Pre
School
by Helene Block
Oakton Community College
Contents
Goals
A curriculum on aging for the preschool classroom is an idea
whose time has come. We know that our children will grow up
in an aging society; but research shows that ageist attitudes
begin very early in life. Teachers who work with preschool
children can help them understand aging by presenting a life-cycle
approach to the process. Children need models of healthy and
productive aging so that their emerging self-concepts and
worth as individuals can continue throughout their lives.
The life-cycle approach may be utilized as part of theme-based,
skill-based, or discovery-based curriculum models.
The goals of preschool education on aging are:
- To enable children to discover that aging is a normal
and natural part of the life cycle
- To provide children with developmentally appropriate
information and activities on aging across the life cycle
- To enable children to interact, communicate, and form
meaningful relationships with older adults
- To provide children with positive experiences with older
adults in order to dispel stereotypes about aging
- To promote positive attitudes toward age and aging by
using a conceptual framework
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Curriculum
Too often preschool children pick up myths and stereotypes
about aging from their families, the media, and even in the
school. Since teachers are a potent force in the lives of
young children, they can help eradicate these myths by including
life-cycle activities in their day-to-day programs. The process
of aging can be taught by extending the existing curriculum
backward and forward through the life cycle.
Teachers can facilitate goals by:
- Modeling healthy attitudes about aging through the life
cycle, helping students accept birth, growth, and death
as normal developmental stages of life
- Incorporating children's comments and questions about
aging into the existing curriculum
- Checking the children's perceptions on aging and helping
them clarify misconceptions about getting older
- Including life-cycle activities and projects based on
the children's immediate and extended families
- Including activities in life-cycle projects based on
children's older friends, neighbors, and community helpers
- Integrating life-cycle concepts into units, lesson plans,
and informal activities such as "Who Am I?" "Holidays,"
"Seasons," and "Numbers"
- Developing ongoing volunteer grand parenting programs
so children can have opportunities to bond and interact
with consistent, healthy, older adults
- Taking students to visit nursing homes or adult day-care
centers on a regular basis so the children can interact
with the frail elderly to acquire a sense of empathy and
compassion for others
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Activities
When integrating aging concepts into the curriculum, experiential
activities work best at the preschool level. The children's
thinking necessitates concrete and action-oriented units and
activities. Preschool children are egocentric; their attention
focuses on themselves first, their families next, and only
then are they able to comprehend the neighborhood and the
community. Any activities designed to introduce concepts on
aging and the life cycle must fit into this developmental
framework.
Curriculum for this group is presented in five sections.
Activities and units include areas of language arts, science,
social studies, math, and the creative arts through:
- Structured teacher-directed
activities with children participating in life-cycle activities,
children using their imaginations and creativity on activities
related to aging, and children sharing information about
their own families with the class;
- Unstructured activities--children's
free-time choices are children investigating materials,
props, and books that show aging concepts and children interacting
with manipulatives and toys that stimulate discussions on
aging topics;
- Intergenerational activities
for children and older adults to do together such as children
talking and interacting with older adults, children learning
to enjoy and being comfortable with older adults, and children
participating in activities that feature skills and talents
of older adults.
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Structured
Activities
- The teacher can show pictures of herself or himself as
a baby and as a young child, and pictures of parents and
grandparents. Children can bring family pictures of their
parents as babies and those of themselves and their siblings.
These pictures can be placed on a bulletin board with a
time line.
- Make "pretend" birthday cakes with Play-Doh
or modeling clay and use pegs, sticks, or candles for markers.
Count and discuss the ages of children and teachers and
compare who is older--who has more candles. The ceremony
can be ended by singing "Happy Birthday" to everyone.
- Have the class take a walking trip outdoors. Notice the
changes in the season. Collect leaves and twigs in different
stages of growth or decay. Make collages of the materials
gathered.
- Read stories about pets and discuss children's own pets.
Include pictures of newborn puppies and kittens. Talk about
older pets and how they change. Imitate sounds and movements
of younger and older pets.
- Take field trips around the school to discover the ages
children in each room or grade. Make a chart showing the
rooms and ages of the children. Use shapes to identify the
individual rooms.
- Sing life-cycle songs and listen to records. Ask children
what songs they liked when they were babies. Sing "Rock-a-bye
Baby." Ask what songs they like now; sing or play their
favorites on records. Ask if their older sisters and brothers
like jazz or rock records. Ask if they think older people
like this music and discuss their answers. Play some old
songs or classical music and discuss what group might like
it best.
- Have the children make a family mobile. Discuss members
of their families who live in their houses and family members
who live in other places. Then cut out magazine pictures
corresponding to their families to glue onto cardboard circles
of various sizes. Use yarn and wire hangers to assemble
mobiles. Hang the mobiles in the classroom.
- Show pictures of elderly people (some in wheelchairs,
some walking). Discuss the childrens' grandparents and great-grandparents.
Ask them what older people do for fun, such as playing cards
or games, singing, taking walking. When they answer, discuss
how failing eyesight and hearing might make playing difficult
at times. Ask the children if they want to pretend they
are older. Have them try on glasses with vaseline on the
lenses, put cotton balls in their ears, and put lima beans
in their shoes, etc. Explain that these conditions apply
to some elderly, while other elderly people are very capable
of doing most normal tasks.
- Talk about their favorite fruit. Show three bananas,
one green and unripe, one yellow and firm, and one dark
and soft. Ask the children which banana they think is sweeter.
Let them touch and guess. If they wish, let them taste each
banana and discuss their reactions and opinions. Make banana
bread and show them that the banana is still useful even
when it is aged.
- Split the children into groups of four to eight. Have
them cut out pictures of people from infancy to old age.
- Ask the children their ideas on what elderly people are
like (they may respond in stereotypes). Make a list of their
perceptions. Elderly volunteers working with the children
may disprove negative perceptions.
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Unstructured
Activities
- Put baby clothes, rattles, and bottles, as well as old-fashioned
bonnets, paper mustaches, and hats in the housekeeping corner
for role-playing of various age groups. Bring in clothes
from various ages and let the children play dress-up.
- Glue pictures of older adults (at home, at work, at play,
and in wheelchairs) to cardboard and laminate. Cut out to
make large jigsaw puzzle pieces.
- Put gray hair, beards, and glasses on hand puppets. Mix
them in with other puppets to make "life-cycle"
puppets.
- After reading favorite books that portray family life
and grand parenting issues, leave the books out in the reading
corner for browsing and "rereading."
- Put a magnifying glass, fresh and dried flowers and leaves
in various stages of growth on the science table for exploration.
- Put pictures of both old-fashioned and newer telephones
on the science table. Bring in old tools and kitchen utensils.
Put miniature old-fashioned cars and new cars in the block
area.
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Intergenerational Activities
- Have children and older adults work together doing exercises.
Have the children sit in a circle and show them pictures
and books of people of all ages exercising. Discuss the
importance of staying healthy and keeping muscles strong
throughout life. Turn on appropriate music and ask the children
and the older adults to lead the group in their favorite
exercises. Have them discuss the aching bones and muscles
that can occur at any age and those that happen more often
with age.
- Make paper-plate masks of children and older adults. Before
beginning, have them look at one another and point out traits
such as gray hair, glasses, wrinkles, beards, pigtails,
freckles., etc. Use glue, yarn, markers, buttons, and Popsicle
assisting children in making masks of both ages. When completed,
partners can switch roles by using the masks.
- Play a musical hat game by putting picture cards of a
person waving, touching the nose, clapping hands, sleeping,
or frowning. Sit in a circle and alternate older adults
and children. Turn on music and pass the hat. When the music
stops, the person with the hat chooses a card and demonstrates
the movement. Continue until each person has a turn.
- Use generational partners to make tissue paper rainbows
and sunshine. Using precut cardboard and arches of various
sizes, glue squares of red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
and purple tissue paper to make one portion of the class
rainbow. Then have all the children and adults help make
a tissue paper sun to place under the rainbow. Sing "You
Are My Sunshine" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
- Have older adults show children how to make simple cookie
recipes, or tell them or show them ethnic recipes passed
down in their families. As the children mix, discuss baking
and cooking with older family members and friends and ask
them what they cook at home that could be passed down to
their children. Encourage children's comments and stories.
Unless baking facilities are available, have the recipe
made up ahead and baked so everyone has a sample.
- Have older adults and children work with homemade Play-Doh.
Use it to create a simple activity that involves all the
group.
- Have older adults teach children to plant seeds or roots
in a peat or moss mixture. The adult would show the stages
in the growth and life of the plants such as seed, root,
stem, leaf, and flower. Teach the children the necessity
for correct amounts of water, sunlight, and soil to assure
growth.
- Older adults with experience in woodworking can be utilized
to supervise and assist children in this activity. Stimulate
children with a riddle:
I am something you can
pound with
I make a lot of noise.
I can pound a nail into wood.
I can take a nail out of wood.
What am I?
Discuss children's experiences with nails and hammers
at home. Ask older adults to show their hammers and tell
about what they have made with hammers. Allow children to
hold hammers and discuss the weights. Show nails and soft
wood and discuss safety rules. This is a one-on one activity
and must be carefully supervised. Older adults can assist
children in getting started. As the pounding begins the
group could sing "John Pounds With One Hammer."
- Introduce the poem "There Are All Kinds of Grandparents."
Show pictures of older adults with children and discuss
the child's own grandparents. Do they live nearby? Do they
live in a house or in a care center? Do they work? Do they
garden? Are they small or big people?
THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF GRANDPARENTS
by Helene Block
Some grandparents work,
Some stay at home.
Some like to baby-sit,
Some call on the phone.
Some visit our school,
Some live far away.
Some like to cook,
Some like to play.
Some love baseball and outdoor games,
Some even help us learn our names.
Some take us for walks to find leaves in the Fall.
Aren't we lucky to have
Grandparents at all?
Discuss the poem and activities that the children do with
their grandparents. If they don't have grandparents, ask
them if there are older people in the family or in the neighborhood
who could do some of these things with them.
- Have a Grandparents Day for the class so that the children
can bring their grandparents or a special older friend to
the center to enjoy the day. Plan some activity to get the
group involved together.
- Reading activities could be used to acquaint children
with older people. Have older adults bring books they enjoyed
as children and read them to the class, or reading could
be done on a one-to-one basis with the frail elderly.
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