"Tutti a Tavola a Mangiare!"

The title of this post, translated from Italian, is "Everyone to the table to eat!"

This week marks the initiation of everyone coming to the table to eat in Infant South! While the topic of feeding and solids is significant and exciting as your baby grows, I like to also look at the deeper meaning of all our babies eating together. 

I have spoken to many parents over the years, in various early childhood settings, about how daily routines - a prime example being mealtime - become a social event in young children's classrooms. Sometimes, parents marvel at how "everyone just goes to get their lunchboxes!" as children grow a bit older. As you may have observed, some of our babies crawl over to the kitchen when their stomach, or perhaps some cue from a teacher, tells them snack or lunchtime is near. 

For me, the milestone of being able to sit to share a meal together not only awakens my excitement for how our classroom community is continually moving toward "we" from "me," but carries nostalgia for the many meals, week after week, year after year, shared amongst my Italian-American family on Long Island. With the scent of garlic sauteed in olive oil, and perhaps fresh garden tomatoes in the summer, wafting through the air, when Grandma said, "Time to eat," it was time to get to the table quickly to enjoy her homemade sauce over al dente pasta - the first course of Sunday dinner! Scents and tastes provide lasting memories, and for me, those memories are of sharing news about school and dance with my grandparents and aunt, Grandpa telling me I "won the bet" because I got to sit next to him (I sure did!), and hopefully not too much fighting with my little brother! :) By the time we got through the main course and "coffee and cake," sometimes with a walk around the block in between, we were full and happy, having shared many laughs and stories, old and new.


As our babies giggle and babble with one another while making rhythms on the table with their palms, fists, or sippy cups...as they employ ASL we have been using to communicate about wanting "more" or being "all done"...as they look (and maybe reach) over to see what their neighbor or a teacher is eating today...I am reminded about my own culture around the significance of mealtime and how it relates to all of us, spending our days and meals together in Infant South. I wonder how our babies' relationships with one another will be enhanced by time spent together at the table.

Thank you, as always, for sharing your babies with us as we celebrate milestones together.

Does your family have a particular mealtime tradition you might like to share with us? How might meals at school with friends and teachers mirror family time at home?

Buon Appetito! (I hope reading this hasn't made you too hungry!)

With love and care,
Christina (with Amara, Dilcia, and Susie)

Stepping Back

                        

Hair caressing, face patting, climbing on top of other babies, using others’ bodies to pull up, and face to face squishing, in addition to the typical taking of others' toys is the norm of the many happenings in Infant South.

We worry about these explorations and interactions, making it hard to step back. For example: When a baby is being climbed on our natural instinct is to move the climbing baby, thinking about how uncomfortable the baby on the bottom feels. But, what I have learned in the past years is that stepping back and observing is key to letting babies and ourselves experience these moments; to not intervene unless they ask us to. These interactions are meaningful learning experiences for babies as they are learning about this world, about themselves, about each other, and about how capable they truly are. We should not quickly assume what any of the babies are feeling during these moments; rather, we should trust them. This might be a moment in which we give babies the opportunity to think about their emotions, let them express those emotions and start the beginning of learning to take care of themselves as well as to know their limits. Is he clearly saying no? Is he taking time to think about it? Is he OK with this interaction, and if so, how will he respond? I support these types of physical encounters unless one baby expresses emotions that show me he/she does not feel comfortable. Why take away social experiments in which they are innocently attempting to explore,
engage and/or initiate play.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you handle these interactions?

Warmly,
Dilcia with Amara, Christina and Susie

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

We enjoyed a week of clay, yoga, walks, dancing, problem-solving, and...being together!

Talking with Babies

As parents and caregivers of our eight Infant South babies, we are very familiar with talking to very young, preverbal children. As I sit close to babies exploring their environment or one another...or when a baby and I are interacting, I am often thinking about my words and trying to strike a balance between offering a valuable response or acknowledgement of what they are doing, and being still and quiet enough as to not distract them during a moment of discovery. Our babies are all on their way to developing speech as they coo and babble, some adding syllables to their repertoire, and their vocalizations often call for and deserve a verbal response from us.

This idea of how we talk with babies -- not just at or around them -- is something I would like to explore more with our teaching team and with all of you. That's why I was glad to stumble across an article online entitled Pretending to Understand What Babies Say Can Make Them Smarter. 

The title intrigued me, because I knew it could not be that simple. Spending most of my days with babies, I know, as Dilcia discussed in her post, that there is no "fast track" to, or simple recipe for intelligence. Babies learn when given the chance to direct their own learning, with us caregivers as facilitators and one of the three teachers (parents, educators, and the environment) in a Reggio-inspired approach. I also wondered how genuine my interactions with babies would be if I just "pretended" to understand them. I do think though, we are pretending -- in an intentional way -- to understand our babies' indecipherable utterances. We draw inferences and make connections between their sounds and actions and show them we are listening, until the sounds become syllables, which will eventually become words...phrases...sentences...

I enjoyed the author's funny anecdote and that she admitted that "talking to small children is hard."  That's why I think it feels refreshing when I have moments where I really feel as though I am conversing with our babies, just as with other adults. 

The short article, which I have attached to this week's e-mail and pasted as a link below, references research published in the journal, Infancy, describing observed interactions between mothers and their infants, eight months or older, in which they coded their responses to the babies' babbling: 

"'Redirective' responses involved turning the babies' attention elsewhere...while 'sensitive' responses were ones where the mothers verbally replied to or imitated their sounds." The results (summarized) showed that infants whose mothers used more "sensitive" responses had increased rates of consonant-vowel vocalizations, and also were more likely to direct their sounds toward their mothers, as if "speaking" to them. *

What does this mean for us, the members of our classroom community? I have to point out that I do not believe adults need to wait until babies are eight months -- or any specific age -- to converse with them. I hear parents and teachers doing this with babies of all ages every day. After reviewing all the videos we have taken since mid-January, I found one that really resonated with the connections I have been drawing between my balance-seeking, reading, and day-to-day experiences with teachers, parents, and babies. 

This video of Dilcia and Oscar, although amazingly beautiful, is not meant to be instructional. However, I thought we could all use it to reflect on how we communicate with our babies, because we know, despite the absence of words, they have something to say. I am very interested to hear your thoughts about this video, the article, the questions below, and this topic in general!

How would you describe your experience talking with your child?

What impact do you think the ASL we use at school (and at home if you are using it) is having on your baby's language development?

What insight can you give us about communicating with your baby, so we may make connections between language development at school and at home?

With love and care,
Christina (with Amara, Dilcia, and Susie)


*Romm, Cari. Pretending to Understand What Babies Say Can Make Them Smarter. The Atlantic. 8.29.14 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/pretending-to-understand-what-babies-say-can-make-them-smarter/379324/ 

SEE, THINK, WONDER Video Observation

Will you help us SEE, THINK, WONDER?

Last week during our team meeting we watched this video and did rounds of See- Think -Wonder. It is so interesting to hear everyone's thoughts since we all see, think, and wonder a bit differently. Originally the idea was to post the thoughts we shared at the meeting on our wall. Since Debbie mentioned that it would be a good idea to share this video with the parents, we decided to share it with everyone so that we can post what you see, think and wonder also. We would LOVE to hear from our parents! You can reply with as many see, think and/or wonder as you'd like. Even one thought is greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,

Your Infant South Teachers

This Week in Pictures

Rui had fun exploring outside during an unseasonably warm start to February. 

Hard to believe this week went from 60 degrees on Monday to a snowstorm on Friday. 

Anika, frequently seen in happy baby pose. 

Nate did splits in the Bear Block while rolling a ball in a cup and banging it on the mirror.

Edith started exploring the threshold between the carpet and the kitchen. 

Adi was full of smiles when Katie brought paper to the room for everyone. 

Theo seemed amused to be able to look through the door while climbing on the bench. 

Anika and Anaïs spent a lot of time learning about one another. 

Oscar approached Nate and became a footrest for Anaïs. 

How We Teach and How They Learn

How We Teach and How They Learn

A few weeks ago someone asked me what I did for work, and I answered by saying that I was a teacher at a children's center. Then she asked what age group I taught, and I replied, "I work with babies." This person then said, "You're an infant teacher--what do you teach babies?" I admit the smile on this person's face did not surprise me. She seemed like she just did not understand how an infant can be taught. So here I am writing about being a teacher, a person who does not need to be an instructor, but a mentor, a guide who pays attention and supports a child’s need and curiosity by providing them with the necessary tools to further their natural learning. It's not about sitting in front of a baby and showing them what to do and expect them to just learn it. It's about observing, researching, and learning together.  

“According to psychologist Jean Piaget, infants construct their knowledge of the world by exploring with their bodies and senses.  Your baby is born with all her senses intact, although her sense of touch, taste, and smell, and hearing are initially more developed than her vision.  As infants mature, they use all their senses to absorb everything that’s going on around them.  Your infant is learning all the time, whether she is mouthing a rattle, batting at an activity board, playing peek-a-boo, pulling books off the shelves, watching trees sway in the breeze, or simply gazing into your face.  Much of your baby’s brain development happens after she is born.  The experiences that your baby has in the first years of her life lay the foundation for later learning.” From ‘How a Baby Learns,’ Infant South’s Welcome Packet.

As a Reggio inspired center we believe that you, the parent, are your child's first teacher, we are the second teacher, and the environment is the third teacher. We teachers are responsible for providing a stimulating, supportive, enriching, and developmentally appropriate environment for babies to learn while they work through play. We provide them with interesting and real life objects so that they utilize all of their senses to learn about these materials. We flood them with language and give them space to socially interact with adults and peers. We give them opportunities to learn to problem solve on their own when safe to do so as well as opportunities to test their limits. Babies build knowledge through these explorations; interacting with others; and life experiences. How we guide and support them shows what kind of a teacher we are.

What might your Babies be learning in these pictures?

 

Babies need stimulation with the experience of moving, listening, touching, and observing to learn about their world.  

-Dilcia