Program Philosophy

                                                               In this picture the children are singing a song with hand motions

 

     I nurture children in the two broad categories, social and cognitive, that make us human and bring us joy. In the social realm, I  nurture preschooler’s emerging abilities to bond with others, and learn tactics for kindness, problem solving and self control. Cognitively, I nurture their inborn drives to follow their curiousities inventively. You will see evidence of these in the long period I have for self initiated social play; open ended, process oriented art projects; my social coaching, and the Character Education component of the curriculum. Children learn by doing.

 

     The brains of preschool aged children are different from those of adults. They need to do physical exploration of three- dimensional objects in order to mature. I value pretending as the beginning stage of representational thought, and children’s own inventions as even more mind-building than learning by imitation or by following directions. Children's play is brain building work.

 

     After volunteering recently in my child’s kindergarten and first grade classrooms, I have come to the conclusion that children need a solid background in the alphabet and number concepts, before they enter the fast paced academic environment of public school. I am devoted to providing this in the year before kindergarten, in a way that keeps the joy of learning alive, and is meaningfully related to the children’s lives, and once again, uses three dimensional manipulative objects to teach.

 

     For behavioral training, I use the “Be Safe, Be Kind, Be Clean” model. For solving social problems, I use the “Peace Rose Method”, which uses a rose as a talking stick. Each party gets a turn to tell feelings and needs, and when the problem is solved they chant, “We declare Peace!” For character education, I always keep a book on the bookshelf, and a song in the lesson plan about kindness, or other universally valued character virtues.

 

     Lastly, I just love music. I share it with children by playing all kinds of genres and ethnic varieties during our dancing and rhythm-instrumental play-alongs. I burst into song related to our play, and teach concepts by singing. The older class receives an introduction to music notation.