OUR NEW PRESCHOOL
Our big news this time is that Pacific Spirit Preschool will be opening its doors in September. We have more information about the preschool below, but want to emphasize that current Pacific Spirit families have priority for the preschool! The 3 year old classes will be full, so if you have a child you would like to be entering the preschool, please contact our preschool Principal, Emme Bryant as soon as possible. There is also a 4 year old program in which we still have spaces available, and a program for 30 month old children begins in January. Emme comes to us from Little Ark Preschool in Point Grey where she has been working as an educator. She will be joined by Emily Dickson who completed her training at Capilano University and was an intern at Little Ark. The program is based on the Reggio Emilia philosophy, with which the Pacific Spirit/Life Song philosophy is sometimes compared.
You can visit the Preschool Website and more information about the preschool philosophy, environment, and materials is included below.
Philosophy
The teaching team at Pacific Spirit Preschool views the child as a protagonist, a philosopher, an investigator and a scientist. We believe they are competent and capable both as a learner, and as a teacher to others when extending their knowledge by scaffolding their peers. Children are not just learning, they are also learning how to learn. Through the children's quest for knowledge, teachers are constantly learning too
-learning how to teach. Every year, month, day, children express new ideas and interests with new tools, techniques and materials. With the teachers learning as children do about any given topic of interest, they also learn about the children, themselves as teachers and as a team, which creates the reciprocity of being partners in learning.
We believe each child is a unique individual with their own personality, skills, interests, experiences and desires. We believe that this diversity adds to the richness of the larger group and preschool community. And because each child is unique, we strive to accommodate each type of learner through a variety of activities in a variety of ways. For example, some children learn most naturally through drawing while others may need to represent their knowledge three-dimensionally through clay, or by building with blocks. It is our role, as teachers and facilitators, to foster each child's unique, authentic growth and development through play based activities that assist in guiding all children to reach their full potential on many different levels, including emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually.
Environment
The environment is a very important aspect of the Pacific Spirit Preschool program, essentially acting as a third teacher. We believe that the preschool environment, as a third teacher, is aesthetically pleasing, provokes wonder and curiosity, presents challenges and choices, facilitates movement, fosters relationships as well as individual space, and offers ownership to each of the children. The environment is a dynamic space in which open-ended and natural materials can be utilized in a mixture of methods and transferred to multitude of locations.
As from Gandini & Edwards, a learning environment
"must be a space that welcomes the individual, the group, the action, and the reflection." Thus, it encompasses spaces that are high/low, large/small, public/private, and quiet/loud. There are spaces for observing, thinking, and for doing. These spaces are, of course, always aesthetically pleasing, engaging and meaningful for every child, as well as inviting and inspiring to anyone who enters the environment.
Children's sense of ownership over the environment is visible in the classroom when children are engaged within it, and also when it is empty. Even when void of children, parents and other guests who visit the environment are still be able to recognize the children's personalities, values, interests, as well as their theories and ideas that they may be exploring.
Rinaldi said, "We believe classrooms are laboratories in democracy, where children practice the responsibility of citizenship." With this is mind, there is a strong emphasis on empathy and on choice, and the children gain respect for themselves, for their peers and for the environment. They learn to express their own personal thoughts and desires in a manner that is still considerate and respectful of their classmates.
While children are individuals within the environment, they also have a sense of belonging to the group, the school, their family and the world around them. The environment fosters connections amongst peers, and also with the natural world around them. This relationship is often achieved by 'bringing the outdoors in' and the 'indoors out' whenever possible.
At all times we strive to have natural light infusing the environment, streaming through windows and the transparency of materials. Light is perpetually reflecting off of mirrors illuminating the preschool space. We also strive to have the environment free from as many chemical toxins as possible by utilizing organic cleaners and purchasing natural wood toys. On a much larger scale, we also strive to keep the preschool free from the intensity of advertising and media that is directed towards children.
Materials
"Materials are subjects of learning." Materials are any items or 'stuff' within the classroom that can be transformed and utilized by the children -anything from playdough to markers and cloth. These materials always encompass a variety of texture, pattern, colour, tone, opacity and contrast. They are open ended, flexible, adaptable, manipulative, imaginative, tactile, expressive, experimental, and can be utilized to create/represent in all three dimensions -such as drawing, collage, and constructing.
Materials are always accessible for the children, and are displayed in an aesthetic manner that is organized and thought provoking. There is a strong emphasis on "getting to know" the material before children come to create with it. We value the natural hands-on process that children employ when they experience materials, especially for the first time. When manipulating materials -be it paint
or cellophane etc- we encourage children to feel it, taste it, smear it, splatter it, step on it, throw it, stretch it, cut it, poke it, smash it, and so on. While it sounds messy -and it certainly can be- it is engaging for the children and provides them with endless opportunities to learn about properties of any/all materials, provoking their imaginations to determine how it could be used in a creative, meaningful way.
With this in mind, we focus on 'the process versus the product'. That is, teachers consistently express interest in how a child created something (what their thought process and interpretation might have been) rather than what their representation is actually of. We find that this promotes critical thinking, and demonstrates to children that we are genuinely interested in talking about their creation, not just uncovering an answer. Providing room for expression is another important aspect of our program. Expression through materials comes naturally to children, and is not a lesson, as such, but rather it is an integral part of the entire learning process. For this reason, each activity within the classroom will often have 'layers of possibility', which also accommodates different types of learners, abilities, interests, and levels of play.
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