Reflecting on Children's Power Play

Parents are often shocked when their child, carefully raised in an intentionally anti-violent environment, takes a bite out of a PBJ sandwich, points it and says "Bang, bang, you're dead." Adults have strong feelings when they witness children's power play. How do we honor children's right and need to work out their big ideas through fantasy while honoring our own values? How do we honor the right of every family in a diverse learning community when values are not precisely aligned? We respectfully acknowledge that this is a process dependent on trust and discourse between teachers, parents and children.

There is tremendous importance for Preschool to provide powerful opportunities for young children to be in control, to feel strong and to channel that natural powerful energy into activities and playful situations. It is essential that all children have outlets for their feelings and emotions, and are in safe places where adults are not threatened by an angry, sad, energetic, loud or upset child.

The topic of power play links to many themes: gender role-playing, "boy play" vs. "girl play", gun play, media themes and narrative, peacebuilding, and problem-solving. It is important for a learning community to create a safe space for adults to explore adult assumptions about and their projections on to children’s play.

Why does Power Playing appeal to children?

CONTROL: Being in charge, strong, physical power, capes, goggles, flying, all knowing, all good, instant powers with the wearing of a cape, loose parts, holding the hose, pouring own milk, making real choices, adults not helicoptering (hovering), risk taking activities, hiding.

NEW ROLES: Characters, new roles, new powers, new characteristics. How does her/his self-perception change when the child wears a mask or cape, high heels, goggles, big boots, fire fighter hat, carry around a hose, etc. etc. ? How is everyone reacting to the costume change?

TENSION RELEASE: A release of frustration, tension, stress, kids are able to exercise leadership, authority, jumping around, being loud. Moving around is a big release for children and adults! "Look at me! I’m running with a cape which is different then running without one! Look at me! We are playing tag and chase with capes and goggles!"

VIGOROUS PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: Running, jumping, shouting, chasing, tying the cape, dragging the sheets, shouting, wrestling, climbing to the top of the tree, throwing a tire, pulling up a crate…
Things to think about and talk about:
• Does the environment allow these needs to be met?
• Are there specific children in the program who especially have these needs?
• Who are they?
• What can adults do for them? (Through interactions and environmental design.)
• Can adults identify a few obstacles in the way of doing these things?
• What are adult fears? Strengths?

When Power Play emerges adults have choices:
1. Ban it
2. Ignore it
3. Allow it with limits
4. Facilitate it

Benefits of Facilitating:
• Power and prestige not usually available to children
• Language skills, creativity, divergent thinking, problem solving, cooperation, relationships with peers ("Check-in with your friend, is he comfortable with what you are doing?")
• Take on attributes and characteristics of the things children (often) fear. This enables them to be the master of their fear….if even for a moment
• Vigorous physical activity

What happens when adults ban it?
• Kids begin to hide their interests and activities from adults
• Adults are no longer a part of the conversation or interactions
• Children keep the power, but mask the narrative by changing the rule: "It’s not a gun (sword, light saber, blaster), it’s a train, ship, plane…"

The essential question is do we want children to be obedient to a rule or cooperative to a value? This can only develop when adults and children engage in a trust relationship. Children will explore themes that make adults uncomfortable, indeed these themes will often scare themselves. How adults thoughtfully respond rather than how they react (out of grown-up discomfort or fear) will determine the child's subsequent behavior.

Adults must trust the process of their own observation, investigation and inquiry. Adults will remove the novelty (of the child's undesirable behavior) by knowing (individually) what are our adult buttons and how fast a child is able to identify them (and push on them. . .hard). By being fully present and open as educators, we ensure children's development of communication, problem solving and social skills. How adults respectfully share their needs, values and observations with one another will support healthy, open discourse and problem-solving. This will create a learning community where children feel accepted and valued, and every child and adult feels safe.

Back to School Night Wednesday, September 22nd!

An exciting youth-parent-teacher event is just around the corner! The Home Sweet Home Back to School Night has been designed by youth and teachers to give parents a window into their child's world. The following is our anticipated Agenda for the evening.


4:30PM - 5:45PM Big Friend Meet and Greet (Big Room)
Graduation 2010 Slideshow (glimpse of the future)
Nature Education presentation by Keith
Light refreshments and lemonade will be served.

5:45PM - 6:00PM Omnibus Guidelines (Big Room)
Kathleen will provide a quick overview of the developmentally
appropriate assessment process and the desired outcomes of the
Parent Teacher Conferences.

6:00PM - 6:15PM PAC Committee Chairs (Big Room)
Parent leadership will discuss volunteer opportunities.

6:15PM - 7:00PM Teacher Presentations
Butterfly Parents (Room #1)
Brown Bear Parents (Room #2)

7:00PM - 7:15PM Q & A


Parents who have signed up for child care:
Please sign your child out of Home Sweet Home by 6:00PM and walk them outside to the playground. A special sign-in sheet will be used by the Big Friends on duty to support after hours baby sitting for children of all ages. Organic cheese pizza (Trader Joe's) will be served at 6:15PM. Please pay the Big Friends $5 cash per child at the time of sign-in. Thank you!

Community Building

Home Sweet Home enjoyed a highly constructive year's first PAC meeting! Many thanks to all our attendees, with special acknowledgement to Kris (Katy's mom) and her laptop, Dorinda (Dashiell's mom)for bringing yummies, and Billy (Cash's dad) for his willingness to take on the facilitator role. The PAC will provide minutes and updates through the Parent Yahoo Group and make committee presentations at our Parent Back to School Night on Wednesday, September 22nd!

Our Build Committee is supported by Billy, Joe (Michael's dad) and Issa(Ava's dad). They have asked teachers for a fix-it and fantasy list to support plans for the build and to address repairs sooner. With much gratitude, the teachers present our current WISH LIST:

rehang roller shades (several have fallen; requires tall ladder and lack of vertigo)
hang additional hooks for bedding bags (classroom #1)
tighten screws on mural behind stage (playground)
repaint white dry erase boards (cupboard doors classroom 1 & 2)
sand and refinish stage (playground)
fix hinges on large green chest (see Sky)
hang a shelf for teachers (playground wall above faucet)
construct wooden crates (recycled wood has been saved for this purpose)
find free organic wood chips for garden
complete the "beach" (enlarged sandbox)
fix umbrellas (playground)

FANTASY:
build large cedar planter boxes to support garden (two kneeling-bed sized and one large enough to plant a fruitless olive tree)
light box, similar to: http://store.platinumgalleria.com/5842jc.html
bucket and pulley systems (playground and/or classroom 2)
reading loft with space underneath for dramatic play (classroom 1 & 2)
tile mural to cover playground wall scar above faucet (designed and created with children and youth)
Music Garden: all weather marimba and xylophone and any outdoor musical instrument represented at the following webpage:
http://www.arborday.org/shopping/sourcebook/MerchDetail.cfm?ID=14

Well Child Policy

The Alternatives in Action Home Sweet Home Preschool has a strongly articulated Well Child Policy aligned with State of California Community Care Licensing expectations. But a policy is a written thing and a practice is the reality of what transpires when a learning community of teachers, parents, youth and children collaborates to keep everyone healthy.

Home Sweet Home stresses the importance of the morning routine. Parents coach the children through sign-in, sunscreen, potty, hand-washing, and then verbally and visually check-in with a teacher. Why is this critical? It gives the parents and the teachers an opportunity to assess the child for wellness, observing for symptoms that may not have been evident in the rush to get the day started. When we put sunlotion on a child we are checking body temperature and looking for rashes. When we potty our child, we determine their healthy bowel movement. It also supports the clean hands policy for all children and parents to reduce germ transfer before handling objects, tools and materials. Why does Kathleen yoga stretch and sing with the children before going outside? To listen to lungs and observe them for fatigue, balance and flexibility. (Okay, it's also really fun to start the day with a rousing chorus of Old MacDonald!) This is also one of the reasons teachers sing children into their line-up walk from the playground to the classrooms.

Laughter is a tonic and has proven to increase immunities. A joyful child is often a well child. Home Sweet Home strives to maintain a developmentally appropriate learning environment to support young children as investigators and artists capable of constructing their own knowledge. What does this mean? Rather than have adults introduce isolated academic skills (that can increase children's anxiety), Home Sweet Home educators focus on intellectual goals recognizing the children’s inborn dispositions to make sense of their experience, to theorize, analyze, synthesize, predict, hypothesize, and try to understand cause-effect relationships, and other similar activities of the mind. The academic skill building becomes a natural process when children seek to replicate what is modeled by adults (reading, writing, math skills). When children need the skill as a tool to get their intellectual needs met they will seek this in a suportive learning environment that views them as capable. Adults observe their efforts and provide coaching and activities to scaffold these experiences, but always in sight of the child's intellectual goals. This supports children's Intrinsic motivation, they feel empowered to get their own needs well met, and Early Education is joyful.

Please review the Well Child policy in the Home Sweet Home Parent Handbook. Teachers will review this policy with parents at Back to School Night on September 22nd, focusing on how it is reflected authentically in the classrooms through strategies and routine caregiving.

Celebrating Culture

The opportunity to build a learning community includes the open invitation to represent our diverse ethnic and cultural traditions within the classroom. To present is to inform; to inform is to support understanding; and understanding can lead to positive relationships through continued sharing and reflection.

Home Sweet Home invites all families to celebrate their unique and individual traditions through a Parent Share. Parents plan and prepare an activity, in collaboration with teachers, to present in a developmentally appropriate way to their child's classroom. This may take the form of book, song, costume, cooking activity, game, and/or any meaningful discussion.

Many thanks to Jakki and Andy (Billie's parents) for supporting the Brown Bear exploration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We dipped apple slices in honey and learned the Hebrew phrases "Chag Sameach" (Happy Holiday) and L'Shana Tova (To a Good New Year).

Copacetic

First week reflections for teachers: it's all pretty copacetic! We are enthralled by the spirit of the children in our learning community as they have had opportunities to embark on new friendships, create strong routines, engage with tools and toys, and begin to form our preschool program. Planning, preparation and environment may only achieve excellence for a learning community when the big ideas and unique personalities of each individual are treated with respect and time is honored for forming relationships.

Artensia, Cierra, Jose, Kathleen and Sky enthused over how amicable this specific group seems to be; although 60% new children, this mix of individuals seems to be particularly caring and nurturing of one another's feelings. There have been few tears for such a huge transition, certainly much less than we expect from children learning to understand separation from parents.

Our Big Friends had a day of orientation with Kathleen and a tour of the classrooms and playground. The Child Development class has met with Cierra and Sky spent Wednesday overnight with the entire high school on retreat. The youth will begin with us on Monday! There are several returning friends, but mostly new high school students. We are excited to welcome them into the learning community.

Teachers are very grateful to see parents honoring the morning transition piece. We appreciate that the routine can feel challenging as children may use techniques to prolong their parents presence in the classroom. Please holler if you need teacher support! The transition supports children's self-help skills, hygiene, early literacy, and provides a strong framework of home-to-school partnership. Sign-in books are in the classrooms until 8:30AM and then taken outside - please walk your child with her/his waterbottle out to the playground and check in visually and verbally with the teacher while signing-in. Children transition back to their individual classrooms at 9:30AM, Butterflies sing "Down by the Station" and Brown Bears sing "Yellow Submarine" to musically cue their line up and walk inside. Parents on the playground are invited to sing along to support this routine!

Teachers have appreciated the parents kind comments on the appearance of the classrooms. We will share our plans for continued enhancement as we seek parent leadership for the upcoming community builds. The Parent Advisory Committee has sign-up sheets posted in Classroom #2 for families that are ready to volunteer! Our first meeting for the new school year is September 14th at 5:00PM - a sign-up sheet for $5 childcare by Big Friends (serving cheese pizza) will be made available next week. Our meetings are normally at 6:00PM, but Kathleen has a 6:30 meeting in Oakland she cannot miss!

Much gratitude to our new and returning parents!



"Children have it all over adults, possessing magical powers of imagination. Then they grow up into cynical tall people. That's the whole problem with the human race: reverse metamorphosis. We turn from butterflies into caterpillars. The key to keeping your wings is regular exercise of your kindergarten muscles of make-believe." (Tim Dorsey)

Happy Birthday!

Wishing joy to our friends with September birthdays:

9/1 Dylan Byrne-Sarno

9/6 Michael Anakata

9/22 Emmett Kotapish

9/26 Leah Tabakh

9/28 Elizabeth Reynolds


and a belated birthday shout-out to our friend Vinnie Steptoe (8/27)