The Child Development Cooperative

We talk quite a lot about the whole learning experience here at the Co-op. We stress to everyone that we are NOT a daycare or babysitting service but a developmental learning center. We will actually teach and learn using all five of our senses, (even if to the untrained eye, it appears as though we are having fun) in learning/exploring the world around us.   

Aaron writes his name in the shaving cream.

We incorporate this idea of using all the senses (refresher: touch, smell, taste, hearing, and sight) into our curriculum and our day-to-day activities. We believe so strongly in reenforcing utilization of our whole bodies to learn, that we even devoted a whole month to the senses. February is usually all about love and hearts. We talked about that in the traditional way,sure, but also in a more un-conventional way. We smelled sweet candy smells but we also smelled funky ones like vinegar and wet dirt and compared the two. We guessed what our lunch was each day by using different senses and learned that our eyes aren’t always the best judge of greencolored milk. We learned what happens when you mix pebbles in with oil, lotion, and shaving cream. We saw what happened when you added blue and yellow paint to that same shaving cream mess! (I tried to get them to taste it to see if it was like the green milk, but my smarty pants kids weren’t having it. ) We tasted king cake with our eyes closed, we licked that paint and found out it is yucky but fun, and we played sound bingo. (No one knew what the picture was of the old fashioned phone, by the way…so funny when they didn’t believe me.)   

Hearing

Sight

We had a ball. We learned so much about our worlds and each other. So next time you think about those early years and if you are doing the right thing with your kids, just plop a whole bunch of textured stuff in a bag and get your kid to guess/feel it with their eyes closed. Use all your senses at dinner with each other. Taste the playdough. Go on…   

Stay tuned, but our caterpillars are getting ever so closer to making their way to us…

if you ask some of our pregnant moms, they may say that the babies aren’t coming by inches or even centimeters. good luck ladies, and we so can’t wait until we get to see our new babies!!

My favorite part about The Child Development Co-op is how we allow our kids to actually be kids when they learn. I wanted to just take a minute (or a few lines anyway) to talk about how we learn here at the Co-op. Learning is messy, but it is how children grow. If you don’t ever allow a child to eat with a fork by themselves, then they will never learn to really eat autonomously. If you never allow a wobbler to pick up a paintbrush for fear of mess, then they will never appreciate how amazing it is to pass a brush across a piece of paper, or paperplate, or scrap of paper with a big ol’ glob of bright blue paint with a whole bunch of glitter mixed in!

We want to encourage creativity in our children, while allowing them to be successful in what they do. Teacher assisted, community oriented, child guided activities are what we live for. An example of some super fantastic, whole learning was trying to find something, ANYTHING to fit into the letter U, animal, and the habitats–jungle, forest, or zoo as that is the focus for January. Do you know how hard it is to find something that goes with U and is an animal?!@!#

Somehow paint seems to get on her face everytime!

So I consulted our families and one of our Co-op dads suggested an Umbrella bird! Check it out! It is for real. One of our teachers recently realized that the kids weren’t great at shaking the cinnamon/glitter container when making said bird’s fancy hairdoo. (Obviously if we are going to have some sort of fabulous bird, we need glitter!) This realization became a lesson in fine motor control for the whole school. We have since discovered, according to our own children’s direction, that our focus should be on activities surrounding hand-eye coordination and finger dexterity. The little ones have worked on free association techniques and glitter container shaking, while the middle age kids are learning what the letter U looks like while working on projects that glue feathers, and my oldest kids are now being taught the letter Uu and the alphabet, using sign language as this is a great way to exercise those tiny fingers and practice dexterity. If we would have just stuck to our plan without consulting the actual learning of our kids involved, we would have never allowed them to get messy and never realized where their learning needs were.

Making our own tracks!

We have winter! We never have winter.

Being a teacher in Louisiana poses some interesting challenges when it comes to concepts like snow, winter, and even changing seasons. We have hot, hotter, and “ooh remember that cool day in November” weather. Well, this year it has been easy! I actually asked my kids and they have seen snow, with their own eyes, not just on TV or in a book! We went outside this week at the Co-op and some of our toys had frozen water inside! They threw ice and let it break all over. We talked about mittens, and some kids not only owned a pair but were wearing some. And hot cocoa is finally appropriate.

And then…well, Louisiana isn’t used to the cold, so of course we had to close. What do you expect? It is cold out there

Luckily, we have someone special to help keep us warm. She is not only a regular at the Co-op and a local musician, but she is our very own music teacher. Ms. Dorothy, as we all call her, is someone who will get our toes a-tapping each week and warm not only our bodies, but our hearts. Check out her website, where she has a page dedicated to the songs she does each week. We love our Ms. Dorothy and know you will too. For an opportunity to experience just how great she is, you can see her on Thursdays at the Co-op. Come by for a tour or check her out this Saturday where she’ll be at Brew-Ha-Ha spreading the love from 9:30am-11. She’ll be there every every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month, so mark your calendars and stay warm with some coffee and the toasty tunes of Dorothy LeBlanc!

It was a fiesta kind of Christmas here at the Co-op. Our kids made and decorated pinatas that were made to look like tree ornaments. We served up potluck mexican food and listened to some great festive Spanish music. Each class took turns wacking away at their pinatas and loved to see the treats fall to the ground. There will be glitter all over everything until next Christmas, but it was worth it!