News and Reminders: This week our Parent Collaboration Committee met on Thursday evening. Topics that were discussed included the kitchen and food program, an explanation of Act 166 (our partnership with local school districts to provide prekindergarten), and an upcoming clothing swap and family event. Please look to the right side of the blog for a link to all PCC notes. We are updating them after each meeting. If you have questions about what was discussed at the meeting please feel free to contact me or any of the parents that regularly attend. We would love to have more of you attend the meetings. Please keep an eye out for a survey before the next meeting on May 18th.
This week both Megan and I attended Early Childhood Day at the Legislature. This is a yearly event when all early childhood professionals are invited for a day of learning, networking, and gathering together to support early childhood in the state of Vermont. The event is hosted by the Early Childhood Alliance. The Alliance is an independent advocacy coalition of parents, community organizations, and early childhood providers who are committed to improving public policies that impact young children between the ages of birth to eight in the areas of health, safety, food and economic security, and early care and education.
We listened to Governor Scott discuss the importance of early childhood education. He touched on some interesting facts about our state including each day 6 adults leave the workforce, 3 children leave our K-12 education system, and 1 child is born addicted to opiates.
We heard from Rebecca Holcombe, the Secretary of the Agency of Education, Paul Dragon, the Director of Policy from the Agency of Human Services, and Ted Brady, the Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. They answered questions regarding the progress our state is making, the collaboration among different agencies, and how we can work together to make effective change throughout our state. There also was a chance for early childhood educators to ask questions and give personal accounts of the true struggles of parents, families, and early childhood programs in our state. There aren't many opportunities to have direct access to these officials that are in charge of making a lot of policy decisions that ultimately affect us all.
We also sat in on several sessions to discuss the current issues that are before our legislature that affect early childhood education. The topics that Megan and I attended included:
Toddlers: We had an exciting weather week and our children were interested in exploring after our big snowstorm. Many students worked hard to navigate in the deep depths of the snow and blaze a trail with their bodies and legs. The powdery texture of snow was very interesting for the kids and they experimented with the lightness of the snow as they scooped it up in their hands. We continue to work on keeping our hands to ourselves in the classroom and working on appropriate social interactions.
Early Childhood Day at the Legislature
This week both Megan and I attended Early Childhood Day at the Legislature. This is a yearly event when all early childhood professionals are invited for a day of learning, networking, and gathering together to support early childhood in the state of Vermont. The event is hosted by the Early Childhood Alliance. The Alliance is an independent advocacy coalition of parents, community organizations, and early childhood providers who are committed to improving public policies that impact young children between the ages of birth to eight in the areas of health, safety, food and economic security, and early care and education.
We listened to Governor Scott discuss the importance of early childhood education. He touched on some interesting facts about our state including each day 6 adults leave the workforce, 3 children leave our K-12 education system, and 1 child is born addicted to opiates.
We heard from Rebecca Holcombe, the Secretary of the Agency of Education, Paul Dragon, the Director of Policy from the Agency of Human Services, and Ted Brady, the Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. They answered questions regarding the progress our state is making, the collaboration among different agencies, and how we can work together to make effective change throughout our state. There also was a chance for early childhood educators to ask questions and give personal accounts of the true struggles of parents, families, and early childhood programs in our state. There aren't many opportunities to have direct access to these officials that are in charge of making a lot of policy decisions that ultimately affect us all.
We also sat in on several sessions to discuss the current issues that are before our legislature that affect early childhood education. The topics that Megan and I attended included:
- Child Care Financial Assistance Program and the results of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Financing High Quality Affordable Child Care
- Fiscal Year 2018 State Budget
- Farm to School & Early Care and Education
We were able to gain a lot of knowledge around these areas, what we need to say to our legislators to encourage them to pass these important issues, and have open discussions about why these issues matter to us.
We had lunch with Matt Hill, Bernie Juskiewicz, and Heidi Scherman, all representatives from Lamoille County. We were able to discuss our needs in our communities, thoughts on recent legislation, and ask questions of them about their feelings on specific issues.
Here is the legislative agenda of the Vermont Early Childhood Alliance for this legislative session. Please take a look and get on their email list to be notified of when to call your legislators about upcoming issues; we would love your support!
Classroom Updates
Infant I: This week we teachers have been marveling at our children's peer communication and negotiation skills, especially between certain pairs of children. They are incredibly flexible, curious, and open-minded with each other, which we try to keep in mind when mediating their interactions. We often find it best to just sit back and observe these interactions and only really intervene if there is a risk of physical harm. They have a very limited sense of possession so we don't talk much about sharing or turn-taking yet. We also rearranged the furniture a bit on Friday and were reminded yet again of how much the environment affects our activities. We saw climbing, pulling up, and sliding in places where we hadn't seen it before.
Infant II: This week we had a variety of sensory exploration in our classroom. On Monday we used tin foil in our sensory table and really explored the materials by crumbling, ripping, tearing and rubbing it on our hands and tables The children were very interested in the scratchy sounds it made as it rubbed against the table surface. Some were very proud when they were able to crunch the foil into a round ball. On Monday we also used markers on cut up pieces of cloth to create artwork on textured materials. We took turns sharing markers with our peers so we could each try out multiple colors. To continue our sensory exploration, we observed one of the snow/ice covered logs in our classroom. We watched as the ice slowly melted and chipped at it with our fingers and blocks as we attempted to get a piece to taste.
Toddlers: We had an exciting weather week and our children were interested in exploring after our big snowstorm. Many students worked hard to navigate in the deep depths of the snow and blaze a trail with their bodies and legs. The powdery texture of snow was very interesting for the kids and they experimented with the lightness of the snow as they scooped it up in their hands. We continue to work on keeping our hands to ourselves in the classroom and working on appropriate social interactions.
Preschool I: There were several children on vacation this week so our classroom was a bit quieter than usual. The quietness allowed for opportunities to expand and refine dramatic play skills. One morning three children spent the entire morning (both inside and out) pretending to be astronauts, and sometimes dogs, because why not? Together they built a rocket ship out of pillows and decided that they needed space helmets. They asked to be referred to as "astronatut" and "other astronaut" or "friend astronaut". Once the ship was built and repaired they went to explore a planet and had a pizza party on the ship. Our big walk this week went all the way to the SES playground after stopping to visit the hockey rink. The older children helped the younger children remember our rules of listening ears, watching eyes, red light to stop, green light to go, along with always holding hands to cross the street. The children persevered through deep snow to earn the playground time and had a blast!
Preschool II: March is a big month for birthdays in our classroom. Turning 4 has been the highlight over the past week. We have had some birthday treats, sang a lot of "Happy Birthday" and talked about when during the year everyone's birthday falls. We have more turning 4 in April, May, and July! Much time was spent in the block area working together to challenge one another on building towers that were rather risky and needed to be very precariously balanced. We also enjoyed the snow at the end of the week. Everyone was so excited to take out the sleds again and see how fast we could go. We learned that more snow does not mean faster sledding. We also took a long walk to the Woof Trail with the prek class. The deep snow was definitely a challenge, but one we took on with excitement and determination. We are continuing our work with letters, tracing the tactile sandpaper letters with our fingers, practicing sounding out the letter, and identifying and matching words and sounds.
PreK: Between the time change and the weather it was a challenging week in prek. But with several children on vacation, we were given some extra space both physical and mental. We revisited our yoga practice and took lots of deep breaths. Kate was on vacation all week which meant we were able to spend time with "grown up Hannah"! We loved having her in our room and showing her our favorite outdoor spots. We visited Campfire Forest, the SES playground and the Woof Trail.
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