Good question. This made me think: How do I summarize in just a few minutes what The Grove School is all about?  My answer was this: We are a Healthy Mind, Healthy Body, Healthy Planet school. All pieces of this value system are equally important, and all aspects of our program weave together and interconnect with this central concept. One does not exist without the other.

 Our outside gardens provide a unique experience. Even our youngest children are given the opportunity to water the gardens, talk about where their food comes from, and even harvest their own vegetables. But our gardening is about more than just eating healthy. Last spring the children discovered a spider. They learned how spiders contribute to the life of plants, and how our eco-system relies on insects as part of the food cycle. While somewhat simplistic, the notion of science is a step into higher level thinking skills. And allowing kids to grow and harvest their own vegetables encourages them to adopt a healthier lifestyle, thus developing a stronger body. Our planet benefits from less pesticides and the compost bin we’ve created, and our goal is to instill these values in our children so they know how to create their own eco-friendly gardens one day -Healthy Planet.

 Take into consideration the lesson the Strands class did on recycling. They collected items from outside and placed them in the proper recycling bins. They discussed how each could be reused or recycled instead of being thrown into the trash and landfills. This was a lesson in conservation. Healthy Planet, right? Then there’s the fresh air they received, running around outside, gathering and collecting materials – Healthy Body. As they went outside, students were able to discuss the types of objects they located and sorted them according to different properties, such as size and shape. And in Ms. Cristen’s room, they brought in recycling items from home and simply played with them, using their imaginations and creativity to play games – Healthy Mind.

Our curriculum does not consist of one core value being taught at a time. Rather, it is a wholistic approach to learning, with all aspects of our curriculum supporting one another.

The Grove School is a refreshing new idea, and one that I truly believe in. If you haven’t done so already, we’d love to have you stop in and see for yourselves what makes us so unique!

In reflection of this event, I asked myself if these kinds of parties are worth the effort and costs involved. Isn’t a quality education in a healthy environment enough? Is it necessary to spend tuition dollars on a party, when perhaps those dollars could be better spent on classroom supplies?  School-wide events such as this are most certainly beneficial to the school in a number of ways.

School-wide events enhance student learning: Apart from learning the ABCs, children thrive in an environment where they belong to a part of a community, and when parents are actively involved within that community. According to MichiganStateUniversity, parents’ active involvement with their child’s education has a direct positive relationship to their academic success. In fact, the earlier that parents become involved, the greater the level of a child’s achievement throughout their academic career. (http://www.livestrong.com/article/534725-the-importance-of-parental-involvement-in-childrens-school-life/#ixzz1YiWgaYbB) .  This involvement extends beyond helping with homework and connecting with teachers. Attending school events, meeting other families, and participating in functions demonstrates to children that learning extends beyond the classroom, and that the school is an extension of who we are, not just a place we visit.

School-wide events benefit parents: The importance of social connections extends to more than just children. Studies suggest that the transient nature of today’s communities creates a sense of loneliness and isolation in adults. How many parents in our preschool have been transplanted to our school from other cities, states, and even countries?  In an article titled “Expatriate Family Syndrome”, American psychotherapist Cathy Tsang-Feign discusses “transient family syndrome” where she notes that families who frequently move intentionally isolate themselves and prevent themselves from forming tight relationships. In doing so, this puts tremendous pressure on families to fulfill one another’s social and emotional needs,  (http://www.cathyfeign.com/documents/tsangfeign-expatfamily.pdf), resulting in more stress and loneliness. Conducting social activities outside of regular school times, in an environment that extends outside of the classroom, provides parents with an opportunity to meet other adults with similar interests and values. This decreases that feeling of loneliness and isolation.

School-wide events may increase teacher job satisfaction: Raise your hand of you want to work on a Friday night! What – no takers? Why ask employees to stay late on a weekend? While it may not be a good idea to force employees to give up a weekend night, consider this: employees who see each other outside socially outside of the typical work day establish stronger personal work relationships. In a study done by Findley and Harmer on work relationships and job satisfaction, the results indicate that one’s relationships with co-workers and direct supervisor are a significant factor determining positive job satisfaction for young employees (http://www.richardharmer.com/articles/Jobsatisfactionandworkplacerelationships.pdf). Have you ever noticed how the employee you sit next to every day suddenly looks completely different to you when they put on a pair of jeans? Establishing a personal relationship outside of our professional day-to-day relationships provides us with someone we can vent to and share our daily experiences with. It also makes  lunch breaks more interesting!

School-wide events benefit the business: When planned appropriately, costs associated with throwing these parties are easily offset by the effects of positive parent referrals. While it’s necessary to be selective with expenditures, happy families translate into growing and thriving schools. Parent feedback and referrals are often why families choose a school for their children. Even if a successful event leads to no new enrollments, longer length of stay can be easily anticipated when student learning is enhanced, parents have greater bonds with other families within the school, and teachers are more invested in their jobs. Parents who volunteer at their children’s schools are more committed to their education and progress, thus improving the overall quality of the education provided.

School-wide events are fun: Our DJ/Clown/Spokesperson kept us laughing as he engaged the children in his latest rendition of the Wiggles song “Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy”. And who can forget how he got the children to make announcements on the dance floor? And after an hour of jumping around in the bounce house, tossing bean bags, and playing with their friends, the kids went home exhausted. A healthy, positive, way to end a Friday night!

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.

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.

Ms. Tanya's class marches in a musical parade at the "Carnival"

I had the pleasure of observing Ms. Tanya’s music class this week.  While I was in there, she was teaching a group of Early Preschool students music.  They are in the middle of their Carnival unit.  So during the class, they marched in a parade, played a game of ball toss, and “rode” on a merry-go-round.

We are so fortunate to have such a strong strands program for our students.  In addition to music, Ms. Tanya also teaches them art, fine arts, dramatic play, eco-friends (a science curriculum) and healthy fit (health and physical fitness).  Our students attend these strands everyday as part of the school day.

Enjoy the video below.

Students in the preschool class have been studying about animals.  One of their projects has been the “building” of  a cow that has “real” udders so that the students could then simulate the experience of milking a cow.  Click on the photos or video below to take a closer look.

From a young age, I can remember my first days in school. I was enthusiastic to show up every day, and my teachers inspired me to be like them. As I grew older, my teachers proved to be an even bigger part in my life. In middle school, we were all taught to ask for their help if we needed it, a strange, yet big step for us teenagers. We became more independent, yet the teachers were still there for us. They taught us about high school, what to expect, the future, and prepared us for a lifelong journey.

As soon as high school rolled around, there was no messing around; this was the real deal. I took what I learned from middle school and used it to the best of my ability for this new experience. My teachers  played an even bigger role in our school work (and our lives). I established relationships with them outside of the class room. I always had a favorite teacher each year (not to say that all of them weren’t my favorite)! I could see the relationships of the students to the teachers was getting stronger in high school. Students would talk after class, laugh with the teachers, even sit and have lunch with them. Most importantly, they prepared me for a college experience and instilled a sense of a lifelong learning experience for me.

Now that I am an incoming sophomore in college, the bond between student (and now professor) is still strong. Being on my own is a wonderful experience, although tough at times. Being in college has taught me to be independent and to look for help when I need it. The professors play a big role in the student’s lives, and no where else but college is the lifelong journey more present. After college, anything is possible. Medical school, Law school, a career, a job, anything. The professors have taught me, and will continue to teach me, valuable life lessons that will help me further down the road, and prepare me to be a lifelong learner.

Recently, the Harlem Children’s Zone has gotten a lot of attention as the result of Paul Tough’s book, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. The Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) is the manifestation of Geoffrey Canada’s vision to provide a comprehensive education program that touches parents, infants, preschoolers, elementary and high-school and children. The ultimate goal being to increase the chance of success later in life for poor children in Harlem.

Canada’s results are stunning. In an area of extreme poverty, his programs have produced children who outperform their peers throughout the state of New York. At the end of the 2008-09 school year, 65% of the HCZ’s prekindergarten students (the Harlem Gems) had reached an “advanced” school-readiness classification, up from 33.5% being at that level upon program entry. Additionally, 100% of the program’s third graders (which comprise the Promise Academy) tested at or above grade level on the state’s math exam.

In many ways, Canada embodies the spirit of the “human capital” thesis, which looks at education more from an economic perspective. Economist James Heckman has spent years studying this topic and has concluded that, “the rate of return to a dollar investment made while a person is young is higher than the rate of return to the same dollar at a later age.” Geoffrey Canada’s basic goal upon founding the HCZ was to change the lives of poor children in sizable numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide. The net result is that the children who come out of this program, and programs like it, will be likelier to graduate college, enter the workforce, and stay out of the judicial system, all of which will have positive societal and economic impacts.

As the strategy guy at The Grove School, I’m always trying to answer the question, “How can we best spend our limited resources to be as effective as possible?” One of my favorite books on this topic is Jim Collins’ Good to Great, which attempts to identify what separates companies that perform well from those who don’t. The “great” companies have what Collins calls a Hedgehog Concept: a single, unifying idea that defines what will be the focus of the organization. The Hedgehog Concept is formed by answering three questions:

1. What are you deeply passionate about?
2. What can you be the best in the world at?
3. What drives your economic engine?

The first two questions are critical to understanding what an organization’s mission and core competencies are. The third question, however, is perhaps the most important in terms of focus. The goal isn’t to identify a set of measurements that will tell you how your business is performing, it is to identify a single measurement that will be a leading indicator of all critical areas of focus.

For example, Wallgreens’ concept was, “the best, most convenient drugstores with high profit per customer visit.” Focusing on this simple statement allowed them to organize all their efforts, planning and investment efficiently, confident that everything else would fall into place as a result. In doing this, they managed to out-perform Intel, GE, Coca Cola and Merck over a 15-year period.

My point in all of this is that “high-quality, early education programs with high elementary-school readiness rates” seems to have a lot of potential as a Hedgehog Concept for a well-functioning, high-performing society. If we look at early educational success as a leading indicator for future graduation rates, job growth, health care costs, judicial costs and crime rates (which numerous studies have proven is the case), it becomes easy to understand why this is perhaps the single most important measure of our society’s well-being. It obviously requires long-term vision, but the rewards we gain years from now will be exponential.

And that’s why all of us here at The Grove School are doing what we do. If we do our job well, we can change the world.

Math Activities for Younger Children
• Opportunities for number recognition and counting are everywhere! How many wheels are on your grocery cart? How many aisles are in the store? How many people are in the aisles? How many grocery-store workers does your child see? How many items are in your cart? How many people are in the checkout lines? Have your child look for numbers—on signs above each aisle, on signs at the ends of aisles, on price tags on shelves, and on the cash-register screen as your items are scanned.
• Compare the different sizes of similar items, such as the different sizes of cereal boxes, milk cartons, and yogurt containers, using words such as big, bigger, and biggest.
• Weigh different items in the produce department. Which weighs more, a potato or an apple? Do two potatoes weigh more than a bunch of grapes?

Literacy Activities for Younger Children
• To enhance vocabulary development, tell your young child what items you are looking for. Name the items as you put them in the cart or ask whether your child sees them on the shelf. Discuss what you will make with the items in your cart.
• Ask your child to look for the letters in his or her name.
• In the produce department, ask your child to look for different colors, for example, red apples, yellow bananas, green broccoli, and orange carrots.

Math Activities for Older Children
• Ask your child to count how many different kinds of the same items there are in various sections of the store. For example, in the bakery section, how many different types of breads or cookies does your child see? In the canned goods section, how many different kinds of soups are there?
• Discuss why certain items, such as boxes of cereal, are priced differently. Does the size of a box of cereal determine its cost? Does the type or brand of cereal determine its cost? Which type of cereal is a better bargain? Why?
• Weigh different items in the produce department to determine how many apples are in a pound or how many heads of lettuce equal a pound. Or challenge your child with simple addition problems. For example, if one pound of oranges costs $3.75, how much does two pounds of oranges cost?

Literacy Activities for Older Children
• Have your child keep a list in a small spiral notebook of all the new words he or she sees on signs around the store or on the items in your cart. When you get home, go over the list of new words together.
• In the produce department, have you child list the different varieties of items, such as pears and squash. What makes the varieties different? Color? Shape? Taste? Why might there be so many choices?
• Examine labels with your child. What kind of information is included on nutrition labels? Why are nutrition labels important?

It is recommended that many opportunities be given during the preschool years for exploration using technology tools in a playful, supportive environment. Researchers further agree that a number of technology applications have the potential to support and extend learning in the young child through their unique capability to provide excellent instruction in these important developmental areas that are critical for educational success (3-5).

Specifically, research has found that preschoolers who used computers with developmentally appropriate supporting activities for key learning goals, had more gains than children without these computer experiences. Among others, these included increases in knowledge, long-term memory, verbal skills, problem solving, and manual dexterity (3).

A set of studies with low-income children found those who received a computer curriculum had increases in cognitive, motor, and language scores compared to similar children in a regular curriculum (6,7). Recent research published in the journal Pediatrics found that young children who had access to a computer compared to those who did not performed better on measures of cognitive development and school readiness as measured by the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of Intelligence. The lead author notes that the findings suggest that “computer access before or during the preschool years is associated with the development of preschool concepts and cognition” (8).

The National Association for the Education of Young Children also states that considerable research points to the positive effects of educational technology on children’s learning and development. For these effects to be present, however, educators must monitor that it is appropriate in the areas of age, individual child needs, and culture; and integrate educational technology into the learning environment in ways that support what and how children learn (9).

To read the research studies noted above, here are the references:

References and Sources
1. Eager to Learn: Executive Summary. (2000). (Eds.) B.T. Bowman, S.M. Donovan, & S.M.
Burns. National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
2. Landry, S. & James Baker Institute for Public Policy. (2004). Effective Early Childhood
Programs: Turning Knowledge Into Action. Houston, TX: Rice University.
3. Haugland, S.W. (2000). What role should technology play in young children’s learning? Part 2. Early childhood classrooms in the twenty-first century: Using computers to maximize
learning. Young Children, 55, 12–18.
4. Murphy, K., DePasquale, R., & McNamara, E. (2003). Meaningful connections: Using
technology in primary classrooms. Beyond the Journal: Young Children on the Web.
5. Clements, D.H. 1994. The Uniqueness of the Computer as a Learning Tool: Insights from
Research and Practice. (Eds.) J.L. Wright & D.D. Shade. Young children: Active learners
in a technological age, pp. 31-50. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education
of Young Children.
6. Ainsa, T. (1989). Effects of computers and training in Head Start curriculum. Journal of
Instructional Psychology, 16, 72–78.
7. Ainsa T. (1987). Effects of computers and training in Head Start curriculum. Journal of
Educational Computing Research, 3, 249 –260.
8. Li, X., & Atkins, M.S. (2004). Early childhood computer experience and cognitive and motor development. Pediatrics, 113, 1715-1722.
9. National Association for the Education of Young Children