Sharing Ideas

One of the beautiful things about modern technology is the ability to share good ideas with others in your profession. This weekend I received a tweet from Lisa Murphy (@OoeyGooeyLady) that directed me to a preschool blog detailing this activity. I was so excited to share this idea with my own class I could barely sleep last night.

Using the book I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! by Karen Beaumont and David Catrow as a launching point, I organized the above supplies and covered two walls with our canvass. Upon arrival the children gathered around to hear the story. We discussed the importance of keeping the paint on the canvass, waiting patiently for our turn and using our imaginations. 

Then we added talented artists like this. 

And these sweeties. 

Even the teachers contributed. 

This guy worked up a sweat!

Adding finishing touches.

When our painting was dry each artist signed the work. It will be on exhibit for the next several weeks in Room 202. Stop by and view it for yourself! 

Northampton Christian Preschool has been inspiring artists like these since 1995.

Slurping our way to better nutrition!

For the past several years we've made a concerted effort to improve the health and nutrition curriculum at Northampton Christian Preschool. The children are taught how to distinguish between healthy foods and treat foods and the importance of filling our plates with an abundance of healthy foods. Our snack menu has evolved from teddy grahams and juice to one rich in fresh whole veggies and fruit. Today we tried something new; Green Smoothies!

When my children were young I had difficulty getting them to eat veggies. When they did try an occasional carrot or celery stick it always seemed to be smothered in a high-fat dip. To make matters worse, my children were terrible breakfast eaters. I wish I had tried smoothies back then. Not only is it a wonderful way to sneak veggies into a picky eater's diet but it's quick for families rushing out the door in the morning.

My co-teacher, Mrs. Lori starts each day with a smoothie and she graciously shared her "magic bullet" with us this morning. A blender or food processor works too. After perusing several recipes online, we adapted our own. Here's what we used:

• frozen banana chunks 
• frozen peaches 
• green apples, peeled and sliced 
• fresh spinach 
• a little bit of juice for thinning 
• ice cubes 

First we blended the fresh spinach with the juice. Next came all the other fruit and ice. The finished product looked like this: 

You can mix fruits and veggies for a variety of combinations. It's a good way to use up those brown bananas or the last few wrinkled strawberries. Although many recipes call for yogurt or milk, we omitted it this time.

The best part is the kids loved them!


If you have a favorite  smoothie recipe, please share it in the comments below. We'll be trying several more varieties before the school year ends!

Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Developmentally Appropriate Practice or DAP, is a term commonly bantered about in early childhood education. Simply put, DAP involves teaching children based on their stages of development. It's meeting children where they are and encouraging them on to the next level. It also includes using materials and toys that are age-appropriate and best suited for the preschool child.

At Northampton Christian Preschool we strive daily to put DAP into practice. Our curriculum is designed to fully engage children in the learning process and help them achieve realistic goals. In addition we are careful to include all areas of development: physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual.

Below are a few examples of children engaged in developmentally appropriate learning.

 

Each of these girls is actively at play without the direction of a teacher. It's important for young children to learn how to pretend and engage their imaginations. Our little artist above is free to experiment with the painting materials and discover on her own how the paint is absorbed onto the paper.


Materials and toys facilitate learning. 

Age appropriate toys look like this. 

Not this. Do you see the difference? 

This is a DAP way to teach children beginning writing. 

This is best reserved for First Grade. 

This is how a preschooler learns math. 

This is how a second grader learns math. 

Now there's nothing wrong with a child playing with commercial cars or using a coloring book or a school-aged pencil, especially at home. But at school we want to provide children with open-ended materials that have many uses and are designed for their little hands and minds. 

I have oversimplified DAP to give you just an idea of what the term means. Volumes of research has been conducted on the subject over the past decade or two, most notably from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. 

Northampton Christian Preschool will continue to provide developmentally appropriate experiences for our children and to adapt our curriculum to the best practices of the field. Our chief goal is to prepare your child for a lifetime of learning. 

The Elf In Our School

"Guess what?" blurted out my little friend as he walked in the door Monday morning, "we have an ELF at our house!" he continued, "his name is Peanut and he loves candy and every morning he's someplace new!"

The Elf on the Shelf has been all the rage these past few years and the families at our school seem to have caught the fever. During free play in the morning the children chatter excitedly about elf names and activities. One child's elf was hanging from the ceiling fan, one hiding in the lamp. Most of the elves are well-behaved creatures but a few have some naughtiness coursing through their impish bodies.

One elf (who shall remain nameless) spilled a bag of flour all over the kitchen and was making snow angels! My little friend explained that even though the elf was naughty sometimes, they loved him anyway. As I relayed this story to mom at pick-up she said they are using the poor behavior of the elf to teach grace to their children. These children are learning that God loves us even when we make mistakes or don't deserve it.

Although I never had the pleasure of an elf at my house, I do have a close personal friend who is a real elf. I'm not sure I'm permitted to discuss this but . . . Mrs. Davis is an elf!

For the past several years Nora Davis has been a volunteer on the Cuyahoga Valley Railroad's Polar Express. After teaching young children during the day she magically transforms into her elf self and hops aboard the train with Santa in the evening. She helps serve cookies, reads to the children and makes sure everyone on the train leaves with happy memories. Sometimes she gets home very late at night and has to quickly change back into human form for school the next morning. If you look very carefully, you can see a special twinkle in her eyes and the remnants of glitter in her hair. 

As adults it's too easy to get caught up in all the fuss of holiday preparations and miss the magic and wonder and grace. Whether or not you have an elf at your house, may you find some magical moments with your little one this season. The cleaning and cooking and decorating and baking and wrapping can all wait. Take a deep breath, find your sweeties and cuddle on the sofa. Read the Christmas story and share a favorite childhood memory of a Christmas past.  

Most importantly, remember the gift of love that was held in that stable manger and the hope it still provides for us today. 

Cheryl Hoover is the Director of Northampton Christian Preschool in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio 

Thank you God, for everything

                                                   Thank you for the world so sweet,
                                                    thank you for the food we eat,
                                                    thank you for the birds that sing,
                                                    thank you, God, for everything.

This little prayer is recited at school each day. As we learned the story of the first Thanksgiving we also learned what it means to be thankful.

Here's a little of what I've learned about Thanksgiving from the very wise three, four and five year olds who teach me each day.

I thank God for:

• a new puffy winter coat that keeps me warm on chilly mornings
• news shoes, especially the pretty sparkly ones or the ones that light up when I stomp
• a fresh new batch of play dough
• the joy that comes from banging on rhythm sticks or jingle bells 
• a healthy body that allows me to run, climb and skip 
• chasing my friends on the playground on a sunny, 60 degree day in November! 
• being able to "read" my favorite book all by myself 
• getting a birthday treat from a friend at school 
• new smelly markers on the art table 
• finding a little treat food at the bottom of my lunch box 
• playing pretend 
• dancing to a song that I know the words to
• digging a hole on the playground and finding a squiggly worm 
• making a friend 
• my parents who pick me up each day and take me to the best place on earth--home. 

May your home be filled with wonderful sounds and smells and family tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving! 

Making the monsters go away

"Teacher, teacher I want the yellow bean bag!" shouted an excited little one as I was passing out colored bean bags for a favorite dance. "I'm sorry you didn't get the color you wanted, I explained, that's called being disappointed. Sometimes you don't get the color you want but you get what you get and you can't throw a fit." This little lesson, painful as it may be, is one of the ways we teach children how to deal with disappointment.

Preschoolers are just beginning to understand their emotions and a goal of our program is to help children identify and appropriately express a variety of feelings. The month of October and the occasion of trick-or-treat is a good time to talk about being happy, sad, frightened, angry and disappointed.

In addition to learning how to deal with disappointment, children need to learn how to overcome or adequately deal with their fears. (Don't we all!) In the weeks leading up to Halloween we talk a great deal about monsters, bad dreams and scary costumes. We learn that monsters are just pretend and that people can put on a costume and look different even though they're still the same person underneath.

But what about fear? How do you teach young children how to deal with the monsters under their bed or scary dreams? Faith in a God who is always watching over us is a way to reassure children and  adults.

The Gospel of Mark relays this story. (I've taken the liberty to paraphrase in kid-speak.) Jesus and his friends were taking a boat ride. It was a beautiful, sunny day and they were laughing and enjoying the weather. Jesus lay down in the boat and fell asleep. A short while later the winds began to blow (insert 4-year-old wind sounds here) and the waves began to get bigger and bigger (children rock up and down). The friends of Jesus began to get worried. It was becoming more and more difficult to row the boat on the tall waves. Then the rain began to fall and the friends were getting wet. The wind continued to howl and by now the friends were terrified. "Jesus, wake up!" they yelled.  "Help us, help us!" they shouted.

Jesus woke up and looked at his friends. "Why are you frightened? You know that I am right here with you," he said. And then Jesus performed a miracle. He stood up and said to the wind, "Be still!" He looked at the water and said, "Be still!" And the wind stopped blowing and the rain stopped and the sea was as calm as could be.

"Who is this man?" the friends wondered, "even the wind and the rain obey him." Jesus' friends were amazed.

As we plant seeds of faith in the hearts of our little ones we want them to know that God created them, loves them and is always watching over them. Jesus is with us when the storms come and when there are monsters under our bed and when we have bad dreams at night. We are never alone.

This story is not just for children. It's one I turn to when fighting monster-like adult worries.

If you aren't familiar with the "Veggie Tales" check out the song "God is Bigger." This catchy little tune is another great way to teach your child that God is always watching over them. The song is linked here.





Cheryl Hoover is the Director of Northampton Christian Preschool.

Confessions of a Wimpy Mom

Now that my children are grown I look back over parenting decisions I made and wish I had done a few things differently. By the grace of God my children are a healthy, happy bunch who are learning to make their respective ways in the world despite their mother's shortcomings. After teaching young children for 16 years I have greater wisdom today than I did as a young mom.

When our son was three years old, my husband and I enrolled him in a two-mornings-a-week preschool program. It was a wonderful little school staffed by nurturing teachers who were well versed in early childhood education.

Our son loved school. For the first month. Then he had an unfortunate but typical potty accident and refused to go back. We talked, cajoled and reasoned with him. (This may have been our first mistake. Who in their right mind thinks they can reason with a three year old!) He dug in his heels, cried and lamented that he was not going back to school.

It's hard to watch your child struggle and it's very hard to see them unhappy. I began to question our decision to enroll him. Does a three year old really need preschool anyway? Maybe he just wasn't ready for the big, bad world of school. Wouldn't he be better off another year at home with me? Was I causing grave psychological damage by insisting he go back? (This might be an overreach but what parent hasn't had this thought?) After a week of fighting I caved in and withdrew him. What a wimp I was.

Even though I went on to make decisions far worse than this one, I did my son no favors by pulling him out. I should have confidently told him that moms work and kids go to school. I should have calmly taken him back to school, let him cry a few minutes until he found something fun to do and returned at the end of the morning. The truth is I allowed a three-year-old child to control the situation and failed to be the parent he needed. I also sent a subtle message that he couldn't handle difficult situations on his own.

Children learn to be emotionally competent when they triumph over their fears. Their self esteem grows when they venture into new territory and find that they not only survive, but thrive. And, they learn discipline when they get to school every day even when they'd rather stay home and snuggle in their pajamas.

Some days school is a great place where you play with your best friend and get to paint at the easel. Other times a mean kid knocks your blocks over and you don't get a turn in duck, duck, goose. Children learn valuable lessons from all these experiences.

I don't believe my misguided decision caused irreparable harm to my son, but I wish I had sent him back to school and empowered him to triumph over a stressful situation. I'm happy to report that although he flunked out of preschool that year he is about to graduate law school. And today he is only occasionally mocked for this event by his sisters.

God made you a parent for a reason. Don't be afraid to lead your child and don't be too wimpy to let them learn lessons, even difficult ones, on their own.

                                   My son the preschool dropout and his wimpy mother.