Blog Journal Module: 4

During this module I had the opportunity to interact with different colleagues and professionals within the field. I poke with a teacher who has her Master's in Education. Ms. T.W. teaches 3 to 5 years old. I had the opportunity to ask her questions in regards to the field and about childhood obesity. Ms. T.W. believes children who are overweight or obese are that way because families don't realizable that  being overweight or obese is very dangerous for children health. Ms. T.W. believes that professionals can support families to learn about childhood obesity by encouraging parents to volunteer in the classroom. She believes parents should participate in the classroom not only observe but to participate in preparing nutritious meals with their children. Ms. T.W. believes teachers can do activities relating to the food pyramid and read or ask parent to read books relating to healthy nutrition.


Ms. T.W. strongly believes  professionals need to know how to approach parents about childhood obesity. Parents might think they are being attacked and they might feel they are bad role models. She said that "the key is to be discreet" because some professionals are not sensitive or the way they talk to parents or children about their weight or eating habits. Ms.T.W. said it is important to allow children to participate in activities that interest them, even though children that are obese find it difficult to run and climb. If they would just do some sort of activity for one hour 3 to 4 days a week they would have less chances to become obese. It is important to let children be themselves don't push them to do activities that might hurt them, but continue to encourage them to participate but follow their lead. 


After talking to colleagues and other professionals within the field I learned that it is important to involve parent in the classroom. I learned different strategies to involve parents in the classroom such as sending a letter home inviting parents to participate in our weekly Food Experience and sending home a letter about the activities children do during the week. I also learned that classroom participation is critical for parent. If you don't know what is going on in your child's classroom than you know your child. After talking to different professionals and other teachers I gained knowledge on how to incorporate different activities and invite parents to participate in the classroom.


The insights I gained from observing, interacting with professionals, teachers, and families is that teachers can develop relationships with parent and other professionals to work as team. By developing a relationship with parent allow teachers to help children in a productive manner. Another insight I gained from observing and interacting with different professionals within the field is that parents can be part of teaching their children about childhood obesity by reading books, cooking home cooked meals, and by keeping them active with physical sports.

Blog Journal Module: 3

The last two weeks I had the opportunity to interact with colleague's site director, and other professionals in the field. I had the opportunity to talk to the site director Ms. Rivera and asked questions about her thoughts on addressing advocacy issues. Ms. Rivera informed me that as a director she encourages the staff to build healthy eating into lessons and provide workshops regarding obesity. Ms. Rivera also takes it upon herself to write letters. She also encourages families and reminds them during monthly meetings the importance of eating health foods. Ms. Rivera said that as a director she might find out more about becoming involved with current advocacy programs by keeping up with information within the community especially with libraries, summer program, and by findings information on different websites. As the site director my goal is and my mission statement is to influence families to make changes with their life styles.


I also had the opportunity to talk to different professionals within the field. I spoke with Ms. Crystal who is the Health Aid. Ms. Crystal is in charge of checking all the files and provides support to all the family support workers. Ms. Crystal informed me that one of the ways she addresses advocacy issues with professionals in her setting is by; talking to parents and families about the importance of having three meals daily and adding fruits and vegetables in meals. Ms. Crystal believes some of the current issues are due to the fact that many families don't have enough time to cook a healthy meal. Many families in Head Start Programs are single families which work full time. I believe I might find out more about current advocacy programs, and stay in contact with the families I work with to provide new information in regards to Head Start Programs. The kind of differences I would like to make in my setting, community, and field; I would like to see more fresh food markets within my neighborhood and see children being more active. I would like to see children exercise every day at least one hour a day. I would like to see an increase in regards to eating healthy. Three servings of low fat dairy a day, and two hours of less screen time would show improvement in a healthy lifestyle. Families can also increase water, vegetables, and fruit intake in their meals by preparing more home cooked meals.


This experience gave me the opportunity to see and hear what other professionals think about addressing advocacy issues and how everyone has different views of implementing advocacy within their settings. This experience made me realized that it is important to advocate for the things we do in life, and to help our children around the world.

Blog Journal Module: 2

Within these two weeks i had the opportunity to interact with professionals and colleagues. I visited Ms. Kristin's classroom, she is the lead teacher in the two year old classroom. I observed her classroom from 8:30 to 10:30 A.M. I had the opportunity to see how she interacts with the families and the children when they first arrived in the classroom. I observed how the children eat breakfast. I noticed that the children served themselves with teacher's help; they served two serving spoons. The children are allowed to have seconds if they eat all the food on their plate and the fruit. Children are allowed to serve only one serving spoon the second time.


I also observed the children playing in the classroom. Ms. Kristin's classroom is child initiated. When the children ply the teachers observe them and they expand on their creativity and curiosity. When I observed Ms. Kristin's classroom I noticed a child who had a hard time playing with his peers. This particular child wanted to play with everything everyone else was playing with. When Ms. Kristin saw specific child having difficulties playing with his peers she went and added toys and water in the water table. When the child saw she added water in the table he went and took a smack; put the smack on and started to play with the water.


The special learning experience related to my topic was breakfast. I learned that teachers are aware of children's weight and they tried to monitor what children eat. When I informed Ms. Kristin about my research topic she was not surprise. She said that childhood obesity is an important topic for families, because many children are overweight and obese. Ms. Kristin informed me that the reason they monitor children when eat is because the center followed a plan to monitor children's weight. Every three moths the children are weighted and if the child is overweight or under weight the family support worker; follows up with families to see if the child has any additional needs.


The second person I had the opportunity to observed and spend time with is the family support worker. Ms. Jessica is the family support worker for the two year old classroom. I had the opportunity to observe and see how she would input children data or information in COPA. Ms. Jessica explained that physicals, dental, immunizations, TB, Hearing & Vision, ASQ, Family partnership Agreement, Family assessments, and Case Notes regarding family and child are documents that go in COPA. Ms. Jessica is also responsible for scheduling meetings with the mental health provider. Ms. Jessica has many other duties, such as Scheduling SRT meetings, weighing children every three months, and accompanying teachers when visiting families homes.


Ms. Jessica provided great information regarding my topic. She informed me that she has to develop a plan for children who are overweight every three months. Ms. Jessica also follows up with Body Max Index (BMI). This is the weight plan. If the Body Max Index (BMI) is above 18% the child is overweight and the child is at risk of diabetes. If the BMI is under 18% the child is where he/she needs to be. She is responsible for making any adjustments and encouraging family to attend family's monthly meetings. In some of these meetings she arranges meetings with the nutritionist to to discuss information about home cooked meals and the importance of teaching children to eat all type of foods, such as eating vegetables and fresh fruits.