A Letter to the Preschool Families

Dear families,                                                                                                               

It is such a pleasure and honor to join you and your children at the onset of their school-based educational journeys. Preschool is a place where small people with tremendous personalities gather, not only to solidify foundational skills, but also to learn how we can all benefit from one another. We learn to value our natural curiosity and use it to embark on exploratory adventures together; we learn to appreciate the diversity that we all present and respect the expertise that each child brings to our investigations; we learn that there are many different ways to increase our understanding, and we use imagination, creativity, and critical thinking to enhance our learning. Perhaps most importantly, we learn how we can contribute to a peaceful, supportive, and productive community. I am thrilled to partner with you, your family, and Pelham Elementary School to offer your child a rewarding, nurturing, and empowering introduction to a life-long love of learning.

But we all know that learning does not begin now. Your child has already been given hundreds of learning experiences from his or her first and most influential teacher: you. You know your child like no other, and you naturally tailor every lesson that you teach to his or her specific needs, strengths, and interests. I aim to do the same. One way to “hit the ground running” would be for me to have an introduction to your child. That’s why I ask that you write a letter to me--just a page or two, please--describing the qualities, motivators, needs, strengths, and interests that your child brings to our class. With this information from the start, I will be better able to meet each child where he or she is and individualize our activities to make them exciting, accessible, and enriching for everyone.

Later in the summer, I will be calling to set up a home visit with you. To receive a visit is voluntary, but I do encourage you to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity for the children to meet their teacher one-on-one in the place where they feel most comfortable. At this time, I will plan to collect the letters you have written as well as a family picture and the information sheet enclosed. I will also bring an “All About Me” book for you and your child to fill out and decorate any way you choose. While there, I also hope to take a photograph of each child so that when the students step into the classroom on the first day of school, they will already feel a sense of belonging as they see their own smiles and those of their families decorating the room. If you choose not to have a home visit, no worries! We will make other arrangements to be sure your child still has these things in place on the first day.

Thank you for the cooperation and support that this community has already shown Pelham Preschool. Working together, we are bound to make a positive and powerful impact on your children’s lives!

Sincerely,

Nettie Harrington Pangallo (Ms. Nettie)

Drawing Inspiration from Reggio Emilia

We see the child as protagonist, collaborator, and communicator.

Our children are natural learners. Their innate sense of wonder and curiosity drives the learning process. Their personal interests are encouraged; it is through their talk, play, and artistic expression of these interests that teachers find their inspiration for the design of our emergent curriculum.

Project work: The Emergent Curriculum

The first several weeks of our curriculum are carefully designed to get to know the children, empower them to share their thoughts, ideas, and interests with others, and teach them to be respectful, contributing members to the people and physical space of their new community. All About Me books serve as transitional aids while encouraging children to share some of themselves, be proud of their roots, learn about their classmates, and promote empathy. Parents are invited into the classroom at scheduled times to help children present these books to their classmates on A Friend to Admire days. This “getting to know you” period also helps the teachers to identify areas of interest that are good candidates for project work through which to weave all of our content area and skill-building activities. Sometimes the topic that’s just right for the group emerges within those first several weeks; sometimes it reveals itself toward the middle of the year. It is important to be patient and allow the creativity and insight of our children and teachers to find the topic that will generate enough interest and engagement to last us through the year!

We see the teacher as partner, nurturer, guide, and researcher.

The teacher uses insight and creativity to respond to the children’s ideas and questions rather than the other way around. Children bring a vast array of ever-changing experiences, thoughts, and feelings into the classroom each day, and the most enriching responses to these cannot be found in a script. Instead, the teacher must be a listener, be sensitive to the child’s needs on any given day, and use this knowledge in combination with her expertise to guide the day’s activities. Lots of planning, yet a willingness to be spontaneous and flexible come into play here. When children become an instrumental part of this process, this deeply rooted mutual respect dramatically heightens the educational experience.

We see cooperation as the foundation of the educational system.

It really does take a village to raise a child. Together, we will build the foundation of your child’s in-school educational experience on a love of learning, a deep respect for the diversity we all present, and the empowerment of each child to be perfectly themselves. When the children see the adults in their lives working together as a team to make this happen, their learning experiences will be all the more meaningful and long-lasting.

We see the environment as “the third teacher”. 

“There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment” (Loris Malaguzzi). An inviting and aesthetically-pleasing environment is used to draw children into activities, sparking their curiosities in a way that words often cannot. Engaging all of the senses is central to the inspiration required for the most valuable learning.

We focus on the arts.

Young children are often most able to express themselves through the arts. Whether it be visual, musical, or dramatic, we can often learn far more about children and their thinking through creative expression.  We welcome the artistic expertise of our community! Speak to us if you would like to use your art to help enhance the children’s preschool experience.

We see the parent as partner.

Your child is coming into this program with a set of experiences that only you know entirely, and so there is a lot to learn from you! We hope to precede the school year with letters from you describing your child, with home visits, and with you and your child working together at home to begin developing an All About Me book (details will be forthcoming). Toward the beginning of the year, we will have scheduled classroom visits with family members to assist their children in presenting these books to the class. Closer to the middle of the year, we will have Mystery Readers, where family members are scheduled to come into the classroom to read their child’s favorite book to the class; the children will know someone is coming in, they just won’t know who! Every child is eventually represented by someone, whether it’s a parent, sibling, or other family member. Each morning, parents are invited to come into the classroom with children, help them go to the bathroom and wash their hands, help to get children involved in an activity, and give the teacher a brief update on the child’s previous night and morning. (How did he sleep? Did she have a typical breakfast?) Come Morning Meeting, it’s time for children to say goodbye for now to their parents--perhaps at our Goodbye Window--and get settled into the day. More volunteer opportunities will be made available as we get into the year.

We use documentation as communication.

Throughout the day, we document children’s words. We label their artwork with their descriptions. We photograph students at work and play. We record them singing songs they’ve written. This documentation is displayed on walls in the classroom and hallway, in letters that go home, and on a class blog. When children see us taking the time to document these things, they learn that their words, their work, their play, and their voices are important to us.  They learn that we are proud of them. They become very motivated to get involved, do their very best, and then take on the role of “expert tour guide”, sharing their experiences with you!

From "The Hundred Is There"

No way. The hundred is there.

The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.

A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.

The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.

They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.

-Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)
Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach