Making Your Home a Place for Learning

To focus on a project, your child must feel “safe” to dig into materials and really explore with his work. It is not necessary to make major changes in your household to make it a place where meaningful learning experiences can occur for your child, but there are questions for you to consider.
1. How can I provide an environment for learning?
Where is there enough space in my home for my child and me to work together? Will I be comfortable working on a 12-inch wooden chair alongside my child? Where will my child have a surface to write, draw, paint, and use materials like clay?
2. Where will I get materials for my child to use?
Will buying supplies for project work be expensive? What kinds of things do I need to collect? Will I need to go somewhere special to get the materials we will use?
3. How can I store materials for projects and other forms of meaningful learning?
Where will I keep paper, clay, and books about project topics? Where can ongoing work be stored so that it is safe from siblings, vacuum cleaners, or the dog? Where can materials be stored neatly and safely, but so that they are still accessible to my child?
4. How I can I help my child gain literacy skills in project work?
Are there things I can do to encourage my child to use books more? What kinds of books would be appropriate for project work? How can I best organize literacy materials?
5. How can I provide the time for projects and other forms of meaningful learning?
When can we block off time so we can concentrate on our project work? Can we fit clay work in between a soccer game and girl scouts?


Creating an Environment for Meaningful Learning
As an adult you have learned that you need space to do quality work, whether it is your kitchen, your office, or a workshop. Children also need space to do quality work. With patience, determination, and a little creativity, most living areas can accommodate project work. If you think in advance about issues such as table space or access to water, you can help prevent many problems that may come up once your child is busy with his project. For example, your child will not have to stop work early so you can clean off the table for dinner.

For some parents, creating an environment for meaningful learning can be a challenge because it requires them to leave their comfort zone. In our role as teachers and parent educators, we have come across parents who say, “Give my 3-year-old scissors? Is that safe?”
“Bring paint into my immaculate kitchen? Do you know what we spent on that floor?”
“I can’t let my child use these things when I have a toddler in the house too!”
Issues of stains, safety, and appropriateness all emerge. One advantage of doing project work with young children is that it encourages you as a parent to think about the organization of your home. Does your home foster meaningful learning for your children? If you work out how to create spaces for meaningful learning in project work, you can use these for years to come as children work on school projects and other learning activities.

While creating a space may seem difficult on a tight budget or in a small home, just the willingness to create a space and provide materials will benefit your child. Neither a fancy art studio nor 100 different types of collage materials are necessary for a child to be able to do project work. If money or space is an issue for you, think creatively of how you can assemble an inexpensive art kit of basic supplies (scissors, glue, crayons, paper), which will be enough to get your child started. Using found materials such as shoe boxes, wrapping paper, and buttons can also be a way for children to develop their creativity. Keep in mind that many great project activities have occurred using just a few materials on the kitchen floor or at the dining room table covered with newspaper.

When looking at your environment for a space where you and your child will want to work together on projects, you will need to consider the room, its location in the home, and the furnishings within that room.

FINDING A LOCATION IN YOUR HOME
Survey your home. Is there a playroom, a kitchen breakfast bar, or a dining room table that may be a good place to work? The room where you work should be a place where you will be able to access materials easily. Good work spaces for children are not necessarily fancy. A heated garage room or a finished (or even unfinished) basement room may be perfect, as long as it is comfortable for you and your child when you work on larger projects. A quieter, less busy place without a television playing allows for more communication and concentration during activities. The room where you and your child work should be free from a constant stream of traffic and allow a child to feel that her work is safe, especially if there are other children in the family. Toddlers and friendly dogs can be especially dangerous around art supplies, so a less-visited room

may be helpful. Since one of the goals of doing projects with children is to provide meaningful time together, this time with your child is precious. The environment must support your focusing on your child and the interaction between you and your child.

SELECTING A WORK SURFACE
While a small table and chairs in your child’s room may be perfect for a tea party, a 6-foot, 220-pound father will not be comfortable in this pint-sized area! Likewise, a 3-year-old seated on an adult folding chair at a table that is chin high for the child will not help the creative process. An appropriate sized table—large enough for lots of materials and chairs—is important. Kitchen counters are great if there are stools and there is space. However, a dining room table or kitchen table may work better.

The table or counter area needs to be washable and able to handle markers, clay, and paint. Using a vinyl tablecloth may help make a dining room table or a counter area appropriate for projects. Having a washable floor underneath is also helpful. Kitchen linoleum is fairly durable and washable, but if the most comfortable
area to work side by side is carpeted, old blankets, sheets, newspapers, or drop cloths can be placed under the work table for protection.

In small apartments or in homes where there is limited space, it will probably work better to have work surfaces and materials that can be put away when not being used. For example, a large piece of cardboard can be used as a place to work and can be slid under a bed when not in use. Some families have set aside
one corner of a room as the children’s work area and put materials in this area.

CONSIDER ACCESS TO WATER
Project work can also occur in several different places. At some times, access to water is crucial, such as during art and construction work. Activities such as painting or clay work require water. It may be possible to carry water to the work area, but for cleaning up accessible running water is important. Imagine your child finishing a big painting project—do you want to have him walk through the house with hands dripping with paint? Of course, paper towels and baby wipes can provide a quick fix, but access to a sink is preferable.
Read More : Making Your Home a Place for Learning

Abecedarian Program

The Abecedarian Program, also known as the Carolina Abecedarian Project, was established in 1972 at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Abecedarian Program was an experimental early childhood program aimed at studying the long-term effects of high-quality early intervention with infants judged to be at high risk as a result of poverty and maternal education. Follow-up studies after twenty-one years indicated that the Abecedarian program intervention had positive long-term results.

The Abecedarian Program began in 1972 and served children of low-income, predominantly African American families. A total of 111 infants, divided into two groups, participated in the study. Fifty-seven infants were assigned to the treatment group and 54 were in the control group. The average age of the infants at the beginning of the program was 4.4 months and all were in good health.

Infants in the treatment group received child care and early educational services for six to eight hours per day, five days per week, for fifty weeks per year, up to kindergarten entry at age 5. In addition, families received medical, social, and nutritional services. Children and families in the control group received the additional services, but not the focused early childhood education program.

The early childhood education program consisted of planned activities in specific targeted developmental areas, namely, language, cognitive and fine motor, social and self-help, and gross motor. The child to caregiver ratio was 3:1 for infants and 6:1 for toddlers and preschoolers, and each caregiver was trained to
place particular emphasis on language development through daily conversational interactions with the children. The program offered individualized activities for infants and a learning center approach for the toddlers and preschoolers. Parents of children in the program attended social functions, served on the advisory board, and received counseling in child health and development.

During the summer prior to kindergarten entrance, the Abecedarian treatment group children participated in a six-week transition program that included other community children. The intent of this program was to introduce the Abecedarian children to others they would encounter in school. Upon school entry, half the children in both the treatment and control groups were randomly assigned to a school-age intervention program for kindergarten through third grade. A Home-School Resource Teacher (HST) was assigned to a
group of fourteen children and served as a liaison between the children’s teachers and their families. The HST consulted with the school teachers and provided families with activities to support children’s learning of mathematics and reading.

The HST also referred families to social services as needed. The purpose of this follow-up intervention was to assess the relative impact of timing of intervention on outcomes. All but seven participants in both the treatment and control groups of the Abecedarian program were assessed at ages three, four, five, six and a half, eight, twelve, fifteen, and twenty-one years. Beginning at age 3 and throughout the study, treatment group children had significantly higher scores on I.Q. tests, as well as reading and math tests. By age 15, significantly fewer treatment group children had been retained in grade or had been placed in special education classes. By age 21, significantly more treatment group children were enrolled in or had graduated from a four-year college, and on average were a year older than control group participants at the birth of their first child.

Because of the school intervention feature of the Abecedarian Program, outcomes can be compared in terms of timing and duration of intervention. Some children received early and continuing intervention, others received early intervention only, and still others received later intervention only. In terms of IQ, reading, and math measures, the most persistent positive results were obtained by children in the early and continuing intervention group up to age 12. The next best outcome accrued to children in the early intervention group, followed by the later intervention group. By age 15, however, continuing benefits were discernible only for participants in the two groups that had experienced early intervention. See also Cognitive Development; Development, Language; Development, Social; Intelligence Quotient; Intelligence Testing.

Further Readings: Burchinal, Margaret R., Frances A. Campbell, Donna M. Bryant, Barbara H. Wasik, and Craig T. Ramey. (1997). Early intervention and mediating processes in cognitive performance children of low-income African American families. Child Development 68(5), 935–954; Campbell, Frances A., Elizabeth P. Pungello, Shari Miller-Johnson, Margaret Burchinal, and Craig T. Ramey. (2001). The development of cognitive and academic abilities: Growth curves from an early childhood educational experiment. Developmental Psychology 37(2), 231–242; Campbell, Frances A., and Craig T. Ramey. (1995). Cognitive
and school outcomes for high risk African American students at middle adolescence: Positive effects of early intervention. American Educational Research Journal 32(4), 743–772.
Read More : Abecedarian Program