About Me

Hi, My name is Tonya Hooks and I attend Walden University pursuing my Bachelor's in Child Development and Education. My blog is about Child Health, Safety, and Nutrition for my class. I have learned a lot of information about our little ones and their Health and Safety. I am glad to share my blog with my classmates.

Children and Physical Activity

The importance of physical activity for children, is movement and physical activity because fitness fosters children’s growth and development and helps them stay strong and healthy (Sanders, 2011). They learn as they grow throughout their environment while running and playing with different age group at recess or play time. While observing children you will see them most playing, jumping and kicking the ball to friends. They love to interact with others kids while playing outside and in active play.

Developmental skills that they will learn while keeping themselves busy is by using their gross motor skills by catching and throwing the ball while playing outside with friends, they can also use their fine motor skills by putting a puzzle together using the muscle in their hands. Learning language and thinking skills is another skill that they can learn while getting the right physical movement that will get their mind in motion so they can figure out what is the next thing that they want to do. They like stacking up blocks and counting them, it helps them understand the things that they are building and making. They understand most of what is being said and 75% of their speech understands (Firchow, 2012).

When going outside they use their gross motor skills by running around playing kickball, throwing the ball, using their fine motor skills by catching the ball. An activity that they can make is called Squishy bags is when they mix all different colors in a bag, they can squish and mix the colors in the bag by using their fingers. Another activity that they can play is tag, that’s when you tag your friend and they run to try and tag the next friend, they are using gross motor to build up their muscle in their legs.

If kids don’t get enough exercise they will lack the energy and protein that they need for their body to function properly. In   day and time we have to be very careful with watching our children weight, because of the obesity that is going on with young children and teen today. Childhood obesity is now the most prevalent nutrional disease in children 18 years old and younger (Peters, 2004). Excess weight is basically a problem created by energy imbalance (Robertson, pg 259, 2009). Children that are not physical active and take in too many calories can be on the way to being obesity. We can help them by going out and exercising with our children to get ourselves fit. A common misconception is that young children just naturally learn how to run, catch, throw and catch competence.(Goodway)

Health and Nutrition

It is so important for children to get good nutrition and eating habits for each age group. Because if a child don’t have a well balanced meal for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, their day might not be a good one. Children have to learn good eaten habits by teaching your kids good eaten habits you will able to keep them at a healthy weight. Also good habits is best learned when a child is growing up and hopefully they will keep it as they get older. As parents we must guide our families on the right path when it comes down to eating healthy things. You can make a list of healthy things that you need to get from the grocery store and shop together as a family; this will help them make a healthy choice when it is time to eat. Make sure that they know not to stuff their mouth and to eat slowly. You can also plan snakes in between meals, so you can prepare snacks like apple slices, oranges, and bananas. Always eat breakfast it is one of the most important meals in the day. Not having breakfast can slow down your metabolism for a couple of hours, when eating breakfast try to stay away from pancakes, waffles, and other starchy foods. Make sure that you talk about all the food that you are in taken with the kids. Make sure when you are feeding them to make sure that they are drinking enough amounts of water and milk to keep the body quipster. Adults should maintain and help children to keep their eating habits. Two ways is to keep   up good eating habits is to eat five meals a day, drink plenty of water.  According to our text in Implication for Teacher says that nutrition education is important tool for the teachers to help the parents and children to understand their role in proper nutrition for good health and well being of our children. (Robertson , pg 323, 2009 4^th edi).

Three receipts that I would like to share that is a healthy meal that you can make with your preschoolers. The first one is homemade applesauce:

Three nutritious recipes that you can make with preschoolers: Ingredients:

       2 small red apples

       2 tbsp. lemon juice

       2 tsp. sugar

       2 pinches of cinnamon

Utensils:

       knife (you'll need help from your adult assistant)

       blender or food processor

       measuring spoons

       serving bowls

Directions:

1.    Peel the apples and cut them into small pieces. Throw out the core.

2.    Put the apple pieces and lemon juice into the blender or food processor. Blend until the mixture is very smooth.

3.    Pour the mixture into two small bowls and stir in the sugar and cinnamon.

4.    Enjoy your awesome applesauce!

Serves: 2

Serving size: 1 bowl (half the recipe)

Nutritional analysis (per serving):
84 calories
0 g protein
0 g fat
22 g carbohydrate
2 g fiber
0 mg cholesterol
3 mg sodium
14 mg calcium
0.3 mg iron

The second one: Chicken wraps

What you need:

       4 whole-wheat wraps (8 inches)

       2 cups store-bought rotisserie chicken, shredded

       ½ cup shredded carrots

       1 avocado, thinly sliced

       1 cup baby spinach leaves

       ¼ cup of your favorite fat-free/low-fat dressing (about 1 tablespoon per wrap)

What to do:

1.    Place wraps side by side on a flat surface. Divide chicken into four portions (about ½ cup each). Place a portion of chicken on each wrap.

2.    Top each wrap with carrots, avocado, and spinach. (Have an adult help with the chopping.)

3.    Drizzle dressing evenly over each wrap.

4.    Roll each wrap up tightly and cut on the diagonal.

5.    Serve immediately or wrap tightly in aluminum foil and refrigerate for lunch the next day.

Third one is: tasty tatter tots what you need:

       1½ pounds sweet potatoes

       ¾ cup chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans), undrained

       2 tablespoons vegetable oil

       ½ teaspoon salt

       ¼ teaspoon pepper

       ½ teaspoon onion powder

       ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Cooking spray What to do:

1.    Preheat oven to 400°F.

2.    Steam or boil sweet potatoes until barely tender, approximately 15 minutes. Let cool.

3.    Peel cooled potatoes. Shred them using a grater or food processor.

4.    Puree chickpeas, including liquid, until smooth.

5.    Combine shredded sweet potatoes and chickpeas in a large bowl.

6.    Add oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, and cinnamon. Mix well.

7.    Spray sheet pans with cooking spray.

8.    Scoop heaping tablespoons of the mixture and place 1 inch apart on prepared sheet pans.

9.    Bake in oven for approximately 10-12 minutes, until starting to brown.

All the receipts that I found is located on www.kidshealthy.org

Reference:

Robertson,2009 4^th edition

        

CPR and choking emergencies

I’m at my center and we are setting up for lunch my co- teacher is setting the tables, we have two children helping setting up lunch. As we go and wash our hands the kids find their chairs and sit for lunch. Head start prepares our meals and make sure that the foods the children eat are not choking hazards. I had a 4 year old little girl who is the talker of my table; this is in a preschool setting in head start school. She is talking, talking, talking, and talking while she is eating, I’m always saying don’t talk when your mouth is full constantly. This particular day she is doing the same thing talking while she is eating her fruit coattails, when all of a sudden it’s quite at my table, one of the kids say Ms. Tonya Jziyah can’t talk I look up and she is holding her hands over her throat, I jump up grab her and start doing the helices maroon and it popped out it was a piece of fruit lucky I caught it before she stopped breathing but she was beginning to turn blue-grayish. Her mom was called my co- teacher called 911 and they took her for observation.

We was over to a church friend of ours, she was having a pool party for her son. Everybody was having a great time, getting in and out of the pool. It was time to eat, her son realized that one little girl was not sitting to the table, he ran back to the pool and there she was at the bottom of the pool. Mica jumped in and pooled her out, ma and her mother started doing CPR, I’m not sure how long she was down but she was not breathing she had turned blue Mica called 911. We worked on her for an awhile and we got her to start breathing again. They had to fly her to the all children’s hospital; they told us that they were glad we started CPR as quick as we did. Without that she would not have made it or be alive today. It was a scary situation, and I thought that I could have not responded if I seen something happens as scary as that, but I jumped right in. That taught me a lesson when you are at a pool party d a head count every time you or kids get or out of the pool.

Being an educator that is why it is god to have your CPR and first aid training you will never know what might happen in school or at home. It is mandatory that you have CPR and first aid training when working with kids.

National disaster

Working in a head start you have to be prepared for anything to happen within a split second. That is why I have chosen hurricanes or tornados as my national disaster that might happen close to my center. In the beginning of the school year we set or have a plan for things that might happen while we are at school planning our daily schedule.

Let’s say that we are doing what we normally do through the day, suddenly we get over the PA system that we are now under a hurricane watch and we have to prepare and get the children to safety. We as teachers have to get in that safety mode, and realize that our main concern is our kids. So we prepare the children and let them know what’s about to happen, they know the procedures because we go over them daily, we take them in the bathroom because it has no windows, one teacher grabs the attendance book, first aid kit, emergency contact sheet, and the bag with snacks and non perishable foods and water. Because we don’t know how long we will in cover we must be prepared. We do a head count of students and teachers before we go in and we do another head count  when we make sure that all children are accounted for, we grab the cell phone and charging portable radio with batteries.

Tornado’s we have a plan in place we will make sure that we do a count of all the children and teachers. We will assist the children to go in the hall way squat on their knees and cover their head, we call it the turtle squat. On the way out of the class we will grab the first aid kit, emergency contact sheets, attendance, medicine box with the key, and a portable radio to keep  an update on how the tornado is and how long would we have to stay in the hallway.

We as Educators should always be prepared when it comes down to situations like these because you will never know when something as serious as these disasters may change the lives of our children and families. We will try to contact all of our parents to let them know that we are safe and we will keep informed of what we are doing and try to encourage them to stay at home if it is bad out, and that do not try to come out and get their children until it is safe to do so.

Five potentially hazardous situation or safety threats that I came up with for my age group.

   First, when you are playing with toys at home or at the daycare center, please let’s teach them to clean up behind themselves. To prevent any injuries from happening, clean up toys and put them back in them back in the right place and containers where they belong. So that our guest would not step on them as they walk around the classroom, even someone might slip and fall and fall on the toys and get hurt us. We should keep our things off the floor to prevent accidents or injuries from occurring. Parents should make sure that they have a safe place so they can store their toys when they are finish playing with them at home.

   Second, safety hazard is making sure that all medicine and all cleaning products are locked up, and put away. So that children cannot get in to the products. It is very dangerous to leave any medicine or cleaning solution down, because children can think that it may be juice or milk because of its color. Parents should always have a safe place and storage to lock up the cleaning supplies and medicine products.

Playing on the playground is something that you have to observed when it is time to take your children on the playground, you must scan the playground to make sure that it is free from derby like falling tree branches, leaves, sticks, even glass,  and ant piles. So us being educators and care givers must check the playground and make sure that it is safe. Even if we as parents are home we must make sure that the yard is clear of trash.

When working at a preschool as a teacher we have to make sure that our classroom is safe and free from hazardous things.  That is why we must make sure that all of the plugs have safety plugs in them. Just in case an accident happens, a child cannot come and stick something in the plug socket. The child might get hurt by stricken something in the socket. It’s good to have safety plugs around the house so if you misplace them you will always have a spare.

When working as a caregiver, it is best to make sure that you have updated information on each child. Make sure you know Childs’ medical history, if they have any allergies. When parents bring their child lunch make sure that the food is not a choking hazard, like hotdogs, raisins, peanuts etc. Make sure that each parent has copy of the policy that talks about the center and the do’s and don’t of the center.