Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

I was scanning through my Google reader tonight (yes, I admit I am a speed scanner when I am behind on my blog reading), when I came across a post from Scott over at Brick by Brick mentioning a number of great TED Talks.   Scott features one of my favorite TED Speakers- Sir Ken Robinson in the post mentioned, hop on over and check it out! I honestly do not watch a lot of tv, but I do spend quite a bit of time reading blogs and watching great videos like this one from Sugata Mitra: (It is a few years old, but still one of my favorites). I love how this experiment shows us that we really just need to give children the tools, set up the environment and really let them run with it!  Now, about that faster processor and bigger hard drive... (I picked up some great "things" for the children at some yard sales this weekend!!!! I can't wait to show the children!!!!!)

A week or so ago, I came down to the toy room after my break to find my young friends sitting on the floor. I asked, what are you doing? To my surprise, I found out that they were watching T.V. The girls sat there for quite some time, giggling and pointing to our front window as they watched the non-existent screen. They were pretending to watch t.v. In our family home daycare, we do not have a television in the main areas where children are present. We do have a room licensed where there is a t.v., but we don't use that type of media on a regular basis in our program. (Perhaps we have utilized that option twice in the last year.) In my opinion, children spend enough time in front of the screen outside of our care. (We do however allow and encourage children to utilize computers and other forms of technology on a semi-regular basis.) I find it quite interesting how much of the technology children absorb and create even in its absence. Take today as another example. A group o...