The first time I introduced it was quite formal since it was part of my school work with a corresponding lesson plan, literature connection, and filled with treasures collected from here and there. I read the books that set the dramatic play session up and then brought the children into the Imagination Station for the big reveal. I remember exactly the click of opening clasps and the way the children fairly leapt into the case to pull the ropes, quilts, maps, and aprons from the  suitcase.

Within minutes every single thing in the case was employed and put to good use…ropes were tied to horses, calicos were covering the children from head to toe, and quilts were wrapping the babies. The only thing left to do was hop on board the wagon to head west with the now empty, but still very, very important suitcase.

Since that time, the suitcase has served many purposes. It’s stickers are a little frayed and some are missing altogether. The lining is holding up, which is interesting considering how many things and people have been carried and perched inside the suitcase.

Over seven years of adventures — which don’t even include the adventures the suitcase had even before I found it at the thrift shop — and it should have a good many years in it still!

As educators, we know that the model is ideal for parents who want to experience early childhood learning and play, firsthand, while gaining insight into their child’s view of the world. The cooperative classroom setting provides context and information that cannot be expressed as effectively any other way. The parents’ understanding of their child moves beyond written reports to something more meaningful and fulfilling.

As an organization built through parent involvement these past 70 years, we know these benefits hold true.

The parents’ focus is naturally and rightfully on their little one as they look for schools and care settings. Yet a formal childcare setting or school is made up of many children. In a parent cooperative, this means that the parent will not only be working with his or her child alone, but with many children gathered together. Children gathered in play are fabulously loud and rambunctious. They do not move in orderly fashion, but through leaps and bounds, rolls and stops. They cry, they laugh, they make mistakes, and they sometimes say things they don’t really mean as well as things they really do mean. Understanding and accepting other people’s children is the biggest and best take-away a parent cooperative will give to their member parents.

Deciding to become part of larger whole is a big commitment. Every parent must consider this before they take that leap to join a parent cooperative. Actively making that choice and deciding to trust that things could get very messy, knowing that there will be joys and triumphs that match the frustrations and hiccups along the way, will tumble out into the greatest benefit a parent cooperative education model offers . . . Community.

Some teachers and administrators are big on advance planning and a lot of these educators are serving as gatekeepers and squeeze chutes in the education business. Teachers find themselves on inescapable tracks to prove that their lesson plans meet core academic standards. This does not make them bad teachers. It is a hoop that has been placed in front of them. Teachers are creative and they are able to figure out to cook the books, i.e. meet children’s needs at the same time as meeting regulations and administrator’s needs.

We do not have day-to-day, moment-to-moment plans. These would run contrary to our philosophy of education. We do have thematic units with flexible beginnings and endings, for example our Into the Forest fairy tale unit was at least 3-weeks shorter last year than the year before. We do not want to share these units in advance either although they seem to pop up year after year, because I am more than willing to heave ho something that isn’t working. The only exception to this is in the Tracks class — there are two culminating art projects. In the pursuit of those two projects the way is open enough for the journey to wiggle and zig and zag along the way.

Within each unit there is wiggle room with the projects and pursuits, but each activity builds towards a whole “something”.” These projects do not necessarily carry over from year to year. This is simply because much of our material lists are changeable and collected/recycled/repurposed at a moment’s notice.

Projects and activities must also must be flexible and responsive because individual and group dynamics and needs change with each class of students. And finally, we cannot remove the adult-presence from the conversation. I learn more each year I teach from the children and from the adults.

The Reggio philosophy frames the “child as researcher” or as Lilian Katz and Judy Harris Helm frame it, “child as investigator.” In their book, Young Investigators, they define project work for us.

Although the word project has many meanings, when used in the “project approach,” it has a specific meaning. A project is an in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about.

They continue this definition that in the project-based approach (and I would add in the Reggio-model), the research is conducted by a small group, sometimes an individual child and is pursued to reveal, in detail, the information the child or small group has revealed regarding the topic.

At our Cooperative School, we seek to include the group in a cooperative learning environment (a cooperative through-and-through), so you will not often see individual threads being pulled from the cloth. We straddle the line between Teacher-Directed Inquiry and Projects.

In regards to our stance on teacher-directed inquiry, Andrea and I are very responsive teachers in practice—the children’s voice is quite present in the discussion. A good example of this is the Bugs’ “shadow” research. Our projects are both teacher and child-initiated, but as mentioned earlier, we like the whole group to be involved in the pursuit.

We believe, and have seen time and time again, those opportunities for skill-building, academic facts, and content knowledge can absolutely be woven into the exploration as long as teachers and other adults remain responsive and aware of opportunities. For instance, we know that the names of colors and shapes have been infused early on and what about grammatical rules? There is some constant, some natural progression, and steady exposure. There are times though, that we must construct opportunities for information delivery. For instance, we know that letters must often be formally introduced and practiced. These rarely are learned spontaneously.

So, we do not write out daily plans, rather we shake out themes that are usually interesting to young children and can be enriched through literature and/or materials. We choose activities and pursuits that provide opportunities to introduce and practice the “academic content,” but more importantly, we seek out activities that will build creative thinking, gross and fine motor skills, and opportunities to exchange the language of ideas and social interactions between peers.

As part of our reflective practice, we use weekly reviews, staff meetings, and ongoing discussion with parents and children to consider the successes and flops. In turn, these should help parents (and our validators) envision the wholeness of our program.

I’ve been thinking lately about the importance of fun in family life, and wondering why it seems in such short supply.  Sometimes I guess it is because parents are doing so many things for their children, it seems as if there is no time left to do things with them.  Maybe it’s because many parents grew up in homes where parents and children didn’t play together, and so they can’t imagine how to do it.  Or maybe it’s because a parent is afraid of hurting a child or being hurt—especially if angry feelings have recently been piling up.

Then I was inspired by this wonderful example from Larry Cohen’s (the author Playful Parenting).  In his latest newsletter, he wrote:

Another Mom used some play to help her oldest child, age 6, who had been a bit of a “monster” lately:  ”So, I recently pulled out one of our favorite games that has always helped my middle child. This time, I was hoping to turn around my 6 year old, and it worked like a charm. I just lay down on the floor and say, ‘I’m the bread. Who wants to be the cheese?’ and one child will run over to lay on top of me. I give that kid a great big squeeze, which really seems to help him feel loved and snap him out of a bad mood. Then the other one will run over and be the mustard (or whatever) and lay on top. Now I’m squeezing two kids and the one in the middle is getting a good squeeze. I have to help them take turns being the one closest to me. But the baby doesn’t care! She will just pile on top of her brothers and seems to feel like she’s ‘winning’ just because she’s playing too and gets to body slam her brothers.”

I love this example because it describes so well that play isn’t something to save just for times when we all feel good, it can actually be an activity that helps everyone feel better.  This is a lesson we can learn directly from watching children play—they play when they are excited and happy and they play when they are frustrated and upset.  All their emotions go into their play, which can almost magically transform what is heavy and serious and difficult into something more light-hearted and funny and easy.

If you don’t believe me, try this idea.  Pull out some balloons—my favorite are the round, 10-12” size balloons that you can buy in bulk in party supply stores.  Blow up a few and knot them.  Then turn on some crazy, funky music.  What happens?  Well first people come wandering in to find out what’s going on.  Then they notice the balloons and start bopping them about.  Before long they are volleying them over to you and you are volleying them right back.  And along the way, everyone is smiling because it is virtually impossible to play with balloons and not smile.  Popping balloons on purpose is even better—it always provokes big laughs!

Play is seriously good fun and seriously good for everyone—but it doesn’t have to be a serious matter to do more of it.  Balloons are cheap, clean, unlikely to break anything, and no effort to clean up.  Hugging sandwiches, pillow fights, and goofy dance contests are good too.

As the nights get dark earlier and we all retreat into our cozy warm homes—bring more play inside, too, to lighten everyone’s spirits!

Larry’s latest book, The Art of Roughhousing, Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It is now available for preorder.  I can’t wait to read it!

While we see incredible sights when our Tracks (the 4- and 5-year olds) class heads out into the community on field trips, one thing remains consistent year after year. The children are compelled to share their ages to the very fraction of the year with the kind adults serving as our guides at museums or other destinations. And of course, as a group of children will, they all tell it at the same time, confident that by speaking it out loud (preferably, really loud), they will become more real to this new and valuable adult they have just met. Our guides smile, but we know that the children must, must, must share this vital information because regardless of what the guide will eventually share or what they will take away from the tour, their age defines and shapes their existence. How wise these children are! A single short phrase communicates volumes, reveals secrets, and expresses joy. The age they are to the hour is simply too fabulous to keep to themselves.

Along this line, a set of shared words vexes young children and still they are compelled to use them — I call these most words. Anyone who has spent time in an early childhood setting will hear them and can easily identify the bristling and posturing that takes place as they are expressed, simple statements without any fully developed support or fact-based research, I am the fastest, I am the tallest, I am the oldest. What I mean by fully developed support is that in most instances these declarations pop up with only the tiniest thread of supporting data — young children equate age with height; perceptions of speed are all in how fast the wind feels pulling on clothes as they run; and the desire to be is all that really matters.

In attempting to make sense of their worlds and their place in it, young children will compare and contrast characteristics between themselves and their peers. As educators, we are tuned in to this very natural and real part of their development. And as educators, we must think of ways to support this expression while channeling it to give way to a greater understanding and a more meaningful connection to self and others.

So here is what we did last week after a few sessions of most word statements being flung about and observing the reactions and actions in the group dynamic. We held a meeting. No surprises there! I explained that there are a collection of most words that end in est and we needed to brainstorm all the ones we know. There were quite a few stops and starts because hello, note to self: they are still developing phonemic awareness. Anyway, we collected a handful of words and then I asked them how they felt when I used these most words in “I am…” sentences. The class voted happy or sad for each phrase and you will love this…of course most children were sad when I said, “I am the biggest/oldest/fastest” but when I said, “I am the slowest,” that was fine by them! After we were done, we talked about how when we change the words, I am to You are it makes us each feel differently about what is being said.

Now, words are powerful and even these most words hold a very important place in our communication. The important take-away here is for the children to gain an understanding about how these words, or rather these words in a particular context, make them feel. Our lesson isn’t about eliminating the words or the context, but in figuring out how to respond to the words if they feel hurtful.

The first thing we had to do was give this context a name. We called it “Using a Most Word.” We practiced saying, “Stop, you are using a most word and it is hurting my feelings.” This gives the speaker a moment to reflect and it gives the listener a ready response for a bundle of mixed emotions. Of course, we can talk about ages, we can talk about speed, we can talk about height, but if we are given the time, space, and tools to respond and reflect, we are given the gift of power over words and a deeper connection to them and each other.

I read his ask and immediately started thinking about how gender roles play out in my own professional experience. Not in terms of teaching children—we are conversant and comfortable with exploring and opening up conversations about gender, gender-roles, and stereotypes with children. Young children and their unique ability to be open to new ideas makes this easy.

Parent cooperatives, founded by educators and parents together, have a long history as serving as incubators for creating teachers—parents, after working in the classroom and in administrative positions, often switch careers and go into teaching. Other folks already in education find their practice/focus reinvigorated through their experiences in the parent cooperative model. Anecdotally, we can see that the men involved often follow a well-documented pattern. They go into elementary or secondary classrooms and more often administration. Tom Hobson or Teacher Tom, a teacher and blogger who also teaches in a parent cooperative school has written a lot of posts brainstorming about this pattern.

Greg’s ask prompted me to get in touch with a co-oping father who is a secondary school teacher, co-oper, and board member, to ask about his take-aways from his time in our classrooms and on the board. I sent these along to Greg and you can read our co-oping dad’s insightful comments by following this link.

We all learn through modeling. Educators like Greg Harvey, Scott Wiley of Brick by Brick, Matt Halpern of Look at My Happy Rainbow, and Teacher Tom will inspire more men to take up teaching very young children, bringing new voices and perspectives into the early childhood classroom. I hope that the words that this co-oping dad shared with us also helps inspire others.

My copy of this issue is dog-eared and well-loved. I carry it to school and I bring it back home again each day. I look at, reading different sections again, and think about the environment we have created and work hard to maintain. I think about the spectacular flow of the spiral line that connects symbol to the written word.

I return each time to think about something that we do that is so vital to our school and its children and that is our symbols that we have created for each class (the Bugs, the Leaves, and the Tracks). Each child chooses a symbol that will mark his or her journal, cubby hook, artwork, and daily check-in. The class names indicate the collection of graphic/pictograph symbols the children are able to choose from—insects, leaves, and animal and insect tracks.

On the surface, these selections may appear to be part of a classroom management system and of course they are an integral part of building classroom community, but their roots spiral outward from a literacy development core. We know that children recognize and identify with symbols before they can identify the string of connected letters that equal their written/spoken names.

In the Bugs (2s/3s) class, Andrea uses photographs of each child along with the symbol to build sight recognition. I have selected to use the leaves of trees for the 3s/4s and animal and insect tracks for the incredibly sophisticated 4s/5s. We can easily find these leaves in our neighborhoods and although it will be a rare and happy day indeed that we would see a bobcat track, we can find every other track walking along the banks of Sligo or Long Branch Creeks. Families may have to wander out a little farther to find black bear. Bobcats and black bears do, of course, live in the Eastern United States, but they do not often wander around town here, both make the news when they do. All this helps galvanize the children’s belief in the importance of these symbols and begins a conversation of connection…to each other and to the world around them.

This practice adds context to the conversation of symbol on paper equals meaning on a very personal level. It trains the eye to seek out the thread that of letters, images, and symbolic language. The practice of lining the environment with symbolic language that is meaningful to the children and connects them directly to their work and their actions builds literacy skills echoes and reverberates. The children naturally seek out more information about the written word. Using these symbols informs other people (adult and child) to view the same with all the gravitas and importance that attaching their symbol to it would imply. “This is mine,” “I did this,” “This is important,” “I have written snail.”

Sometimes I have to work hard to find the inspiration for one of these blog posts…but not this time.  I knew before the plane landed that this would be an excellent topic to write about!

I am not unsympathetic to that father’s plight.  I have traveled for hours in planes, trains, and automobiles with young children.  I have waited with wiggly toddlers and impatient preschoolers in line, in doctor’s offices, in airports, and at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  Waiting happens, it is part of modern life.  And waiting patiently is an important life skill that we can help children learn.

As with everything else, we can teach children the most effectively when we provide a scaffold of support, one that gives children structure to help them learn, but doesn’t do it all for them.  I know that there are wonderful games on smartphones, but I’m thinking about teaching children the art of amusing themselves in more old fashioned ways.  Sometimes, after all, the batteries die.

Ideas for entertaining each other:

1. Tried and true games: Peek-a-boo, I-Spy, 20 questions, counting something like cows, vw beetles, graveyards, etc.
2. The wonderful, ancient art of storytelling.  Relax, this is an amateur art, you can’t do it “wrong.”  Favorite topics:
   1. old fairytales that you know by heart, extra points for funny voices for different characters;
   2. stories about when you were a child (especially the silly, naughty, crazy stories will be your biggest hits);
   3. Making up stories, alone and together, and even here the bar is low.  I was nudged by my daughter into keeping a story about “Cynthia the Dragon” going for years.  Her tale will never rank up there with “Winnie the Pooh,” but that wasn’t the point.  It was a private little story crafted personally for my daughter that followed her interests.
   4. A balloon is the cheapest fun you can ever have, so keep one or two in the car or in your bag.  It can be used by a toddler to squeeze and bop back and forth and by older children for quiet, slow volleyball type games.
   5. A piece of paper and a pen.  I probably don’t even have to tell you what to do with these, but in case you need some reminders: scribbling, drawing, fold it into a “cootie-catcher,” tic-tac-toe or hangman, etc.

All of these games and activities naturally transition into ideas a child learns to use to entertain him or herself.  The art of coming up with ideas to think about, games to play, and stories to imagine all provide ways for children to occupy and amuse themselves when they are in situations where there is nothing-to-do-but-wait.

When working with young children wait time is critical and one of the hardest things for adults to do.  We are constantly moving fast from one thing to another and multi-tasking.  Kids don’t work like that. They need warning that change is coming, time to prepare, and time to finish what they are doing in the moment before moving on to the next adventure.

At School we give them the time to process. This may be hours, days or even a week or two. We revisit or Look Twice so children can have that important processing time. We connect projects and dramatic play to books we read. Outdoor play becomes an extension of dramatic play, story time and circle time. We work on an art piece over several days so that children have time to process, change and evaluate what they have done, or haven’t done. We give them time to feel complete with their work.

As a co-oping parent it is important to keep the answer in your head when you hear a teacher ask a question of the children. Of course WE all know the answer but kids need more time to come to it and they deserve the chance to figure it out on their own.

Often, when I read to children and ask a question in the middle of the book there will be no answer and we will simply move on. The children will, however, continue to think about the question as we read and they will be able to get more from the story as they think about it.  I am not quizzing the children when I ask a question but rather encouraging them to make connections.  I don’t need or expect an answer all the time.  It will come when they are ready.

Dragging the hose around my yard in the August heat, carefully watering each crisping plant, I found myself cataloguing back-to-school supplies. There are absolutely no ostrich ferns, all were burnt to a crisp in July, and only a handful of dried daylily stalks, not even enough to fill a small tray, much less sort into groups of five. I moved to the roses, the blooms long gone, but the plant still needs water. As I stood there, I looked at the mounds of fountain grass to my right and thought, “Oh that’s good, there are plenty of ornamental grasses to harvest for bird nests.”

Then I remembered… bird nests are so last year. Tracks 2011 was big on shelters. A small cohort had named the structure in the very back, “The Kitty House” when they were three and that was the name that stuck, even though it served all kinds of purposes, jail, fairy house, bad guy lair, etc. Only that class called it the Kitty House, the Leaves and Bugs called it something different. During the Spring, they began to make nests. They used sand, bits of artificial flowers, and the handful of grasses from the play yard. Seeing that something cool was taking place—these kids built visually stunning nests, who wouldn’t want to see more?—I harvested my own grasses (ornamental grasses were big in the 80s and I have A LOT of varieties) and brought them in for the children to use. Just in case you think children need fancy toys for birthdays and special occasions, think again.

The joy that met these armfuls of grasses coming into the play yard was thrilling. Without words, I dumped the piles and immediately bunches were dragged to various nest perches and most of these were carried in children’s mouths, better known as beaks. That was unexpected, yet made perfect sense. How else would a bird-child carry important components for their nests?!? Later I brought in the fern fronds and these were also met with the same joy and woven in immediately. The nest building began in Spring and extended all the way to the first hints of Summer heat. Of course! The hatchlings had flown.

Each year, each class has its own groupthink. The last time we had big, big nest building was during the Spring of Tracks 2004 (Cicada Brood X), but then it was a little different. It was more about bird calls, finding the very highest perches, and shaping family units. Other years, there have been threads of games and interests that lead the play and this is the real joy—that children find their way and it is our job to quietly observe and then occasionally provide the tools and accompaniment to make their play soar. Years 2004 through 2011 did not suffer from lack of nest building. Each year, in fact, features the most excellent imaginary play, from birds to superheroes to dead princesses. Our children are never at a loss for something to do and this is the beauty of responsive teaching. We build our school nest, feathered with child-familiar experiences and materials, and then we fly, fly, fly to bring back the essentials that our little nestlings need and that we never even knew were possible options.

The difficult part for adults is that we cannot fully shape and share our plan for the children until we see their play and interests unfold. We cannot expect that every class will be the same. There will be subtle, yet meaningful and wonderful differences. We do not know the hiccups in advance. We do know that there will be hitting, probably biting, lots of meltdowns, beautiful art, eventual sharing, laughter, as well as stories to tell with dramatic highlights and lowlights, and lots and lots of supported growth!

The same holds true for our parent teacher experience. This year, the School will enjoy a majority new family population joining us with their oldest/first children. While your co-op team member will probably not bite you, all of us will be finding and defining our own co-oping story and writing the next chapter of the Cooperative School’s history. Learning how to co-op cannot be crash coursed, crammed in, or gleaned from a hand-out—it is learned over time, in the classroom, on the play yard , and play dates you arrange on your own. I have been part of this lovely School community for years and I am still learning new things about the how to be in the classroom!

While we cannot fully define each parent’s—or child’s—school experience in advance, we can fall back on the structure that has been shaped over the 70 years the Cooperative School has been around. The Handbook is helpful. The Committee Descriptions are helpful. Meetings are helpful. We have our Member Support parent and your child’s teacher there to answer questions — on the spot at meetings, during your co-op day, or via email. Mostly though, it is about trust and time—trust that your experience will unfold over time just as your child’s experience will unfold over time. We must all embrace that messy, yet lovely, arc of development.