We did it!

Thank you for your support of our Natural Playscape project.  Your generosity aided us in reaching our matching goal of $10,000!  We expect that the ground-breaking will commence during the month of June, when our contractors will get busy adding on to the existing fence, pulling the existing plants to make room for the new design and pouring the cement for the trike path.  The last part of the project will include the placement of the wooden structures being built by Jason Boone from the Urban Tree Forge.

Opportunities to help withe purchase of new plants for our landscape are still available.  Please contact our school for more information.

Thanks again for all of your generous support!

We're well on our way!

It is looking like our Natural Playscape will become a reality this summer, in great part due to your generous support.  If you haven't yet had a chance to support this amazing project, this is a great time to do so.  Our picture is finally becoming complete!!!

Update on Playscape Challenge

Well, the challenge is on!!  We have done great with raising funds for the building of our Playscape.  Thanks to our supporters, we have met $6,000 of the $10,000 challenge.  This leaves us with $4,000 more to go.  Please do consider supporting this important project and help us to complete the picture...

Natural Playscape Matching Gift Challenge

A generous group of donors has presented us with a challenge: Raise $10,000 toward the Natural Playscape, and they will match it in full.  This is where you come in... Make a contribution, no matter how great or small, to our Playscape Fund and help us to reach this $10,000 goal.  Help us to put some color on the rest of this picture by sending in your contribution today! 

Contributions are fully tax deductible.
Checks can be made out to SPCNS with a note "Playscape Fund".
Mail your check to: SPCNS, 5121 Westminster Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15232

Thank you for helping us to make this dream a reality!

Help for Japan

Dear Families,

The multiple disasters in Japan have impacted people all around the world and many people feel compelled to contribute money to help alleviate the physical damage and human suffering that have ensued.  There are many agencies and organizations who are accepting donations and you may already have done so. 

We are writing to you to offer you three further suggestions for your contributions. The Nursery School is a part of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church, who has chosen to direct financial supports through the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.  You may learn more about them and contribute this way on their web site:  http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/pda/who-we-are/

SPCNS also has a personal connection to Japan, as both Mrs. Suzie Hall and the Stout family (Soren Stout is currently in Mrs. Hall’s class) have relatives who are living and working as missionaries in Japan.  Mrs. Hall’s brother and Mari Stout’s parents and brothers are all well and working hard on relief efforts. 

If you would like to donate to the Stout family’s ministries, you may donate via PayPal through their website:  http://sunriseministries.tripod.com/id1.html

Mrs. Hall’s brother is working through the Maryknoll Missioners.  You can make a contribution to their efforts in Japan by following this link:

http://www.maryknollsociety.org/index.php/articles/2-articles/701-prayers-for-japan

We know that at times children will become concerned when hearing about disasters in our world through the news media and via casual conversations.  If you want to read some helpful information about how to communicate to young children about tragic events, please look for the article by Fred Rogers on our SPCNS blog:

http://spcns.blogspot.com/2011/03/fred-rogers-talks-about-tragic-events.html

We hope this information is helpful in discerning how you would like to help with this crisis.  Remember that prayer is also a powerful thing…

The SPCNS Staff

Some "Be"s of Positive Parenting

The following information was presented by Karin D. Shafer, M.Ed, Developmental/Behavioral Specialist at Achieva.

• Be the Parent (Don't be afraid)
• They will make friends; they can't make parents
• Be Positive - Praise your child for appropriate behaviors
• Catch them being "good"
• Be aware of what you are praising and Reinforcing
• Reinforcement, good and bad, is the "payoff" - what are they being "paid" for?
• Be clear
• Give clear directions and specific praises
• Be Concise
• Simple is better.  Get to the point faster and so will they
• Be Consistent
• The rules are the rules and "no" means "no."  Develop some specific family routines and there will be less stress for everyone
• Be a team player
• Share your strategies with your spouse, grandparents, and caregivers
• Be willing to get your child started
• Help your child with the task until they are able to do it independently.  Make a game of things, take turns, sing a song...
• Be willing to deal with the consequences you put out there
• If you don't follow through with what you say, how do you expect your child to follow through later?
• Be good to your word!!!
• Don't say it if you don't really mean it!
• Be strong
• Don't give in when you know you shouldn't
• Be a good role model by trying to stay calm
• Kids learn their stress and anger management skills by watching us!  YIKES!
• Be a little more organized
• A little more preparation can help you reduce a lot of stress!!
• Be willing to say you are sorry
• When you get out of control, hurt their feelings or make a mistake, apologize and they will learn to do the same
• Be willing to let kids work it out, but step in when your child is out of control
• Kids need to learn self-calming and social negotiation skills - we need to let them
• Be willing to give some control to your child
• Everyone wants to be in control, kids do too!
• A word to the wise parent: If it's not a choice, don't give them one.  Avoid asking children yes/no questions for things that need to be answered yes!!!
• Be willing to try the "so what?" test
• So pick your battles wisely.  Ask yourself "are the things that you argue about really worth it?"
• Be mindful of your child's tolerance for new and/or overly or under exciting things, people and situations
• Think ahead if you know you may have some trouble.  Talk to your child ahead of time.  Prepare them for the situation.  Talk them through as you are experiencing it.
• Be willing to let your child teach you
• Let your kids show you things, tell you things, and allow them to be silly when appropriate.  Let them help you see the joy in every day things that grown-ups take for granted.  They are really, really good a this.

Just a few more things:

• Basically, behaviors boil down to "triggers" and "payoffs", also known as "antecedents" (what happens before) and "consequences" (what happens after good or bad).  The behavior is what happens between those two things (The ABC's - Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence)
• It is often easier to prevent a behavior than to try to reshape it.  So, think ahead!
• Be careful what you are reinforcing.  When you are in the process of changing a behavior, things will most likely get worse before they get better.  Your child will eventually realize that what they did before isn't going to work anymore, so hang in there!  It will get better!
• Time out - it is time out from the positive reinforcement - typically what is triggering the behavior.  This allows the child to calm down, regroup and get their act together.  This works especially well for younger children who may be sitting there thinking about what they have done.

Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School

New research shows why teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.

By Alison GopnikPosted Wednesday, March 16, 2011, at 2:15 PM ETOurs is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb. They pressure teachers to make kindergartens and nurseries more like schools. So does the law—the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act explicitly urged more direct instruction in federally funded preschools.

There are skeptics, of course, including some parents, many preschool teachers, and even a few policy-makers. Shouldn't very young children be allowed to explore, inquire, play, and discover, they ask? Perhaps direct instruction can help children learn specific facts and skills, but what about curiosity and creativity—abilities that are even more important for learning in the long run? Two forthcoming studies in the journal Cognition—one from a lab at MIT and one from my lab at UC-Berkeley—suggest that the doubters are on to something. While learning from a teacher may help children get to a specific answer more quickly, it also makes them less likely to discover new information about a problem and to create a new and unexpected solution.

What do we already know about how teaching affects learning? Not as much as we would like, unfortunately, because it is a very difficult thing to study. You might try to compare different kinds of schools. But the children and the teachers at a Marin County preschool that encourages exploration will be very different from the children and teachers in a direct instruction program in South Side Chicago. And almost any new program with enthusiastic teachers will have good effects, at least to begin with, regardless of content. So comparisons are difficult. Besides, how do you measure learning, anyway? Almost by definition, directed teaching will make children do better on standardized tests, which the government uses to evaluate school performance. Curiosity and creativity are harder to measure.

Developmental scientists like me explore the basic science of learning by designing controlled experiments. We might start by saying: Suppose we gave a group of 4-year-olds exactly the same problems and only varied on whether we taught them directly or encouraged them to figure it out for themselves? Would they learn different things and develop different solutions? The two new studies in Cognition are the first to systematically show that they would.

In the first study, MIT professor Laura Schulz, her graduate student Elizabeth Bonawitz, and their colleagues looked at how 4-year-olds learned about a new toy with four tubes. Each tube could do something interesting: If you pulled on one tube it squeaked, if you looked inside another tube you found a hidden mirror, and so on. For one group of children, the experimenter said: "I just found this toy!" As she brought out the toy, she pulled the first tube, as if by accident, and it squeaked. She acted surprised ("Huh! Did you see that? Let me try to do that!") and pulled the tube again to make it squeak a second time. With the other children, the experimenter acted more like a teacher. She said, "I'm going to show you how my toy works. Watch this!" and deliberately made the tube squeak. Then she left both groups of children alone to play with the toy.
All of the children pulled the first tube to make it squeak. The question was whether they would also learn about the other things the toy could do. The children from the first group played with the toy longer and discovered more of its "hidden" features than those in the second group. In other words, direct instruction made the children less curious and less likely to discover new information.

Does direct teaching also make children less likely to draw new conclusions—or, put another way, does it make them less creative? To answer this question, Daphna Buchsbaum and I gave another group of 4-year-old children a new toy. This time, though, we demonstrated sequences of three actions on the toy, some of which caused the toy to play music, some of which did not. For example, Daphna might start by squishing the toy, then pressing a pad on its top, then pulling a ring on its side, at which point the toy would play music. Then she might try a different series of three actions, and it would play music again. Not every sequence she demonstrated worked, however: Only the ones that ended with the same two actions made the music play. After showing the children five successful sequences interspersed with four unsuccessful ones, she gave them the toy and told them to "make it go."

Daphna ran through the same nine sequences with all the children, but with one group, she acted as if she were clueless about the toy. ("Wow, look at this toy. I wonder how it works? Let's try this," she said.) With the other group, she acted like a teacher. ("Here's how my toy works.") When she acted clueless, many of the children figured out the most intelligent way of getting the toy to play music (performing just the two key actions, something Daphna had not demonstrated). But when Daphna acted like a teacher, the children imitated her exactly, rather than discovering the more intelligent and more novel two-action solution.
As so often happens in science, two studies from different labs, using different techniques, have simultaneously produced strikingly similar results. They provide scientific support for the intuitions many teachers have had all along: Direct instruction really can limit young children's learning. Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific—this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then a press then a pull causes the music to play. But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions.

Why might children behave this way? Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental. It's this kind of learning, in fact, that allows kids to learn from teachers in the first place. Patrick Shafto, a machine-learning specialist at the University of Louisville and a co-author of both these studies; Noah Goodman at Stanford; and their colleagues have explored how we could design computers that learn about the world as effectively as young children do. It's this work that inspired these experiments.

These experts in machine learning argue that learning from teachers first requires you to learn about teachers. For example, if you know how teachers work, you tend to assume that they are trying to be informative. When the teacher in the tube-toy experiment doesn't go looking for hidden features inside the tubes, the learner unconsciously thinks: "She's a teacher. If there were something interesting in there, she would have showed it to me." These assumptions lead children to narrow in, and to consider just the specific information a teacher provides. Without a teacher present, children look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options.

Knowing what to expect from a teacher is a really good thing, of course: It lets you get the right answers more quickly than you would otherwise. Indeed, these studies show that 4-year-olds understand how teaching works and can learn from teachers. But there is an intrinsic trade-off between that kind of learning and the more wide-ranging learning that is so natural for young children. Knowing this, it's more important than ever to give children's remarkable, spontaneous learning abilities free rein. That means a rich, stable, and safe world, with affectionate and supportive grown-ups, and lots of opportunities for exploration and play. Not school for babies.

Fred Rogers talks about Tragic Events in the News

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world."

In times of community or world-wide crisis, it's easy to assume that young children don't know what's going on. But one thing's for sure -- children are very sensitive to how their parents feel. They're keenly aware of the expressions on their parents' faces and the tone of their voices. Children can sense when their parents are really worried, whether they're watching the news or talking about it with others. No matter what children know about a “crisis,” it’s especially scary for children to realize that their parents are scared.

Some Scary, Confusing Images
The way that news is presented on television can be quite confusing for a young child. The same video segment may be shown over and over again through the day, as if each showing was a different event. Someone who has died turns up alive and then dies again and again. Children often become very anxious since they don’t understand much about videotape replays, closeups, and camera angles.   Any televised danger seems close to home to them because the tragic scenes are taking place on the TV set in their own livingroom. Children can't tell the difference between what's close and what's far away, what's real and what's pretend, or what's new and what's re-run.
The younger the children are, the more likely they are to be interested in scenes of close-up faces, particularly if the people are expressing some strong feelings. When there's tragic news, the images on TV are most often much too graphic and disturbing for young children.
“Who will take care of me?”
In times of crisis, children want to know, "Who will take care of me?" They're dependent on adults for their survival and security.  They're naturally self-centered. They need to hear very clearly that their parents are doing all they can to take care of them and to keep them safe.  They also need to hear that people in the government and other grownups they don’t eveen know are working hard to keep them safe, too.

Helping Children Feel More Secure
Play is one of the important ways young children have of dealing with their concerns.  Of course, playing about violent news can be scary and sometimes unsafe, so adults need to be nearby to help redirect that kind of play into nurturing themes, such as a hospital for the wounded or a pretend meal for emergency workers.
When children are scared and anxious, they might become more dependent, clingy, and afraid to go to bed at night. Whining, aggressive behavior, or toilet "accidents" may be their way of asking for more comfort from the important adults in their lives. Little by little, as the adults around them become more confident, hopeful and secure, our children probably will, too.
Turn Off the TV
When there's something tragic in the news, many parents get concerned about what and how to tell their children. It's even harder than usual if we're struggling with our own powerful feelings about what has happened. Adults are sometimes surprised that their own reactions to a televised crisis are so strong, but great loss and devastation in the news often reawaken our own earlier losses and fears – even some we think we might have "forgotten"
It's easy to allow ourselves to get drawn into watching televised news of a crisis for hours and hours; however, exposing ourselves to so many tragedies can make us feel hopeless, insecure, and even depressed. We help our children and ourselves if we’re able to limit our own television viewing.  Our children need us to spend time with them – away from the frightening images on the screen. 
Talking and Listening
Even if we wanted to, it would be impossible to give our children all the reasons for such things as war, terrorists, abuse, murders, major fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes. If they ask questions, our best answer may be to ask them, "What do you think happened?" If the answer is "I don't know," then the simplest reply might be something like, "I'm sad about the news, and I'm worried. But I love you, and I'm here to care for you."
If we don't let children know it's okay to feel sad and scared, they may think something is wrong with them when they do feel that way. They certainly don't need to hear all the details of what's making us sad or scared, but if we can help them accept their own feelings as natural and normal, their feelings will be much more manageable for them.
Angry feelings are part of being human, especially when we feel powerless. One of the most important messages we can give our children is, "It's okay to be angry, but it's not okay to hurt ourselves or others."  Besides giving children the right to their anger, we can help them find constructive things to do with their feelings. This way, we'll be giving them useful tools that will serve them all their life, and help them to become the worlds' future peacemakers -- the world's future "helpers." 

Helpful Hints

Do your best to keep the television off, or at least limit how much your child sees of any news event. Try to keep yourself calm. Your presence can help your child feel more secure. Give your child extra comfort and physical affection, like hugs or snuggling up together with a favorite book. Physical comfort goes a long way towards providing inner security. That closeness can nourish you, too. Try to keep regular routines as normal as possible. Children and adults count on their familiar pattern of everyday life. Plan something that you and your child enjoy doing together, like taking a walk, going on a picnic, having some quiet time, or doing something silly. It can help to know there are simple things in life that can help us feel better, in good times and in bad.

Even if children don't mention what they've seen or heard in the news, it can help to ask what they think has happened. If parents don't bring up the subject, children can be left with their misinterpretations. You may be really surprised at how much your child has heard from others. Focus attention on the helpers, like the police, firemen, doctors, nurses, paramedics, and volunteers. It's reassuring to know there are many caring people who are doing all they can to help others in this world. Let your child know if you're making a donation, going to a town meeting, writing a letter or e-mail of support, or taking some other action. It can help children to know that adults take many different active roles and that we don't give in to helplessness in times of worldwide crisis.

This article is excerpted from “The Mister Rogers Parenting Book” the last book Fred Rogers worked on before his death in 2003. In this book he wanted to support parents in their most important work of parenting and to help them better understand their young children. As he wrote in the introduction to the book:
“.. if we can bring our children understanding, comfort, and hopefulness when they need this kind of support, then they are more likely to grow into adults who can find these resources within themselves later on.”

©  The Fred Rogers Company - 2011 - All Rights Reserved

Thank you for the fun!

Thanks to all of you who supported us for our Family Potluck Fundraiser.  It was a great time for seeing friends, meeting new families and sharing some great food and fun!

Our heartfelt thanks go to Ms. Shields, the "Balloon Lady", who spent her entire evening making balloon art for the children.  Thanks also to Mrs. Callaway for helping with the crafts.  Most of all, thanks to the Board of Trustees who worked tirelessly to make this event a reality.  From the planning to the clean-up, the Trustees showed their undying commitment to our school and this events' success.

You'd be happy to know that in addition to this being a fun event, we were also able to raise about $3,000 to help with building our new Natural Playscape.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Your children will benefit greatly from this amazing new addition to our school.

In the meantime, if you are still interested in purchasing a keepsake Nursery School chair, please see Mrs. Lang to place your order.  The chairs may be purchased "as is," or they may be customized with a part of our school logo, your child's name, or the name of a special person in your life.  The limits can only be left to the imagination!

Join in the Fun!

Please join us tonight, Friday March 4 for our SPCNS Potluck and Playscape Fundraiser!  We will have games, crafts, music, food and raffles!  You will also have a once in a life time chance to purchase a SPCNS Keepsake Chair!  All proceeds from this event will benefit the Playscape Project.

Take a peek at a sampling of the basket being raffled:

Take a look at samples of the Keepsake Chairs.  Prices start at $50 for a plain chair, $75 for a chair with a logo or lettering or $85 for a chair with logo and lettering.  An additional $5 will be charged for cellophane wrapping.  Come choose your own chair!

Please help us to make the dream of a Natural Playscape come true for our children.  Below is a picture of the plans...