Participation in the Classroom

Sandy Hill Nursery School

Creating childhood memories

Incorporated in 1966

A Handbook for Parents

INTRODUCTION 2

THE COOPERATIVE NURSERY SCHOOL 2

PHILOSOPHY 3

CURRICULUM 5

ENRICHMENT 6

MEET YOUR STAFF 7

PARTICIPATION IN THE CLASSROOM 9

ADMISSIONS 11

Eligibility 11

Registration Procedure 11

Required Forms 11

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES 12

Drop off & pick-up 12

Illness 12

Behavior 13

Field Trips 13

Tuition Policy 13

Absentee Policy 13

Peanut Allergies 14

Snack 14

Earthquake Preparedness 14

YOUR RESPONSIBITIES AS A MEMBER 15

Classroom Participation 15

Fundraising 15

Work Parties 15

Board Meetings 16

Orientation and Parent Meetings 16

Revised August 2012

INTRODUCTION

Sandy Hill Nursery School is a non-profit, non-discriminatory organization that was founded in 1966 by parents. Though the school has continued to change throughout the years, it has maintained a philosophy based on a holistic, child-centered approach to education. The school is incorporated by the State of California and licensed by the Department of Social Services. Sandy Hill is a cooperative* or parent participation nursery school, managed by a board of directors who are elected by and from the parent body.

Sandy Hill leases its facilities from the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito. The school is not affiliated with that organization, but the two have enjoyed a mutually beneficial friendship over the years.

THE COOPERATIVE NURSERY SCHOOL

Being a member of a co-op is unlike being a member of any other kind of school. The membership is made up of families rather than of children. It is this community of families that is the primary recourse of the school. We are a community of adults committed to providing our children with a warm, happy, playful, and positive first schooling experience. The rewards of being there to watch your child grow in such an environment are innumerable.

A cooperative nursery school requires that you, as a parent, participate fully in your child’s preschool experience. Our parents assume the many responsibilities for the functioning of the school. All parents assist in our school by holding a board position or by serving on a committee. The successful operation of a cooperative school is solely dependent upon our membership. The active cooperation of every member is essential.

Our school is a growing and changing organization. New ideas are advanced, while some old policies persist, and others are updated. The continued validity of the preschool experience offered at Sandy Hill depends on the commitment of its parents to the ongoing process of evaluation and improvement. You, as a participating parent, help in shaping the program that influences the development and wellbeing of your child.

*The term “Co-Operative” or “co-op” as used here and throughout this handbook does not in any way describe the legal or financial structure of Sandy Hill. Sandy Hill is not a “cooperative” in the technical sense, but rather as a not-for-profit corporation as defined by section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

PHILOSOPHY

Holistic preschool education focuses on the growth and development of the whole child, whereas traditional education has concerned itself primarily with cognitive (intellectual) development. Holistic education recognizes the equal importance and interdependence of emotional, social, physical, cognitive, and creative development. The goal of holistic education is the development of a happy, productive human being.

Learning is a dynamic process that, at its best, does not occur in isolation. The cooperative school is not a facility in which adults teach children, but rather, is a community of adults and children who interact and learn with each other. Many of our goals may be defined in terms of the growth of children, but the environment in which this takes place is enriched tremendously by the influence of growing adults.

Children have perceptions of the world around them, which are very different from those of adults. Adults need to be sensitive to these perceptions and try to relate to children from their own point of reference. When we say our program is child-centered, we mean that its purposes, goals and overall focus are conceived with respect to the developmental needs of children rather than our own perceptions of how children should be.

Sandy Hill is an experience in emotional growth. Young children are just beginning to see themselves as individuals in their own right. Forming relationships with peers and adults outside their family circle dramatically intensifies new feelings of independence. It is important that children have a warm, supportive, non-threatening environment in which to assert their independence.

A child-centered environment provides children with many opportunities to succeed and develop a strong, positive sense of self. Children who acquire positive self-esteem in their early years have the advantage of inner resources, which will enable them to meet the educational, interpersonal, and professional challenges they will confront throughout their lives.

Facilitating emotional growth also means helping children to recognize and accept their feelings, and then to give them skills to express the feelings in appropriate ways. Within the safety and non-arbitrary limits, children need to be allowed to take responsibility for their behavior and develop their own internal limit setting. Adults need to be sensitive to the feelings, which motivate children’s behavior and understand how powerful these can be. Children who are overwhelmed by the power of their emotions need to be made aware of the constructive choices they have available to them.

Sandy Hill is an experience in social growth. The social skills, which will enrich their interpersonal relationships, are, perhaps, the most valuable skills children can acquire. Children, just as adults, must learn to communicate with one another in a way that is mutually satisfying. They need to be able to make their own needs known while at the same time respecting the needs of others. Children really do have the ability to talk to one another, to negotiate, and to make compromises. They often need the guidance of an adult who can intervene without intruding.

True empathy is beyond the developmental capabilities of preschool children, and it is important that we understand that. Still, we can plant the seed by modeling the kinds of values we want to impart. When children are in a humanistic environment where 1) every individual is respected and valued, 2) when behavior and performance are differentiated from self-worth, and 3) when feelings are unconditionally accepted, children are more apt to interact with one another in positive ways. In the kind of emotional climate is born empathy and human understanding.

Sandy Hill gives children a special opportunity to be part of a group. Participating in group activities in the classroom is only one dimension of the children’s awareness of themselves as belonging to the community, which extends beyond their own families. Because we are a co-op, we are warm and friendly and caring with one another, we create a group experience in which people nurture and are nurtured by one another. This is what community and cooperation are all about.

Sandy Hill is an experience in cognitive growth. From the time they are infants, children begin constructing and understanding the world. As they grow, their thought constructs evolve and change. According to Jean Piaget, a Swiss theorist who has greatly influenced current thought in the field of Child Development, children progress through a series of universal stages in their cognitive development. Although different children may differ in the ages at which they reach the various stages, the sequence of stages remains the same.

Children use their experiences to change their thought constructs as their intellectual development progresses. As they explore and experiment with their environment, they are gathering information that will enable them to develop an increasingly more sophisticated understanding of the world around them.

Piaget’s theory tells us that the child’s cognitive stages differ from one another qualitatively rather than quantitatively. Children do not think like adults do, do not process information in the same way, and therefore cannot make use of the same information we do. When we wish to give information to children, we need to do it in a way that is relevant to their understanding.

Preschool children relate to the world through egocentric means – their own senses, their own imaginations, and their own experiences. To support them in their cognitive growth, we need to provide sensory experiences that they can use to construct new concepts. As an example, a verbal explanation of the properties of water is meaningless to children. Provide them with water, containers, funnels, sand, and shovels, however, and they will discover these properties themselves. Ask a few questions, make a few suggestions, and you will be able to extend the learning experience. Learning for children is very personal. They assimilate information as it becomes part of their own experience.

Any activity that children enjoy doing is a medium through which they acquire knowledge (art, music, movement, etc...). The more opportunity there is for them to participate fully in an activity, the more valuable the experience will be as a learning tool. The only essential is that children are interested in an activity – it must be meaningful to them. Consequently, the most profound learning experiences often occur as a result of activities that are initiated by the children themselves. Above all, we want to support children as they pursue their own special interests and establish an approach to learning that is exciting and fun.

Sandy Hill is an experience in physical growth. Children need room to run and climb and grow strong. They also need to experiment with body movement. Sandy Hill has a unique outdoor environment that invites children to practice their physical skills in a natural setting. The children have a chance to become not only physically adept but also to learn to feel at home in the outdoors. Preschool children are working hard on small motor skills – using their hands and fingers to manipulate, cut, fold, and pour. In addition, our program focuses on body awareness – helping children to be sensitive to, comfortable with, and proud of their bodies.

Sandy Hill is an experience in creative growth. Children cannot be taught to be creative – they must be allowed to be. Unstructured, open-ended activities let children use their imaginations and discover their own creativity. We facilitate creative development in the school environment by providing a balance of enough freedom to explore and experiment and enough limits to avoid chaos. Creative activity is soothing, satisfying, and will help children develop an aesthetic awareness, as well as an appreciation of themselves as unique individuals. In a creative environment, individuality is reinforced. We want to support creativity, not only in aesthetic endeavors, but in thought processes and problem solving as well.

CURRICULUM

Our curriculum includes art, music, movement, drama and storytelling, science and nature, reading, writing and math readiness activities; mud, sand, and water play, and large and small motor activities. The program operates so that children have the opportunity to work individually, in small groups, and as a part of a large group, according to their interests. Some activities may be centered on a specific theme (i.e., Ourselves and Our Bodies, The Sea, Dinosaurs). Other activities may be designed to help children master a developmental task (i.e., cutting, pouring, for fine motor mastery). Because we are surrounded by nature, our Sandy Hill ecosystem influences our curriculum on a daily basis.

Play is the work of children. As teachers (this includes parents), our job is not to prevent play. But to encourage, stimulate, and enrich it. Children do not “just play”. They experiment, explore, and they discover. At this age everything children do is an act of learning. To support them we need to trust their ability to define their own learning process and realize how much young children do have to learn about the great big world. We must be careful not to judge the validity of an experience from an adult’s point of view, but rather be sensitive to the meaning it holds for children.

The way in which we approach the curriculum is as important as the curriculum’s content; we need to give as much consideration to how children learn as we do to what they will learn. Curriculum then, is a framework with plenty of empty spaces left for children to fill in. To be active, self-motivated learners, they need to be allowed to take the initiative to move in their own directions. The key to a sound curriculum is flexibility.

The goal of this program is not to “teach” specific information, but to provide a space where children can go about the business of growing and learning in their own ways in their own time. To meet this goal we must keep the following things in mind as we go about our day-to-day business of being teachers and parents:

Children learn by doing. To teach a concept to children is not to explain it in words, but to provide experiences thorough which the concept will be discovered. For a child to experience fully is not just to see or hear, but also to touch, to taste, and to handle – over and over again.

Children learn intuitively. As individuals, they have unique interests, perceptions, and imagery. We cannot choose their lessons for them; this is a choice they make best themselves. Our job is to make choices available to them.