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President Obama concluded his State of the Union address last week by claiming that the state of our union is strong. But there was at least one area where he did not have much encouraging news—the state of our education system. In fact, the President opened his remarks on education by pointing out some alarming statistics.

Over the next 10 years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education that goes beyond a high school education.  And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school.  The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations.  America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree.

And, while President Obama called the Race to the Top, “the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation,” and provided a powerful acknowledgment of the important and often under-appreciated role of teachers, there was at least one education topic that was noticeably absent in his remarks—early childhood education.

Previously President Obama and Secretary Duncan have proclaimed the importance of early childhood education as providing the essential foundation for school readiness and long term education and social success. Previously both have championed the Early Learning Challenge Grants in an effort to promote innovation and excellence for programs serving our youngest children. But in this critical address to the Congress and our nation there was no mention of early childhood education.

Efforts to provide quality programs for young children will face financial challenges as funding is under siege given the budget shortfalls facing the states and the economic uncertainty facing many families with young children.

So, let us hope that early childhood education is not lost among all the other priorities facing our country, for it is the best investment that can be made in our children and our nation.

Dr. Elanna Yalow, Executive Vice President of Knowledge Universe and Vice Chair of Knowledge Learning Corporation, holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Stanford University.

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During the school day, students in each of our classes have the opportunity to participate in one of our five strands classes. The strands that we provide for them are music, art, drama, Healthy-Me (physical fitness) and Eco Friends (science-based).  They rotate through the strands each week.

Each class participates in the strands for 30 minutes each day.  Ms. Tanya is the strands teachers and she utilizes her creativity and imagination to integrate the strands one with another.  For instance, while studying about the life cycle of a plant in their Eco-Friends strand class, they used theatrical play to reenact a seed sprouting.  (See above left photo.)

The photos included here show students working in each of the five strands.  Please click on the photos to see them larger and to read a description.

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An Evidence of Learning Disply of Ms. Misty's Class Experiment

Learning is fun! And it is also a process.

One of the things that is challenging to do in the field of education is to show both the students and the parents that actual learning has occurred.  Here at The Grove School we call that EVIDENCE OF LEARNING.

Typically in most educational settings the only evidence you see is the finished product.  There is nothing wrong with finished products.  However, evidence of learning goes beyond that.  It shows the PROCESS the students went through during their learning.

The experiment was to try to make crystals with water and Epsom salt. The students performed the tasks individually.

The steps were measure the Epsom salt, pour in the water, mix it up, transfer it to another bowl for observation, let the water evaporate and then investigate the results.

The photo at right and the close-ups below, show the process the students followed during their experiment.

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A display of evidence of learning from EPS

I realized the other day that  my children spend a significant amount of time with people other than me.  A large part of their day is spent engulfed in experiences in which I am not directly involved. That can sometimes scare me.

My four year old came home from school on Friday and wanted to play “Show and Tell”. The whole family communed on the carpet with a chair for the presenter and we each had to pick something to “Show and Tell”. At the point that we were all finally seated, he told us, “Please put your ‘Show and Tell’ behind your back so you won’t disturb your friends”, which was quickly followed by, “And wait your turn to ask questions.” It was so cute, yet so telling. He has learned in just three weeks of PreKindergarten the art of organizing a group which also includes what we should be doing with ourselves.

The thought then occurred to me: I have no idea what his actual experiences are, and from here to the end of my days, that will only get worse.

So, how do I know what my little guy is doing? How do I stay connected? How do I, as a parent, continue to be the major influence in his life, passing on my values and still supporting his social and academic development?

Obviously VERY carefully picking where my child will be most of the day is important. It is important to me that the people my child encounters during his day are also able to communicate effectively.

During the month of January at The Grove School our staff is devoted to making evidence of learning an experience. We decided that parents need to see, hear, and experience, as if they are here all the time, what their children are doing. In order to do so, we are developing evidence of learning showcases. These are inspired spaces throughout our hallways and classrooms that reflect, summarize, and highlight amazing learning events that take place each day in our school.

We are emphasizing the work of our students and the process that they have experienced by creating displays that remind them of what they are learning. We are displaying whole class events where each child contributes and the teacher leads the way. We are engaging children in discussions that allow them to organize their thoughts into basic charts and graphs. Simply put, we are decorating our building with authentic masterpieces of learning in such a way that every parent will know what their child is doing.

As our Education Manager in Cary, Sarah supports the teachers in implementing curriculum and individualizing instruction to meet the needs of every student. She's been a teacher trainer and curriculum specialist for the last 5 years, and in education as a teacher for 10. Her family includes a husband and 3 children. Sarah loves to garden, sing, and most of all, meet new people.

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As part of our enrollment efforts, I am thrilled to announce the CELEBRATE EDUCATION TOUR - A JOURNEY INTO LEARNING AND DISCOVERY.

These open to the public events are being held on the following three dates:
  • Feb. 8
  • Feb. 24
  • March 10
All three drop-in events run from 5-7p.

On Feb. 24, a dinner will be served at 6:15.  Please call to let us know you are coming to the dinner.  If you forget, come anyway!

Enjoy an opportunity to see The Grove School curriculum in full-swing as your children participate in learning experiences – The Grove School way!

This will be a great opportunity to help you chose a preschool for right now or for the fall. Now is the time to enroll!
Bring your whole family and your friends too.

We hope to see you there!  Call me directly if you need any information or if you have any questions at 972-618-3523

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Today I stopped into Ms. Sue’s Art Appreciation class, one of our after school enrichment classes, and a snapped a few photos of a preschool class engaged in crayon and paint art.  I thought I would share a few of the photos here with you.

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Pretty and Yummy Too!

The Grove School family celebrated its first birthday Jan. 18th.  Below is a photo of the cake and below that are photos and videos from the celebration.  Click on the thumbnails to see the complete photo.

We had dinosaur activities, special theatrical performances and healthy fruits and veggies.  And yes, we also had some not-so-healthy-but-not-as-bad-as-most birthday cake.

Below is a video from one of the student performances.

Here are some scenes from the night…

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January 18th marks our one year anniversary and we are throwing a party!

In Plano, everyone is invited to attend our festivities from 3p to 5pm.  All children who attend will be able to participate in a variety of fun class activities and enjoy a few birthday treats too.

In Cary, we are having dinosaur activities (that is what we are currently studying), special performances  by students and a special birthday cake.

We hope to see you there and feel free to bring some friends with you!

Update 1-19-20  Read about the event HERE.

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One of the most frequently asked questions by parents of children in school is “What did you do today?’.  For older children especially, the answer is quite predictable: nothing.  There is a cure for the I-DID-NOTHING ailment – great communication between parents and teachers.  We address this in a variety of ways.  We post daily information in and outside of our classrooms.  We send some information home at the end of the day.  We take pictures and videos.  We also utilize email.

I am including below some actual emails sent to families from our teachers and am sharing some of the photos they have included with their emails.

The first email is from Ms. Misty, our Pre-K teacher:

Greetings Dads & Moms:

Eek!  Attempting to get *caught up* on emails and photos!! I’ve enclosed a few photos of our Wild Things Soup from last Friday!  The kids enjoyed making it but weren’t too thrilled to try it! J  I actually ate a little of it – and it really wasn’t THAT bad – a little salty – but definitely not horrible.  There wasn’t a middle ground as far as taste goes … it was either YES (and ate a bowl or two) or GROSS (and only studied, stirred, smelled, and refused to try!)

The ones who LOVED it have a photo enclosed – the ones who thought it was “TOO GROSS TO TRY” didn’t even want their picture taken!!! … except for M who wanted to put a little under the microscope! J

Enjoy!!

The next email to families is from Ms. Carrie in the Early Preschool Room:

Hi, Moms and Dads!  How is your day going?  We are having an awesome day here at school!  Though it’s still a bit too cold outside to go and play, we’ve been so busy with so many fun activities that we haven’t even noticed!

This morning we did our Circle Time, and our friends have all of the hand gestures down really well!  Next we’re going to start working on being able to sing all the words too.  After we did our  calendar, we read a book about Thomas the Train helping children on a school field trip.  Everyone loved this book!  We are really into Thomas the Train this month, and we talk a lot about him whenever we chat about steam engines and trains.

Next we had a quick snack and got ready to go to Strands with Ms. Sara.  It was fun to practice going through tunnels, just like a train!

Today, Ms. Carrie and Ms. Sydney decided to let our friends work on their Car Parts project from earlier in the week since not everyone had a chance to do it yet.  So we re-read “My Car” by Byron Barton, and talked about all the different parts a car has.  Then we got to “assemble” our own car by identifying some different parts and pasting it on a car!  Ms. Carrie is going to post our artwork on the black chalkboard by our cubbies later today…be sure to take a look sometime in the next few days!  (Pictures of our activity are attached on this email and a few more emails to come.)

Then we all washed our hands and took out our lunches.  We are all getting really good at opening our own containers and using utensils to eat.  Everyone made sure to clean up their trash when they were done.  Ms. Sydney is really helping all our friends to know what kind of trash can go in the black trash can (regular waste) and what kind of trash can go in the blue trash can (recyclables).  After cleaning up, we changed diapers/went potty, washed hands and laid down for a nap.  Most of us fell asleep right away – what a busy morning we’ve had!

This afternoon we are going to have snack and then go on to our enrichments.  Today we have Kiddo Kinetics, SmartBoard learning with Ms. Sara, and Art with Mr. Kirby.  It’s going to be a fun-filled afternoon too!

We hope that you’re having a good day too, Moms and Dads!  We can’t wait to see you later today!

Love,

The EPS friends

Photos from both emails can be seen in the gallery below.

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