“Hands out, ready to fall!” Embracing the YES! at CCNS.

Preschoolers are often dare-devils and thrill-seekers who naturally test the limits of what’s possible at home, at school and on the playground. It’s what they do.

As parents, our instinct to keep our children safe prompts us to caution our little risk-takers to Be careful! Slow down! Get down! – or the easiest option – No!

At CCNS, we seek to offer children the “yes” that allows them to safely test their limits and take acceptable risks that will make them more experienced, confident, and resilient in the long run.

If a child wants to climb the big rocks, we encourage them to have their “hands out, and be ready to fall.” 

If a child wants to build a block tower beyond their reach, we encourage them to ask an adult for support while they climb onto a chair to add blocks to the top.

Children are allowed to use real tools at the workbench provided they wear googles and their work is supervised by an adult.

The philosophy of saying “yes” whenever possible works in tandem with helping children learn what it means to “be safe”.

As one of our three core behavioral expectations in the classroom, “be safe” means we take care of ourselves.  “Be safe” is an intuitive concept for preschoolers; it’s positive and simple vocabulary that children can both say and understand. We use the words be safe every day in many ways in the classroom and on the playground:

We remind the children that our rules are designed to keep them safe and praise them by specifically calling out how their actions are keeping themselves and others safe.

We model being safe, and ‘think out loud’ as we show them what being safe looks like. We may narrate our actions with ‘Hmm, someone trying to get through this area where I am building might trip on these blocks. I’m going to move them over here to make a safe path. Would you help me?”

And when we need to ask our little risk takers to stop doing something, we specifically call out why their behavior is not safe, such as “Walk with that stick. Running with a stick is not safe”

Applying our school’s core behavioral expectation consistently and using the words be safe as a universal language around behavior every day has helped teachers and working parents provide the children with consistent guidance and positive (re)direction. What’s more, it’s given the kids a common vocabulary that they all understand and can use to describe their behavior and that of their friends. For example, when one child tells another “don’t do that, it’s not safe” instead of just saying “stop it”, the child almost always achieves a better, quicker result and in turn feels more empowered to advocate for themselves and solve problems independently.

At CCNS, we strive to offer a safe environment where we say “yes” to opportunities for children to test their physical and mental limits through active play every day. Reasonable risk-taking is an important part of childhood and a critical aspect of healthy social-emotional development that results in the ability to share original ideas, investigate, experiment, invent and accept failure as a learning experience.

We encourage and empower CCNS children to be adventure-seekers, dare-devils and risk-takers… as long as they honor our school value of being safe and they are prepared… with their ‘hands out, ready to fall”.

Be safe. Be kind. Be responsible.

As Miss Adele says, “Every day is an adventure in the Threes!” That’s true… in the Twos and in the Fours, too!

For young children, every day IS an adventure… filled with new experiences, new concepts, new challenges, new words and new emotions. With all the ‘new’ constantly coming at them… it’s no wonder children crave a stable environment marked by predictable schedules, consistent routines, and clear expectations.

Knowing what to expect and what’s expected of them gives children a sense of security and makes them more confident and willing to participate, ask questions, take risks and express their creativity.

At CCNS, we help children understand what’s expected of them by consistently using three core behavioral expectations. They are:

Be safe – we take care of ourselves.

Be kind – we take care of others.

Be responsible – we take care of things, we follow directions.

These simple, easily understood expectations are introduced during the first days of school, are posted year-round in the classroom, and are shared with CCNS families to foster a universal language around encouraging and managing children’s behavior.

In school and on the playground, these core behavioral expectations are used by teachers and working parents as the basis of all acknowledgement, guidance and discipline. For example, you might hear:

The trucks need to stay on the ground. It’s not safe to take them up on the slide.

I noticed you took turns on the tire swing when others were waiting. That was very kind.

It’s clean up time. Please be responsible and tidy up the things you were using in the dramatic play area.

By referencing these core expectations every day, the children are more likely to behave in ways that meet those expectations and are quicker to correct when a teacher, parent or another student puts their actions in the context of being safe, kind and responsible.

Ultimately, and ideally, successful application of our core behavioral expectations results in being able to spend more time on active, engaged, thoughtful play – which is great… because as we know, these children have a lot of adventuring to do!

The Birds of CCNS-The Project Approach in Action!

If you walk onto the grounds of CCNS you’ll be delighted to be surrounded by the calls and colors of doves, blue jays, sparrows, and chickadees yet their presence is by no accident. Rather, the return of CCNS’s abundant bird population is due to the interest and work of our students, particularly the threes and fours classes. How and why did so many species of birds decide to return home? Read on to learn about one example of the great rewards of The Project Approach.

A project is a deep study of a topic worth learning more about and is one of the ways we deliver curriculum at CCNS.  The Project Approach follows three distinctive phases beginning with the impetus for the project itself.

 

Phase I:  Initiating the Project

Although the Threes and Fours classes studied the same topic for their deep study, it started for two very difference reasons.  The Three Class have a class “animal” that differs each year that they use for their attendance tags.  This year their tags are birds.  Starting the year off there were bird’s nests and stuffed birds and many beautiful non-fiction books on birds in the classroom as provocations.  One of their classmates also raises chickens at her home and she and her mom shared their care and their eggs with the class.  The children became interested in learning more about the real creatures based on playing with the toys and observing the nests. The Fours Class had two new window bird feeders hung up at eye level in the meeting area full of inviting bird seed.  Watching them eagerly they became dismayed after a month of not seeing a single bird at their feeders.  Going on a bird watching walk around the grounds revealed a similar fate-they did not see a single bird! Now they were determined to bring the birds back to CCNS.

Simulated hummingbird beak
Vocabulary research
Grabbing insects with beaks
Building the feeder
Filling the bird bath
Filling the window feeders

Phase II: Developing the Project                                            

CCNS has a wonderful relationship with the Darien Nature Center, so both classes worked with their naturalist, Emily.  The cornerstone of any project is the questions from the children.  Learning how to ask questions and then how to find answers is the real meat of the project and what increases mind brain capacity in children.  The Three’s questions focused on the unique body features of birds, while the Four’s were more interested in why they couldn’t see any birds at their school. Emily visited the Threes class and brought some live birds and artifacts with her. They especially liked drawing sketches of the woodland duck she let CCNS borrow to keep in the classrooms for several weeks.   The Fours took a trip to the Darien Nature Center to see the birds inside and outside the center and ask their questions.  There they noticed several free-standing bird feeders full of active birds, inciting the next phase of their project. Both classes got busy making bird feeders of various kinds to hang around the school, and the Fours invited the owner of Wild Birds Unlimited, Joe, to come to CCNS to give advice on attracting birds to our feeders. Joe helped the Fours class select a bird feeder and all the necessary supplies based on the birds that would be native to our area.  The children installed and filled the feeder themselves as well as changed the seeds in their window feeders, even adding dried worms.  To the great excitement and sheer joy of all the teachers, parents and children the birds returned to CCNS!!  This allowed both the Threes and Fours classes to work together observing, identifying and sharing information about the birds that flocked to our outdoor classroom and each window feeder.  They became ornithologists! The Threes class researched and experimented with how the beaks of various birds worked, while the Fours class students each chose a specific bird they had observed and researched its features, food choices and size.  They also made costumes based on what they  had learned.

Hunting for worms
Researching bird facts
Identifying birds outside
Observing the bird feeder
Learning about wings
Sketching a specimen

Phase III: The Culminating Event    

Celebrating learning is a major component of The Project Approach.  The Fours became additional experts for the Threes class going in to share what they had learned about each bird with the Threes having time to ask these “experts” questions.  They also shared their findings with the Twos class and their own families visited the class to hear their presentations.  The Threes class cut out bird shapes from clay and then used their research from photographs and books to paint them with authentic colors and markings to match the bird each clay piece represented.

In true CCNS fashion, the project became a community event with the children in different classes working together, as well as the parents becoming just as excited about seeing the birds back on our playground as the children.  Parents shared their knowledge such as with the chickens, their resources by sending in relevant books from home and shared photos of bird sightings around town.  The projects have officially come to an end, but the feeders are in place, and being filled just about every three days now that we have hungry doves, woodpeckers, house finches, sparrows, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals and tufted tit mice as regular guests.   We even have a very hungry and determined squirrel who has discovered our feeders…perhaps our next project.

Bird models based on reserach
Bird costumes and masks
Project work displayed
Painting realistic bird markings
Sharing with parents & families
Our daily guests

NAEYC Accreditation

2018-19 is our first full school year of operating with NAEYC Accreditation, an important stamp of approval earned by less than 10% of all child care centers, preschools and kindergartens nationally.

The process to earn Accreditation from NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) was rigorous, and our achievement has been celebrated by parents, staff and the community. In recognition of the significance of this commendation, Senator Bob Duff presented a Legislative Citation to the school, then joined the Fours Class on the carpet and read a book to them which was fun for everyone!

 

To achieve NAEYC Accreditation, our staff and board members worked diligently over three years to document and demonstrate what a high-level educational facility we’ve always known we are. Days, nights, weekdays and weekends were dedicated to updating and organizing all the systems, manuals, by-laws, job descriptions, staff review processes, training systems, and financial practices of our school to ensure they met NAEYC standards. During the review process, NAEYC Assessors visited CCNS to verify that our school met the ten program standards and hundreds of corresponding criteria. And going forward, our staff are always prepared for unannounced quality assurance visits which are an integral part of maintaining the NAEYC Accreditation.

At CCNS, we have always strived to exemplify best practices in early childhood education, and earning NAEYC Accreditation is validation that we are achieving our goal.

To learn more about NAEYC Accreditation, visit the NAEYC website.

Outside Every Day

“First the snow pants… then the snow boots… then the jacket… then the hat.  And, then last we put on mittens… so we can go outside and play.”

This little ditty, sung to the tune of Oh My Darlin’ Clementine, is a stalwart CCNS favorite. The process of gearing up to go outside on cold, New England winter days can be daunting for a preschooler, but this catchy tune is a helpful prompt that exemplifies a few things about the CCNS approach:

Independence… Zipping coats, buckling boots, and sliding all five fingers into a glove correctly can be challenging tasks, especially for eager three year olds itching to get outside and play. This musical mnemonic is easy to remember and guides the children in the most logical order of how to put on their outdoor clothes. We work on being able to independently suit up to go outside, which gives CCNS kids a sense of accomplishment and, as any parent who’s taken children skiing will tell you, is absolutely priceless.

 

‘Be prepared’...  Like the Boy Scout motto, these children are prepared for whatever their outdoor time may bring. They know that, with the proper outdoor gear, they will be able to take another sledding run, shovel a bigger pile of snow, or be able to ‘frost’ their messy, mud pie masterpiece. When your fingers are warm and your clothes are dry, you can keep going. CCNS kids wear snow pants in winter, rubber pants for wet and muddy days, and always have a few changes of clothes in their cubby, just in case fun = really messy that day.

 

We (always) go outside.  Neither snow nor sleet nor rain nor mud nor ice nor slush will deter these kids from the freedom and imagination they gain from outside play. As long as the temperature is 22° or above, we play outside. Some days, we tweak the schedule to catch the sun or avoid a rain shower and that change in plans is entirely worth it – seeing the children exploring their environment, developing an appreciation for nature, and using their muscles to run, swing, jump, pedal, and hop is a key component of the CCNS experience.

And on days when it’s -22°?   We simply bring the snow inside!

Constructing a Project of Study in the 4’s

One of the most exciting things about each new class, and something that sets CCNS apart, is how the wonderings of a diverse group of children develop into the year’s first Project Approach study. During the first weeks of school, the children interact with a wide range of stimulus and provocations. We observe, question, tweak and expand what’s on offer, looking for a common interest that sparks the children’s curiosity.

This Fall, the children were busy building structures in the block center and lining up for the workbench– perennially popular activities in the CCNS Fours. But this group seemed especially engaged when working with toy construction tools, playing with construction vehicles and building structures with loose parts on the playground. They were asking questions about how things are built and were especially curious about the tools, materials, jobs, sites and vehicles involved.

They had questions. They wanted answers. And we… had our first Project: Building & Construction.

As in any Project Approach study, the first task was to develop an investigation plan to explore the topic. The children listed their (many!) questions, and we brainstormed ways to find the answers. Their plan included research using books and videos, inviting “experts’ into the classroom, creating their own construction vehicles and making field site-visits to see construction in progress and construction vehicles at work. We added ways for the children to document their learning and report on their findings. Using the Project Approach like this in our curriculum is so valuable because the topic holds the children’s interest for months, and working through the investigation plan builds real world skills that will be used from elementary school to high school and beyond.

 

Our first field site-visit was to a construction site to interview an expert in the field. The children were very excited to be able to ask their questions and see some of the equipment that they had been reading about in action. We took photographs and made field sketches to help with our research and document our experience. On our second field site-visit, we saw the inside of a building being built, a tree being chopped down and chipped, a stump being ground and several different lawn mowers and trucks. The highlights of the trip were receiving our very own hard hat (to keep!) and actually using the controls of an excavator to scoop dirt and bring it to a dump truck!

 

On our final field site-visit, we learned all about the process of making concrete from Devine Brothers. We saw several vehicles up close, and our class was even featured on News12 Connecticut talking about this study and our visit.

Thanks to all the construction experts who created such amazing hands-on experiences that the children will be talking about for years. And what a testament to our amazing CCNS community that two of the three field visits were organized by CCNS dads who do not even have a child in this current Fours class!

Once the Construction Project was underway, the children enjoyed new stimulus that was added to the classroom for free-play exploration- construction vehicles, cones, signs, pipes and connectors in the block area plus pulleys and levers to explore our budding engineering skills. There was a moon sand construction site in the sensory table and foam blocks being mortared together with shaving foam at the art table.

 

With all this talk about building, the children wanted to build something themselves. They were able to make stepping stones from one of the ingredients in concrete: cement. The kids enjoyed watching the cement go from a powder, to a liquid and then to a solid as it cured. They decorated the stones with mosaic tiles and created an individual keepsake of their learning that was, literally, set in stone.

And no construction vehicle captured the children’s attention more than the excavator, so naturally they wanted to make one. Initially, the kids asked to make small excavators out of clay. They learned several clay techniques, and it was amazing to see the fine details that so many of the children represented in their pieces.

Finally the children used their research and field site-visit photos to build a big excavator together. It was incredibly realistic, with moving parts, and the children voted to paint it to match the one they actually operated on their field site-visit.

 

The kids further documented this Project by creating a class alphabet book using their research and photographs from their trips. Finally, family and friends were invited into the classroom to learn more about building and tour the celebration of our construction project work.

We thoroughly enjoyed this Project – and the best part was building the children’s confidence and pride in their deep knowledge of all things “building and construction”!

“You’ve Got Mail”… Pen pals and friendly notes in the Fours.

Discovering a card or personal letter among the usual stack of bills and promotional mailings is often an unexpected treat. Like adults, many children enjoy receiving personalized messages meant just for them. Two activities have given the Fours that personalized letter ‘buzz’ lately:

  • exchanging letters with their preschool pen pals, and
  • exchanging notes, cards and drawings with their classmates and teachers.

Pen Pals:  Bonding over gardening and flowers  

When the Fours class learned that Imagine Nation Early Learning Center in Bristol, CT is also working on a gardening project of study this year, they paired up with the preschool classes there to become pen pals. The CCNS children initiated a communication exchange and were rewarded when their new pen pals reciprocated with a long letter describing the Flower Project they are working on.

Last week, the CCNS children collaborated to write a letter to their partner classes describing their year-long gardening project. Together, the children chose the information and pictures they wanted to share with their new buddies and, with the help of their teachers, dictated an informative and interesting note to their pen pals.

This pen pal exchange is a fun way to help develop the children’s communication skills and their ability to describe something that is important to them as well as to generate excitement and momentum around their ongoing project of study.

Friendly Notes: Mailbox flags are up in the Fours.     

The mini-mail boxes attached to the children’s cubbies have been chock-full lately, as the Fours have been busy writing and receiving notes and cards to/from their classmates and teaches. After gathering some simple supplies like paper, pencils, pens, markers and crayons into a writing station and adding a little encouragement, the children quickly brought their creativity and imagination into the mix.  It’s exciting for the kids to look across the room as they are playing and see their mailbox flag up.  “I have mail!” can be heard happily expressed as the children rush over to open their message!

This activity is always available in the classroom and note-writing is an excellent way for preschoolers to practice and improve their writing and reading skills, build connections and friendships with their peers, and to encourage thoughtfulness and kindness. Writing notes to their family and friends is a great way to bring writing and reading practice home!

Playing (and learning) in the snow!

When the children arrived at school last Monday, they were incredibly excited to see our playground covered in snow!  They had read Willow and The Snow Day Dance by Denise Brennan Nelson on Friday, and all went home to follow the book’s directions on how to make it snow… so they felt some ownership of the winter scene that greeted them.

Normally in the Fours, we begin our day outside for about 30 minutes, but this day we stayed out for well over an hour and a half.  It was a beautiful day, and because we go outside every single day, our students are well-trained to dress properly for rain, cold or snow.

It was not until the children started to need the bathroom or to feel hungry that we felt the need to go inside.  At CCNS, we have the flexibility to vary our schedules based on the needs of the children as well as exciting events that might occur – and what could be more exciting than the first snowfall of the season?!

Were we “just playing” for an hour and a half at the expense of our scheduled activities inside?

Absolutely.  But, we were also…

  • discovering the physics of creating sledding paths in deep powder.  Why weren’t we going fast? Why wasn’t it slippery? How did this change as more children came down the path?  Why were some starting to go faster than others? 
  • practicing the negotiation and problem-solving involved with sled turn-taking.
  • finding ice in various shapes and thicknesses all over the playground.  What is inside this ice?  What happens when I drop it?
  • stirring, mixing and packing snow in our outdoor kitchen; creating recipes while learning about the properties of snow and how they can be changed.
  • exercising and strengthening our bodies as we climbed the big hill over and over again, trudged through the thick snow or tried to push our way down slides packed heavy with snow.
  • excitedly and descriptively articulating our discoveries to our teachers and each other.

And, importantly, we were enjoying the beauty of nature, breathing the fresh air and experiencing how highly our CCNS parents and teachers value being outside and having time to explore.

We have a wonderful, large outdoor classroom at CCNS that is ever-changing… from falling leaves or a new snowfall, to a new raised garden bed built by the Fours, to the playground redesign in the works that will add new natural features to make this incredible space even more inviting for extended play and discovery.

Giving children the opportunity to spend more time in nature has garnered a good deal of press recently, and a strong body of research stresses the importance of this kind of experience for children.  It is reassuring to know that the children of CCNS are already benefiting from a rich, natural environment and from a learning community that values this important play.

Dana M. Gorman

Educational Director

 

To read a few recent articles on the value of outdoor play and learning, click here, here or here!

Newsworthy Topic: Learning Through Play

My mailbox has been overflowing with people sending me the links to two articles published recently on learning through play.  Many of those people have been the parents of our students sending the link along with effusive “thank yous” for providing their children with such an incredible developmentally appropriate place for learning at CCNS.  I wanted to make sure to provide the links to these important articles.

Please read David Kohn’s article featured in the New York Times, Let the Kids Learn Through Play.

As well as an article recently published in Psychology Today by Peter Gray, Early Academic Training Produces Long Term Harm

A third related article from the Washington Post last month by Valerie Strauss, Report Debunks ‘earlier is better’ academic instruction for young children analyzes a report written by Dr. Lillian Katz.  This report and the article summarizing it make a distinction between academic goals and intellectual goals. It is helpful to understand that the debate is not simply between play and academic goals. Dr. Katz reports,”An appropriate curriculum for young children is one that includes the focus on supporting children’s in-born intellectual dispositions, their natural inclinations.”  She goes on to support teaching basic academic skills within extended project work when children are  using these skills to discover areas of interest to them as with this method children are deeply motivated.

CCNS is one of the few schools to extensively use The Project Approach with our preschoolers and Project Practice in our twos program.  I received training directly from Dr. Katz herself and continued this training under the guidance of Dr. Judy Helm.  The staff at CCNS has been working over the years to refine this practice with our students combining creative and stimulating play opportunities with astute observations of children’s interests.  When an interest arises that can be developed in to a project interesting to the children we follow their lead.  It is an exciting process that encompasses many facets of learning.  One of our projects was featured in the Judy Helm’s newest book, Becoming Young Thinkers:Deep Project Work in the Classroom.

The parents sending me the links to the above articles prefaced their emails with comments such as:

“proof for what you are doing at CCNS”

“I’m so glad my child had the opportunity to learn this way.”

“We are so grateful that the staff of CCNS understands how children learn.”

So if your child is currently enrolled at CCNS, take a moment to feel really good about your decision to send your child to a school that highly values the importance of play combined with intellectual dispositions.

If you are reading this and are not currently enrolled, contact Tracy King at admin@ccnsct.org and give your child the gift of learning through play.

Symmetrical Building Challenge in the Fours

Although the block center is always open during our free choice play time during the day, the materials that are placed in the center often change for variety. Another way we intentionally plan in this center is to provide challenges to the children to bring their learning to another level.

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