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By Jaimmie Stugard
When I was pregnant with my first child, my mailbox swelled with unsolicited parenting magazines, ads and baby life insurance offers. Just open your pocketbook, the ads implied, and you can procure all the items your unborn baby needs to get ahead in the world she hasn't even seen yet. You can teach her to read, or better yet, put her in front of the television and she'll morph into Einstein himself.
As the days grow shorter and the crisp air hearkens the coming of the dark winter months, some Steiner-inspired kindergartens and preschools prepare to celebrate Michaelmas. Stories are told of fearsome dragons, brave knights, benevolent kings and heroic princesses. Children eat dragon bread and dye silken capes with goldenrod. They explore the roles of warrior, princess and dragon in their play. Something about these age-old themes spark their imaginations and tales of epic battles between good and evil are treasured by many young children.
The Habit of YES
I’m pleased to share that an article of mine has been published in the lovely online magazine Rhythm of the Home. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look! My article is titled The Habit of Yes, and can be found by clicking here.
Warmly,
Faith Collins
Creating a YES! Environment
By Simone DiMarzi
What does it mean to say YES when taking care of children birth to three? The child's first words are often "No." One of the best ways not to chime in with the children and always have to say "No" is to create a YES environment. The environment is key to all sorts of exciting discoveries and developments for children, and is something that I thoroughly enjoy creating! I sit often and just watch the children play and explore, and as I watch I think about ways to make this environement be even better for them.
Taming the Wild Beasts
What I want to talk about here is the art of re-direction. That’s a large part of what positive discipline is: instead of saying what NOT to do, say what you DO want your child to do. This can be very straightforward (“Please talk in a soft voice”), but it can also be creative, and here is where you can really learn to enjoy being with young children in a whole new way. My first exposure to this was when I was first considering working in early childhood, and I was observing a kindergarten class at a Waldorf school in Colorado. It was a class of 18 children, and during the free-play time there was a group of four 5-year-old boys who were playing that they were a pack of wild dogs. They roamed wildly around the classroom, growling and barking and wreaking havoc on the games others were playing.
By Lisa Gromicko
Steiner-based, early childhood settings abound with rich opportunities for the development of math and science concepts. This may be surprising to some who can easily see the beauty, language, and coziness of the Waldorf kindergarten, but not necessarily the mathematical or scientific side. A primary focus of Waldorf early childhood education is on the care and development of the physical body of the child, and that of the child’s environment. Considering the ‘physical’ basis of the early years, it then becomes possible to glimpse the natural mathematical relationships. In reality, all activities of Steiner-based early childhood education are math and science based, including activities of language acquisition and pre-literacy, such as listening and word recognition, patterning, and story sequencing.
By Cynthia Aldinger, Founder and Director of LifeWays
Can daily life really be a curriculum? Can little children truly be prepared for the rigors of academic life through play and through participation in practical activities of the household?
What are our ultimate goals, hopes, interests on behalf of our children and the children in our care? We accept that early childhood experiences lay a foundation for future capacities for abstract learning. We also recognize that their early encounters are foundational to the human qualities of caring, having compassion, being resilient, and finding joy in life. Is it possible that our goals for the development of these lofty soulful characteristics and the more materialistic academic capacities can be achieved through similar means?
This sweet article, written by a LifeWays caregiver, looks at ways to respond when young children ask, "why?" What a lovely reminder to all of us who spend time with young children! ~Faith
This next article by Mary O'Connell is a wonderful look at how the latest brain research supports ideas promoted by LifeWays. Mary is the director of the LifeWays Early Childhood Center in Milwaukee, WI, the director of the LifeWays training in Wisconsin, and a member of the Board of LifeWays North America. I met Mary during my own LifeWays training, and I was struck by her friendly, practical, down-to-earth manner. This article was originally posted on the LifeWays Early Childhood Center's blog, and can be found here.
Happy Reading! --Faith
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