Hands for Newsletter

 The Medical Center Nursery School 
Volume 15, Issue 5
  
January 2015
  
In This Issue
From the Office


 

Early Winter Morning on the Hudson

We can imagine that most of us will not be unhappy that January soon will be over, and the erratic weather that has been foisted on us, including the less-than-"epic" storm that wheezed through the city this week.   We still have February and part of March to deal with before the prospect of moderating weather.   We can only hope that the worst is behind us.    
       
Several new children began attending MCNS this and are integrating very well into their respective classes.    Interestingly enough, it seems to be a good time for some children to enter.   All of the other children have fully adapted to life in their classes and are thriving.   So, new children, even though they do have to go through an adjustment to this new environment, can see happy and involved children around them, which may be a reassuring situation for them.   Much as the fall and early winter, with all the holidays, are exciting times, we find that January and February, with fewer distractions and less outside stimulation, can allow young children to consolidate their growth; and we observe great progress in their mastery and skills.  
 
All of the reports for those children whose parents are applying to ongoing independent schools for next year were sent off by the end of the first week of this month.  We always are glad when the reports are completed, another yearly task done!  
       
Schedules for Mid-Year Teacher/Parent Conferences are posted near each classroom door.  Since we were not able to offer initial conferences in September, this is the first and an important opportunity for you to talk to your child's (or children's) teachers to discuss his or her (or their) development this year.  If you have not scheduled your conference, please do so at your earliest convenience.   


 

The Project Manager for the Tower 1 facade renovation spoke with us recently.  The facade work has been completed.   However, it was discovered during further inspection that the wall facing the courtyard of 70 Haven Avenue was seriously deteriorated and needed to be replaced.   That wall also forms the perimeter of the playground on the east side.   The wall is scheduled to be completed some time in February or possibly March (depending, of course, on weather conditions) and will include new fencing above the parapet to meet Health Code requirements.   This means that we should be able to return to the playground before spring arrives.   You may not realize that, while all this renovation work has been going on,  Peter Bulow, father of Isaac, who is in the Trailblazers' class, has been spending time sanding, sealing, and painting the climbing structure, which now glows with sensational bright colors!   When we are able to use the playground again, we will be able to enjoy an updated structure.   We are so, so grateful to Peter!

 

Linda will continue to conduct tours of the school for all parents who have applied for the next academic year, showing them the facility, explaining our approach to early childhood education, and describing our program.  It is always a joy to meet so many wonderful and enthusiastic parents and their simply delicious children, many of whom we hope to welcome into the MCNS community next year.


Speaking of next year, we would like to remind you that re-enrollment contracts for 2015 - 2016 will be distributed the week of February 23rd. The parent reply date (the same as the date for applying families) is March 6th.  The Board of Trustees will be meeting on February 3rd to determine tuition rates for next year's programs.  Information about financial aid for those of you who have applied also will be included with the re-enrollment contracts.   We look forward to welcoming many families back to MCNS next year.

      
Please note the two Monday closings in February (the 9th and the 16th) and the annual Staff Development Day on March 6th.  

 

 

Howard & Linda

 

 

Pre-Literacy in Young Children

Looking at books in the Library area

 

 

One of the textbooks I always require when I teach my language & literacy courses is called So Much More Than the ABCs: The Early Stages of Reading and Writing by Judith Schickedanz, one of the leading experts in early literacy in the country. This book is now in its third edition and also in its third title - the first one was More Than the ABCs, and the second became Much More Than the ABCs. I find it quite telling that the author keeps adding emphasis on the fact that what young children need is not just "learning their letters." The sad state of education in the U.S. keeps veering to a dangerously narrow definition of what students need to know, always focusing on what is next rather than what is happening in the moment, always moving (racing, actually!) fast to reach some invisible "top" by way of piling factual information onto children's brains and expecting them to remember it all for some purpose they will hypothetically encounter sometime "later on." Not because it might be relevant now, but to be prepared for whatever should be coming up next.

 

Yet, children learn holistically, through play, which is the children's version of trial-and-error, and by participating in investigative real-life experiences, led by their innate curiosity and need to make sense of the world around them - which is NOW. This is true of everything they learn - and literacy is just one of these things. When children are surrounded by language, they learn to talk. When they are surrounded by meaningful interactions, they learn how to interact appropriately. When they are surrounded by music, they learn to dance, sing, and play whatever can be made into an instrument. When they have developed a rich spoken vocabulary and the understanding of why we have conversations and discussions, and are surrounded by print and by people reading and writing for a purpose, they also want to be part of that environment that seems so intriguing and exciting and valuable.

 

So, one of the important messages I want to convey is that the families of our MCNS children are evidently doing a fabulous job! Our children come to school already competent in so many areas that sometimes we wonder what else we need to do to add to that richness... What we do is to keep building onto these competencies and encourage them to expand their levels of curiosity, play abilities, and interactions. We scaffold new ideas, new ways to express them, and new skills to handle consequences of experimentation. We read with them, talk with them, dance and sing, and play with them. We model counting, measuring, estimating, sorting, writing, drawing, telling stories, experimenting, and pondering. We listen, discuss, document, and extend.

 

Lilian Katz, another giant of early childhood education, once stated that adults in the U.S. tend to overestimate children academically while we underestimate them intellectually. With this provoking thought, she urges us to trust that children are capable of having ideas and expressing them if we convey to them that this is an important endeavor. In her own words: "An appropriate curriculum in the early years is one that encourages and motivates children to seek mastery of basic academic skills (e.g., beginning writing skills) in the service of their intellectual pursuits."[1]  She also says, "... even very young children are most likely making inferences about what adults care about based on multiple observations of the adults' actual behavior in context."[2]

 

A book I just came across discusses the neuroscience involved in learning to read. Here's how the author ends his introduction and transitions to the first chapter: "Children must learn to speak before they learn to read. How well they learn to speak and what pre-reading vocabulary they acquire can have a great impact on how quickly and how successfully they will learn to read with comprehension."[3]

 

Back to the pre-literacy issue: I find that concept a bit misleading, for there is no real threshold between "pre" literacy and "real" literacy. It is all a continuum that starts from the minute a child comes into this world and starts watching, listening, interacting, and learning about things, people, concepts, and connections. What is being developed in a so-called "pre-literacy stage" is a foundation for what we adults have decided to consider as "real" literacy, which I define as the actual reading (with comprehension) of a written text plus the actual writing of a text that others can read. Such a foundation consists of everything else: the conversations we have with children and those they have with their peers; the things we point out to them as we walk to the supermarket and search for our groceries as well as the things they start noticing on their own; the shapes we find around us and point out to them; the sounds we hear and call their attention to; the objects we manipulate and explore; the art we admire together; the travels we take as a family and the field trips we take as a group; the laughs and the sad moments and all the emotions we share; the playing children and adults engage in together; and especially listening to one another. In a nutshell, the world. When we give children these gifts of life we honor their abilities and respect their right to learn in the organic way our brains are wired to do. When we recognize that literacy grows from rich spoken language together with play and experimentation, when we fully understand that memorizing letters and decoding the alphabetic principle are just a VERY small piece of the puzzle, we provide the best possible foundation for literacy. There is SO much more than the ABCs...

 

_____________________________ 

[1] Katz, L.G. (2010). STEM in the early years. ECRP - Beyond This Issue, SEED Papers. http://ecrp.illinois.edu/beyond/seed/katz.html

[2] Katz, L.G. (1994). What can we learn from Reggio Emilia? in Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (1994). The hundred languages of children. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.

[3] Sousa, D.A. (2014). How the brain learns to read (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.


Links:

Katz article (PDF format)

Pre-Literacy-What is it any way? (PDF format) 

 

 

Listening to a story

Liege Motta

Early Literacy in the Classrooms

Perusing a book

Pre-literacy- Virtually everything that occurs in all of the classes at MCNS involves what we used to call readiness skills and now refer to as pre-literacy. Pre-literacy encompasses a wide variety of abilities including print awareness, the awareness of sounds, the ability to identify numbers and letters, oral language allowing conversations, and an extensive vocabulary, among others. At MCNS each room provides a language- and print-rich environment conducive to the acquiring of these important skills in an age-appropriate manner. What follows are just a few specific examples from each classroom.

  

Explorers and Navigators

 

The Explorers are young. Some of them have just begun to acquire speech. The teachers in this room emphasize conversational language. Conversations are important for language acquisition. Therefore they engage the children in conversation as much as possible.

 

Examples of conversations - A recent conversation concerned the popular television characters, the Ninja Turtles. A child approached a teacher. He said, "Ninja Turtles." The teacher repeated his words. "Ninja Turtles." "I watch them," he said." There's this many (shows five fingers) and they count them together. "Red is Raphael. Michaelangelo is orange," he says.

 

Snow was another topic of interest to the children. It is very exciting. After all, if you are only two years old, you might not even remember last year's snow.

 

"I touched the snow." said a child. "What did it feel like?" asked a teacher. "Chocolate!"  said the child. Another child had been listening to the conversation. "I ate the snow." she said. "What did it taste like?" asked the teacher. "Yucky!" Still another child offered his opinion, "Vanilla!"

 

 

 Read full article (PDF format) 

 

Making a name with playdough


 

Susan Milligan 

  

The JEN Conference

MCNS music specialist, Louise Rogers, and storyteller, Susan Milligan, attended the Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference in San Diego, California. On January 8th they presented a workshop entitled Jazz Mosaic: Jazz Activities for the Early Childhood Classroom. Participants explored activities and techniques for teaching jazz to young children; Louise and Susan introduced jazz basics such as scat singing, rhythmic patterns, and the blues in their unique blending of storytelling and jazz. The educators who attended were eager to learn how to teach jazz to the very young in early childhood classrooms. The workshop included material from their three books, Jazzy Fairy Tales volumes I and II and Jazz Mosaic, all available from Alfred Music Publishing. 

"The JEN conference was a very inspiring experience. There were over 3000 jazz musicians attending, all of whom are also educators," said Louise. 

"Herbie Hancock, the keynote speaker, was especially inspiring to me," said Susan. "He encouraged teachers to involve and inspire all students. Be sure to tell that student who might not realize the talent he has. His confidence will grow. A teacher can never know how much a few kind and encouraging 
words can mean. It can make all the difference in the world."

Attendees acknowledged the role their own teachers had in developing their skills and interest in music and the important role they themselves have in bringing jazz to the next generation. The combination of their enthusiasm for both jazz and teaching made the workshops thought provoking and worthwhile. There were also performances throughout the days and evenings from teachers and their students as well.
Events & School Closings

Please note the following dates of important dates and school closings in February and March 2015: 

 

Mid-Year Teacher/Parent Conferences
Jan. 26 - Feb. 6
Board of Trustees Meeting at 6:00 PM
Feb. 3
Fund-Raising Brunch & Jazz Concert
Feb. 8
SCHOOL CLOSED - Abraham Lincoln's Birthday observed
Feb. 9
SCHOOL CLOSED - George Washington's Birthday/President's Day
Feb. 16
SCHOOL CLOSED - Annual Staff Development Day
Mar.6
JAZZ FESTIVAL 
Mar.11- Mar 25
Last day for the Half Day Sessions before Spring Vacation
Mar. 27
School open for Full Day Session (Half Day available by arrangement)
Mar. 30- Apr. 1
School open for Full Day Session
(Half Day available by arrangement)
Apr. 8 - Apr. 10
All Sessions resume regular schedules
Apr. 13
Jazz Festival 2015

MCNS is happy to announce that the sixth annual Jazz Festival will take place from March 11th through March 25th. Six years ago Louise conceived the idea of a musical celebration that would include the entire MCNS community, and thus the Jazz Festival was born.

Louise Rogers and Susan Milligan have been teaching jazz to MCNS children for many years. Why jazz? Jazz is a play-centered approach to music, a developmentally appropriate learning style for young children. Jazz swings, it's imaginative, improvisational, spontaneous, playful and lots of fun.

A highlight of the Festival has been the parent volunteers who share their love of jazz in their
children's classrooms. We hope that if you play an instrument, are a dancer or an artist, have favorite jazz recordings to share or even want to juggle to jazz music as a father did in the past, and you want to be a part of the Festival, please contact Louise Rogers. She will be happy to arrange a convenient time for you to join the various presentations.

Jazz 2014
January Newsletter
Birthdays

The following members of the MCNS community celebrated or will celebrate birthdays in January:

 

Ander Ye - January 3      

Ian Levitt - January 11

Lily Snyder - January 17

Rishabh Shriram - January 31

 

Happy Birthday to ALL!

 

The Medical Center Nursery School 
Phone: 212.304.7040
Fax: 212.544.4243
Email: mcns@mcns.org
     MCNS NEWS Writers and Editors 
Howard Johnson
Susan Milligan
Terence Milligan
Liege Motta
Photo Editor    Pat Shelton