“The cognitive and expressive feedback experienced by the person documenting should also be considered, because documentation is too often underestimated from the point of view of professional growth; it is often seen or done simply as information about what has taken place, and not particularly important for teachers’ professional development” (Vecchi, 2010).

Dear Families and Friends,

As we approach the last weeks of the school year, the teachers and I continue our collaboration to make the children’s significant work possible and visible in our community. Teachers’ notes, photos and video recordings become data for our dialogue at meetings with one another and with the children. The discussions help us to understand the children’s interests and their research. As George Forman advised last Sunday in his presentation at Evergreen Community School, part of our role is to notice when children are not just “doing,” but are also “testing.” The raw documentation supports our ability to revisit and take note of the “testing.” –We can then respond with appropriate questions, materials, groupings and environments. This is part of the curriculum-shaping process.

The microstories and small group stories created by the teachers offer families the opportunity to better understand the investigations happening in each class—and to appreciate the loveliness and significance of particular moments. This documentation serves as an inclusive vehicle, bringing families into the process, as well as presenting the experiences to children in an additional form.

Classroom documentation boards are the result of a collaboration between classroom teachers, studio teachers and myself (in the role of pedagogista). This form of documentation is intended to represent long-term work and is a kind of synthesis of an investigative process over time. As part of the classroom environment, the documentation boards allow children to revisit and respond. Hallway panels are another kind of synthesis of ongoing or previous projects and explorations, inviting the viewer to engage in dialogue about the subject—with other adults and with children. In this way documentation becomes a sort of piazza (Lanzi, 2012).

Currently, all of the teachers and I are working on documentation books, thinking deeply about how to share our observations and reflections in a more extended format—yet avoid the temptation to present only a chronological point of view. We again seek to synthesize the observations. This process requires scholarly thinking based upon what we know about child development, individual children, groups of children, the hundred languages of children, and the beautiful approach from Reggio Emilia–rooted in social constructivism– that inspires our work at PPS. The creation of the books is a demanding and time-consuming process—and one that really requires us to think carefully about what is most significant and best represents the learning that has taken place (or may still be taking place, in the case of continuing explorations). While the books focus on children’s learning, they are also metaphors for adult learning—representing the moment of the initial observation of a child’s “testing” behavior, the collaboration of teachers and children, the “sticking points” that direct the course of the experience, the organization of the data in different formats throughout the journey of the investigation, and teachers’ research and reflections. As Vea Vecchi, former atelierista at the Diana School in Reggio Emilia, asserts: the process of documenting children’s learning is a rich and valuable professional development experience for adults.

As much as I know that teachers are a little “stressed out” by the challenge of creating the books, I am also certain that we will all be very proud of the effort and the learning made visible in this year’s extraordinary documentation books.

Warm wishes to all,

Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Math/Science Workshop at Evergreen Community School

• Video-making and Animation at PPS

• Week of the Young Child: Early Years Are Learning Years

• Lunch with Loved Ones

• Documentation Books

• Hundred Languages Open House

• New Parent Orientation

• April Fundraisers

• Tuition Invoices

• May Calendar

• Looking Ahead at June. . .

• Pictures from School Events

Math/Science Workshop at Evergreen Community School

Last Sunday’s workshop was a valuable professional development experience for PPS faculty members. The speakers included Alan Yu, a leader in progressive math/science education on the Westside who spoke about STEM in the ece classroom, Dr. Doug Clements, Professor at the University of Denver, researcher and math curriculum developer, and Dr. George Forman, Emeritus Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and President of Videatives, Inc., who presented some of his research and experience regarding the observation and extension of children’s scientific investigations.

As a result of our daylong experience at Evergreen, we have ordered new materials from Kodo Kids to support the children’s water and ramp explorations. They should be arriving soon!

Also in response to our experience at Evergreen, we are making preparations to reorganize some of our environments at PPS, re-evaluating how we use our spaces to best support the children’s endeavors. The changes will take place after we close in June and will continue over the summer and into our August workdays prior to the start of the new school year.

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Video-making and Animation at PPS

Our web-master, Oliver Cornell, has been visiting PPS recently in a consulting role. We are seeking his expertise to enhance our ability to create video documentation and to support our interest in exploring the possibility of animating children’s stories and theories. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Oliver in the new school year.

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Week of the Young Child: Early Years Are Learning Years

We have chosen the sub-theme, Strengthening Families, as part of our recognition of NAEYC’s 2013 Week of the Young Child. Beginning on Wednesday, May 1st, our community will have the opportunity to support Upward Bound House, a local nonprofit organization providing transitional housing to homeless families with minor children. Outreach Committee Chairperson, Mary Nadler, has been in touch with UBH and has let us know that they are requesting new bedding at this time. We will have a place in Karen’s office for you to place your donations between May 1st and May 9th. Please see Mary’s flyer for more information.

PPS WOYC Parade
On Wednesday, May 8th, we invite parents to join children and teachers in our annual PPS WOYC Parade around our neighborhood. Children can wear their PPS t-shirts. (Please see Karen if you do not have one.) We also invite families who choose to participate to create simple Family Flags to carry in the parade. We will gather in front of the school at about 9:15 and proceed to walk around the block. All family members are welcome!

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Lunch with Loved Ones

This picnic in our play yard is especially for mothers, grandmothers, or other special loved ones. We invite you to bring a picnic basket and a blanket to lunch with children and teachers:

Cherry Blossom/Rosemary—11:30 to 12:15

Dandelion/Sunflower—12:30 to 1:15

Children will go home at the end of their picnic.

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Documentation Books

We are planning to order samples of the documentation books by May 10 and expect about a week for shipment. Order forms will be available for parents to place book orders during the week of May 20. We will place the parent orders by May 24 so that we can distribute the books to families before the end of the school year.

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Hundred Languages Open House
Wednesday, May 22, from 5 to 7 p.m.

This is a social event for all families. The outdoor and indoor environments will be open for your enjoyment and refreshments will also be served in the Parish Hall. Please join us!

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New Parent Orientation

Friday, May 31, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. This is a mandatory meeting for all new families (and returning families with children new to the preschool). We ask that each family be represented by at least one parent. Children are not included in this meeting. Thank you.

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April Fundraisers

We would like to thank Kim Egan for organizing the CPK and Rosti fundraisers last month—and Dorothy Kozak for arranging for the Jewelry Sale. All were successful fundraisers thanks to the participation of so many families. Thank you!

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Tuition Invoices

Most families have paid the June 2013 tuition in advance, so May tuition will be the final payment for the current school year. Karen will be billing returning and new families at the end of May for the June, 2014 tuition payment—due by June 7, 2013. Miscellaneous accounts such as June Stay & Play and Documentation Book orders will be billed by June 7 and due by June 11. Thank you.

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May Calendar

• May 1 though 9—Upward Bound House collection
• Wednesday, May 8—PPS Week of the Young Child Parade—9:15 a.m.
• Friday, May 10—Lunch with Loved Ones (11:30—CB/Rosemary and 12:30—Dan/Sun)
• Monday, May 20—Documentation Book order forms available
• Friday, May 17—Preschool closed for teacher workday
• Wednesday, May 22—Hundred Languages Open House from 5 to 7 p.m. (12:15 and 12:30 dismissal)
• Monday, May 27—Preschool closed for Memorial Day holiday
• Friday, May 31—New Parent Orientation from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
  

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Looking Ahead at June. . .

• Tuesday, June 4—Teacher Appreciation Luncheon for staff and committee members (12:15 and 12:30 dismissal)
• Thursday, June 6—Last day for catered lunches and last day for Stay & Play
• Friday, June 7—End of Year Celebration for families of Sunflower and Dandelion children—9:15 to 10:00 a.m.
• Tuesday, June 11—Carnival (12:15 and 12:30 dismissal)
• Wednesday, June 12—Last day of school (11:15 and 11:30 dismissal)
• Thursday, June 13—Teacher workday
• June 14 through August 20—Preschool closed for Summer Vacation
• Tuesday, Aug. 20—New Parent Orientation #2—10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, Aug. 21—Classes begin for new school year
• Saturday, Aug. 24—Family Picnic!
  

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Pictures from School Events

Explorations

Staff Breakfast Meeting

Breakfast with Loved Ones…DADS!

By Sean F. Reardon The New York Times Online

Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion.

Whether you think it deeply unjust, lamentable but inevitable, or obvious and unproblematic, this is hardly news. It is true in most societies and has been true in the United States for at least as long as we have thought to ask the question and had sufficient data to verify the answer.

What is news is that in the United States over the last few decades these differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially.

One way to see this is to look at the scores of rich and poor students on standardized math and reading tests over the last 50 years. When I did this using information from a dozen large national studies conducted between 1960 and 2010, I found that the rich-poor gap in test scores is about 40 percent larger now than it was 30 years ago.

To make this trend concrete, consider two children, one from a family with income of $165,000 and one from a family with income of $15,000. These incomes are at the 90th and 10th percentiles of the income distribution nationally, meaning that 10 percent of children today grow up in families with incomes below $15,000 and 10 percent grow up in families with incomes above $165,000.

In the 1980s, on an 800-point SAT-type test scale, the average difference in test scores between two such children would have been about 90 points; today it is 125 points. This is almost twice as large as the 70-point test score gap between white and black children. Family income is now a better predictor of children’s success in school than race.

The same pattern is evident in other, more tangible, measures of educational success, like college completion. In a study similar to mine, Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski, economists at the University of Michigan, found that the proportion of students from upper-income families who earn a bachelor’s degree has increased by 18 percentage points over a 20-year period, while the completion rate of poor students has grown by only 4 points.

In a more recent study, my graduate students and I found that 15 percent of high-income students from the high school class of 2004 enrolled in a highly selective college or university, while fewer than 5 percent of middle-income and 2 percent of low-income students did.

These widening disparities are not confined to academic outcomes: new research by the Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam and his colleagues shows that the rich-poor gaps in student participation in sports, extracurricular activities, volunteer work and church attendance have grown sharply as well.

In San Francisco this week, more than 14,000 educators and education scholars have gathered for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. The theme this year is familiar: Can schools provide children a way out of poverty?

We are still talking about this despite decades of clucking about the crisis in American education and wave after wave of school reform.Whatever we’ve been doing in our schools, it hasn’t reduced educational inequality between children from upper- and lower-income families.

Part of knowing what we should do about this is understanding how and why these educational disparities are growing. For the past few years, alongside other scholars, I have been digging into historical data to understand just that. The results of this research don’t always match received wisdom or playground folklore.

The most potent development over the past three decades is that the test scores of children from high-income families have increased very rapidly. Before 1980, affluent students had little advantage over middle-class students in academic performance; most of the socioeconomic disparity in academics was between the middle class and the poor. But the rich now outperform the middle class by as much as the middle class outperform the poor. Just as the incomes of the affluent have grown much more rapidly than those of the middle class over the last few decades, so, too, have most of the gains in educational success accrued to the children of the rich.

Before we can figure out what’s happening here, let’s dispel a few myths.

The income gap in academic achievement is not growing because the test scores of poor students are dropping or because our schools are in decline. In fact, average test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the so-called Nation’s Report Card, have been rising — substantially in math and very slowly in reading — since the 1970s. The average 9-year-old today has math skills equal to those her parents had at age 11, a two-year improvement in a single generation. The gains are not as large in reading and they are not as large for older students, but there is no evidence that average test scores have declined over the last three decades for any age or economic group.

The widening income disparity in academic achievement is not a result of widening racial gaps in achievement, either. The achievement gaps between blacks and whites, and Hispanic and non-Hispanic whites have been narrowing slowly over the last two decades, trends that actually keep the yawning gap between higher- and lower-income students from getting even wider. If we look at the test scores of white students only, we find the same growing gap between high- and low-income children as we see in the population as a whole.

It may seem counterintuitive, but schools don’t seem to produce much of the disparity in test scores between high- and low-income students. We know this because children from rich and poor families score very differently on school readiness tests when they enter kindergarten, and this gap grows by less than 10 percent between kindergarten and high school. There is some evidence that achievement gaps between high- and low-income students actually narrow during the nine-month school year, but they widen again in the summer months.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t important differences in quality between schools serving low- and high-income students — there certainly are — but they appear to do less to reinforce the trends than conventional wisdom would have us believe.

If not the usual suspects, what’s going on? It boils down to this: The academic gap is widening because rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class students. This difference in preparation persists through elementary and high school.

My research suggests that one part of the explanation for this is rising income inequality. As you may have heard, the incomes of the rich have grown faster over the last 30 years than the incomes of the middle class and the poor. Money helps families provide cognitively stimulating experiences for their young children because it provides more stable home environments, more time for parents to read to their children, access to higher-quality child care and preschool and — in places like New York City, where 4-year-old children take tests to determine entry into gifted and talented programs — access to preschool test preparation tutors or the time to serve as tutors themselves.

But rising income inequality explains, at best, half of the increase in the rich-poor academic achievement gap. It’s not just that the rich have more money than they used to, it’s that they are using it differently. This is where things get really interesting.

High-income families are increasingly focusing their resources — their money, time and knowledge of what it takes to be successful in school — on their children’s cognitive development and educational success. They are doing this because educational success is much more important than it used to be, even for the rich.

With a college degree insufficient to ensure a high-income job, or even a job as a barista, parents are now investing more time and money in their children’s cognitive development from the earliest ages. It may seem self-evident that parents with more resources are able to invest more — more of both money and of what Mr. Putnam calls “‘Goodnight Moon’ time” — in their children’s development. But even though middle-class and poor families are also increasing the time and money they invest in their children, they are not doing so as quickly or as deeply as the rich.

The economists Richard J. Murnane and Greg J. Duncan report that from 1972 to 2006 high-income families increased the amount they spent on enrichment activities for their children by 150 percent, while the spending of low-income families grew by 57 percent over the same time period. Likewise, the amount of time parents spend with their children has grown twice as fast since 1975 among college-educated parents as it has among less-educated parents. The economists Garey Ramey and Valerie A. Ramey of the University of California, San Diego, call this escalation of early childhood investment “the rug rat race,” a phrase that nicely captures the growing perception that early childhood experiences are central to winning a lifelong educational and economic competition.

It’s not clear what we should do about all this. Partly that’s because much of our public conversation about education is focused on the wrong culprits: we blame failing schools and the behavior of the poor for trends that are really the result of deepening income inequality and the behavior of the rich.

We’re also slow to understand what’s happening, I think, because the nature of the problem — a growing educational gap between the rich and the middle class — is unfamiliar. After all, for much of the last 50 years our national conversation about educational inequality has focused almost exclusively on strategies for reducing inequalities between the educational successes of the poor and the middle class, and it has relied on programs aimed at the poor, like Head Start and Title I.

We’ve barely given a thought to what the rich were doing. With the exception of our continuing discussion about whether the rising costs of higher education are pricing the middle class out of college, we don’t have much practice talking about what economists call “upper-tail inequality” in education, much less success at reducing it.

Meanwhile, not only are the children of the rich doing better in school than even the children of the middle class, but the changing economy means that school success is increasingly necessary to future economic success, a worrisome mutual reinforcement of trends that is making our society more socially and economically immobile.

We need to start talking about this. Strangely, the rapid growth in the rich-poor educational gap provides a ray of hope: if the relationship between family income and educational success can change this rapidly, then it is not an immutable, inevitable pattern. What changed once can change again. Policy choices matter more than we have recently been taught to think.

So how can we move toward a society in which educational success is not so strongly linked to family background? Maybe we should take a lesson from the rich and invest much more heavily as a society in our children’s educational opportunities from the day they are born. Investments in early-childhood education pay very high societal dividends. That means investing in developing high-quality child care and preschool that is available to poor and middle-class children. It also means recruiting and training a cadre of skilled preschool teachers and child care providers. These are not new ideas, but we have to stop talking about how expensive and difficult they are to implement and just get on with it.

But we need to do much more than expand and improve preschool and child care. There is a lot of discussion these days about investing in teachers and “improving teacher quality,” but improving the quality of our parenting and of our children’s earliest environments may be even more important. Let’s invest in parents so they can better invest in their children.

This means finding ways of helping parents become better teachers themselves. This might include strategies to support working families so that they can read to their children more often.. It also means expanding programs like the Nurse-Family Partnership that have proved to be effective at helping single parents educate their children; but we also need to pay for research to develop new resources for single parents.

It might also mean greater business and government support for maternity and paternity leave and day care so that the middle class and the poor can get some of the educational benefits that the early academic intervention of the rich provides their children. Fundamentally, it means rethinking our still-persistent notion that educational problems should be solved by schools alone.

The more we do to ensure that all children have similar cognitively stimulating early childhood experiences, the less we will have to worry about failing schools. This in turn will enable us to let our schools focus on teaching the skills — how to solve complex problems, how to think critically and how to collaborate — essential to a growing economy and a lively democracy.

“Significant work of any type at any age has these qualities: It is intentional, highly articulated, purposeful and absorbing, responsive to a child’s interest, and transcendent, meaning it has the potential to branch to numerous other rich subjects that are directly or tangentially related. Significant work is creative, complex, and original” (Lewin-Benham, 2008).

Dear Families and Friends,

The return to preschool after the spring vacation is a special time for many reasons. In particular, the children’s competence, always evident, now becomes even more manifest. Their significant work is visible in our environments—in the moments while we observe children working and in the documentation presented in our spaces. We observe that their work is creative, complex and original. I am thinking of the numerous current interests that teachers and children are pursuing in collaboration with one another and with colleagues. . .

In the Cherry Blossom and Rosemary rooms, children continue their research with composition, juxtaposing materials, shapes, textures and colors. The compositional research is supporting children’s skill in representing the doors they see on neighborhood walks, their images of themselves in self-portraits, their theories about how the light projector functions, as well as their ability to represent still life objects–part of an ongoing body of work with still life drawing. Renewed work with clay on the floor has brought a novel mix of friends to the studio—and their unique creations that combine storytelling and composition with natural materials.

In the Dandelion and Sunflower classes, mapping the inside and the outside of the school has blossomed into investigations in nonstandard measurement—as have the juicing of citrus fruit and the baking of bread in atelier of taste experiences. “On and off” inquiry with regard to machines—and the sun—has developed into storytelling. Children are working in the studio to create story elements out of flannel for use on the storytelling flannel board. The ongoing exploration of identity through movement has moved from drawing to work with wire as children represent themselves and their friends with this flexible, but challenging material.

Observation of the children’s care of the new garden and their interest in drawing our leafy green vegetables reveal children’s fascination with the complexity of plant life. Outdoor studio painting and the very large body of work with paper and tape—and with cardboard boxes– offer more examples of children’s creativity and originality.

In his classic book, Constructive Play, George Forman (1984) shares his observations about play: “The child learns through play. In fact, Jean Piaget insists that meaningful learning requires a period of open-ended ‘playing around’ with the alternative ways of doing something. Constructive play is a preliminary stage in the development of skill, and skill is preliminary to creativity. Play that does not increase skill may be pleasurable in a narrow sense, but is not what we would call constructive. Constructive play, by definition, builds on itself to increase the competence of the child. This competence, in turn, increases the child’s pleasure by making even more creative acts possible. The cycle repeats itself, with the new creative acts becoming yet another form of play at a higher level of understanding. Development, as Piaget phrases it, is a spiral of knowledge moving upward through alternating play and skill.”

We observe this learning process in all of the children’s significant work experiences. The learning does not occur in a linear fashion. Moving back and forth between open experimentation, scaffolding from adults and peers, and exploration of other languages in a variety of school and home settings supports the children’s ability to engage in work that is creative, complex and original.

These next two months promise to be a wonderful time at our little school—for children and for parents and teachers—as we observe and support the children’s constructive play and significant work.

Happy Spring!
Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Thank You

• Library Makeover

• April Small Fundraisers

• Breakfast with Loved Ones

• Professional Development Day

• May Calendar

• Pictures from School Events

Thank You

As a community, we thank all of the parents who participated in Parent Conferences, celebrations and fundraisers during the month of March—from Pajama Night and CPK Day to St. Patrick’s Day, Passover and Egg Hunts!

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Library Makeover

We would again like to express our appreciation to Mary Nadler, the Borstein Family, the Haines Family, PPS Board member, Jeff Rouze, and the Library Committee members for the transformation of our Library. Please take a look at our new shelves! In addition to housing the children’s library, this space is a sort of piazza for our community and is also the place where we welcome potential new families to our school on Parent Tours as well as visiting educators from our area on Educator Tours. –Thank you!

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April Small Fundraisers

On Monday, April 15th, Sunflower parent, Dorothy Kozak, has arranged for our school to participate in a Jewelry Sale in preparation for Mother’s Day! The Parish Hall will be open at “drop-off” and again at “pick-up” for parents to view the jewelry items presented for sale—and orders can be placed in advance by using the catalog that you may have seen at the entrance to each classroom. The preschool will receive a generous percentage of each sale.

Also in April, Rosti Tuscan Kitchen invites PPS families and friends to dine at the Santa Monica location (931 Montana Ave.) during the week of April 22nd. A percentage of all meals purchased will be donated to our preschool. We thank Dandelion parent, Kim Egan, for contacting Rosti on our behalf. Flyers with more info coming soon. . .

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Breakfast with Loved Ones

We invite our PPS Dads or other Special Loved Ones to join teachers and children for a simple breakfast in classrooms on Friday, April 19th, from 8:45 to 9:30. (We will honor PPS Moms on May 10th for Lunch with Loved Ones.)

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Professional Development Day

While we strongly believe that all of our moments lived with children, colleagues and parents represent opportunities for professional development, we also understand that it is important for teachers and directors to attend particular classes, workshops, learning tours and conferences to continue our own growth and development. On Sunday, April 21st, our faculty will be spending the day at Evergreen Community School for Mathematics and Science in the Early Childhood Classroom, featuring developmental psychologist, George Forman, as the keynote speaker. In order to make it feasible for teachers to attend the workshop from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on a Sunday, we ask for your understanding as we close the preschool on Monday, April 22nd. We realize the added closure can be an inconvenience and we appreciate your support. (The Admission Agreement does state that PPS may add three additional professional development days to our calendar per school year. This will be the first added closure for this school year.)

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May Calendar

The calendar for the month of May includes Week of the Young Child—May 6 through 10–with the collection of apartment items for Upward Bound House, a PPS Parade in our neighborhood, and Lunch with Loved Ones. Please look for more information about these initiatives—and our Hundred Languages Open House– in the May Storyteller.

April Calendar

• April 9— Teacher Work Day
• April 10— Classes resume
• April 12— Spring Toddler Classes begin
• April 15— Jewelry Sale
• April 19— Breakfast with Loved Ones
• April 22— Preschool closed
• April 22— Rosti Fundraiser
• April 26— Possible Educator Tour (school open for regular hours)
  

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Pictures from School Events

PJ Night

St Paddy’s Day

Egg Hunt

Passover

Drawing the Garden

“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.”
–Abraham Maslow

Dear Families and Friends,

Teaching to learn is a phrase we use to describe the transformative process that occurs when we, as learners, share our understandings with one another. On Friday, February 22nd, we were transformed by the experience of hosting an Educator Tour at Palisades Preschool for twelve teachers, administrators and students from the Los Angeles area. As a learning group, our staff members collaborated to organize the tour–communicating with participants, considering how to organize our time and space, and preparing environments and materials. In the process, we engaged in individual and group reflection and dialogue with one another about what to share with our visitors —and how to share it.

This was the 6th Educator Tour we have organized at PPS, but it was the first day-long initiative that included a lunch and two presentations from members of our faculty. Fortunately, we had practiced our presentations during the Afternoon with Teachers meetings with many of our parents—so, you, too, were a part of the preparation for this significant event at our school.

As part of my own learning, I observed the learning of our teachers as they “rose to the occasion” and shared their work with children and families—intentionally organizing environments, creating new documentation for our walls, collaborating to make choices about the slides and video we presented to our guests, and speaking in front of a group of other educators (a fairly new experience for some of our teachers). Having attended numerous Educator Tours at other schools, we had ideas about how to go about this undertaking, but the experience of being the “teachers” was a great learning opportunity. Our faculty’s participation in the PPS tour helped us to understand just how much we have learned over the past six years—and how much learning is in our future. We now better understand what we know and we look forward to the challenges of continuing our learning. –We see ourselves from a new perspective.

As I have chosen to do in recent newsletters, I am sharing an excerpt of the Weekly Journal I wrote for our staff for the week of Feb. 25, following the Educator Tour:

I appreciate your taking the time to read this newsletter and thank you for being important members of our Palisades Preschool learning group.

Warm wishes,
Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Fieldwork Student

• Pajama Night Fundraiser

• PPS Day at CPK

• Parent/Teacher Conferences

• Spring Egg Hunts

• March Calendar

• Pictures from School Events

Fieldwork Student

We are pleased to welcome Brittany Russell, child development student at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, who is joining the Rosemary room twice a week this semester to complete the fieldwork requirements for her degree. She is a lovely young teacher and the children are already beginning to get to know her as she observes in our environments. Under the direction of our pedagogista and the teachers on the Rosemary and Cherry Blossom teams, Brittany will work with small groups and engage in the documentation and curriculum creation process at PPS. We look forward to scaffolding her learning as an intern at our preschool—another opportunity for our own learning, as well!

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Pajama Night Fundraiser

On Friday, March 8th, the children are invited to return to school in their pajamas from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. While children are having fun in our classrooms and eating a pizza dinner, parents are encouraged to have a night out! All of our teachers, Karen and Nancy will be present to share the fun with the children, playing games and reading stories together. If you are not sure if your child will be comfortable in this “new” situation, please consult with us. While most children do enjoy the evening, some of our younger children may find the change of routine a bit overwhelming—or the timing of the event may be too late for their usual bedtimes. (If they miss this year’s event, they can attend the next one.)

Please see Karen to purchase PJ Night tickets for $30.00 each. Thank you.

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PPS Day at CPK

On Friday, March 15, the California Pizza Kitchen at 210 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica will invite our PPS families and friends to dine at their restaurant—where 20% of sales to our community will be donated to the preschool. Please be sure to take a copy of the CPK Fundraiser Flyer with you when you go to CPK for lunch or dinner on the 15th. We thank Kim Egan, Dandelion Mom, for making these arrangements for our school.

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Parent/Teacher Conferences

The preschool will close on Friday, March 22 so that we can engage in spring conferences with our families. The teachers will share documentation of children’s learning over the past few months and look forward to talking with you about your child’s many strengths—as well as areas of development that may need some support at home and at school. We will offer childcare for the time of your conference. We realize that sometimes 30 minutes is not enough time to fully discuss all aspects of your child’s growth and learning. If you believe that you will need more than 30 minutes, please consult with teachers to set an alternate conference time during the week of March 25th. Thank you.

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Spring Egg Hunts

As part of our celebration of Spring, we will hold our annual PPS Egg Hunts on Thursday, March 28. We will ask parents on the Egg Hunt Committee to hide the eggs on our play yard for the 9:15 Cherry Blossom/Rosemary hunt and the 11:15 egg hunt for the Sunflower and Dandelion classes. Special snacks provided by parents can also be a part of the celebrations. (We need a parent to put on our bunny costume and become the Spring Bunny for each egg hunt. . .)

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March Calendar

• Friday, March 1—June 2014 tuition due (for new families)
• Friday, March 8—PJ Night from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
• Sunday, March 10—Daylight Savings Time begins
• Monday, March 11—Preschool closed for professional development
• Friday, March 15—CPK Fundraiser (all day)
• Friday, March 22—Parent/Teachers Conferences—preschool closed
• Thursday, March 28—Egg Hunts at 9:15 and 11:15 a.m.
• Friday March 29—Preschool closed for Spring Break
• Wednesday, April 10—Preschool classes resume
  
  

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Pictures from School Events

Poker Night

Chinese New Year

Valentines Day

Drawing a Self Portrait

Drawing Nature

Drawing a Map

Drawing a Horse and Saddle

The Atelier of Taste: A multisensory kitchen
“The kitchen is an open and hospitable ‘laboratory’. . . a laboratory where food is a nutriment for the body but also for the mind, the eyes, the nose and the emotions” (Tedeschi, 2008).

Dear Families and Friends,

We are happy to be sharing the news about the addition of another language to the many languages we offer the children at Palisades Preschool: the language of food. However, as Tedeschi (pedagogista in Reggio Emilia schools) affirms, the preparation, serving and enjoyment of food is much more than simply a gustatory experience. All of the senses are involved—especially for children. And, “food becomes a metaphor for encounters with the world, with others.”

The introduction this school year of our catered lunches has been a step in the creation of the atelier of taste. We have so appreciated your support in this endeavor designed to enhance children’s sensitivity to the pleasure of aesthetics and community at the table, while also inviting children to expand their palate and to develop healthy food habits. We are talking (again) about relationships and choices.

“Special care in offering tastes, in the good and attractive composition of the dish, in the aesthetics of table setting, the pleasure of sharing lunch with friends, and the opportunity to encounter the kitchen as a multisensory laboratory, are important strategies for creating a welcoming atmosphere for all and highlighting the individual in the group.”

Expanding upon the lovely experiences children are sharing at the lunch table, we intend to enrich the experience by proposing to the children that, together, we further investigate the language of food through participation in many intriguing possibilities—growing and selecting food, sampling with all of the senses, cooking, serving and sharing food at the table.

Each month, we plan to invite the children to explore seasonality, variety, culture and tradition in our classrooms and, occasionally, in the Parish Hall kitchen. Other expressive languages, such as drawing and writing, will be used to describe the experiences. Faculty members are collaborating to create experiences in each classroom that will also include family participation—from recipe-sharing to providing ingredients for the recipes. Once we get started, the children’s responses will guide our investigations.

These explorations will not replace our regular snacks or our catered lunch, but will instead add another layer of investigation and enjoyment to our experiences with the language of food.

As we continue to think about the life and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King—and anticipate the celebration of Valentine’s Day, it seems appropriate at this time to be introducing the atelier of taste as a metaphor for encounters with friendship and community.

With the intention of creating new contexts for the practice of personal care—and taking care of others,

Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Journey Loom

• Poker Night

• Afternoons with Teachers

• Valentine’s Day Celebrations – Thursday, February 14th

• Admissions for the 2013-2014 School Year

• Financial Assistance for the 2013-2014 School Year

• February Calendar

• Pictures from School Events

Journey Loom

The Journey Loom, described in the January Storyteller, is ready to go home with Sunflower children—and a second Journey Loom has just been shipped to our school (from Maine) for the Dandelion friends. Each family will have the opportunity to take the loom home and choose an interesting material to weave into the collective classroom piece. The finished weaving will become a part of the legacy of the children and families in the Sunflower and Dandelion classes this year. Going home with the loom is a documentation binder in which families can record their home experience with the loom, including space for a couple of photos.

The Weaving a Life website has some very interesting ideas. In my last Weekly Journal to our faculty, I shared some of the information I discovered as I was ordering the second loom:

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Poker Night

Please be sure to RSVP to Lauren’s evite to the PPS 2nd Annual Poker Night on Friday, Feb. 8 from 6 to 11 p.m. This year’s event will be held at Launchpad LA on 2nd Street, near Broadway, in Santa Monica (click here for map). A dinner of chili, salad and dessert, prepared by our own PPS cooks, will be served with wine, beer and soft drinks. We have hired professionals to set up the rented poker tables and to act as dealers—with tables for beginners as well as experienced players. Last year’s event was lots of fun and earned about $2,000 for the preschool. Please join us! Tickets are available from Karen (and you can also RSVP to Karen).

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Afternoons with Teachers

This month, we look forward to meeting with the Cherry Blossom parents (Wed., Feb. 6) and Rosemary parents (Wed., Feb. 27). Each meeting will start at 1:20 and end at about 2:30. Children of parents who are participating in the events will go to Stay & Play with Nicole and familiar staff members (free of charge). Studio teacher, Summer Jefferson, is preparing lovely documentation of the children’s ongoing experiences with compositional research and these photos and videos will be a part of our exchange. There will be a clipboard outside of classrooms for parents to indicate if they are planning to attend. The Afternoons with Teachers offer us wonderful opportunities to come together as parents and teachers to share observations, reflections and new ideas. We hope you will be able to participate.

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Valentine’s Day Celebrations—Thursday, February 14th

Each year we celebrate this special day by inviting parents (who have signed up to participate) to share their own family Valentine traditions with the children in each class during snack time. Family participation might include a special snack, story, or a very simple cooking or craft activity. Please be sure to collaborate with your child’s teachers in advance.

As part of the celebration, we do encourage all children to bring Valentine cards from home for their friends. It is generally best to place the Valentine cards in blank envelopes so that children can deliver their Valentines to their friends without assistance. We will provide special “mailboxes” for the delivery. (If some children who are able to read the names of the other children in their class want to write the names of friends on the envelope, that is fine. Also, cards can be signed—or unsigned. We just want the experience to be happy and smooth for all of the children—parents, and teachers.)

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Admissions for the 2013-2014 School Year

We thank all returning parents for submitting applications to Karen. Very early this month, we will make decisions about the number of spaces we have available for new children, and we will begin contacting those families. We have full toddler classes and several siblings (not currently enrolled in the toddler program) to consider, but we are hoping to have space for other new families as well.

Admission Agreements will be mailed to all returning and new families by Feb. 4. We ask that the signed Agreement and nonrefundable $500 registration fee be submitted to Karen by Wednesday, Feb. 13. The June 2014 tuition payment will be due on June 1, 2013.

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Financial Assistance for the 2013-2014 School Year

The preschool has a small financial aid fund dedicated to providing limited financial assistance to returning families. We hope to increase this fund via fundraising efforts so that we can expand the financial aid to include new families, as well. However, for the 2013-2014 school year, we expect to be able to help returning families only. Families who will have two children in our preschool during the same school year receive priority consideration for financial aid.

PPS follows a protocol for awarding financial assistance for a particular school year. The application process includes a review of the application by a sub-committee of the Board of Trustees, with input from Nancy and Karen.

At our Board of Trustees meeting last month, board members set a deadline for applications for financial assistance: Wed., Feb. 13 (with the Admission Agreement and registration fee). Applications are available from Nancy.

–Another full (and fulfilling!) month ahead!

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February Calendar

• Feb. 1-4—Admission Agreements mailed
• Feb. 6—Afternoon with Teachers for the Cherry Blossom parents (1:20 to 2:30 p.m.)
• Feb. 7—Preschool Tours
• Feb. 8—Poker Night from 6 to 11 p.m.
• Feb. 11-14—Celebration of Chinese New Year in classrooms
• Feb. 13—Admission Agreements and registration fees due to Karen
• Feb. 13—Applications for financial assistance for 2013-2014 due to Nancy
• Feb. 15—Preschool closed for teacher professional development (no toddler classes)
• Feb. 18—Preschool closed for Presidents’ Day holiday
• Feb. 22—Educator Tour (preschool open, but no toddler classes)
• Feb. 27—Afternoon with Teachers for the Rosemary parents (1:20 to 2:30 p.m.)
  
  

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Pictures from School Events

Observations

“A three year old said, ‘The sea is born from the mother wave.’ The child has conceptualized and is developing the idea that everything has an origin. . . The word ‘listening’ not only in the physical sense, but also in the metaphorical sense, thus becomes no longer just a word but an essential approach to life” (Rinaldi, 2006).

Dear Families and Friends,

As we begin the new year together, creating intentions for 2013, it is worthwhile to reflect upon the values that guide our work at Palisades Preschool. ‘Listening’ as in the context described by Carla Rinaldi, pedagogista and President of Reggio Children, is at the core of what we are attempting to do. We listen with all parts of ourselves—with our bodies and our minds, and with our hearts. This kind of listening allows us to hear what children are saying—and permits us to form an interpretation and a response that is as much an invitation as an answer. We respond with questions, materials, environments, collaboration and with our hearts.

Rinaldi elaborates: “;Here is what we mean by listening: listening is an attitude that requires the courage to abandon yourself to the conviction that our being is just a small part of a broader knowledge: listening is a metaphor for openness to others, sensitivity to listen and be listened to with all your senses. It is a word that should not be aimed only at children, but also toward others. In particular, listening means giving yourself and others the time for listening. Behind each act of listening there is desire, emotion, openness to differences, to different values and points of view. . .Listening therefore means giving value to the other; it does not matter whether you agree. Learning how to listen is a difficult undertaking; you have to open yourself to others, and we all need this. Competent listening creates a deep opening and predisposition toward change. . .Listening is a premise of every learning relationship.”

Good words to start the new year.

Looking forward to a year of listening—and discovering the metaphor,

Nancy

“River of Instruments”

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Intentions

• Additional Intentions

• Afternoons with Teachers

• Winter Session

• Applications for the 2013-2014 School Year

• January Calendar

• Pictures from School Events

Intentions

In particular, we continue to listen for children’s responses to soundin our environments. To further this investigation, the Souza-Klein family has created and donated the foundational elements for a Music Library at PPS. In addition to a generous collection of cd’s representing many genres of music from around the world, the Library includes a wonderful catalog with descriptions of each composition, musician, or style of music, and suggestions for musical directions to explore with the children. We are excited to share this very rich and inspiring collection with parents and with children. “THANK YOU” Luciana and Larry!!

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Additional Intentions

Weaving:

We have purchased a variety of looms to continue the exploration of weaving—and we invite parents to continue the “weaving a community together” initiative on the big Story Loom. We will place it out in front of the school again in the coming weeks. We also have a “Journey Loom.” The intention behind this particular mobile loom is to send it home with each child in the Dandelion and Sunflower classes, encouraging families to choose materials from home, weave them into the piece and then return the loom to school for the next child to take home. The younger children in the Cherry Blossom and Rosemary classes are practicing at school on smaller looms and will be a part of the Journey Loom initiative during the 2013-2014 school year.

Drawing to express and to understand:

In all of our classrooms we have rededicated ourselves to supporting the children’s interest and skill in drawing and sketching. Cherry Blossom children are telling stories about their drawings; Rosemary children have been engaged in drawing still life portraits and in self-portraiture. Dandelion children are mapping their classroom and drawing their families. Sunflower children are drawing designs for tables and chairs, sketching what they observe at the Saint Monica construction site—and preparing to draw one another as part of the identity through movement exploration.

Recently, in accepting the challenge of representing both the outside and inside of a pear, some Rosemary children drew the outside of the pear—and then colored over their drawing to show the inside of the pear. Others turned their paper over and drew the inside of the pear as a separate drawing. We see these solutions to rendering the layers of the pear as creative moments on both the cognitive and expressive levels. In this still life exploration, the children engage in their own research—with the support of the adult who is listening to understand children’s thinking. Part of the challenge for teachers is to balance the intention for a possible direction for the work (developed in collaboration with colleagues) with what is developmentally appropriate for children and with the flow of children’s play and their interests. Not easy.

Collaborative work:

The extensive in-depth preparation involving relationship-building in its many forms (i.e., with materials, spaces and people) that evolves in the Cherry Blossom and Rosemary rooms sets up the small group work that takes place in the Dandelion and Sunflower rooms. The next step in the tables and chairs research with clay happening with the older children has been to propose to the children that they create one table or one set of tables and chairs—referred to by one child as “the together table.” Atelierista, Valeria, in collaboration with the pedagogista and with colleagues, Craig, Nathalie, Tiffany, Anne and Liz, has compiled some fascinating video pieces of children working in pairs to create a “together table.” There were some significant challenges and wonderful learning experiences for both the children and teachers. . .We look forward to sharing the videotape with parents at our upcoming Afternoons with Teachers (please see January Calendar).

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Afternoons with Teachers

Each classroom community is invited to join teachers, atelieristi and the pedagogista to look at recent documentation and share interpretations, insights and ideas for an Afternoon with Teachers. Children go to Stay & Play free of charge while parents meet with our faculty from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. The first meeting is planned for the Sunflower parents and teachers on Wed., January 16th. (Dandelion parents meet on Wed., Jan. 30, followed by Rosemary parents on Wed., Feb. 6 and Cherry Blossom parents on Wed., Feb. 27. Please note these calendar changes.)

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Winter Session Small Group Classes

We plan to continue with Ballet on Monday and Karate on Wednesday. Valeria may continue to offer the Sewing class on Tuesday—or we will offer another class in its place. An additional class may be offered on Thursday. Please look for more information during the week of Jan. 7th. The classes will start the week of Jan. 14th.

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Applications for the 2013-2014 School Year

By mid-January, information about tuition rates for the 2013-2014 school year and preschool applications will be mailed to returning families. We will ask that the applications be returned to Karen by Friday, Jan. 25th. Admission Agreements will be mailed to all families from whom we receive applications and will be due to Karen by Wed., Feb. 13th with the nonrefundable $500 registration fee. It will be important for parents to make decisions about placements for the new school year by Feb. 13th so that we can inform potential new families about available spaces. We do have full toddler classes and many applications from new families. Please speak with Karen or Nancy with any questions. Thank you.

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January Calendar

• Jan. 8 Classes resume and Jan. tuition due
• Jan. 14 Applications for 2013-2014 mailed to returning families
• Jan. 16 Afternoon with Teachers for Sunflower Parents from 1:40 to 2:40 (please note this calendar change)
• Jan. 17 Parent Tours
• Jan. 21 Preschool closed for Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday
• Jan. 25 Applications for 2013-2014 school year due to Karen
• Jan. 30 Afternoon with Teachers for Dandelion Parents from 1:30 to 2:30 (please note this calendar change)
  
  

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Pictures from School Events

Observations

“If eyes were made for seeing: Then beauty is its own excuse for being.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson (1912)

Dear Families and Friends,

This time of year offers children such beautiful colors, rich textures, inviting smells and tastes, and intriguing sounds to investigate. Inspired by our mentors in Reggio Emilia, children and teachers have been collecting natural materials at home, on walks in the neighborhood and from our play yard for use in compositional research (and just for fun, too). Perhaps you have passed by the indoor atelier and noticed the very beautiful designs the children have created—first, as individuals, and now, in pairs and small groups. The wall outside the atelier exhibits the early documentation of this recent and ongoing work.

Much of this work is being carried out by the Cherry Blossom and Rosemary children, in collaboration with Summer, their atelierista. However, the exploration is a collaborative process involving other members of our faculty, too, and Craig has included some of the Sunflower and Dandelion children in this investigation with natural materials when he works in the studio on Friday mornings.

Why are natural materials a valuable resource for children’s learning? What do children learn from the design process using these kinds of objects? “At the Diana School in Reggio Emilia, the 4- and 5-year-olds embarked on a long, multifaceted project collecting, compacting, and recombining natural materials. The materials the children collected burst with sound and smell. Sorting them into containers intensified their visual, tactile and olfactory variations. ‘A palette of colors invaded the space, . . .the material. . .already beginning to weave a story about itself ‘(Reggio Children, 2004)” (Lewin-Benham, 2010). Perhaps through the inspiration of their interaction with the materials themselves, children become focused as they select and place each object with intention; their movements become less and less random as they gain experience with the materials and with the invitation to design.

Beyond this very essential disposition to self-regulate and attend, children find numerous opportunities for scientific and mathematical investigation. Children examine weight, size, length, position, shape, symmetry, number, pattern, area, classification and categorization, for example. David Hawkins (1983) describes how early Greek mathematicians used the natural world “to develop some powerful ideas and important questions” and suggests that “there is more of the basic background experience for mathematics and science in the life of every child than for most other subjects in the early curriculum” (Hawkins, 1983 in Lewin-Benham, 2010).

Story-telling is another very natural extension of the children’s work with composition and natural materials. As children design, we hear their stories emerge, often expressing the animism typical of children’s stories and theories at this age. “The flower is so happy because it has another friend.” Stones become stars, shells become boats, and branches become houses and bridges. The possibilities for metaphor, for symbolic representation, are endless.

We also see that children will draw around their designs or elaborate on their compositions using drawing tools. Their knowledge of line, shape and spatial relationships is enhanced through these actions. Mapping their work in this way supports awareness of additional symbolic representation—part of the foundation for early writing.

Not surprisingly, relationships play a significant role in the compositional research. Children’s established and growing relationships with one another and with the atelierista are part of what makes the work possible. Relationships with the materials themselves and children’s sense of place within the preschool space are also contributing elements to the success of the experience.

And, between and beyond the academic knowledge and skills is the deeply satisfying experience of using beautiful materials to create something equally beautiful. Perhaps this is why Italian ateliersta, Vea Vecchi, speaks of beauty “as a way of knowing.”

Please look for teachers’ documentation of the children’s compositional research—and for the striking and very captivating actual pieces constructed in the studio (and often still available for viewing between about 12:30 and 1:00, Tuesday through Friday). You might also like to continue the investigation at home. . .and share your documentation with us at school. We would love it!

Wishing you all a beautiful holiday season,

Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Thank You!

• Thanksgiving Lunches

• Parent/Teacher Conferences

• December Charity Initiatives

• Holiday Wreath

• Holiday Celebrations and Traditions

• Songfests

• Calendar

• Pictures from School Events

Thank You!

As a direct result of the tremendous success of the November Silent/Live Auction, we are able to give teachers a well-deserved holiday bonus, add to our financial assistance fund, plan for future facility improvements, replace the older display monitor in the Library with a new Apple monitor, and purchase a new macbook. We have also ordered some new items for the dramatic playroom and some math curriculum materials for the classrooms. Karen will send donation verification letters with our nonprofit tax ID information at the end of this calendar year. Thank you for your generous participation in this school year’s large fundraiser!

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Thanksgiving Lunches

The children join us in thanking the parents who cooked and served the lovely and delicious Thanksgiving lunches on Tuesday, Nov. 20! “Thank you” to: Janna Boelke (and mother-in-law, Marilyn), Jacqueline Vindler, Rachel Orosco, and Giselle Chandler—Cherry Blossom room, Rachel Tramonte (and her mom, Barbara) and Pia O’Brien—Rosemary room, Luciana Souza and Kim Egan—Dandelion room, and Mary Nadler, Michael Scott, Laura Jamet, Cindi Galsor, Julie Cantor, Janna Boelke (and mother-in-law, Marilyn) and Laura Langehaug—Sunflower room.

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Parent/Teacher Conferences

The preschool will close on Friday, Dec. 7th for conferences between parents and teachers. Childcare will be provided by PPS staff members during the time of your conference. Teachers look forward to sharing authentic examples of children’s growth and development during the past few months as represented in microstories, small group stories, work samples and additional documentation.

Teachers will also mark the social-emotional growth section of the Desired Results Developmental Profile—Revised, 2010. The DRDP was developed and revised by the California Department of Education and is a widely used assessment tool. However, at PPS, while we use the DRDP to help us think specifically about each child, we will not focus on the DRDP for the parent conferences. You are welcome to take home the DRDP for your child on the day of your conference so that you can become familiar with the developmental goals it includes—and then return it to teachers the following week.

Our Reggio inspired approach directs us toward assessment that is more contextual and oriented toward process and social constructivist learning theory. We also like to look for joy and beauty—while still keeping in mind the goals contained in the formal assessment tool.

We realize that not all parents are able to have their conference on Friday, Dec. 7 and will offer morning and afternoon conferences on Monday and Tuesday, the 10th and 11th.

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December Charity Initiatives

December Charity Committee members have been collaborating to create initiatives for our PPS community’s support this month. We will be collecting new, unwrapped toys for the Connections for Children Holiday Toy Drive, starting on Monday, Dec. 3rd. Committee members are considering an additional organization and will announce their plan soon. Also starting on Dec. 3rd, we would like to give our community an opportunity to donate to the American Red Cross, Hurricane Sandy relief effort. Karen will accept family donations and we will make one PPS community donation. Please look for flyers with more information.

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Holiday Wreaths

Karen and the Wreath Committee members will distribute the wreaths that were ordered last month as soon as they arrive. Thank you for participating in this small preschool fundraiser.

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Holiday Celebrations & Traditions

We invite you to share special family holiday traditions with the children and teachers in your child’s class. This might include special foods, recipes, stories, music or photos from your family album. We suggest that the Hanukkah celebrations take place on Dec. 12, 13 or 14 and the Christmas celebrations be planned for Dec. 17, 18 or 19. Please consult with teachers about dates and times and share with them what you are planning to do for your celebration. Thank you.

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Songfests

On Thursday, December 20, Parker Bent will lead the children in singing a few holiday songs as part of our PPS holiday tradition. The Songfest is not really a performance–rather an informal holiday gathering that features the children and Parker.

The Cherry Blossom and Rosemary children will start the day in their classrooms at 8:45 while parents find seats in the Parish Hall. The CB/Rosemary Songfest is from 9:15 to 9:45, followed by refreshments.

The Dandelion and Sunflower children will start the day as usual in their classrooms and join parents downstairs from about 10:15 to 10:45, also followed by refreshments.

We will follow our regular start and dismissal times on the 20th. Children will go home at 1:00, 1:15, 1:30 or 1:40, but there will be no Stay & Play.

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Calendar

• Monday, Dec. 3—Charity initiatives begin
• Thursday, Dec. 6—Parent Tours
• Friday, Dec. 7—Parent/Teacher Conferences, preschool closed
• Mon. & Tues., Dec. 10 and 11—Conferences before and after school as needed
• Friday, Dec. 14—Charity initiatives end
• Thursday, Dec. 20—Songfests in Parish Hall
• Friday, Dec. 21 through Monday, Jan. 7—Preschool closed for Winter Break
• Tuesday, Jan. 8—Preschool classes begin
  
  

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Pictures from School Events

Auction

Outside

Educators Tour

Observations

“The role of the pedagogista in Reggio Emilia is embedded in a system of relationships with teachers, other school staff, parents, citizens, administrators, public officials, and outside audiences. The pedagogista cannot interact with just one part of the system and leave the rest aside, because that would injure the whole. . .We see ourselves as constantly transforming and growing professionally, through exchange with others. We are constantly striving for clarity and openness, one to another and seeking to be forces for integration.”

“In our work at the schools, we interact with all the adults (teachers, staff, parents) to help sustain and interpret the philosophy of the overall educational project. We are deeply involved in the overall educational experience. We support the relationships there and promote the value of exchange and discussion. . .”

“Rather than acting as an expert, our role with the teachers is that of an active discussant, in a position to sustain the teachers’ critical interpretations, to suggest possible questions and queries that might bring out the teachers’ narrative and interpretive abilities in relation to their ongoing projects. Our role also includes relaunching exchanges and discussions relating to the teachers’ learning process to sustain the richness of the school’s daily work with greater consciousness.”

“In Reggio, educators believe that an essential precondition for effective teaching is the creation of close teacher-parent relationships. . .Through in-service professional development that focuses on the processes and strategies of communication, we pedagogisti try to support in teachers the competence to activate exchanges with parents, as well as among parents, and the willingness to listen to others’ points of view.”

“Our role is complex, because we interface daily with all the levels and stakeholders in the system, and we must think about the implications of issues from the most abstract to the most concrete aspects. . .The welfare of the children and families demands that we not get either too mired in everyday concerns or too lost in theoretical arguments. We must balance a fresh and individualized empathy for people with a frank and critical appraisal of the evolving philosophy of collaboration in which we believe.”

(Excerpts from: Cagliari, Filippini, Giacopini, Bonilauri, and Margini in Edwards, Gandini, and Forman, The Hundred Languages of Children, 2012)

Dear Families and Friends,

As a Reggio-inspired school (not a “Reggio school”), our preschool community is often inspired and guided by the words of the Italian educators. For this reason, I included so many words from some of the current members of the pedagogical coordinating team in Reggio Emilia. And, as the pedagogical coordinator for our educational project at PPS, I feel supported and instructed by these descriptions of the role of the pedagogista from my mentors in Reggio. (Valeria and I were privileged to meet and/or listen to presentations by some of the educators named in the above citation while visiting Reggio Emilia last fall.)

I chose to focus on the role of the pedagogista in this month’s Storyteller because I think that particular aspects of the role are in some ways less visible than the roles of teachers, atelieristi (studio teachers) and directors. I am especially thinking about the presence of the pedagogista in the process of creating curriculum—interacting with all protagonists (teachers, children and parents). Much of the coordination takes place “behind the scenes.” I am not sure that parents are aware of the high degree of collaboration among faculty members that occurs before and after school, in team meetings and informal conversations, in email messages and at Friday professional development meetings. This is my favorite part of the work—along with opportunities to work directly with children.

Currently, we are learning a great deal about scaffolding children’s representational drawing and sculpting abilities. This is a complex area of study. Using some of the educational experiences of children and teachers in Reggio as resources (and sources of inspiration), we have chosen to invite children in the Sunflower and Dandelion classes to create sculptures and drawings of tables and chairs. Sounds simple—but it is not. The task is challenging for both children and for teachers. The “conceptual knot” for teachers is how to point out gaps in children’s thinking about stability and scale in ways that are both respectful of children’s theories and strategies, but also help them to think about their own thinking.

In the Rosemary room, children have begun working in pairs to consider the “inside and outside” of familiar foods such as bananas, apples and eggs. As artists who are in many cases just beginning to create more representational work, a special challenge for educators lies in how much technical support to offer. We are in the process of developing particular scaffolding techniques for children’s drawing at this stage of evolution (e.g., good questions to ask, other languages/materials to offer, and approaches to preparing the environment).

This sort of “crossroads” is an example of where the atelierista comes in. Valeria has been working with the Sunflower and Dandelion children to develop their competence with the language of clay—an important step before asking children to tackle the cognitive challenges of creating tables and chairs with this material. (Please be sure to see her beautiful documentation of these experiences in the hallway just outside the studio.) We are now strategizing together about how to do the same thing with drawing for the Rosemary and Dandelion children—who are at the developmental place where they want to represent their world within the context of their experience, but are struggling with the technical aspects of the exploration. Summer will be collaborating with Valeria and with Craig to support this step for children and to give teachers guidance in their own supportive role in the process.

When the preschool was closed on October 26th so that faculty members could participate in a professional development day, these strategies were among the topics we discussed. Valeria and Craig offered a clay exploration for teachers. Environments were re-thought in preparation for new possibilities and the display of children’s clay work. Teachers collaborated on documentation pieces and reflected together through study of their own and one another’s documentation work. We met as a faculty to read and analyze an article by George Forman: “Helping Children Ask Good Questions” (1989), a guide to the asking of good questions by teachers to scaffold children’s ability to think about their own thinking. –We also had a nice lunch.

As a member of our community who seeks to be a “source for integration,” I can truthfully say that I love my work. I have to admit, however, that analyzing the annual budget, learning about health insurance and nonprofit tax returns, creating schedules and keeping track of so many keys are not aspects of my work that inspire me the way that the work with children, teachers and families inspires me. (Nevertheless, those elements of the job are also influenced by the values of our Reggio inspired approach.)

As we begin a time of year when we express our appreciation for all of the blessings in our lives, I would like to thank our community for the privilege of serving as director/pedagogista of Palisades Preschool. This position is very challenging, but the learning, the beauty, and the wonderful relationships are worth the time and effort the work requires.

Thank you.

Warm wishes to all,

Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Our Co-Director

• Silent Auction Update

• Rosemary Room

• Toddler Explorations Classes

• Educator Tour

• Thanksgiving Meal

• Parent Educator

• Speech, Language and Hearing Screening

• Wreath Sale

• November Calendar

• Pictures from School Events

Our Co-Director

I am also thankful for Karen. It is the work that Karen Booth does as an administrator for PPS that allows me to take the role of pedagogista in addition to my own role as an administrator. From tuition billing to organizing children’s preschool files—and their snacks–to coordinating the auction donations, selling holiday wreaths, keeping many of our financial records, calling parents when children are sick, and participating in the admissions and enrollment process, Karen plays a very central role at our school. And, she does it all with a warm smile. Thank you, Karen!

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Silent Auction Update

We are receiving many amazing family donations for the November 16th Silent—and Live– Auction! Thanks to our Room Parents and to each classroom community, the class baskets are coming together beautifully and Lauren Wolf and the Auction Committee are gearing up for the actual event—which promises to be a wonderful evening! Please RSVP by Nov. 2nd if you have not already done so. We are requesting that donations be submitted to Karen by Monday, Nov. 5th so that she has time to organize the auction program and the committee has time to wrap the baskets and many of the other donations. Thank you!!

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Rosemary Room

We are welcoming two new children and their families to the Rosemary Room this month: Ethan Edwards and Willa Prawer, and their parents, Elise and Jamey Edwards and Debbie and Arik Prawer. Last month the Rosemary class also welcomed Laith Thierry and his parents, Rima and Andrew Thierry. We now feel like Laith has been with us “forever” and we look forward to getting to know our new Rosemary friends, Ethan and Willa. The children and their families are in good hands with Rosemary teachers, Lisette Sandoval and Lori Gregorio, and the other members of their team: Nicole Bertholet– support co-teacher, Summer Jefferson and Craig Parks– studio teachers, and Tanya Folsom and Patricia Campos–Cherry Blossom teachers.

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Toddler Explorations Classes

Tiffany Romero and Nathalie Fournet greeted our new 2 year olds and their parents last month. We are following the lovely flow of the morning and set-up for the environment created by Laurie Cornell—who continues her recuperation at home with her family. We miss Laurie, but are so fortunate to have Tiffany and Nathalie as our Explorations teachers this year. Classes are currently full, but we are still accepting applications for Fall, 2013.

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Educator Tour

On Friday, November 9th, PPS will be hosting an Educator Tour from 9:15 to 12:00 in the Library and throughout our environments. We are inviting a small group of educators from our area and beyond to meet with us during the morning to share reflections about our experiences with the Reggio Emilia approach and to tour our classrooms and outdoor spaces. We have held previous tours in which educators from Growing Place, First Presbyterian Nursery School and other preschools have participated—in addition to teachers and students from UCLA, SMC, Pierce College and Cal State Northridge. These are wonderful professional development opportunities for our own teachers, as well. The preschool will remain open on November 9th and we will follow our normal Friday schedule. (photo from previous educator tour)

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Thanksgiving Meal

It has become a tradition at our preschool that the children in each class enjoy a special Thanksgiving potluck lunch just before we close for the Thanksgiving holiday. Children eat in their classrooms as usual and participating parents in each class choose what they would like to contribute. Please look for a sign-up in the coming weeks for this year’s Tuesday, November 20th Thanksgiving lunch. Parents provide the lunch that day and there will be no catered lunch.

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Parent Educator

Educator and Mentor, Professor Madeleine Lieber, is joining our community this year as our Parent Educator. Professor Lieber has taught graduate students in the Cal State Northridge program in Educational Psychology for many years and currently serves as a mentor for graduate students in the Partnerships for Excellence consulting class at CSUN. She has also worked as an early childhood intervention specialist, working with infants, toddlers, and preschool children and their families in both the home and school setting.

Her first meeting with PPS parents is planned for Wednesday, November 28th at 11:30 a.m. in the Library and she has chosen the topic of temperament for this first discussion. Please let Karen know if you are planning to attend because we will have to limit the group to about 10 parents due to limited space in our Library. (Infants can be included, but toddlers and preschoolers will not be happy with an hour of adult conversation.)

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Speech, Language and Hearing Screening

On Thursday, November 29th, speech and language specialist, Bernice Sedlik, will be with us to offer a screening for possible speech, language and/or hearing challenges. Bernice has been coming to our school for about ten years and has helped many children get further testing and services. Her assessment is very simple and child-friendly. It is designed to flag possible irregularities so that parents can follow up with a more specific evaluation if needed. There is a minimal cost of between about $15 and $25 for the screening and Karen has the parent permission forms in her office. This is an optional service we are offering. Only the children whose parents have requested the screening will participate.

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Wreath Sale

Fragrant holiday wreaths are on sale in Karen’s office. Wreaths can be delivered to the preschool, shipped to your home—or as a gift to the home of the recipient. The sale ends on Friday, Nov. 8.

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November Calendar

• Friday, Nov. 2—Please RSVP to Auction invitation
• Monday, Nov. 5—Auction items due to Karen
• Tuesday, Nov. 6—Voting in the Parish Hall (please note that parking may be difficult)
• Thursday, Nov. 8—Parent Tours (9:30 to 12:30) Wreath Sale ends
• Friday, Nov. 9—Educator Tour (9:15 to 12:00)
• Monday Nov. 12—Preschool closed for Veteran’s Day holiday
• Friday, Nov. 16—Silent Auction at Annenberg Beach House from 6 to 10 p.m.
• Tuesday, Nov. 20—Classroom Thanksgiving meals
• Wed., Nov. 21-Fri., Nov. 23—Preschool closed for Thanksgiving holiday
• Wed., Nov. 28—Parent Educator meeting from 11:30 to 1:00
• Thurs., Nov. 29—Speech, Language & Hearing Screening in a.m. (Library)
  
  

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Pictures from School Events

Halloween

Observations

“Documentation is visible listening, is the construction (by means of writing, slides, video, etc.) of traces that not only testify to the children’s learning paths and processes, but that can actually make them possible because they are visible” (Rinaldi, 2006).

Dear Families and Friends,
As I described in the September Storyteller, while the relationship-building process continues each day that we are together with children and families, we are now expanding upon our interpretations of the observations represented by August/September (and the previous year’s) documentation to create our contextual curriculum. This was largely the topic of our Back to School Night meetings.

While the documentation certainly does serve to make visible the children’s interests and learning to the larger community, it is the revisiting process permitted by the documentation that makes learning possible. When we (children, teachers and parents) look together at video clips or at photos and read or listen to children’s words, we engage in reflection about the experience and may begin to “think about thinking.” We may be able to form a new perspective of a previous moment, deconstructing and reconstructing that moment to shape new understandings.

Another significant element in the learning process promoted by documentation is the sharing of multiple interpretations and perspectives. I think that when we chose to present examples of recent video documentation at our Back to School Nights, we took a risk. Looking at the video clips out of context can influence us to come away with incomplete interpretations and I was a little concerned after our meetings that we had not given enough background context to some of the clips. –And we did not have much time to talk after the viewing in order to share multiple (parent/teacher) perspectives. Our purpose was to give parents a glimpse of the power of the video as a tool for revisiting the selected moments–and I hope that most of you were comfortable with the scenarios we shared.

In looking at the photos from parents’ explorations of the materials available in classrooms and studios on Back to School Nights, I really appreciated the concept of the school as an atelier—a place of research. Many of you really engaged with the materials, while enjoying one another’s company and forming spontaneous learning groups. And, the traces you left behind in the form of messages, clay pieces, wood-working and paintings –and the documentation of those traces—were a huge source of delight to the children the next morning. Through those traces, the children gained a deeper sense of place in their preschool setting. You will see in this month’s Photo Gallery that the documentation of parents’ experiences presented the children with an opportunity for perspective-taking—and for laughter.

Perhaps you are already tired of my thanking you all for your participation in the life of the preschool—but it is your response to our invitation to become involved that sustains our PPS community’s commitment to children’s right to a joy-filled preschool education. We hope that you are reading the numerous forms of documentation that teachers, studio teachers and the pedagogista are creating for the community. The reading and reflecting are also important forms of participation. Thank you!

Warm wishes,

Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Classroom/Studio/Workshop Curriculum Samples

• Invitation to Document

• Reggio Seminar

• Halloween Celebrations

• Holiday Wreath SALE

• October Calendar

• Thank You

• Pictures from School Events

Classroom/Studio/Workshop Curriculum Samples

Cherry Blossom

• Categorizing natural materials, recycled materials—perhaps leading to categorizing sounds in the Studio of Sound. The interesting piece is listening to children’s reasons for placing items in particular categories—and for creating new categories.
• “Portals and Passageways”— Looking at the documentation of children looking through many of the toys and materials in our settings and placing items into openings (especially tubes), we are sharing ideas about what it is that children are seeking to understand.

Rosemary

• ” Hands as Symbols of Identity”— Observations of hand (and foot) tracing and imprints of hands (and feet) in clay and fingerpaint are suggesting interesting small group explorations that may lead to early self-portraiture and a deeper sense of community (friends identifying the hands of other friends). We are looking for ways to support children’s growth in symbolic representation.

Studio Work

• Introduction to Easel Painting— A little direct instruction about the care of materials precedes easel painting in the classroom. Very interesting observations of children teaching one another are a part of this work.

Dandelion

• Ramp exploration with marbles and exploration with water, tubes and containers are merging into small group investigations of water flow in ramps—and sink/float experiments.
• Floor Lamp — Children noticed that the floor lamp in the classroom turns on and off by “touch.” They are referring to the “power line” (the cord) and the “magic plug.” More observation and good questions to follow.

Sunflower

• “Mapping the School” (an exploration continuing from Rosemary room work last year) includes teachers’ observations of what parts of the school and particular materials/furnishings seem especially interesting to the children. Tables and chairs are an interest. Clay work to support children’s theories about construction (stability) and drawing of tables and chairs are part of the next possible directions.
• “Movement/Gesture as Identity” or “Choreography of Feelings”—possible directions for teachers’ observations of children’s individual styles of walking/moving. We are using the Parish Hall for these small group encounters.

Studio

• “Seminar in the Properties of Clay” — Sculpting-cats and dogs, horses (with saddles), walls, and bridges are examples of children’s ways of learning about how to work with clay.

Outdoor studio

• Dandelion/Sun: Easel painting—incorporating branches and flowers as provocations to experiment with color, texture and form.
• Kite-making with paper and string—drawing, too
• CB/R: Paper, tape and scissor work—drawing, too

Workshop

• Many process-oriented endeavors using hammers, nails, wood and vices (CB/R)
• Birdhouses (Dandelion/Sun), a bunk bed, and furniture repair
• Ramp systems (all)

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Invitation to Document

We would love to see any pieces of documentation that parents create about experiences at home or at the park, etc. Please include photos, children’s words and a Parent Reflection. We will create a place to share these pieces in our environments. Please consult with Nancy if you have questions or suggestions. Thank you!

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Reggio Seminar

Teachers Nicole, Patricia, Nathalie, Anne and director/pedagogista, Nancy, are participating in a Reggio seminar held on four Tuesday evenings at New School West. Ellen Khoka, founding director of Growing Place, and Roleen Heiman, director of NSW, have organized this interesting opportunity for about 25-30 educators from our area and beyond to study together and learn from one another.

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Halloween Celebrations

On Wednesday, Oct. 31, we plan to hold our annual PPS Halloween Parades. Children in all classes come to school at their regular time—in their costumes. Cherry Blossom and Rosemary children start the morning outside, as usual, and parents stay to watch the Parade—that takes place in our play yard from 9:00 to 9:30. Following the Parade, the CB and Rosemary children (who normally attend school on Wednesday) will go upstairs for the Halloween “party” put on by the parents who have signed up for that celebration.

(All children are invited to participate in the parade, but due to classroom space limitations, just the Thursday children are able to attend the indoor celebrations. Parents can check with Karen and Nancy to see if there might be space due to absences.)

Meanwhile, the Dandelion and Sunflower children will begin their parade at 9:45 on the play yard while their families watch and take lots of photos—and then come back inside at 10:15 for their classroom Halloween parties.

CB and Rosemary children will go home at 11:15.

Dandelion and Sunflower children go home at 11:30.

Costumes:

We advise that costumes be generally comfortable. It may be difficult for children to move safely with masks or cumbersome clothing. Please leave any props that are weapon-like at home. Super Hero costumes are okay for Halloween (but we continue to ask that no Super Hero clothing come to school after Halloween). We request that costume themes be appropriate for preschool ages. Check with us if you have any questions. Thank you.

While the celebration of Halloween is not really a part of our curriculum, it is pretty hard to avoid Halloween-related topics during this season. “Real vs. make-believe” is one area of concept development that we like to support at this time of year. Exploration of masks is also an interesting possibility that helps children distinguish between the scary mask face and the real face underneath.

We enjoy the wonderful language and music/movement possibilities associated with Halloween as well as the lovely seasonal elements—pumpkins, gourds, fall leaves, etc.

As “commercial” as our LA Halloween can be—we will do our best to make it safe and joyful for the children.

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Holiday Wreath SALE

Yes, in spite of Halloween, we are getting started with this small fundraiser organized by Karen each year. Karen will distribute the order forms for the lovely holiday wreaths on October 8th and orders will be due to her by Nov. 8th. The wreaths are delivered to the preschool, can be shipped to your home—or shipped as a fragrant gift to the home of the recipient. Please speak with Karen for more information.

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Thank You

THANK YOU for your amazing response to the request for donations for the NOVEMBER 16 SILENT AUCTION at the Annenberg Beach House. We have also received many RSVP’s to the Auction Evite and look forward to this very Fun and Successful large fundraiser. –Many thanks to Room Parents and to Lauren Wolf and the 2012-13 Auction Committee. Karen is creating the Auction Program that will include all of the items donated to the Silent Auction—as well as the vacation homes and extra-special items that will be part of the Live Auction at the end of the evening. We ask that all donations be submitted to Karen by Monday, Nov. 5th. Be sure to join us for an evening of delicious food, great spirits, music, stimulating company—and shopping!

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October Calendar

• Friday, Oct. 5—Toddler Explorations classes begin at 9:00 and at 10:45 in the Parish Hall
• Monday, Oct. 8—Preschool closed for Columbus Day holiday
• Thursday, Oct. 11—Preschool Tours
• Friday, Oct. 26—Preschool closed for Teacher Professional Development day
• Wed., Oct. 31—Halloween Parades and Celebrations (dismissal at 11:15 and 11:30)
  
  

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Pictures from School Events

Back to School

Children Respond to Back to School Night

Classroom Celebration

By TARA PARKER-POPE
The New York Times | Health & Science | August 2012

Parents who want to stimulate their children’s brain development often focus on things like early reading, flashcards and language tapes. But a growing body of research suggests that playing certain kinds of childhood games may be the best way to increase a child’s ability to do well in school. Variations on games like Freeze Tag and Simon Says require relatively high levels of executive function, testing a child’s ability to pay attention, remember rules and exhibit self-control — qualities that also predict academic success.

“Play is one of the most cognitively stimulating things a child can do,” says Megan McClelland, an early-childhood-development researcher at Oregon State University who has led much of the research.

The key to games education is to start with a simple game and add increasingly complicated rules. For instance, Oregon researchers have developed a game called Head-to-Toes, which they use to assess preschool children’s development. Initially, the child copies the teacher’s movements, touching her head or toes. But later, the child is expected to do the opposite, touching her toes when the teacher touches her head.

While the game may sound simple, it actually requires a high level of cognitive function for a preschooler, including focus and attention, working memory to remember rules, mental flexibility (to do the opposite) and self-control.

“We tend to equate learning with the content of learning, with what information children have, rather than the how of learning,” says Ellen Galinsky, a child-development researcher and author of “Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs.” “But focusing on the how of learning, on executive functions, gives you the skills to learn new information, which is why they tend to be so predictive of long-term success.”

Research shows that children who develop focus and self-control early in life have better academic achievement in the long term. One study of 814 children between ages 3 and 6 shows that children who do well in Simon Says-like games do better in math and reading. A smaller study of 65 preschool children found that those who started the school year with low levels of self-control showed improvement after playing games in class, including a version of Red Light, Green Light.

An Oregon State study reported on 430 children who were followed from preschool until age 25. The study, published online earlier this month in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, looked at several factors, including early reading and math skills, along with other cognitive skills, to see which were ultimately most influential in college success. It turns out that a child’s ability at age 4 to pay attention and complete a task, the very skills learned in game play, were the greatest predictors of whether he or she finished college by age 25.

Observations

“Our expectations of the child must be very flexible and varied. We must be able to be amazed and to enjoy—like the children do. We must be able to catch the ball that the children throw us, and toss it back to them in a way that makes the children want to continue the game with us, developing, perhaps, other games as we go along” (Tiziana Filippini, pedagogista, 1990).

Dear Families and Friends,
As we complete the initial phase of community-building in the new school year, we turn our attention to curriculum. The teachers and I have been observing the children in our spaces—and during home visits. We have been reading Family Books, talking with you and with one another, and listening to the children’s statements, questions and stories. We have been revisiting investigations from the previous school year. We have been collecting curriculum seeds that we will now share with one another at our regular after-school team meetings that begin this month. Relationship-building with materials and with all members of our community is an on-going element of our curriculum, but now we will begin to use our documentation to help us become more intentional in our efforts to support these relationships—and children’s interests.

Sometimes the interests are obvious, but it is important to look deeply at what children are telling us in so many different ways. An interest in dinosaurs, for example, might really be an interest in power, or size and proportion. As children give us clues about their passion and curiosity, we look for ways to “toss the ball back to them” and keep the game going. While we may make predictions about what will happen, we never really know the direction an investigation might take.

Each week I compose a Weekly Journal to the teachers that includes my reflections about our work with the children and with you—as well as announcements and reminders for the week. I thought I would share the reflection piece from this week’s journal to include you in our process.

Perhaps at our coming Back to School Nights, you will share your reflections, too. Thank you.

Warm wishes,

Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• PPS Weekly Journal

• Back to School Nights

• Intake Conferences—Cherry Blossom & Rosemary Families

• Thoughts about Super-Hero Play: A Request for Collaboration

• PPS Board of Trustees

• September Calendar

• To Our Parents

• Picture Gallery

PPS Weekly Journal

Where is the metaphor?
September 4, 2012

Dear Colleagues,

What is Rishi seeking to know? The soft/rough, dry texture of the decomposed granite may be attractive. . .It also looks like he is examining the imprint of his fingers in the loose material. We may not be exactly sure what intrigues Rishi at this moment, but the photo welcomes our interpretation. Rishi has left a trace –a highly personal trace—and perhaps a simple, but meaningful metaphor is revealed: “One small handprint for Rishi, one giant handprint for mankind.” We create traces of who we are, how we think and feel, what we imagine. . .in relationship with a material, a place, a moment. Sculptors, architects, poets, musicians, chefs, painters—and everyone who stops to develop a relationship with a material and an idea—experiences this metaphor. Rishi stopped. He discovered a relationship with a material. He left a trace.

What should we do next? How do we keep the game alive? (finger painting, clay work, sand drawings, print-making, shadow and mirror play, choral response/recording–?)

Reggio inspired curriculum is emergent curriculum. But, many preschools with an emergent curriculum are not Reggio inspired. What is the difference? This is an important discussion for us to have at our meetings each time we look together at documentation. “Children are interested in bugs,” is not enough. What can we discover together about bugs? (And, I don’t necessarily mean looking on the internet or in a book.) Children do like to have information–and images from books and the internet can serve as provocations for dialogue and exploration, but after the books, how can we support their relationship with the interest? What is it that really intrigues the children? How can we lift or grow the “facts” to construct deeper meanings? Where is the poetry and the metaphor?

I look forward to your lists (in raw written or video/photo form—like the photo of Rishi). Let’s look together during our meetings this week at your curriculum seed collections. For the returning children and their teachers, the ongoing investigations are important—but, what else? For the new children and their teachers, how will we begin?

Thank you for your collaboration these first weeks of the school year. “Starting” is never easy—and the work remains challenging for the remaining 10 months. Nevertheless, for me, the inspiration, collaboration—and the beauty—give value to the tremendous effort. I hope the same is true for you.

With encouragement to go deeper,

Nancy

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Back to School Nights

Cherry Blossom & Rosemary parents: Tuesday, Sept. 11 from 5 to 7 p.m.
Dandelion & Sunflower parents: Wednesday, Sept. 12 from 5 to 7 p.m.

These evenings offer parents, teachers and directors the opportunity to spend time together in the preschool environments without the literal presence of the children (although their presence is always felt on some level!). We will start the evenings at 5:00 in the Parish Hall to begin the group conversations about the documentation process. The dialogue will probably take a slightly different form for parents in each group—since returning parents have more experience at our site with our approach to the documentation process.

The second half of the evening will take place upstairs in classrooms and outside in the workshop and outdoor studio. Refreshments will be served thanks to our Refreshment Committee.

Traces of your presence will be documented for the children’s pleasure the following mornings.

We hope you will join us for these lively and interesting events.

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Intake Conferences—Cherry Blossom & Rosemary Families

CB and Rosemary classes will not take place on Friday, Sept. 21 so that teachers (and pedagogista) can meet with parents to listen to your observations about your children’s preschool experience so far—and to any concerns or questions you have about your child. The ASQ-3 can also be a part of this conversation. Teachers will soon have sign-up sheets for conference appointments (about 30 minutes each). Childcare will be offered for the time of your conference.

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Thoughts about Super-Hero Play: A Request for Collaboration

After observing children’s play (especially outside) during the past few weeks—and over the years, teachers and directors believe that the wearing of super-hero clothing to school (t-shirts, shoes, capes, for example) directs the children’s play to super-hero themes. In other words, the costumes limit the play—and often steer the play toward aggressive behavior.

We realize that children naturally grapple with the theme of “good vs. evil,” but we think that the clothing worn to school has too great an influence on the way this theme is explored. We request that children please not wear super-hero clothing to school.

We will talk with the children about this request during our meetings so that they understand our reasons for limiting this kind of clothing and play.

We are also telling children that it is not okay to pretend to use weapons at school—such as guns and swords. We hear a good deal of “scary” language during this kind of play and some children are frightened by this language, not understanding that it is “pretend.” We ask that you talk at home, as well, about pretend play with weapons. “Weapons hurt people and we do not even pretend to hurt our friends at school.”

We also suggest that you try to limit the amount of children’s screen time in general—and, especially, shows that feature aggressive and violent behavior by the characters.

Thank you for your understanding about this request. Please let us know if you have questions.

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PPS Board of Trustees

Palisades Preschool, a private, independent nonprofit organization, is governed by a Director and Co-Director and by a Board of Trustees. The Board’s role is to support the preschool through the oversight of fundraising and financial policy-making which includes the setting of tuition each year. The Board also assists with the legal aspects of the operation of the preschool and the arbitration of possible disagreements or misunderstandings that may arise. Additionally, board members serve as representatives of the preschool within the greater community.

We thank our 2012-2013 Board of Trustees for their participation and support of our program!

• Judy Tyler—President
• Jennifer Mirner—Past President
• Jeffery Rouze—Treasurer
• Megan Histand—Secretary
• Lauren Wolf—Silent Auction Chairperson
• Darren Hereford—current parent
• Susan Dickinson—current parent
• Rich Lin—current parent
• Janna Boelke—current parent
• Julie Smith—current parent
• Karen Booth—Co-Director (non-voting member)
• Nancy Sadler—Director/Pedagogista (non-voting member)

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September Calendar

• Tuesday, Sept. 4—Preschool closed for Labor Day holiday
• Friday, Sept. 7—ASQ-3 observation form due to Nancy for scoring
• Tuesday, Sept. 11—Cherry Blossom & Rosemary Back to School Night (5 to 7 p.m.)
• Wed., Sept. 12—Dandelion & Sunflower Back to School Night (5 to 7 p.m.)
• Friday, Sept. 21—Intake Conferences for CB and Rosemary rooms (no classes for these 2 groups)
• Friday, Sept. 28—Parent Orientation meeting for Toddler Explorations classes (10 to 11:30 a.m.)
  

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To Our Parents:

Thank you for your collaboration and participation during the past few weeks! We appreciate your taking the time to read our communications and documentation, your attendance at events and activities, and your cooperation with our policies and procedures. The school year has started very well—thanks to you, the children and the teachers.
–Nancy

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Picture Gallery

PPS Family Picnic

Observations

“Professional development asks you to get involved as teachers and to learn together with children, families and colleagues. Professional development starts in our daily life with children and with one another” (Lanzi, 2011).

Dear Families and Friends,

On August 1st the teachers, Karen and I officially began our collaboration for the new school year. Of course, during the previous six weeks of summer many preparations were already in progress. Nevertheless, the co-presence of our whole faculty at the school initiated the process of re-creating indoor and outdoor environments, organizing our time and materials, reviewing our technological systems, and beginning to talk with one another about curriculum seeds and strategies for supporting the children in each class as they connect with one another and with teachers to form new classroom communities.

As Reggio pedagogista, Daniela Lanzi, asserted during the Study Tour in which Valeria and I participated last fall, teachers’ professional development is a part of just about all that we do together at Palisades Preschool. It is an element of our daily life together with the children and with you. We are always learning.

Recognizing that both teaching and learning are relationships-based processes, we included within our two weeks of preparation for the new school year a variety of opportunities to spend time together socially and professionally and to renew our own sense of place at PPS. We began by appreciating the view from the 18th floor of the Huntley over food and drinks, sharing our summer stories and reflections. We spotted the tower of St. Paul’s church from our table high above Santa Monica!

We held some of our meetings on the outdoor studio deck at PPS, listening to the sound of the new fountain in our play yard and watching the birds and squirrels as we re-connected with one another and with the values of our Reggio inspired approach. We walked together in our neighborhood, observing the progress at St. Monica’s construction site, visiting the Miles Playhouse at Reed Park and enjoying a picnic at the palisade along Ocean Ave. On another day we walked up Montana Ave., noting some of the interesting businesses and shops that might become part of children’s future explorations–and then shared a delicious lunch at 17th St. Café. Home visits with new children and their parents presented lovely opportunities to build relationships and to learn. We made a shopping trip to the ReDiscover Center and enjoyed our potluck lunch among all of the recycled items waiting for a new home. Our studio teachers collaborated to offer us rich and beautiful experiences with materials and metaphors. And, in between our outings and meetings was a lot of hard work.

So, we are beginning our collegial collaboration with participation that features enthusiasm, dialogue, observation and reflection, laughter, occasional friendly differences of opinion, beauty and learning. A good start.

We look forward to the smiles and hugs of you and your children.

Warm wishes,

Nancy

Click on the links below or scroll down for this month’s topics:

• Welcome Back, Patricia!

• Toddler Explorations Classes

• Laurie

• PPS Family Picnic

• August Calendar

• Photo Gallery

Welcome Back, Patricia!

In last week’s email message, I shared with all of you the news that Cherry Blossom teacher, Sylvia Vasquez, would not be with us this year. She is, unfortunately, experiencing health difficulties and made the decision to focus on her health this year. I am sure that you join me, Karen and teachers in wishing Sylvia a time of rest and healing.

After much thought about “what to do,” reviewing many resumes from teachers who applied for a position at our school, and talking as colleagues, we are welcoming Patricia Campos back to our teaching staff. Patricia taught at Palisades Preschool for several years before choosing to pursue more education and professional growth experiences during the past few years. She has remained in touch with us and was, fortunately, interested in returning to teach at our school when we learned that Sylvia would not be returning. Patricia will become Tanya’s partner in the Cherry Blossom room, working with Nicole, Lisette, Lori, Craig, Summer and Nancy as part of the CB-Rosemary team. She is a caring, creative and thoughtful educator and we are very happy to have the opportunity to work with her once again.

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Toddler Explorations Classes

The toddler classes are moving from Monday to Friday of each week. We made this choice so that two of our preschool teachers could collaborate to take the role of working with toddlers and their families while Laurie Cornell recuperates from her illness this school year. With so many capable and competent teachers on our preschool staff, we decided that we would be able to do a little shifting on Friday—when we have fewer children present at school—and continue to offer a delightful Reggio inspired experience for the youngest members of our community and their families. We will share more information soon.

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Laurie

Many of you already know that after a good deal of research and consultation with her doctors, Laurie made the decision to follow her surgery with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. She received her first treatment of chemo in late July and reports that she is feeling well—all things considered. Her cousins will continue to organize support for Laurie and her family. For those who would like to participate, please email Crissy or Katy at love4laurie@verizon.net. We will miss her extra-special presence as our toddler teacher this year and send her much love and caring support.

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PPS Family Picnic

On Saturday, August 25th, we hope to see you at Rustic Canyon Park on Latimer Road in Santa Monica between 10 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. for our annual Family Picnic. Bring a blanket and a picnic lunch!

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August Calendar

August 14—New Parent Orientation from 10:00 to 12:30

August 15—First day of school for 2012-2013—Catered lunch for Dandelion/Sunflower classes starts

August 15-27—Modified days for Cherry Blossom/Rosemary children (no lunch)

August 25—PPS Family Picnic

August 28—Regular schedule begins for Cherry Blossom/Rosemary children with catered lunch

August 31 & Sept. 3—Preschool closed for Labor Day holiday

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Picture Gallery