Holiday Respite

This picture was taken when we had the freezing weather and the 'snow' for a few hours. I love how the girls cuddled close to each other.
Wishing all my Casa T. families a restful and peaceful holiday break.



Love and Peace,
Andrea

Space and the Atelierista

Updates
We looked at another property this weekend, which is in prime, prime, PRIME location for me (NW Austin/Cedar Park). The current preschool that is leasing the property is expanding and plans to move out by the end of January. I'll be the first to admit, this place is not the prettiest of places (and nothing like I had *envisioned* for my escuelita), BUT I looked at it with an open (and realistic) mind. With the encouragement of my Reggian peers, many have had to work with not so beautiful spaces and still run a high quality program. I know I can make this space beautiful on the inside and run an AMAZING program. What I like about it is it has TONS of space. The 2 rooms I would use as classroms are huge. My plan would be to convert one of the extra classrooms into the dedicated atelier, and the other classroom as a teacher library/planning area, if the business is able to run on only two classes of children.

Still crunching numbers on this scenario, and it's also contingent on if the landlord would be able to knock down partial walls in two of the rooms so they're connected. The space is very modular and separated right now. It was originally built to be office condos and was converted when the first tenant opened childcare there. When she grew out of that space, she leased the next office suite and overflow went there, so even though they're next to each other, these spaces are not connected on the inside, which would not work for the type of program I want. There is a playground attached to one side of the building and will also need work. Please keep in mind, this process will probably take months since the procedures for Licensed Child Care Center are a bit different than LCC Home and I'll need to find quality teachers also. Please remember, I'm not opening a "daycare." ;)

I placed an ad last week for a part-time teaching assitant to come and help me in the mornings here at the casa since I'm juggling caregiving with trying to move my program offsite and all the work that comes with that. My inbox was flooded, and I mean flooded with resumes ranging from people of all walks of life, cultures, and skill levels. I am very happy that I do have a great lead if I indeed need to get an assistant in here before I move offsite. And, I also have a lead for an Atelierista!

She would be the person who runs the Atelier, the school's art studio. She's an artist and knows the potential in many media materials. The children will come to the Atelier to work on projects. Atelieristas are valued members of the community of teachers. They decide with the teachers who needs their help with a particular aspect of a project, and in the schools in Reggio Emilia, they usually work intensely with no more than half a dozen children for about an hour and a half per day if needed. What does not get completed in one work time may be completed in the next work period. Children are not urged to hurry to complete a project because teachers are not trying to initiate a different activity. Many of you may agree with me here that the U.S. culture tends to be constantly hurried. Most American teachers feel the pressure to cover required content and time is fragmented in most American schools. Teachers rush from one activity to another, and this is one reason I want to start this preschool instead of returning to the public school system. We won't have the rushed, fragmented time there. And that's a good thing. ;) I'm just trying to see if the program can afford this Atelierista, so I'm putting that positive thought out to the universe.

I'm also open to investors and/or sponsors to get my program launched offsite. So if you know of a person or business who may be interested, please come talk to me.

Love,
Andrea

Being the Boss of Your Paintbrush (and so much more!)

What's On Our Shelf This Week
Focus - Love

Art
The children explored the edge of the color spectrum with colors Black and White.



Our exploration began with some introductions. First, with dry paintbrushes. The children have been long using paintbrushes, however, since their fine motor skills are improving at a speedy rate, this is a good time for them to learn how to refine using their tools .



I asked what the children noticed about them. We talked about how the hairs feel soft when you brush them against your hands or cheeks. I then invited the children to experiment with their dry paintbrushes--to find out how gently they need to touch the brush to the paper so that the hair stays "standing up." I explain how if the hair is standing up, they are the 'boss' of their paintbrush. If the hair is squished flat, then the brush is the boss and can scratch their paper and puts its own marks on it. We all looked and compared each others paintbrushes. Some had bushy, short hairs, others had wide and thin hairs. And every other possible combination in between.

Moving on, I demonstrated how to use their brush with paint.



Dip--Wipe--Paint

"Dip the brush into the paint, wipe it one the edge of the jar to catch the drips, paint the paper. That's how we move paint to the paper easily."

Next, I encouraged the children to begin their exploration. We alternated--some children had black paper and white paint. Others had white paper and black paint. As they painted, I continually coached the children how to use the paintbrush.

I cannot wait to show you your children's pieces which demonstrate the striking beauty of these simple colors!

This project lends itself to much further investigation, which we'll be continuing through the next weeks (after the holiday break). We barely scratched the surface with this during this week. Great stuff to come.

Culinary
The PLAN was to make St. Lucy cakes for this week's focus on LOVE. The Wednesday group helped mix the ingredients (they love to stir) and kneaded and pounded the dough. This was great for Wednesday since the weather was so cold and we were inside a bit longer than usual. The dough, however, didn't rise as quickly as the dough has for us in the past, so we didn't get around to baking it. Actually, the dough never doubled in size, so I did what I do often. Improvised and Adapted.

I put the dough in the fridge and decided to have my Thursday group, knead and pound it, and simply explore with it.







Other snippets from the week
When children are working on individual activities such as these botany puzzles, when they come to a point where they can't figure it out, I provide scaffolding, within their zone of proximal development (a Vygotskian theory). These puzzles are more complicated, so when I provide scaffolding, without doing it for them, the children can undertake activities when given assistance.





Yoga
TOTAL awesomeness. We love Ms. Krista.















Next week, we'll continue with the Black and White exploration and the focus will be on PEACE.

Update on the "Dream" Cottage

Long story short, Mike and I are prepared to walk away now.

*sigh*

Spoke with Williamson County and the septic system issue is a TOTAL nightmare and would need to be replaced, no ifs and or buts, to run a childcare facility, or any type of business which would have more than 7 people in it. We would consider investing in a commercial septic system (which are EXPENSIVE), if the property was ours, but not on a leased property. I also tracked down the previous tenant and spoke with her and she was able to shed some light as well.

So, I have mentally moved myself out, and we are seeking property elsewhere.

-Andrea, who is pushing through

=)

Crayon Rocks and Cottages

A couple last minute shots from last week that I'm getting around to downloading. Things have been very busy on the Casa T. front, which I'll explain a more in a bit.

On Thursday, the kiddies enjoyed using the crayon rocks. They are made from soy and are shaped just like rocks. They work just the same as crayons, yet are really good for rubbing coloring activities. These will be good when we do our Leaf Rubbings and such. Sophia enjoyed moving them from one small basket to another and cupping them like they were pieces of gold. Ha!



We are moving along nicely in the self-help department. This is an example of what I do when a kiddy is using the restroom. Since they like to completely disrobe from the waist down, I lay their pants and undies right side out and in the direction they'll be putting them on it. When I change a dipe, I do the same thing. This sets them up for success while promoting them to do things independently. This will take many months of practice, but it's something they all enjoy trying.



On to the other news...

Ok, so....during the day on Friday, I went and viewed a property, and returned that evening to view the inside. This property is for a potential offsite Casa T location. I really love this house. It has potential as it's an adorable old cottage which is a commercial property for lease, AND it's even semi-ready to house childcare! AND, it's minutes from my house. Right off 620.

There are several things this hypothetical business venture is contingent on, and before I get my hopes up too high (and jinx things), I need to get some anwers from the county on occupational permits, and crunch numbers to see if this would be a financially viable option for me. My current business plan is for a small, cohesive preschool to accomodate children ages 2-5. This house has a nice amount of space for what I desire, a large open room which is perfect for the atelier, a fully functioning kitchen, a huge yard for play and gardening, and an upstairs area for teaching staff-- the office, art supply room, and teacher's lounge/conference area, and then an attic on the very top level for storage. Did I mention it's an adorable old vintage house? I adore vintage homes because they have character, and I never dreamed I would find one up in suburbia!

Ok, so stopping here now before the "jinxing" starts. ;)

For Sharon

Blocks, Light and Shadows

Highlights of our Day

Damon and Lulu explored the Brown Stairs and the Pink Tower. After lining the brown tower in order from biggest to smallest, I turned the largest block a 90 degree angle, and then Damon immediately exclaimed, "Oh! A TRAIN!", so we decided to turn the rest at that angle, and we lined them up from largest to smallest. I continue to coach the children on using these particular [Montessori] materials (they like to build with them and tend to want to knock them over but these particular blocks aren't designed for that). They can certainly build and stack with these, just not knock them over (they're heavy). We use our regular wood block for that type of fun. =)The children also explored the cylinder knobs and since I have two, they got some good practice in on taking turns since each child likes to complete these independently.





While we were outside, Lulu was noticing her shadow, so I took that opportunity to talk with the children about shadow and what causes it. Then they all wanted to make shadows in the sand. This is good because we're going to be doing a lot of explorations with light very soon here!



Corbin enjoys pouring sand on the ledge of the sandbox and pushing the toy trucks through it. (He LOVES these toy trucks and cars). Also found him drawing circles in the sand.





Lots of gross motor running and chasing each other with the playsilks.



Our anticipated Napkin Art from this week:


A full spread today!

Mark, I keep meaning to tell you my son, Domi, thinks your napkin art is the coolest thing!

Emergent People





Art by Lulu


More fingerpaint exploration (and a pic from yesterday too).







Even though I don't do a 'Christmas theme', (you won't find your child gluing cotton balls on a cartoon cutout of Santa here) since I prefer to leave holidays to be a family affair, however, next week, I thought it would be nice to go along with our focus of LOVE, to make some St. Lucy Buns. So we'll be doing some culinary work next week in addition to our explorations.

*Editing to add note about blog readers*
There may be a couple readers who have expired 'permissions'. I think what happens is, if you don't log in with a google/gmail account, you can view the blog as a guest, but it's temporary and apparently auto expires after a month? I think a couple grandparents may be offlist now, but please let me know who, so I can add them back on, but they'll need to use a a google or gmail account if they want to be able to log in after the month is over.

~Andrea

Yoga! Yoga! We all scream for Yoga!

Oh.My.Goodness.

I cannot get over how FUN Yoga with Ms. Krista was!! Today was her first visit to the casa and she has such an AMAZING and gentle way with children and they were SUPER excited about our new weekly visitor. Lulu even brought a leotard and was hard pressed on changing into it before yoga started. SO CUTE. We gathered in the front piano room for space and had this wonderful warm morning light fill the room. I will filled with happiness watching how excited and happy the children were.

I didn't shoot as many pics as I wanted with everything going on, but here's a nice sampling.



Butterfly Wings










Cobra - Like a Snake




Happy Baby Pose




Triangle Pose


Downward Doggie Pose (doggies going pee pee) LOL!


Final Savasanah - Rest Pose






Namaste~