“Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.”– Jon Kabat-Zinn Earlier this month we talked about building a sense of responsibility and independence in children. In this blog we look at the growing level of mindfulness and awareness that happens in the Kinderpillar
“The greatest gifts we can give our children are the roots of Responsibility and the wings of Independence.” – Denis Waitley We all want our children to feel confident and responsible. How do we support their natural desire to be independent while reminding them about their responsibility
Ask most teachers and they will say that children grow so fast in the later part of the school year that it can be sometimes hard to keep up with them! Now is the time when skills children have been working so hard on come to fruition. Physical and self-help skills that at the beginning […]
“Significant or experiential learning has a quality of personal involvement: it is self-initiated, it is pervasive, it is evaluated by the learner, its essence is meaning.”- Freedom to Learn by Carl Rogers Language development is emphasized in the process of developing reading and literacy skill
April 25,2018
Becoming Literate! – By Prof. Ellen Booth Church
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” -Abraham Lincoln We all know how important it is for children to be literate. The literacy skills related to reading and writing are essential for future success in school. Of course, every parent worries if her child will learn how to read
February 02,2018
Who was Jean Piaget and How Does His Work Help Us Understand Our Young Children?- Prof. Ellen Booth Church
“Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves.” -Jean Piaget Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss psychologist and epistemologist known for his pioneering work in child development. His theory of cognitive development has greatly influenced the field of educating you
January 11,2018
A Growing Sense of Justice- Prof. Ellen Booth Church
“ Justice alone cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”-Eleanor Roosevelt What does ‘justice” mean to your young child? It often means…following the rules. In fact, young children can often be very rule driven…as long as it is being applied to someone else!They love to tel
December 05,2017
The Moral of the Story- Prof. Ellen Booth Church
It’s probably happened to you many times. You are reading a book or telling a fairy tale when cries of outrage surface from your child: “That’s not fair!”, “How can they do that!”, “Why are they being so mean?” There is nothing like a story to get a good discussion of ethics st
November 15,2017
We are all Musicians!- Prof. Ellen Booth Church
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” – Plato How many of you think, “Oh I can’t sing.”? The good news is you can freely share both art forms when you interact with children. Young children appreciate any adult who
October 28,2017
That’s NOT My Name!- Prof. Ellen Booth Church
Have you ever heard the old saying, “Sticks and Stones may hurt my bones but names will never hurt me”? Do you think that is true?Haven’t we all been hurt by words or names others have used for us? Words have an amazing power to build us up or knock us down. A kind word […]