Big Friends Rock the House

Much gratitude to our Big Friends for coming out to present for Home Sweet Home Parent Education Night on Thursday, May 26th!

Relationship is the cornerstone of learning. The ability for students and parents to meet, mingle and share their knowledge is a powerful finale to this year's preschool-high school laboratory experiment. Child Development interns created a wonderful evening, with a thoughtful, personal presentation that celebrated HSH children and families. The swanky hors d'oeuvres and mud-pie from Tucker's was pretty good, too!

An excellent powerpoint featured photos of HSH children in active learning and their relationship with our Big Friends. (Shout-outs to Becca and Edgar!) Students from Bay Area School of Enterprise and Life Academy supported their collaborative lecture with original posters highlighting HSH children as their activity choices exemplified Social-Emotional Developmental stages. Yolo COunty Conference attendees discussed the workshops they attended and how they applied their learning in the preschool. We would like to acknowledge Alina, Allannah, Edgar, Fernanda, Katie, Keith, Maria, Rebecca and Shankar for their extra efforts in creating this Parent Education event. All students were on their toes, ready and prepared for our parent Q&A.

A very special shout-out to Katie Hoffman for bringing her Home Sweet Home internship presentation all the way to the West Alameda campus for HSH parents to view (Katie won a school wide award at Life Academy for her intern leadership and performance in the West Alameda After School Program "Youth Act" class which produced the antibullying curriculum "Gentle Hands Make Happy Friends").

Thanks to Artensia, Cierra and Sky for their year-long outstanding coaching; and to the new and enrolled HSH families, the parents, siblings and children of our HSH Big Friends, and our many AIA friends from all campuses who came out to support!

Thinking About Children Thinking

On May 19th, as I was touring a prospective parent on our playground, I observed that HSH was "off schedule". Playground time continued to "eat in to" the Circle Time. Checking in with teachers, I verified this was a strong choice. As I continued my tour of our outdoor classroom, I saw small groups of children completely engaged in strong play narratives. Children in the garden counted the rolypolies and made "new houses" for them; the large legos were put to excellent use on the stage as children collaborated among often changing directions to finish their big vision; a group of children used the climbing structure as their startship homebase; the sand box was busy with a designated project manager ordering the excavation of new tunnels. To force an immediate transition would have shown adult disrespect for the child's work in progress; everyone was interested in the business of learning through play.

Home Sweet Home is excited and, frankly, empowered to send two staff and a youth intern to the Seventh North American Reggio Emilia Association (NAREA) Summer Conference on June 16 - 18, 2011. This international conference "Dialogues for Quality in Education: Valuing Early Childhood" will feature presentations by Elena Giacopini, pedagogista, and Anna Orlandini, atelierista, from the Reggio Emilia municipal schools. Our HSH representatives will also tour the traveling exhibit "The Wonder of Learning - The Hundred Languages of Children" at the Steinbeck Center in Salinas, CA (scouting for our learning community, as HSH will be organizing parent/teacher/Big Friend study groups to this exhibit). More information on their opportunity is available at http://www.steinbeck.org/pages/the-wonder-of-learning

Another wonderful resource for parents and teachers is the following website: http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/reggiochildren.htm

As articulated in this website, the aims of Reggio Children are:

• to communicate a forceful idea of childhood and of children's rights, potentials, and resources, which are often unrecognized or neglected


• to promote studies, research, and experimentation in education, with particular emphasis on children's active, constructive, and creative learning processes


• to advance the professionalism and culture of teachers, promoting a greater awareness of the value of collegial work and of meaningful relationships with the children and their families


• to highlight the value of research, observation, interpretation, and documentation of children's knowledge-building and thinking processes


• to organize guided visits to educational programs, cultural initiatives, exhibitions, seminars, conferences, professional development courses on the issues of education and the culture of childhood

The Reggio journey for Home Sweet Home offers children, youth and adults an opportunity to collaborate to create an intentional learning community. How does the HSH physical environment support inquiry? How does HSH resource the diverse talents of the children, parents, teachers and youth? How does the HSH routine honor the needs of the individual and support a community identity? Ellen Galinsky in her book Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills that Every Child Needs identifies the following:

• Focus and self control


• Perspective taking


• Communicating


• Making connections


• Critical thinking


• Taking on challenges


• Self-directed, engaged learning

Reflecting on the seven essential life skills, how do HSH adults and youth model these for children? Can we be held accountable in our thought, intentions, and behavior? Do our policies, practices and routines reflect a committment to these educational values? HSH commits to a continued dialogue on the seven essential life skills to support our journey as a learning community.

The following clip is provided to give the viewer 5 minutes of awe and wonder. Had we any doubts about the capacity for brilliance in the human mind, and the many shapes genius might take among us, this clip will (hopefully) inspire us to pay attention.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2MBBxU

Growing Our Learning Environment

Home Sweet Home has the opportunity to reflect on this year of growth and joy. We have been new on this journey together: first year director, first year teaching team of 4, first year for over 50% of our families; first year with two classrooms; first year of Music Committee; first year of Sweet Moments community building fundraiser; first year for field trips; first year for Alumni Days; first year with two air conditioners! (The list could continue. . . . .) How we reflect on our learning grows our capacity, now and for years to come.

A lot of committee work is going in to planning for New Family Orientation in July. This is a welcome opportunity to apply our learning from this first year to truly represent Alternatives in Action culture; Home Sweet Home policies, procedures and practices; and (most importantly) connect new parents and children with Big Friends, teachers and veteran families to aid in a seamless transition.

Home Sweet Home has two electronic surveys out: one to evaluate the Big Friend Program and on to assess Nature Education. Admittedly imperfect, these tools reflect a collaboration between Big Friends and HSH teachers and will provide some information to aid our understanding of program. Please take time to complete the surveys, as we seek at least 40 responses. HSH also encourages parents to write a letter to communicate a strong response to a Big Friend's performance.

This year all our Home Sweet Home staff were celebrated with thoughtful Teacher Appreciation events and gifts. The choice for busy families to take time to express gratitude means so much, and we are very grateful that our efforts have inspired this sharing of appreciation. June is bittersweet - while Home Sweet Home is a 12 month, year round program, we recognize that June is the month of subtle shifts in focus for the field of Early Care and Education. Families go on vacation. Children seem to return two feet taller and ten years smarter. Teachers steel themselves for the transition of children and families out of the preschool and on to new adventures. It is rarely spoken of, but often documented among directors: the June Staff Grumpies. Teachers often hide behind schedule, or tasks, or planning for next year, but we are really just staying very busy to mitigate the pain we feel in saying good-bye. Naming it goes a long way to understanding it. Teachers are proud that children are ready to step out of our learning community and in to the great wide world. But we wish we could go along for the ride and continue to watch the glorious evolution of body, heart, mind and spirit. So, please plan to stay in touch and visit us for many years to come. Brown Bears will have a formal graduation on August 19th, planned to perfection by our PAC Events Committee. Included in this is the key ceremony, a symbolic representation that every HSH child is always welcome to come back "Home".