On Wednesday evening we had a meeting with parents to talk about the recent gun violence in our country and the threat it poses to our children and our community. We realize that this is a politically sensitive issue and by talking about it we did not mean to offend anyone or get involved in any political debates; instead, we focused on what we can do as teachers and parents to support social-emotional wellness for children in our community.
Much of our conversation centered around this article from Building Bright Futures about the person behind the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The article is truly a difficult read, but a recurring theme is the lack of support the young man and his family received from a broader community. He exhibited very serious social and emotional problems, and his intense needs became overwhelming to his mother. The two of them gradually became almost totally isolated, which contributed further to his deteriorating mental health.
There is no way to guarantee that such a tragic event would never happen in our community, but early childhood is a critical period for healthy social-emotional development and a definite focus of our work at MVS. The first recommendation from the Building Bright Futures article is to "Recognize that ensuring children's social and emotional wellness is all of our jobs–parents, schools, pediatric primary care workers, family support workers, social workers, early care and education providers and mental health specialists." When you spend time with children, we want to encourage all of you to take advantage of "teachable moments" and choose to have hard conversations with them about their own emotions and how others may be feeling, awareness of their effects on people around them, how to manage social conflicts, how to handle frustration, and how to communicate their needs. Young children are constantly exploring such concepts and the more we can pause to explore with them, the more they will feel safe, secure, and successful in those explorations.
We will be looking to share these concepts in more detail and more publicly in the near future. Please let us know if you have any ideas about how we can reach out to the broader community. As always, thanks for reading!
Megan
News and Reminders
Mark your calendars: there will be another MVS open gym event on the morning of Saturday, March 24 with a safety theme! More details to come.
There are two free parent workshops coming up at the Lamoille Family Center: "Calming Emotional Storms" on Wednesday, March 14 from 6-8pm and "Nurturing Healthy Sexual Development" on Thursday, March 29 from 6-8pm. Call 888-5229 to register.
Classroom Updates
Infant I
This week our three oldest boys have really become a rowdy trio of pals, choosing to spend most of their time together and finding all sorts of back-and-forth interactions with which to entertain themselves. Early in the week they spent lots of time climbing the carpeted ramps and steps, sitting in the shallow box, and playing with balls and the big metal bowl. Later their interests moved on to roaming around the crib area (when no one was sleeping) and batting at each others' snowsuits outside–very amusing! Many of our younger children enjoyed sleeping outside this week, and they also fell into more predictable rhythms of eating and sleeping. The new room arrangement gave us more small spaces for quiet, focused activity, which seemed to benefit all of our children.
Infant II
Our exploration of play dough continues this week, and we've added rolling pins, which the children seem to enjoy using. On Thursday the children really liked playing with buttons, putting them in large containers, shaking them, and dumping them out. We have been exploring the primary colors through paint; last week we offered yellow, this week we offered blue, and next week we will complete the exploration with red paint. Finally, on Thursday and Friday we had some adventures in the fresh layer of snow on the playground. Some of our children now have no trouble maneuvering themselves through it, while walking and staying upright is still a challenge for others. But everyone managed to have some fun.
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| Intrepid explorers |
Toddlers
Our classroom welcomed Sadie back this week and the children were very happy to see her. We loved having Dagan in our classroom and will be excited to still have her with us on Monday afternoons. This week we were lucky to experiences several Vermont seasons: mud season, a beautiful sunny day, and wonderful snow towards the end of the week. We are happy in all of our Vermont weather, but being the true Vermonters we are, we enjoyed fresh powder the most–so much snow to shovel and dig in! This week we introduced Circle Time to our morning routine, and the kids were quite interested in learning a new welcome song, reading a new book, and singing an interactive song with our hands and fingers. We also enjoyed tissue paper play this week; we worked on folding the paper, crinkling it (the favorite!) and cramping the paper up into a ball. While working with the tissue paper we identified the colors of the paper and also worked on folding. Have a great weekend! Also, please be sure to note the March group snack schedule on the bulletin board by the hand washing sink. Thank you!
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| "Baby's toes!" |
Thank goodness for snow! After days of icy mud, the children relished eating snow, sledding, and attempting to make snowballs. One child commented, "It sounds like cracking." We experimented with compressing snow and listening to it, sometimes using our hands, or stomping on it with our feet. The children have also begun discussing their play in advance during snack time. We have heard them suggest scenarios (Ninja Turtles, Ninja GO) and roles ("Well, I'm Cat Boy and you be Gekko"). This is a fantastic milestone for many reasons! It shows that children are seeking to make friends and are motivated to work on language, social, and emotional skills necessary to do so. "Strong words" can also be used to engage playmates: "Do you want to play _____ with me?" It also shows that they are increasingly capable of abstract thought (e.g., this stick is a spatula). Finally, planning play in advance and following through is a huge piece of self-regulation. It involves a complex mental process of intentionally starting or stopping certain behaviors, such as, "I want to play PJ Masks right now, but I must wait until I am outside." Planning play in advance exercises both self-regulation and the working memory needed to remember the plan later. Try planning play at home to extend this fantastic learning. You can take it a step further and write down your plan in order to model how written language could be valuable to your child. Enjoy the snow and we'll see you next week!
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| Sometimes it's more fun to fall down. |
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| Have you heard about the puppet shows? They happen every morning around 9:30 am. |
Preschool II
An important focus for the team this week was problem-solving and conflict resolution. Sharing, taking turns, picking line leaders, or making space at a crowded cubby area all require significant social skills. As always, communication is key, so we are helping the students find the words to use with each other so everyone feels heard, their opinions and feelings are validated, and resolutions are achieved. We have been working towards student independence so that conversations and negotiations can happen without an adult facilitating the debate. A great example this week was our sensory table slime project, where ten friends had to share four spots at the sensory table when we were all very excited to get our hands dirty. The class managed to make two teams: one group of four at the sensory table and the other group in the circle area with the recipe book. They did this without any direction, along with dressing each other with smocks and reminding each other to wash hands before and after, and they only needed a little help with the timing of the group rotations. Problem-solving skills are a life skill we build on, and they are not limited to social skills. We also solve physical problems every day, such as inside-out sleeves and boots stuck inside our snow pants, but encouraging the students to solve these problems for themselves as much as possible fosters resilience and builds confidence for facing tougher challenges later.
We spent this week with Tori, Sarah, and a new substitute CG (short for CaitlinGrace). We enjoyed getting messy, exploring various textures, and experimenting with lots of child led activities. On Monday we continued with Dr. Seuss and picking out rhyming words in the books. It was interesting to observe the children recognizing what words were real and what words weren’t. “What even is a knox?” - OB. In addition to the rhyming words, we explored our senses with the creation of slime. Independently each child made their own mixture of slime, observing how it feels, looks, smells, and the sounds it makes when you squeeze it. We continued our research by putting the slime in our water table and watching what happens when it’s exposed to water. “It feels like there’s octopus legs crawling in here.” - JF. On Wednesday we were able to collect materials for our nature green eggs and ham plates. Oh how the children loved pouring glue all over, ensuring of course that their pine cones were “extra stuck." We wrapped up the week by reviewing what it means to fill each other’s buckets, and how to be a kind friend. We are looking forward to Jen's return on Wednesday!
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