Rachel Samoff's blog

CeCe and Teresa enjoy their anniversary celebration.Consistency is so important for young children. Relationships with teachers who know you well and on whom you can depend to be there every day for you are the platform from which children can launch themselves into learning. CeCe Dunn and Teresa Rojas have both been with us for many years. CeCe celebrated her 10th anniversary at CPSC and Teresa celebrated her 5th. We honored them at a recent staff meeting with commerative plates.

Vania plays a Brazilian instrument to Carnival music to the delight of the soon to be dancing children.

I walked into a classroom to find one of our almost 3 year old little girls, Allie, crying by her cubby. April, her teacher, was with her, asking her why she was sad. She mournfully explained that she really wanted her Mommy. April and I both talked with her. We told her we could really see that she was very sad because her Mommy wasn’t there. April asked her if her mom was coming to pick her up this afternoon. No answer, just sobs and tears. “Do you want to write a letter to Mommy and tell her how sad you were?” “No. I just want my Mommy!” More sobs and tears.

I was in the baby rooms observing the early morning. I walked into the Butterfly classroom with my pad and pen, sat down on the floor next to Lucy, a delightful almost 7 month old baby. She was looking at me so I talked with her a bit. She smiled. Then she looked at my paper and then at my pen and then back at me. “Are you waiting for me to write?” I asked incredulously. I really do think that’s what was happening! Lucy repeated the round of looking at paper, pen, and then at me.

CSPC is proud to have a long history of NAEYC Accreditation. This accreditation program, created and administered by the National Association for the Education of Young Children is an excellent tool to use to assure ourselves that we are putting into practice the latest research on how to help children learn and develop optimally and keep ourselves at the forefront of the early childhood field. We have held our NAEYC Accreditation since 1991 and have thus proved repeatedly that we are capable of maintaining these very high quality standards.

I think every parent of a child between the ages of 1 and 2.5 years old has wondered why their children throw themselves (sometimes violently) on the floor when they get angry or upset. Such an extreme reaction! And often over almost nothing! Some of them do this with so much energy that they hurt themselves! What’s the explanation?

December is a festive month throughout the US. And it is a festive month at CPSC. Since we have many different kinds of families who celebrate many different holidays, as a school we celebrate many different holidays as well. Our effort is to bring children’s homes and the celebrations that are important to them into our school. This happens throughout the year, but December contains an unusual number. So we’ve had lots of fun this month with many of our families and teachers bringing their celebrations into our classrooms.

As I was walking through the Chipmunk Room I heard the following conversation between two three year old boys.

“Un, deux, trios, quatre, cinq. That’s how I talk.”

“Well I talk like this. Uno, dos, tres.”

This was a thoughtful exchange of ideas. There was no judgment involved . . . no words about which was the right way to talk.

One of our goals at CPSC is to give children a community to grow up in that is very diverse where they can learn that there are lots of different legitimate ways of speaking and ways of doing things. These two very young children got the message.

Here’s another piece of the utility-of-dramatic-play story. One day one of our 4 year old girls had a difficult day. She was uncooperative and disrespectful to her teachers and she called one of her classmates stupid. Her teacher spoke with her about her behavior and talked with her mother at pick up time. Mother and child talked about the incidents on the way home and later that evening as well.

On December 5th, around 125 families with young children from throughout out community gathered at the Cubberley Theater to watch a theater performance from Israel called Didi’s Keys. The performance put on by Lior Productions and was brought to Cubberley by CPSC and PACCC who joined together to sponsor the event.

Here’s a story I’ll be many of you can relate to. A parent of one of our preschoolers was talking about her child’s temperament at a parent meeting. She is a pretty ambitious, high energy, fun loving, results oriented person. Her son tends to be cautious, a bit slow to warm up, and somewhat introverted. This parent works hard at understanding who her son is and valuing his approach and personality even though they are very different from her own. But there come those times . . .

It all started with a donated toy tool set which ended up in the Chipmunk classroom. The children were delighted! In no time they were busy pretending to fix and build with their tool set. Lu Abel, our wonderfully personable, friendly and talented handyman came into the room and as he fixed a hinge here and a latch there, the children gathered around him, asking questions and observing intently. Their interest in Lu’s work was intense and they learned a lot just watching him work and talking with him.

Nerice with her CPSC Five Year Anniversary GiftNerice Cao is the Head Teacher in our Chipmunk classroom. Nerice first came to our school in October of 2004. She joined us as a Substitute Teacher. Nerice’s teaching passion and talent was soon evident and when a Head Teacher position opened in the Chipmunk classroom, we were delighted when she applied for the job. Nerice lends a lovely combination of fun, affection, respect, and stimulation to her classroom. Her face lights up when she sees her children.

I just have to share the cutest story about some toddler play I witnessed and was lucky enough to film for our Toddler parent meeting this week. Daniel has discovered how much fun it is to lay inside the foam and vinyl cylinder on the deck while his friends roll the cylinder from one side of the deck to the other.

A few months ago I wrote a blog called Why Don’t They Mind? Today I want to talk about the necessity of punishment in the process of teaching a child to accept limits.

What has this child built? A computer! What is he doing?

One of his friends asked the same thing and he said "I am writing an e-mail on my computer. But I will talk to you in a couple minutes when I am all done."

Alma gets help learning how to put out a fire.Columbus Day was no vacation for the staff at CPSC. Part of the day was the normal . . . providing fun, exciting activities for the children. But half the day was spent refreshing our fire fighting skills and giving our classrooms and common areas a thorough cleaning! Here we are hard at work.Lan expertly wields the fire extinguisher!

In response to feedback from our parents, we embarked on a very significant change in how children move through our classrooms as they mature. Our parents let us know that having a consistent classroom community where children’s friendships and family friendships could be maintained over a full year without disruption was highly desirable.

"The real purpose of early-childhood education was not to learn content, like the letters of the alphabet or the names of shapes and colors and animals. The point was to learn how to think."

This very interesting article from the New York Times talks about the power of dramatic play in helping children to regulate their own behavior and learn how to think. Take a look. Perhaps this will provide an interesting topic for our next series of parent meetings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=...

Creating an inclusive learning community in a preschool classroom is critical to good child development. Helping children build social skills, including an awareness of how others are feeling, helping the children put their empathic skills to use and help those who are facing challenges is such an important part of creating a learning community! It’s also such an important life skill. It's wonderful to see those skills emerge in our children.

Over the past few weeks we have welcomed eight new children into our program. This is always an anxious time for parents and children. Will my child be happy? Will my child cry for me? And children who are old enough to understand the process of spending their first day in a brand new school where they do not yet know teachers and children well also experience anxiety along with some excitement.

Here is an interesting article from the New York Times with new information on children's eating habits.

[...] how to coach children away from unhealthy eating without sowing panic; how to make them conscious of their intake without making them too self-conscious about its consequences [?]

You might find it interesting. I did!

Today was the first day of our new fall classes. All the children arrived at their new classroom doors, eager to start their new life as a Robin, Chipmunk, Teddybear, etc. Judging from the smiles we are seeing at the end of the day, this was a very good start to the new school year.

Phineas is 1 year old. Suddenly he started really resisting sitting in his high chair to eat at home. He fussed and fussed and had to be distracted by food he really liked to settle down and eat. He kept looking at Stormy, his older brother sitting in his chair at the table.

Do you ever feel like it’s such a struggle to get your children to mind? To do what you ask? To be obedient? If you don’t, then you are a very unusual parent! The issue of children listening to parents, doing what they are told, obedience, is part of every parent/child relationship. And it is often a frustrating issue for all involved. Here is some brief advice on how to make it less frustrating.