Children up to age five get a lot of cues from facial expressions. That makes teaching in a mask challenging, but teachers can learn from strategies developed by masked pediatric nurses.
Anne Levesque, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
If returning to in-person instruction is truly impossible for public health reasons, policy makers must make large financial expenditures on quality and accessible distance education.
Given what is now known about the mortality rates of COVID-19, the ongoing disruptions to children’s care, education and health are no longer justified.
When young children are active, their brains and bodies develop the ABCs of “physical literacy,” a key developmental foundation. A new program from University of Winnipeg can help.
As child-care centres start to reopen after the coronavirus disruption, planning needs to include disabled children so as not to further exacerbate existing inequities.
Remote contact with families in the coronavirus emergency is critical, but learning on a screen is not how young children will gain the foundational and developmental skills they need.
Canada could emerge from this pandemic with a better quality, expanded and more efficient child-care system nationwide while making an investment with returns in the future.
Global experts in child development say recess will be critical for children’s well-being when schools reopen, so education authorities should see planning recess as a high priority.
Scotland is undertaking a child-care initiative to double the number of fully funded child-care hours available to parents, and outdoor play is part of it.
One father was fined for rollerblading with kids in a parking lot, while other families hit the cottage. Families’ backyard or property status should not determine kids’ right to outdoor play.
Grief encompasses our emotional responses to change and loss, and children’s grief might be expressed in what psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described as the five common stages of grief.
Improving a child’s sense of numbers, and their understanding of probability, fractions, ratios, shapes and patterns, can all be incorporated into daily life or with simple games.
P.L.A.Y.: An acronym to remind you why letting children play is a responsible and critical way to support children’s development through the COVID-19 pandemic.
With parents trying to work from home while schools and daycare services are closed, some children may get more screen time than usual during COVID-19 social distancing.
Encouraging kids to complete their work can be tough for families managing full-time work and family obligations on a tight budget. And that’s true even when schools are operating normally.
Adjunct Professor, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at Ontario Institute for the Study of Education (OISE) and Senior Policy Fellow at the Atkinson Centre, University of Toronto
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary