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For most parents traditional unstructured play seems pretty unrealistic in today’s society. Justified unease has lead to unrealized positive outcomes for children- until now. There is a happy medium: the hummingbird approach, observing from a distance, but always keenly. While the hummingbird parent is vigilant in observing, the idea is that the child doesn’t feel the full presence of the parent and thus free to develop those positive benefits of unstructured play.

Today, I saw an engineer building a robot, an artist painting a masterpiece, an explorer going into the woods, a mathematician measuring volume and gardener planting seeds. Today, I witnessed a doctor taking care of patients, an athlete running and jumping, a musician singing and playing an instrument, a dancer performing, a negotiator working out a problem. Today, I watched an architect building a skyscraper, a king giving a royal decree and a sculptor manipulating clay.

This weekly newsletter is authored by K/1 Co-Teacher Team, Alayne Vokurka and Heather Isham.

You probably don’t need a bit of help pouring out that love or responding when your child says, “I love you!” and “You are the best mom ever!” (I saw both of those on a written note today for one of our moms). We all know how to respond with “I love you too” or “I love you on Valentine’s Day and every day that is not Valentine’s Day too”. I wonder though, would you like to think a bit more about how to respond when your child screams, “I hate you!” (Or perhaps, “I hate Billy!” I hate Martie!”).

By taking the time to teach our children social skills in the classroom, we are giving them skills that they will use all of their life, whether at home with family, in high school with friends or with coworkers at a job.

We have completed a three-year comprehensive search and survey of the Middle Schools of our graduates to collect data – the empirical and the anecdotal – to track our graduates from the last three years. We have compiled their grades, test scores, teacher comments, report cards, and information about their student activities and involvement.  These results are from children who have attended other independent, public and parochial schools.

Talking with young children about race and identity issues can feel daunting for parents and even educators. We want to provide you with a few resources that address why we should start or continue these conversations and some suggestions to help you along the journey, especially as we celebrate Martin Luther King’s life and legacy on Monday.

These five Social/Emotional tenets - self awareness, self-management, responsible decision making, social awareness and relationship skills - are the most critical social and emotional learning competencies for effective learning to take place in a classroom and for an individual to reach his or her full potential.

The good news is that while standardized tests do play a role in our world, much of our concern, particularly around ERBs, is an overreaction. One of the benefits of a school like Virginia Chance School is that our children are protected from high-stakes testing (definition: testing with a direct consequence attached to the result). We are truly able to use these tests as they were designed—to inform our teaching practice and your child(ren)’s learning.

The Zones of Regulation curriculum is a platform we use all throughout Chance to strengthen our social-emotional learning. The learning activities we will explore this year are designed to help the students recognize when they are in different states called "zones," identify others' feelings, and use strategies to process challenging emotions to return to a calm, peaceful state. This ability to consciously regulate their actions, in turn, leads to increased control and problem-solving skills.