Knowledge and Care of the Body
In addition to providing a foundation for understanding the importance of good nutrition, learning about the body and self-care practices supports the goals of health education standards for establishing lifelong practices and attitudes. Curricular activities that center on concepts of anatomy, hygiene, and illness prevention help children learn about how their bodies grow and what they can do to stay well and be healthy.
Table 8.7 provides ideas for activities that stress these important concepts for young children. An associated list of books about the body and hygiene for children is included in the appendix .
Personal Safety
Finally, early childhood educators understand they have the primary responsibility in their classrooms and care settings for keeping children safe and properly supervising their activities as well as helping them learn how to be safe. This can be challenging with young children owing to (1) a developmentally characteristic range among them from fearlessness to risk-aversion, (2) the abstract nature of the concept of risk, and (3) changing attitudes about what constitutes real dangers to children (Gill, 2007; Guldberg, 2009; Louv, 2008). Tim Gill, author of No Fear (2007, p. 1) states “We all want to keep children safebut are we going the right way about it? By bubble wrapping children we stop them developing the skills and resilience they need to protect themselveswhile those working with children can become so anxious about risk prevention they lose confidence in their own good judgment.”