Sylvia Street Playschool

Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege - Joseph Fasano

Look who came to visit Sylvia Street Playschool today!! Grace Lore, she's B.C.'s Minister for Childcare (https://www.facebook.com/GraceInVic) and is working so hard to understand what will be needed to sustain a healthy supported childcare program that is available to all families in B.C. Thank-you Grace, I for one greatly appreciate what you are doing!!

A post in celebration of International Dog Day, a day that recognizes the number of dogs needing rescue each year, and their contribution working selflessly to keep us safe & bring comfort (thanks for the inspiration Carmel).

Our Rosie is gone, she brought us so much joy, always beyond happy to see her special people. She never forgot an old friend, and warmed many the heart of a tentative child at Sylvia Street Playschool.

We learned so much from her, she was a WILD THING in her youth, she never stopped moving. For the first 5 years of her life she lived outside in the day and slept with the boy at night. She was rescued as a pup from Dawson City in the Spring of 2006. She came from a sled dog heritage that shone brightly throughout her life. She pulled, and pulled, and pulled on a leash. She was relentless, but from the time she adopted us we never had to get the snow cat to take our gear to the ski cabin, attach a toboggan and Rosie was in her element. A true working mind set too, when she was on the job she was on the job, rarely stopped to eat or drink anything until we were home.

She loved boating. Canoes, kayaks, row boats, runabouts, but sailboats not so much, a bit tricky changing tacks. She was happiest hiking in the woods of Lasqueti, she always maintained at least 20 foot lead, stopped when we did, waited patiently, went back to find stragglers, nudged them along, kept track of us all.

She was 16, and like Judith Kerr's "Mog the Forgetful Cat" she slowly got more and more tired. It didn't stop her from greeting everyone who came by, and doing her due diligence on raccoon surveillance though, but near the end she was dead tired…"Mog thought, 'I want to sleep for ever."

She hung on long enough to say good bye to the boy. She died Friday July 29th out in her yard with her family around her. We are so sad, she will be terribly missed. Oh how we loved our loyal, sweet, enthusiastic, curious, old, daft dog

All terrain vehicles for caterpillars built from loose parts,
everyone can drive cause there are driver's seats everywhere!

Dawdling our way back from the beach, we need time to ride the cedar-rail fence like a bicycle, climb the rock, wrestle in the field, draw a chalk line all the way home on the sidewalk, and notice the rainbow with the pot of gold at the end. Just a few of the times we got back for lunch REALLY late from the beach.

So if you were outside playing with some sq**rt bottles and there happened to be some small tubing around, would it have crossed your mind to put them together and experiment with hydraulics?

And better yet, as their teacher would you have thought to put hydraulics in the curriculum? Kids are driven to learn, they are ever curious and ever inventive, they don't need us to show them how to play, they just know.

Sometimes children's thinking isn't as obvious as it first seems. Sometimes it takes looking through their lens to understand the learning that's unfolding....

We do so much every day at playschool, the kids are busy the whole time. Sometimes though I forget how powerful an experience can be for them. And then I get an email that says, "We enjoyed J’s delicious potatoes with dinner the other night. He was so proud, what a wonderful experience," and I'm reminded just how fulfilling it is to spend my days with young children...

Tide pooling is like going on a treasure hunt, you never know what you'll find or what connections you'll make...

All Winter long we climbed the rocks and ran along the logs, the tide was high and we played chicken with the waves. Come Spring the tides got lower and lower until one day eelgrass covered the shore, we had to watch where we put our feet down...