Grow and Learn: Growing & Changing

Date: 1999
Author: Roberta Schomburg Ph.D., Hedda Bluestone Sharapan
Illustrator: Ben Mahan
Designer: Moonhee Pak
Editor: Joellyn Thrall Cicciarelli
Publisher: Macmillan / McGraw-Hill
Series: Grow & Learn
ISBN: 0021976856

Editorial Consultants: Cathy Cohen Droz, Elaine Lynch, Aisha White
Project Director: Carolea Williams

Copyright © 1999 by Family Communications, Inc.

Description

For decades, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood has been helping young children to grow "inside and out" through daily visits with their television friend, Mister Rogers. Growing & Changing brings to you his deep understanding of children and how they grow and learn, and features practical, hands-on activities for your classroom.

Just look inside Growing & Changing -- there is so much to do! Help children learn how they and all living things grow and change as they plant seeds, talk about their "inside growing," and pretend to be caterpillars and butterflies. Children become more comfortable with new experiences by pretending about hospitals, airplane rides, and moving to a new house. Discover new ways to encourage children to feel proud about the ways they are growing up with activities such as making a poster that highlights the children's accomplishments.

As a teacher, you have many ways to help children learn about growing and changing. Now, with these ideas from Mister Rogers and Growing & Changing, you will have a wonderful resource to support you in this important work.

A Letter From Fred Rogers

Dear Neighbor,

Most of us remember how long the summers used to seem and how long it was from birthday to birthday. When we were five, it seemed we'd never get to be ten. And at ten, it seemed it would be forever until we were twenty. So often, it is only by helping children look back at where they have been, that they can see they are growing at all.

And they're growing in so many ways! There are outward signs that we can help cildren notice, like clothes that get outgrown and pencil marks on a doorjamb that move up as children get taller. We can also remind them of things they've learned to do that they wouldn't have been able to do a month or a year before, such as tying a shoe or riding a tricycle.

But while that kind of growing brings a great deal of satisfaction to children and their teachers and caregivers, it's their inside growth we particularly need to help them appreciate. Growing on the inside are the words I use when I talk with children about such things as learning to wait, learning to keep on trying, being able to talk about feelings, and being able to express those feelings in constructive ways. When you applaud "inside growing," you may be helping children feel even more proud than when you move that line on the doorjamb up another inch.

Fred Rogers