APPS Almaden Parents' Pre-school

Have dinner with us on Monday 4-9pm at on Blossom Hill! Bring your family and friends and have a few slices while supporting your school!

Just mention the fundraiser in person or enter APPS923 online to order. Note that delivery must be through Pizza My Heart directly to qualify for the fundraiser.

To make it even more fun, talk to others at Back to School night and make plans to come at the same time. It's so fun for the kids to hang out together outside of school!

Come and PLAY with your child and see how they learn in the process. Like the children, we advise you to come wearing clothes you don't mind getting messy. If you follow their lead you are sure to learn a lot!

This event is meant for parents, extended family, and close friends who may not get to see your child in their element at school. We can't wait to PLAY with you!

Our emotion stones have been showing up in different places all over our classroom, allowing the children to play with them in different ways. When they were placed near the playdough, children used them as stamps and one child even buried his emotions in it! 😂 Play like this lets them engage at their own pace, learning exactly what they need and are ready for at that moment. A lecture on emotions can't have anywhere near the same impact on a child.

Where will they show up next?

This week the children have been experimenting with blue and yellow, seeing for themselves what happens when they mix. There's no reason to tell them that blue and yellow make green when they can discover it for themselves! Then we tie those discoveries in with our emotions learning by reading this adorable book!

In our 3 Day Class, the children tasted four different colors of cauliflower, then told us their favorite. We made a chart and put each child's name under their favorite cauliflower. Purple won, but so did the children as they took a risk to try new flavors and textures, increased their vocabulary by describing and expressing their experience of it, and felt the value of literacy as a way to record personal and meaningful experiences and experiments.

Many of the parents there learned they should prepare cauliflower more often!

Looking for your village? At APPS, everyone brings their unique gifts, experience, and perspective to our community for the benefit of all our children. Our teachers are experts in child development and early childhood education. Our parent coach Cathy is an expert in Positive Discipline. Our caregivers are experts in all sorts of different things that make our community well rounded, and they know their child's unique personality and needs. Our children are always, always the experts in play, in wonder, and in joy.

Parenting can feel chaotic, confusing, and overwhelming in today's world. But we are all here for each other, building the world we want for our children together.

We still have some spots available for this school year! While classes start Sept 3rd, you are welcome to enroll now to start when registration is complete. Schedule your tour or apply today!

We have a proper mud kitchen this year and we are not the only ones excited about it! There's something about the cool, goopy, slimy feeling that keeps our more sensory seeking kids enthralled. Then they add in other natural elements from the yard like the little spiky balls from the maple trees above. It's amazing to see their creations, but even more amazing to observe their process!

Together we're better. I'm so thankful I found this cooperative community for my children, and for myself too.

Too Many of Us Have Forgotten What Community Is I've spent my entire classroom career working shoulder-to-shoulder with the parents of the children I taught. As a cooperati...

What a beautiful day to bring the indoors outside!

Ease in week is happening this week to help all our families and teachers feel comfortable at school before class officially starts next Tuesday!

People have said this is more of a Support Group than a Book Club and I am thrilled to hear it. I'll make a cheat sheet to catch you up on the book. All you need is your own parenting stories, struggles, and wisdom. Together we're better!

This is our last meeting on this gem of a book, and we'll explore options for our Fall book. New people are always welcome, whether you're an APPS member or not. We all could use a little support on the parenting journey.

Yesterday was wonderful: the warm welcome, the sense of community, and most of all the sound of the children laughing and squealing with delight as they all played together for the first time this year.

When we are together like this it just feels right. This is what home feels like. Thank you all for coming and making our school feel so rich!

See you Saturday for Orientation!

Introducing The APPS Gardener's Market! Starting with the Welcome Back Picnic and continuing into the school year, please bring any extra produce from your garden to share with the community.  We will include tastings of these home-grown goodies alongside our snacks for the evening.

Our first beautification day was a huge success! Thank you to the parents and caregivers that came out to get our playground ready for the children! We hung the shades, covered our fence with a privacy screen, and took down the old partially broken white playhouse.

It's so wonderful to be a part of a community where we all take care of our children together. And what lucky children to have such wonderful role models!

This is our first full community event of the year, and it's a special one for us. This is when we first come together, not even knowing how close we'll inevitably become by the end of the year. This is where the magic begins, and we can't wait to see you there!

Almaden Parent's Pre-School is hiring a Substitute Teacher! Please reference our full job description for more information on our community, the position, and how to apply!

Looking for more play and care for your child? Enrichment is a drop-off program for children in the Pre-K, TK, and Kindergarten age range designed to help them learn important life skills in a play-based environment. The curriculum will provide children with opportunities to enhance their language, creativity, spatial/body awareness, math, socio-emotional, and interpersonal skills through games and project-based learning.

Pumpkin Jack has babies! Last Fall the students collaborated to carve a pumpkin, then we watched it slowly decompose. The children noticed the changing colors, textures, and smells. Then come spring we buried the entire thing in a pot, and it sprouted!

Now there are baby pumpkins growing! Maybe one will be big enough to carve this year!

Don't forget to get all your paperwork turned in by FRIDAY August 9th at 1pm in order for your child to start on September 3rd. But we are here to support you! Come by within any of the time windows above to drop off paperwork and to get some help!

Ms. Ellen suggested we share this article by an expert fellow co-op preschool teacher!

What Does It Mean to Be a Good Teacher? Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. ~David W. Augsburger...

We can't change all of society to give children and their parents and extended family full of love and mutual support, but we can start here. This lovely story from Teacher Tom illustrates part of the magic of a co-op.

This Is What I Wish We All Understood She stopped right inside the gate. In fact, her mother had to nudge her through and there she stood looking at our junkyard ...

Some great tips for supporting your child's play (and therefore their learning), both at home and while you're working in the classroom this year. We will help you grow in your ability to support play throughout the year, so feel free to ask our teachers any questions you may have!

Here at Nature Play, we specialise in play... independent play, developmental play, free play, unstructured play, pure-play, undirected play and child-led play. The kind of play that unfolds human intelligence at natures pace - everything from the nervous systems, balance, coordination, memory, and personal development skills that will be a 'foundation' throughout life.

The big question for many parents and carers is, "How do we provide this critical 'play-time' for children?" So that they can safely follow their own play urges - free from adult direction, activities and 'helping' hands.

We have been supporting adults, to support child-led play since 2011. Here are 10 of our top tips that cover all ages and help us to create and maintain the time, space and place for independent play to unfold.

Keep reading... www.nature-play.co.uk/blog/10-top-tips-for-independent-play

Congratulations to our Positive Discipline parent coach Cathy Kawakami from Middle Ground Parenting for hosting a wonderful talk on Positive Discipline Lab Schools (like ours) at the Positive Discipline Conference in Atlanta, Georgia this past week! We love you!

Join us for the next installment of our book club discussing Brain Body Parenting by . We had a great time discussing Part 1 last time and looking forward to the rest. We make cheat sheets so feel free to join us even if you weren't at the first one!

Need some support with your registration paperwork? We're here to help! At our paperwork parties, a teacher will assist parents by going through the packet and answering questions while parents fill everything out. Children are welcome while parents complete paperwork. 

We have paperwork parties:
July 9th 4-6pm
July 18th 5-7pm

Please sign up ahead of time so we know how many volunteers to gather to watch children on the playground!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0B4DA5AD2AA1F9CF8-50236977-paperwork

Tired of telling them to stop using the hose? Rather than using your will to set the limit and getting frustrated when they push back, try setting up the environment for success instead! This water pump set up will allow them to get their own water for play without begging and without wasting too much water. In short, it makes them self sufficient and fosters their inner feeling of competence.

One of our families () went right out and replicated it at home (and sent us a pic)! So wonderful to empower families to empower children!

This was taken at our garden yesterday while we watered the plants to help them cope with this heat wave. They were eager to drink up the cool water!

Where do you see fireworks in nature? Let us know! We hope you all have a safe, fun, and cool-as-you-can holiday!

If you've already applied, it's time to officially register! Check your email for detailed instructions. Need help? We're hosting some paperwork parties where teachers will help you understand and fill in the paperwork while children play at the APPS playground. The first paperwork party is July 9th from 4-6pm!

Haven't yet applied? It's not too late! Our classes are filling up fast though, in fact there are only *3 spots* left in our 3 Day class. Visit our website to secure your family's participation in our community today!

Our garden is growing even while school is out! Since the park playdate this week was right across the street from the school, Ms Ellen went over and picked some fresh produce for children to taste at the park!

The children experimented with the feel, smell, texture, and taste of the veggies, deciding how much "risk" to take in trying a new food. The fact that they felt connected to the garden they helped plant made it just a little more enticing. Relationships can definitely have that effect!

Maybe it was the heat, but the cucumbers were the run away winner! See you Monday at Parma Park for the next one!

Laying a foundation of relationships that help the child feel safe and supported, through being both kind and firm, and addressing root causes rather than surface behavior. Our current book club book (Brain-Body Parenting by Mona Delahooke) goes into depth about the science behind this approach. The author uses the same iceberg analogy too!

Even though we are not meeting on Wednesday this week, we have a special pop up playdate this Monday! This park has a fun digger, a fenced in area, and it's right next to the Almaden Library!

Look for our red tent!