The Eastern Ridge School

Questions like this from a preschooler can feel tricky to answer. These scripts are helpful for those moments where you a fumbling for the “right” words! 🌈

Photos from Calm Parenting Podcast's post

Setting Limits With Toddlers - The Choices They Can't Make - Janet Lansbury

Setting Limits With Toddlers - The Choices They Can't Make - Janet Lansbury ‘Respect’ is vital to parenting, but the word can confuse us, especially when it comes to setting limits with toddlers. Children need lots of opportunities to be autonomous and have their choices respected. At the same time, they also need to know they’re not in charge, and we demonstrate that...

Yes, it’s true that Kindergarten has transformed into First Grade. Yes, children will need to learn academics, listen and sit still. But that certainly doesn’t mean that these lessons should be straight-jacketed onto them in the toddler and preschool years. In fact, the funneling down of structured learning is all the more reason to let children play while they can. We must fiercely protect this precious, ever shrinking window of time for our children.

Play is enough. Play is enough. Play is enough. This should be our educational mantra for the first 5 years.

Don't let your preschoolers forget how to play —>
https://www.janetlansbury.com/2012/06/dont-let-your-preschoolers-forget-how-to-play/

Fabulous turnout for our annual Garden Awakening. We came together as a community and planted veggies, herbs, and pollinators; we planted fruit trees and evergreen seedlings. We tackled shoring up our sliding hill, we painted garden labels, we worked, played and got to know current, incoming and alumni students, parents and staff. What a special day! (Post 1 of 2)

Fabulous turnout for our annual Garden Awakening. We came together as a community and planted veggies, herbs, and pollinators; we planted fruit trees and evergreen seedlings. We tackled shoring up our sliding hill, we painted garden labels, we worked, played and got to know current, incoming and alumni students, parents and staff. What a special day! (Post 2 of 2)

Many thanks to Taylor and Fairfax Releaf for bringing us many tree seedlings to help us reforest our space with native species. She taught us how to plant them and started us off with a sycamore and some loblolly pines. What a perfect way to usher in Earth Day 2023!
#earthday #naturebasedlearning #learningoutside #virginianativeplants #naturebasedpreschool
@sundayafternoons_hats

Kicking off Earth Day a little early…

Many thanks to Taylor and Fairfax Releaf for bringing us many tree seedlings to help us reforest our space with native species. She taught us how to plant them and started us off with a sycamore and some loblolly pines. What a perfect way to usher in Earth Day 2023! #earthday #naturebasedlearning #learningoutside #virginianativeplants #naturebasedpreschool @sundayafternoons_hats

Loose parts are great for just chilling or for hanging out with the whole gang!

https://nextdoor.com/p/5tMdKLGzdGxj?utm_source=share&extras=MzY4OTc5MjE%3D
We are hiring! Local friends, please share!

The night sky has captivated the musings and imaginations of our 4-5 year old preschoolers. They loved learning about the constellations and some of the symbols represented from Greek mythology, and then theytapped into their own creativity, story- telling and fine and visual-motor skills by creating their own.

Eastern Ridge School on Instagram: "Rainbows are a powerful symbol with a multitude of associations in our culture. That’s probably because they are one of the most beautiful and intriguing manifestations of the natural world. For young children,..

Check out how something as ubiquitous as a rainbow 🌈 in the month of March takes on new meaning and inspires multimodal learning via emergent curriculum and the project approach to learning in a nature based preschool setting.

Eastern Ridge School on Instagram: "Rainbows are a powerful symbol with a multitude of associations in our culture. That’s probably because they are one of the most beautiful and intriguing manifestations of the natural world. For young children,..

7 Reasons Kids Need to Disagree - Janet Lansbury

7 Reasons Kids Need to Disagree - Janet Lansbury It can be our tendency as parents to avoid conflict with our children. But disagreements are a natural part of our parent/child relationship and a healthy (though seldom fun) interaction. The irony is that if we practice the art of respectful disagreement, our relationship will strengthen, deepen, a...

Are you getting ready for the Great Backyard Birdcount? Be sure to add some of these titles to your reading this week!

Thank you to Laura Rogers, nature preschool support teacher at Fenner Nature Preschool, for compiling this list!

Rinse and repeat.

"Spoil" your child with unconditional acceptance and love, with positive words of affirmation, with positive visions of the future, with encouragement and understanding when struggling, with belief in their dreams, with encouragement to explore and be curious and get muddy and dirty.

Do not spoil your child with things.

But do spoil them with experiences. Spoil your child with hugs and smiles. Spoil your child with patience. Lots of patience. And even more patience.

These things you will not regret.

Love this! It may seem like semantics, but the shift from “I won’t let you” to “I will help you” is so powerful!

Say the 2 phrases aloud & notice the difference in energy.

Thank you, @thepeacefulparentproject for this insight!
✨
Posted @withregram • @thepeacefulparentproject We don’t want our kids to feel like their big emotions and impulsive behaviours our bigger than our ability to intervene and help. Providing emotional containment and maintaining boundaries around safety and bodily autonomy is important. However, simply shifting your language around boundaries from “I won’t let you” to “I will help you” helps move you away from a power struggle and toward collaboration. Even when you need to step in to stop your child from doing something unsafe, “I will help you stop” helps prevent you and your child from seeing each other as adversaries and instead get back on the same team.

Remember: given their brain development and level of arousal/nervous system activation, it is sometimes unrealistic to expect kids to stop themselves. Repeating yourself “stop hitting” or “stop throwing” when they are overwhelmed may only contribute to their dysregulation and feelings of shame (“I want to stop myself but somehow can’t, does this make me bad?).

The “I will help you…” doesn’t mean we need to be wishy-washy and skirt around our boundary. We can still be clear: e.g. “hitting hurts AND I see you are having a hard time stopping. I will help keep everyone safe and help you stop”

Try these reframed and notice how the change feels in your body:
⭐️ “I won’t let you dump your cereal all over the floor. Breakfast is over” ➡️ “You are dumping your cereal. I don’t want a big mess to clean up, but you seem to be having a hard time stopping when I ask. I will help you stop”

⭐️ “You can be angry, but I won’t let you speak to me that way.” ➡️ “This conversation is really hard and intense. It is bringing up a lot of anger in both of us. I’m going to hit the pause button to help prevent either of us from saying something we don’t mean”

⭐️ “I won’t let you jump on the couch” ➡️ “I’m worried about safety. I’m going to help you get off the couch and find something else to jump on”

Even Dr. Becky can use a tweak every once in a while. I Am sure she would accept/appreciate the constructive feedback. So here’s a follow up to an earlier post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CoSUV0ivW9S/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Love this! It may seem like semantics, but the shift from “I won’t let you” to “I will help you” is so powerful! Say the 2 phrases aloud & notice the difference in energy. Thank you, @thepeacefulparentproject for this insight! ✨ Posted @withregram • @thepeacefulparentproject We don’t want our kids to feel like their big emotions and impulsive behaviours our bigger than our ability to intervene and help. Providing emotional containment and maintaining boundaries around safety and bodily autonomy is important. However, simply shifting your language around boundaries from “I won’t let you” to “I will help you” helps move you away from a power struggle and toward collaboration. Even when you need to step in to stop your child from doing something unsafe, “I will help you stop” helps prevent you and your child from seeing each other as adversaries and instead get back on the same team. Remember: given their brain development and level of arousal/nervous system activation, it is sometimes unrealistic to expect kids to stop themselves. Repeating yourself “stop hitting” or “stop throwing” when they are overwhelmed may only contribute to their dysregulation and feelings of shame (“I want to stop myself but somehow can’t, does this make me bad?). The “I will help you…” doesn’t mean we need to be wishy-washy and skirt around our boundary. We can still be clear: e.g. “hitting hurts AND I see you are having a hard time stopping. I will help keep everyone safe and help you stop” Try these reframed and notice how the change feels in your body: ⭐️ “I won’t let you dump your cereal all over the floor. Breakfast is over” ➡️ “You are dumping your cereal. I don’t want a big mess to clean up, but you seem to be having a hard time stopping when I ask. I will help you stop” ⭐️ “You can be angry, but I won’t let you speak to me that way.” ➡️ “This conversation is really hard and intense. It is bringing up a lot of anger in both of us. I’m going to hit the pause button to help prevent either of us from saying something we don’t mean” ⭐️ “I won’t let you jump on the couch” ➡️ “I’m worried about safety. I’m going to help you get off the couch and find something else to jump on”

Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting on Instagram: "Have your kids jumped on the couch, used potty talk at the dinner table, or acted on another, not so appropriate urge? Does saying “Stop that right now!” do little or nothing to help? Well, if so, your

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoTMk19BT6-/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting on Instagram: "Have your kids jumped on the couch, used potty talk at the dinner table, or acted on another, not so appropriate urge? Does saying “Stop that right now!” do little or nothing to help? Well, if so, your 314 Likes, 3 Comments - Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting () on Instagram: "Have your kids jumped on the couch, used potty talk at the dinner table, or acted on another, not so appropriate urge? Does saying “Stop that right now!” do little or nothing to help? Well, if so, your ki...

Photos from The Eastern Ridge School's post

SUMMER CAMP ENROLLMENT IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
Cold snap got you down? Never fear, dreams of summer fun are near! ERS Summer Camp has everything your young children need to have a summer filled with old-fashioned, outdoor, sun and water splashed, toes in the sand, hands in the soil, adventuresome spirits in the forest kind of summer. ERS Summer Camp is a summer full of joyful, playful, wonder-filled discovery, fun, and friendship for children ages 2-6 on three sprawling acres in Great Falls, VA. https://www.easternridgeschool.org/programs/summer-camp/

On the topic of process art vs product art.

“Product” art is like— doing a craft. There’s supposed to be a set result and everybody’s is supposed to look a set way. Sometimes I hear arguments for the positive side of product art in terms of teaching children specific fine motor skills; i.e., if everybody has to cut out their project in exactly the same way, then they work on cutting, or things like that. Sure, I can see an argument to be made there. I’m not saying crafts are evil. They’re fine. I loved crafts when I was a kid.

“Process” art is what young children (toddlers, preschoolers, early elementary) are drawn to if they’re not interfered with, though. They aren’t thinking about what the end result will look like when they set out—not if they haven’t been acted upon by an adult or other outside force! They might explore the way colors mix on the paper, they might pretend the pencil is a car zooming around the page, they might try to put stickers on the page and then take them back off to see what happens. They might mix materials in creative ways—stick stickers onto wet paint; squeeze out huge globs of liquid glue; try to color on the liquid glue with markers to see what happens. The focus is on the process.

I honestly find process art perfectly sufficient for learning new fine motor techniques too. Kids, in my experience, have just as much fun (if not more) and learn just as much (if not more) using the scissors to cut out whatever they’re imagining or processing or whatever weird material I’ve set in front of them — leaves from outside, wet noodles, dry noodles, straws, paper scraps — as they do cutting out a set craft material.

“What about waste?” people commonly ask me. “You say that you let kids learn how to glue by just squeezing out glue and not telling them any different, but isn’t that wasteful?”

Play is learning, and learning isn’t wasteful. It’s OK to preemptively only set out what materials you’re OK with them using all of. Put half the bottle of glue away, in a different container, to be returned to the white bottle after you’re done; or put only a bit of it out, in a cup with a paintbrush, or mix it with a bit of water or paint to stretch it, or involve the child in the exploring.

Ask yourself before entering into an art/play exploration: what would I be okay with them literally using one hundred percent of? Only give them access to that much of everything. Kids can be creative within limitations — some of the best art comes from working within boundaries!

[Image description: Six pieces of artwork, each made with what looks like watercolour paint but each one extremely different. One appears to show a butterfly, one shows something like the outline of an elephant, a few look like they have exploration of square-shaped stamps involved, and one looks like an exploration of color mixing. The caption says, “You know you’re doing it right when no two pieces of children’s work look the same.” The image was made by Cuddlebug Kids whose handle is also on the image. End description.]

Things sometimes get cozy like this by 4:45 on Fridays.

We have a rare mid-year opening for a 3.5-5 year old in our nature-based preschool program starting in January 2023. Email Julie at [email protected] to learn more!

Giving Tuesday is a great time to consider supporting the causes that are important to you. Help us plant seeds and nurture roots to grow children connected Self, other, and their place in the natural world. https://gofund.me/6b7a66ec

Gratitude lunch today! Thankful for our ERS family and a delicious lunch all together under blue skies, warm sunshine and accompanied by the singing birds. ☀️

There Is Nothing Cute About It

This just may be the best, truest, and most right thing I have ever read about children.

There Is Nothing Cute About It Over the past decade or so, I’ve listened to a lot of early childhood experts. More often than not, I find myself nodding al...

Pumpkin "portrait" session with 3-4 year olds. It was a delight to facilitate this exercise with the children today. They were all keenly observant, focused, and invested in the process. By taking the time to slowly notice and talk about details like shape, texture, lines, bumps, and markings, the children were primed to really "see" the pumpkin and then draw what they saw. There are a range of ages and developmental levels in this diverse group, and different skills develop at different times in different children. Regardless of what you see in each child's art, this activity exercised/stimulated a range of neural pathways in each child’s brain! As always, our emphasis is on the process, not on the result being a prescribed product.

Exquisite pieces by 2-3 year olds made possible when a teacher understands the potential of materials and trusts the innate creativity of young children.

Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting on Instagram: "Potty. Training. Two words that pack a lot of punch. Potty training - or really I should call it potty *learning* - is about kids learning that they are in charge of their own body, that they can...

Great words to use when first introducing your child to the potty:

Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting on Instagram: "Potty. Training. Two words that pack a lot of punch. Potty training - or really I should call it potty *learning* - is about kids learning that they are in charge of their own body, that they can... Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting shared a post on Instagram: "Potty. Training. Two words that pack a lot of punch. Potty training - or really I should call it potty *learning* - is about kids learning that they are in charge of their own body, that they can recognize their body signals, that they are b...

A little slow in posting these photos from our annual Lantern Walk. It was an unusually balmy moonlit evening last Saturday, so no need for mittens and hats. In fact, we were in t-shirts and shorts while setting up! We had an amazing crew of volunteers who helped fill, place and light 500 paper bag luminaries to create a magical glowing path winding all around our property. As the children proceeded carrying the lanterns they had made, they encountered their teachers along the way who each had a hand made treasure to give them. Then we gathered for some delicious chili and cider songs around the bonfire. As always,it was a night to remember.

It was a perfect autumn day for preschoolers to spend the whole day in the woods, so that’s what they did. What a gift to have access to these natural resources so close to an urban area. We are very fortunate to be able to call this place ERS’s permanent home!

This is a great read and an inspiring story. The kid versions of “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk” would be great for our nature loving aspiring hikers! Lots of lessons about the healing power of nature, not to mention perseverance and resilience.

In 1955, at the age of 67, Emma Rowena Gatewood became the first woman to solo hike the entire 2,168 mile (3,489 km) Appalachian Trail -- wearing Keds sneakers and carrying an army blanket, a raincoat, a shower curtain, and a change of clothes in a homemade bag which she slung over one shoulder. A mother of 11 and grandmother of 23, Gatewood -- who was born on this day in 1887 -- is now considered a pioneer of ultra-light hiking. To read the incredible story of how Grandma Gatewood survived a brutal marriage of thirty years to become of the first high-profile ambassadors of the Appalachian Trail, visit https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=27153

Emma Gatewood's inspiring story is told in the award-winning biography for adult readers "Grandma Gatewood's Walk" at https://www.amightygirl.com/grandma-gatewood-s-walk -- or as an e-book at https://amzn.to/3utKf7r

For young readers, there are two inspiring picture books about Grandma Gatewood's story, both for ages 5 to 9: "When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike" (https://www.amightygirl.com/when-grandma-gatewood-took-a-hike) and "Grandma Gatewood Hikes the Appalachian Trail" (https://www.amightygirl.com/grandma-gatewood-hikes-the-appalachian-trail)

For several beautifully illustrated picture books about Mighty Girls who love exploring nature, we highly recommend "Up the Mountain Path" (https://www.amightygirl.com/up-the-mountain-path), "Finding Wild" (https://www.amightygirl.com/finding-wild), and "Moon" (https://www.amightygirl.com/moon), all for ages 4 to 8

For many books for young readers about the wonders of outdoor discovery, visit our blog post, "Explore Your World: 30 Mighty Girl Books About Outdoor Discovery," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11570

From The Poetry Pharmacy ❤️❤️
(Pinterest)
amzn.to/3fgC0pz
amzn.to/3qlnByG

No time like the present for a little hands on lesson in fire safety. And nothing is much better than a crisp autumn morning playing in the woods. 🍂

Key idea: Our kids should not dictate our boundaries and we should not dictate their feelings.

It’s critical, in any system, to know define roles and responsibilities. This helps a system run smoothly. The opposite is true as well: systems break down when members are confused about their roles or when they start impinging on other people’s functions.

Family systems are no different. In a family system, think about roles like this: Parents establish safety through boundaries, validation, and empathy. Children explore and learn, though expressing their emotions and wants.

Here's a challenge: Each night, review one difficult moment from the perspective of Family Systems Jobs. Instead of asking yourself, "Did that feel good?" or "Is this normal?" or "Is something wrong with me?" or "Is something wrong with my child?".... ask yourself, "Did I do my job? Did my child do theirs?”

⭐️ If setting boundaries is hard for you, you are not alone… and the Good Inside Membership has got you covered. It will give you the tools you need to set boundaries, respond to pushback, and manage guilt. Link in bio to learn more!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CihzsPXOFGH/?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg=

Key idea: Our kids should not dictate our boundaries and we should not dictate their feelings. It’s critical, in any system, to know define roles and responsibilities. This helps a system run smoothly. The opposite is true as well: systems break down when members are confused about their roles or when they start impinging on other people’s functions. Family systems are no different. In a family system, think about roles like this: Parents establish safety through boundaries, validation, and empathy. Children explore and learn, though expressing their emotions and wants. Here's a challenge: Each night, review one difficult moment from the perspective of Family Systems Jobs. Instead of asking yourself, "Did that feel good?" or "Is this normal?" or "Is something wrong with me?" or "Is something wrong with my child?".... ask yourself, "Did I do my job? Did my child do theirs?” ⭐️ If setting boundaries is hard for you, you are not alone… and the Good Inside Membership has got you covered. It will give you the tools you need to set boundaries, respond to pushback, and manage guilt. Link in bio to learn more!

Great evening to hang out in The Boro, eat delicious food from and raise funds for ERS! Thanks to all the ERS families who came out to the event which we all decided should be the first of many of its kind!