"The Early Work of Readying Young Children for Life Success" by Anne Ostholthoff, Executive Producer of The Ignite Show

Here is another fantastic article written by Anne Ostholthoff, Executive Producer of The Ignite Show (www.theigniteshow.com).  The article speaks to the importance of equipping our children from an early age with the right tools to succeed in life.  It also happens to feature our very own Evie North, founder/creator of The Shapels, and talks about how the Shapels are an excellent learning tool for children and their overall cognitive development.  

The Early Work of Readying Young Children for Life Success

By Anne Ostholthoff, Executive Producer of The Ignite Show (www.theigniteshow.com)

When we think of young children, there is hardly a time when we all don’t imagine the small faces, broad smiles, sweet words and gestures of the young children we know. Whether it is our own children, those related to us in some way – or the young ones we care for in our classrooms, they brighten our days with their simple, joyful ways. You know what I mean – right?

The natural instincts of children draw them to question, and consider, remark and play in ways that make us laugh and smile back with them. This playful, “student-centered” interaction and engagement of adults with children is central to known best practices in teaching and learning for early learners. The PEW Charitable Trust affirms the need for us taking seriously this fact as they report “research shows that attending high-quality pre-kindergarten has a lasting impact on a child’s success both in school and in life”. The National Institute for Early Education and Research (NIEER) is a leader PEW and others reference for their remarkable work in this field. NIEER reports that “Cognitive gains from preschool programs were larger when programs focused on intentional and individualized teaching and small group learning. Programs with these features produced long-term cognitive effects equivalent to one half or more of the achievement gap through the end of high school.”

We all want to bring out the most creative, uniquely imaginative spirits of our children but do so in ways that also help them through research–based strategies give us an added degree of confidence. I’ve recently become acquainted with an incredible story and imaginative town created by veteran Preschool teacher Evelyn C. North (Evie) that I want to share. Her artistic little world of characters called Shapeltown and the small Shapel characters were originally created for her own use to help children learn shapes – math concepts – most naturally. Now this world is open to everyone and incredibly useful for a teacher or parent to draw from and, as Evie says, use “as a learning tool and act as a guide for children to explore shapes, colors, and numbers through art, music and their own imagination.” (www.shapels.com)

I find that the small little characters – like Debbie Diamond and Ricky Rectangle – not only offer children a chance to play out their ideas and in the process learn mathematical concepts, English language arts standards and foundational knowledge in the arts, they also open wide the opportunity for educators to teach health, nutrition, safety, science and character education. I applaud Evie for providing what she calls this “open door to a wide variety of engaging activities for building critical thinking skills in young children.” In doing so, we as moms, dads, teachers and caregivers of the youngest among us have yet another set of tools to engage our children.

I’ve seen first-hand over 20 years working in schools the interactions between teachers and children as founding Executive Director of Creating Pride/ ArtsNOW. I’ve advocated for and trained educators how to bring the arts and creativity into the classroom – and the sparks one sees with using puppetry, drawing, singing with young children is hard to forget. This Shapeltown world was developed in a way that not only assures we are using research-based strategies to engage our youth, but also such that we can lovingly draw upon with our own ideas to learn new things about our children’s minds and hearts.

Starting with the child, listening to their young ideas flow as they play, seeing them draw and create their own answers to questions we pose – the smiles, the laughter, the ingenious solutions … this is the way to ready our young ones for life. It is also the way to open our eyes to the most important time we can spend with these littlest ones we love – this is what gets them most ready for life success - the confidence gained from engagement with those who care the most for them!