twelve senses article, mailboxes

Dear Butterfly Families,

Martha, the school's copier, steadfastly refuses to produce copies of my colleague's article on supporting the development of our children's senses of touch, life, self-movement, and balance. In the meantime, it became clear to me that scanned pdfs are not so easy to read on the screen. This gave me the opportunity to read several online articles about sensory development, and this article from New Zealand contained new information for me as well as providing information about the senses of touch, life, self-movement, and balance. If you prefer to read from a book, there are multiple copies of Beyond the Rainbow Bridge in the Kathrine Dickerson Memorial Library upstairs, and, as I mentioned, the chapter on senses is quite accessible.

As most you have noticed, I have constructed more durable mailboxes for the children just inside the classroom door. Please try to check these and clear them out at the end of Wednesday, if not more frequently. To preserve your child's drawings and gifts, I will transfer the contents from the classroom mailbox to the basket above your child's cubby after class on Wednesday.
Many children have been drawing with crayons. Sometimes these are gifts, cards, and books children make for themselves or others (your child's mailbox does not necessarily contain drawings she or he has made). Children have also been drawing maps and signs to incorporate into their play scenarios.
In kindergarten, the teachers save children's drawings in a portfolio to discuss with parents at conference time. In the nursery years, I place more emphasis on the social aspects of this work--drawings as inter or intrapersonal means of discovery, drawings to foster the imagination, drawing as a form of security in a sometimes lively classroom away from mom or dad. That being said, the observation of young children's drawings yields great insights. Understanding Children's Drawings will arrive in our library soon, and I recommend reading the first chapter(s) of the book--they give insights into the drawings of children in the nursery and kindergarten years.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

January Newsletter

(Electronic Copy and copies in Parent Folders)

12:30pm Playground Rule Change

Because we have observed that elementary or middle school students rarely come to the playground before 12:45pm, the early childhood teachers have decided to allow early childhood families to use the big swings and other areas traditionally off limits.  You must leave this area before 12:45pm (you are welcome to stay on the kindergarten playground), before elementary children come out to recess.  This more flexible policy is an experiment.  If it does not work, we will return to the rule stated in the handbook, asking all early childhood families to use the kindergarten playground if they choose to stay at school after 12:30pm (with Kim, Dyanne, and me probably taking turns guarding the big swings so that the rule can be enforced).  I encourage families to read the Children's Garden Handbook and to acquire a school handbook.  As the school's behavior policy takes effect, it is most helpful for our young children (who learn out of imitation) if adults are consistent in honoring and adhering to school policies. 

Valentines and New Mailboxes

Your child is free to choose whether to make valentines for classmates.  If this holiday does not loom large in your child's consciousness, and if you sense that you would either have to make the cards yourself or force your child to make them without joy, feel no need to mention the idea of making cards to your child.  My experience is that some nursery children, however, really enjoy making cards or gifts for all their classmates:  one of our students brought snowflakes for classmates and teachers last week.  If your child seems inclined to enjoy the process of making 12 (including 1 for herself or himself) or 14 cards, feel free to bring them at any time.  We will not have a formal card exchange time.  Kim or I or other children can help your child distribute the cards in the children's mailboxes just inside the door.

  While in Bellingham for my teacher outservice day, I found a cubby system that should be more durable than the painting paper mailboxes I crafted in the fall.  It should also be easier for children and you to identify individual mailboxes--so that you can clear out your child's mailbox at the end of each day or each week.  I will construct the new mailboxes this week.  Please try to check them at the end of the morning Wednesday to take home any drawings your child has made or received.  Even with the somewhat rumpled state of the current mailboxes, a few children have been very active in producing drawings for classmates and filing them away.  As Valentine's Day approaches, more and more children may make pictures for your child; please check your child's mailbox frequently.

Because Valentine's Day is at the beginning of our February teacher's conference break (I'll be representing our school at the Western Teacher's Conference and Job Fair at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA that week.  Kim and Dyanne are traveling to the Waldorf Early Childhood Conference in Spring Valley, NY, the weekend before), it makes it possible for your child--perhaps inspired by classmates--to make cards over the break without feeling they are late.  

       If your child feels inspired to bring cards, please refrain from purchasing pre-made cards.  These finished, flashy store-bought cards can switch children's focus from process to product--from doing, making, giving, and receiving to one of comparison and competition.  In the early childhood years, we almost always want to free process from judgment and evaluation.

         As I promised, I will give you an updated class roster to make it easier to remember a card for every classmate. 

Foundational Senses and Discipline Policy

In your parent folders please find an article from Renewal on the four lower or foundational senses:  touch, life, self-movement, and balance.  Beyond the Rainbow Bridge, available in the Kathrine Dickerson Memorial Library, has cogent and useful chapter on nourishing our children's senses as well.  If these readings inspire you, I recommend procuring Working with Anxious, Nervous, and Depressed Children, also available in the school library. This book is written by Henning Koehler, author of Difficult Children:  There is no Such Thing;  there are couple of excerpts from that book I've provided earlier this year in the blog (for new families, you should be able to search for, say, "Difficult Children" in the upper left search window on the blog screen itself).  Working with Anxious, Nervous, and Depressed Children might sound like a daunting title.  If it helps, I think the title could also be, "Useful tips for parents and teachers willing to try a spiritual approach to raising children; excellent advice for how to support the development of all children's senses of touch, life, self-movement, and balance."

The interim behavior policy for our school is in effect.  As returning parents know, Kim, Dyanne, and I published a letter clarifying our approach to discipline last fall.  Subsequent to that, I have had conversations with mentors, evaluators, and other experienced Waldorf Early Childhood Educators, and all the wise women and men have expressed concern about an early childhood behavior policy that fails to recognize the profound differences in young children's stages of development, developmental crises, and varying needs of varying classes.   It helps, parents, nevertheless, to have some sense of what teachers look for when guiding behavior, particularly when responding to aggressive, negative, distracting, or egregious behavior.  I meditated upon and am working with the following:  the early childhood teacher observes the senses of touch, life, self-movement, and balance in the classroom and makes sure that they can continued to be nourished.  Examples are below.

Touch  Touch lets us know where we end and others begin.  Children experience healthy lessons of this from partner games with parents or teacher, loving caregiving from parents and others, and from healthy, rough-and-tumble play with other children.  Wrestling, rolling, tumbling, hugging, lifting each other up--all these can help children develop a refined sense of touch that will evolve to allow them to recognize the uniqueness of other human beings.  Often a hit or push or other lack of impulse control does not distract the children in class from their development.  A pattern might develop, however, in which one child's inability to control impulses in a group setting may prevent other children from comfortably engaging in physical play.  This might be a case where a child would need to stay home from school, or teacher and parents would ask the question whether this group setting is appropriate for this child at this particular time, or if some other forms of support outside of the classroom (a "peacemaker massage," for example, for which there are directions) could make things work in the classroom.

Life  Children can show reverence and respect.  They can also be silly during blessings, puppet shows, songs, stories, and rest times.  Almost always teacher and assistant, by being consistent and calm and firm, can guide this silliness back into reverence and respect.  All children benefit from these quiet times.  These, along with the teachers' confident guidance of the classroom ship throughout the morning with stability, rhythm, and consistency, nourish children's sense of life and well-being.  Often it is a child who needs the quiet moments the most--one who for whatever reason has a bit of unease and lacks a sense of wellness, and this becomes most apparent at quiet times--who might struggle to disrupt them.  Almost always this is no problem for an experienced or courageous teacher (indeed, I was reading elsewhere what a danger it is for a teacher to expect children to always be "good," or a teacher to feel content with teaching only when children obey).  Occasionally, a child can be so consistently disruptive that other children cannot receive nourishment during these quiet and reverent times; I have written elsewhere that this constant interruption during times of reverence seems much more upsetting to classmates than a push or a hit (or even a bite!).  These might be times when again parents and teacher would have to have conversation about whether the child is ready for this classroom setting at this time, or if there is additional support a child can receive at home (simplification of schedule, freedom from media and screen time, and the like).

Self-movement  Children develop a healthy sense of self-movement when their can be intervals of vigorous movement balanced with intervals of rest; large movements and small; group movements and individual movements.  Running, climbing, and jumping are all healthy parts of development in the nursery class.  It is normal for some young children to have trouble regulating their movement--they might still want to run after the rest of the children have stopped (perhaps bumping into a child).  This is usually not a problem.  On a rare occasion, a child's consistent lack of control of movement may so unsettle the movement needs of other children in the class that teacher and parents may have to work together to determine if the child is in the right placement now, if extra support can come outside of school, and the like.

Balance  Climbing, falling, building, and toppling all support balance.  From infancy, children teach themselves balance in their own way and in their own time.  I imagine it possible that a child might be so competitive or so demeaning in evaluating the less skillful balance of classmates that I as teacher would be concerned that the other children are not free to develop their sense of balance.  Normally working with the wisdom of Kim Payne and others, I would redirect the judgmental talk of a child.  If a child were so stuck in judgment and evaluation and put-downs that I could not free the child from this pattern, this would be another case in which teacher and parents would have to discuss the child's placement, what support parents could provide outside of school, and other ways of making things just right for the child and other students.

Although this meditation upon these four senses may not describe every reaction to every potential egregious behavior, I hope that they provide a sense of how a teacher, in the myriad of experiences that flow through a morning and week and month, determines what children or what actions deserve special attention.  It is healthiest when we can work in the classroom to make things right, but there will be times when early childhood teachers will ask for the help of parents and others to make things right or find another solution that works better for this child, this group, this year, this few years.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Meeting Tuesday, January 20

Agenda for the Meeting, Tuesday, January 20

6 - 6:30pm  Golden Forest and Sunflower check-ins in those rooms.  Parents with children in kindergarten should attend those check-ins.  For nursery parents who are interested, in the Butterfly Room I will provide two series of observation exercises that Kim Payne adapted from Rudolf Steiner.  Kim Payne is coming to speak in February about Simplicity Parenting. 

640 - 7:30pm  All early childhood parents covene in the Butterfly Room.  Bonnie Freundlich will discuss and demonstrate elements of the Eurythmy curriculum.  Come prepared to move. 

Articles on questions, guiding the ship of home

Dear Families,

As I have struggled to answer a couple of questions parents have asked in the last few days, I have remembered that articles exist that may provide better answers than I can.

A parent asked me how to respond to a challenging question from her child.  This article on responding to children's questions by Cecil Harwood may or may not help with that particular instance.  Harwood's words, nonetheless, have helped me often as I find myself immersed in a sea of questions.  I have also posted this article outside the classroom.

Other questions came about guiding the ship of home life--when to enforce a limit, when to realize that flexibility is what is needed there.  We are always steering a middle path between polarities.  Here, as a reprise, is a handout I produced about guiding the family ship.  Although it is ostensibly about toddlerhood, many of the principles apply to life with a preschool aged child.  

My reflections on beyond personal speaking from Whole Child/Whole Parent may also be of use in guiding your child.

Here are some thoughts on clarity, structure, and support.  I recommend procuring You Are Your Child's First Teacher by Rahima Baldwin Dancy from our school's Kathrine Dickerson Memorial Library.  The chapter "Rhythm and Discipline in Home Life" provides clear support.

As current parents know, the early childhood teachers have taken on extra responsibilities this year.  The winter is my time to be outside almost every afternoon with kindergarten and first grade children.  While I will be enjoying the mild weather this week, I will not be as easy to reach as I would hope during this new beginning with our four new students.  Email or notes may be the best way to reach me.   Blessings on our months ahead.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Information for coming weeks

What goes on the blog.  I discovered that some adoption agencies (and perhaps other groups) do not permit adoptive parents to have their child's name published in a blog, web page, or other public forum on the internet.  Grandparents and friends also enjoy learning about the nursery class in the open forum of the blog.  It made most sense to me to use the blog for all information that is general in nature.  When we welcomed 3 new students this month, their information came in a separate email.

Revised rhythm of the day and meeting schedule.  Here is a link to revised nursery information.  It includes the addition of a nursery meeting on Tuesday, January 20, from 6 to 7:30pm.  We will join the kindergarten families as Bonnie Freundlich, our Eurythmy teacher, talks about and demonstrates our Eurythmy curriculum.  I will let you know the exact location of this meeting.  It also includes a revised rhythm of the nursery morning.  As parents may have noticed, we gather for a puppet show or Eurythmy at about 8:45am, or when all children have arrived.  I moved this group time to early in the morning when I discovered that my puppet shows tended to occur when the elementary grades were rushing out to recess and it seemed counterproductive to try to compete for our nursery children's attention.  The early gathering for a puppet show or Eurythmy also helps the children feel welcomed to class as a group and may help may the play more inclusive after the show.  If you arrive when the door is closed, help your child into class as peacefully as possible.  In the past, this has not disrupted our puppet shows or Eurythmy.  The children have shown an excellent ability to concentrate.

As the year has progressed , we have spent more and more time outside.  Many children enjoy a long circle of singing games at the ropes course shelter.  The outdoor snack takes time, and having close to 2 hours outside allows time for play, walking, and exploring in addition to a circle and snack.  If the weather is particularly frosty (as it was right before the break), we will do our best to make the outside time a bit shorter without creating a stressful environment indoors.  Indoor work and play is nourishing when the time is just right--too short and the children do not have time to develop imaginative scenarios; too long and children's natural inclination for vigorous movement begins to rub up against the confines of an indoor space.

Mittens still working well.  Our blue mittens work well for all children and simplify the transition from inside to outside and from outdoor snack to circle.  Please save your own mittens for play at home.  Most days I collect the blue mittens before we come to the closing circle.  On very cold days, I will let the children continue to wear the mittens at the closing circle.  Please return the blue mittens if they make it to your car or home.

Mailboxes in the classroom.  I will make new mailboxes for our 3 new students.  I will be in conversation with a family about building more permanent mailboxes.  Please check these; they are just inside the classroom door.  Right before break two children produced a great deal of mail for many of their classmates.

Requests from the Ropes Course Shelter.  The stewards of the ropes course shelter have graciously allowed early childhood classes to gather there for snack and play.  They have asked us to do our best to keep the shelter tidy.  Raisins and small seeds such as sunflower seeds tend to fall between cracks in the table and are hard to clean up.  As much as possible, choose larger items such as dried apricots and nuts as alternatives to seeds and raisins.  Fruits and and vegetables still work well.  Remember that when it is cold, juicy fruits such as oranges can be a bit uncomfortable on cold hands (clementines and mandarins tend to work better).

New puppet show.  For the coming weeks, I will be presenting a puppet show in the round (children will sit in the circle while I guide the show in the middle).  It tells the story of Little Rabbit on a snowy day.  He finds two carrots, eats one and decides to bring the extra one to Curly Sheep, who must be hungry.  Curly Sheep brings the carrot to Grey Donkey, who brings it to Swift Deer.  Swift Deer brings the carrot back to Little Rabbit, who is hungry again and glad to see the carrot back.

Mondays.  Remember that school will be closed on January 19 and 26 for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and for a teacher out-service day.  Weather permitting, we will have normal 3 day nursery weeks (or weeks off for school closure) for much of the rest of the year until Memorial Day.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Welcome and welcome back