Each time a group of visitors comes to Hilltop, we get to hear their experiences, and their impressions of Hilltop, and we get a glimpse of ourselves through fresh eyes. We had a particularly poignant and revealing visit, recently, with a group of educators working in the Residential Parenting Program at the Washington Corrections Center for Women.
I don’t meditate, but I want to be the type of person that does. As a classroom teacher of three-year-olds, I’ve looked for ways to help the group calm down, connect with their bodies, and learn self-soothing skills. But how do I get a three-year-old to meditate, especially when I’m not a practitioner myself?
Why do children need to use their bodies – both indoors and outdoors – in strong and active ways? It’s more than just “getting their wiggles out” so they can participate cooperatively in the less active parts of their days. Children deserve access to active – even risky – play, in order to help their brains develop.
What distinguishes a Learning Story from other kinds of written documentation? Is any story about children’s learning, by definition, a learning story? Or are there some qualities that characterize an effective Learning Story?
We encourage young children to work together, play with friends, negotiate, and collaborate. We believe that the best and most interesting learning happens when children are thinking together, challenging each others’ theories, and offering up new, sometimes conflicting, understandings. But what about the grownups? How can we encourage co-constructed learning for educators?
A conversation shouted through a cardboard tube gets one of our educators thinking about the value of giving children space to make some noise. She suggests that a healthy classroom is noisy with children connecting, engaging, playing. Emotions are messy, and we want children to get in that mess, in order to practice skills like self-advocacy, social risk-taking, and honest communication.
We, as Hilltop’s Board of Directors, are taking stock of what has transpired this year on the national level and how to keep moving forward as an organization. This message is for our community – parents, educators, partners – both within Hilltop and throughout the wider early learning community.
We know that the first 5 years of life are a critical time for children’s brain development, but when you count that period in days rather than years, it adds a sense of urgency and importance to how we spend each and every day with the children in our care.
Early Childhood Education can be a rebellious rock’n’roll career. Punk was founded on the belief that you should question everything, and that community is culture. The punk ethos flows pretty well with the values we have here at Hilltop.
Children naturally separate themselves from others from time to time. Some need space to focus, others need it to cool down, and some need it to recharge. Whatever the reason, it’s important to make sure that we are providing our kids with opportunities and resources to step away and chill, when the need arises.