Looking ahead, looking back, pumpkins, sleep

Dear Families,

October 16 is the 6th week for our Thursday session. Friday the 17th is a teacher inservice day; there are no classes. Our final classes for this session take place on Thursday and Friday, October 23 and 24. The next session begins on October 30 and 31st and goes 7 weeks (with a week off for Thanksgiving) until Friday, December 19. It is helpful if you let me know whether you plan to attend next session even if you don't have an application or check with you.

As parents or teachers, we are always seeking a balance between the nourishment of repetition and the joy of new experiences. In our parent & child, nursery, and kindergarten classes, often the teachers strive to provide stability and predictability; much of the variety comes from the play, exploration, conflict, and cooperation of the children in the classes. Teachers also observe the classes and are willing to make adjustments to help a class. Although most sessions I repeat the same puppet show, finger games, and closing dances for all the weeks (it will be with some sadness that I share the buzzy bee with the children for the last time next week), some groups of children seem to ask--in their nonverbal--way for something different.

When a new session starts and I present new rhymes, some children show disappointment or confusion at first, but by the return of the puppet and games on the second or third week, they are already looking forward to what is coming next. The children, of course, may want to keep talking about flowers and bees long into the winter. I have observed nursery children pretend to be Santa Claus in April and go pretend trick or treating in May. Young children like to be allowed to take their time to digest a mood, a festival, a season. Whenever possible, I like to extend the season (keeping the bonfire cloth going, for example) to help with this transition.

For those of you looking ahead to our next session, expect a dance around a pretend farm and pumpkin patch to replace our bonfire, and for Mother Night to visit the stars in our puppet show. We will continue to share soup and bread and butter, and adults will work on knitting when time and mood allows.

We recently published a newsletter for nursery and kindergarten families, and I wanted to share an article about sleep that we shared by Dr. Susan Johnson. Sleep can be a challenge for young children and their parents. One element that increases the difficulty, perhaps, is the plethora of expert advice about sleep--all the advice about how to do things right can conflict, leaving us confused.

Here are 3 things I have found helpful when thinking about sleep.

1. Polly Berrien Berend's statement in "Assurances" in Whole Child/Whole Parent: Peace is more important than sleep. If we cultivate peace in our manner and family, sleep will come.

2. Magda Gerber's reminder that we cannot force a child to go to sleep. We can create peaceful conditions that call forth sleep.

3. Susan Weber's reminder to look at our adult attitudes toward sleep in her article "Sweet Dreams" for Sophia's Hearth.

With warmth and light and thoughts of slumber,

William Dolde