny will immediately be drawn into the already formed group.

She enables Johnny and the other students to see that everyone has information that’s useful and that sharing this information can be beneficial to their community.

During group time the teacher will lay the foundation for the day’s learning and will, through her voice, time management, and body language invite her students to participate. She’s thrown out the notion that “teachers know all,” and opted for a “let’s figure out our world together” style.

How group time is scheduled, how it is managed, and a teacher’s intellectual curiosity and love of discovery directly and dramatically effects a child’s response to school. The experienced teacher carefully and thoughtfully weaves her students’ contributions in such a way that she will be able to help them identify a unified goal. It’s group time togetherness that helps forge whatever sense of community a class will develop.

Life Happens Differently to Every Child

Every dedicated teacher in the world gets excited when she finds a new “tool”, or a new resource that can help her students (and dare I say her classroom parents? as well as her co-teachers?) reach new heights. Well, I’ve found one and it’s a really exciting web site.

Authors Sharon Bracken and Jennifer Holmes-Avis have taken on the incredibly important task of creating wonderful books for children. Eli the Bipolar Bear talks about the difficult subject of bipolarity. Elle the Little Lost Wombat takes on the topic of international adoption. Their next contribution, Wheezy the Asthmatic tells the tale of a little zebra who learns how to cope with her asthma. They’ve created an entire list of topics they hope to present in book form:

Acne
ADHD
Aging and Assisted Living
Albino
Allergies
Anger
Aspberger's Syndrome
Asthma
Autism
Bed Wetting
Bi Polar Disorder
Buck-Teeth
Cancer
Celiac Disease
Cerebral Palsy
Child Abuse
Cornelia DeLange Syndrome
Crohnes Disease
Cystic Fibrosis

Developmental Delays
Diabetes
Dialysis
Disruptive
Divorce
Down Syndrome
Eating Disorders
Epilepsy
Foster Care
Gifted and Talented
Global Disorder
Growth Impairment
Head Injuries
Hearing Impairments (deaf)
HIV / AIDS
International Adoption
ITP- Blood Platelet Disorder
Large Ears
Large Nose
Large Stature
Lazy Student
Learning Disabilities
Left- Handed
Leukemia
Mental Illness
Mental Retardation
Migraines
Military Families
Missing Limbs
Natural Disaster Relief
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Osgood-Schlaters Disease
Parent Death
Parkinson's Disease
Physical Disabilities
Prader-Willi Syndrome
Reading Disability
Red Headed
Rheumatoid Arthritis
School Help
Scoliosis
Shy
Sickle Cell Anemia
Speech Impairment
Spherocytosis
Spina Bifida
Test Anxiety
Tourettes Syndrome
Transition
Under-Achieving
Visual Impairment

I suspect these books are going to be incorporated into classroom libraries very soon and that teachers are going to be sharing them eagerly with peers and parents. As teachers we try to bring understanding, acceptance, and tolerance into the classroom. We try to create opportunities to talk about different human conditions. We try to help our students find order in the world.

I just know that somewhere along your professional career you've had a child who is coping with one of the above topics.  Do yourself, your students and your parents a favor: visit this wonderful resource at:

http://www.ChildHerosPublishing.com

Even the way they named their web site tells you how they feel about their work. “The company describes its books as ‘a first step towards healing, and an understanding for children,’ adding, ‘We understand that life happens differently to every child.!’”

As teachers, we know that life happens differently to every child and addressing those differences can make all the difference in the world to our students.