Bates Updates

Dear Parent,

Welcome to co-op preschool! The beginning of school is always such an exciting time, as the possibilities for a great new year are endless. It is personally an exhilarating time as I get the opportunity to meet and to get to know all of you a little better.

One of the ways that this meeting happens is through the parent shares that I facilitate once a quarter; in October, January, and March. For those of you who don’t know what a parent share is there is a description at the end of this article. For those of you who do know, you already know how fun and informative that they can be.

The upcoming parent shares for October are:

Vaughn 3-day – F 10/21
Vaughn 2-Day – Th 10/20
Evergreen - W 10/12.

In addition to your concerns and questions (which we always spend most of our time on), I usually highlight a book at the shares that I think is an invaluable addition to a parenting library. Since I know that most of you are too busy being parents to read a lot of information about parenting, I will do the reading and give you nuggets of information that may help in your parenting journey.

The book I have chosen this year is “Mind in the Making – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs” by Ellen Galinsky. The seven life skills are listed below.

§  Focus and self-control
§  Perspective taking
§  Communicating
§  Making connections
§  Critical thinking
§  Taking on challenges
§  Self-directed, engaged learning

As you can see, this is a pretty impressive list. I look forward to helping us all understand more about this list and seeing how we can assist our children in acquiring these necessary skills while at the same time dealing with the immediate issues of getting our children dressed in the morning, to get them to stop hitting their sister, to eat nutritious meals, to sleep in their own beds, etcetera, etcetera.

I look forward to seeing you all at the next parent share.

Carol