Craft-mania
Lord have mercy pull the reins in on Rudolf. This is that time of year that no matter how much of a ” process” teacher you are you inevitably get sucked into the craft zone. There are more crafts going on right now than Build a Bear at the mall. Do I think that all crafts for kids are bad ? NO!!! 🙂 Not at all… What is bothersome is when you have 16 crafts and they all look exactly the same. Children are not encouraged to be creative or allowed to have artistic liberties. What ( IMHO) is really terrible is when a teacher cuts it all out and shows the child where to paste it and fixes it when it is not exactly right . DOM DOM DOM. We are creating our costumes for our Christmas program. They will surely all look different . Would I LOVE for the kids to get on stage and have these cute decorated christmas trees to wear for our songs ? Yes… but what I will love more is the pride they will feel that the tree is something THEY spent time ( a few days ) creating.
We also are working on parent gifts.
And Christmas ornaments.
Believe me when I say at the end of our morning time the kids have cut , glued , drawn and painted a LOT and the floor looks like Christmas all over . ( But I have good helpers. )
Bright Beginnings has entered a social media ” 5 Day Nature Hack .” Our dress up room is really the only room that still looks very commercial. Much of that is due to the kind and amount of materials we need in there . Day one was clear clutter. We tried. Day two was add natural or soft lighting. Done. Day three was add elements of nature. This is what has been started- a natural chandelier.
Another thing…
The parent cafe. I really want to hear what you think about it. Beth and I talked after the meeting and it was really different for us. We are used to having information to give you and walking away feeling like a goal was accomplished.
” One way Strengthening Families aims to support and strengthen families is through Parent Cafés. Parent Cafés happen on a monthly basis in comfortable, “natural” settings throughout the community. Parents in the community gather in small groups and participate in conversations about keeping their families strong, and discussions that enable them to make discoveries leading to personal growth and better parenting.
Parent Cafés provide an opportunity for parents and caregivers to interact with other parents and caregivers about things that are important to building and maintaining strong, healthy families. The Cafés are “hosted” by parents from the community who have been trained on how to help facilitate the conversation and discussion. The goals of these sessions are to help parents help each other to:
Grow stronger and more flexible as they share challenging personal events and reflect on the actions taken in response, what happened as a result, and what was learned. Listening to each other brings the realization that all families face difficulties, and can survive them and become stronger as a result.
Build friendships and relationships of mutual support in the process of having conversations with other parents and caregivers.
Learn about resources and obtain support by reflecting on their barriers to receiving help, becoming more open to accessing help, and learning from other parents about support that has helped them.
Add to parenting knowledge by listening to other parents and sharing ideas and approaches to common issues.
Build appreciation for the essential role they play with each of their children in helping them achieve their potential.
A strong focus of the Parent Cafés will be on helping caregivers strengthen the protective factors identified in the Strengthening Families Model, including increasing parental resilience, strengthening social connections, identifying concrete resources within the community, increasing knowledge and understanding of child development, and on supporting the social and emotional competence of children and youth. ”
So ,what do you think ? Are we meeting the goals ? Are the discussions helpful ?