Category: Class Updates

Attitude of Gratitude

I want to share something with all of you. I was able to get my first dose of the vaccine last week. I have a lot of gratitude that as a teacher I am able to get vaccinated early. I am so grateful to our community for all of the decisions that have been made in the last year making safety a priority. Safety for kiddos, as well as for teachers.

I spent time with a couple families in the classroom last week as we worked on a video for our upcoming open house. I got to see kids doing the work of play. I am excited to be working toward this being our norm again.

Helping 20ish kids, your kids, back to connecting, and being together, making friends, learning to be social and to understand their emotions. Because this is when it happens. In the play interactions with one another. This is social emotional development, learning to play, be friends, learning to regulate emotions in these peer interactions.

Kiddos need to be together. We all do. And we are getting there.

– Teacher Allisen

Kenilworth Community Preschool is a play-based preschool that welcomes 3 to 5-year-old children into a creative, warm, and inviting environment. As a cooperative preschool, we work in partnership with families and in connection with the community to help our students thrive.

Last week I sent you all on a mission to find a space in nature to observe. The real lesson is in teaching kiddos to notice things. When we take the time to notice the small moments we are teaching our children awareness of the greater world.

Nature is a space where children step outside of themselves and their wants. The world as a whole is vast, but an individual plant or bird is tangible. Taking notice of these small things will help them to process and understand the interconnectivity of our world through their experiences. Similarly the idea of kindness is much larger than the definition of a single word. By breaking this down and highlighting small moments we are teaching meaning through action.

Once your kindness tree is up, encourage your child to look for kind acts that others do. As parents we can highlight our children’s kindness, and encourage them to notice others. The goal is not to fill the tree, but on occasion to add to it. The best lessons are ones that we can return to again and again. The Kindness Tree serves two goals in that we can encourage our children to be kind, as well as to see the kindness in the world.

I have been looking into forest schools and what makes them unique. One guiding principal of these schools is that children visit the same outdoor space in all weather, in all seasons, at least once a week. With this, they are able to learn the subtleties of nature as the seasons change. A concept of time settles in as growth can’t be rushed.

My family has a couple of places we like to walk to observe nature; Errol Heights and Tideman Johnson are favorites we can walk to, while Oaks Bottom offers a much larger space to explore and the Sellwood riverfront has a lovely little trail that is just right for little ones. When we walk to these places it is not a fast paced walk to burn energy, but a slow meandering as we take time to observe. Today for example, we spotted six different kinds of birds and examined some awesome fungus.

Arming kids with a magnifying glass gets them looking even closer at the mosses, leaves and insects. This is mindfulness as well, slowing down and noticing the small things with your child, a flower that was not there last week, that the browns of winter are giving way to the greens of spring. I encourage you go find this space for your family and take time to delight in your child’s wonder.

– Teacher Allisen

Kenilworth Community Preschool is a play-based preschool that welcomes 3 to 5-year-old children into a creative, warm, and inviting environment. As a cooperative preschool, we work in partnership with families and in connection with the community to help our students thrive.

You know the feeling when you are out for a walk with your kiddo and you run into a friend and you get that 5 minutes or 10 minutes to talk, the kids sheepishly watch one another or run off and play? It’s hard to make plans right now. It’s hard to know how folks are feeling about the pandemic on any given day. It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is in every situation from holidays with the family to going to the grocery store. We also know that pandemic fatigue is real and sometimes we need other people.

So I have a suggestion; Let’s throw out more “I’m heading to the park” messages. I’m not talking about a play date, I’m talking about those outdoor moments, that are short and so important to our livelihood right now. The sun comes out for a moment and we sometimes drop everything to take a walk and get our kids out side. What if in that 10-20 minutes before you walk out the door you send a text to our community, “Suns out, walking at Kenilworth Park” (or any park). It’s not a plan, no need for a reply, it’s a shout out. It’s reaching out for a happy accident.

Science around Covid is showing us that outdoors with masks and space is the safest way to see people. It is also showing us that duration maters. Short meet ups are better. Kids are learning to wear masks and the rules of giving space. These kinds of short interactions give a chance to teach and practice. If kids are getting too close, it’s time to go. It’s cold, the amount of time we want to spend out there is short. Maybe your family is in a place that seeing a friendly face for a few minutes, with masks, and ample space, would feel right. Some families are ready for this, others are not, I have put off this message again and again wondering when the time would be right. But right and wrong are moving targets in this. No one is wrong, we are all doing the best we can, making the best choices for our families. I also know that this pandemic and isolation has been hard on families.

So if you in that parenting place where you need a friendly face reach out! If you are ready in a week, a month, March or September, we all support you in that space too. It’s community folks. When you are ready, make a little space for a happy happy accident.