Nest Early Learning

Some moments from this week.

A controversial topic that often comes up is "weapon play", but we owe it to the children to be open to ideas that may make us uncomfortable. We must remember that with every experience, there are boundaries and consequences, whether natural or controlled and that is how children learn to adapt their play. But when we, their grownups, decide to impose boundaries on their play, they should always be relevant to the individual children involved and not based on our own fears.

Celebrating National Child Day. Children. They are the reason we show up and give our best efforts everyday.

After rest time, the children went outside in the rain. So comfort food in the form of gooey grilled cheese sandwiches and oranges for afternoon snack really hit the spot.

"I want to learn how to cut with a knife," as one child declared a few weeks ago. Today the children used pumpkin carving knives to chop up the apples we used to make applesauce. A little bit of cinnamon and water added to the pot and we had a warm, sweet smelling snack for the afternoon on this chilly Fall day.

With Halloween just over a week away, we still have time to plan safe celebrations. Take a look at the BCCDC's recommendations for trick or treating, parties and handing out candy. http://www.bccdc.ca//covid-/social-interactions/halloween

We played it safe this year by skipping our annual field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. So instead, we brought the Pumpkin Patch to Nest! The children searched the marshy area of the field and worked together to carry the pumpkins back to the wagon.

Today, on Orange Shirt Day, we are reminded of Indigenous communities who have been so deeply and negatively impacted by the Residential School System. www.orangeshirtday.org #everychildmatters

In an effort to be less wasteful and respectful of food shortages (whether it affects us personally or not), we have decided to phase out food-based materials used for art and sensory experiences, UNLESS it is expired or no longer edible. Over the years, we have built up a bit of a collection, so we will use up what we have until it is gone (as it is no longer edible at this point). We want the children to understand the value of food as nutrition, while still recognizing tha...t there can be many different uses of extras if they can no longer be used for nutrition. One cannot deny the rich experiences and opportunities for play with various materials, as was proven by this morning's events. In the art area, I set out white glue, dried pasta (again, we made it clear to the children that it was old and inedible), brown paper and paint, and these were the children's ideas: 1. One child found some paintbrushes on the art trolley, then said, "I want to make a necklace," and she started to paint the dried noodles. I brought out some trays to leave the noodles on as the paint dried, and asked if she would would like to bring out some string for later when they're ready. As other children arrived, they joined in and I added more trays. 2. "Can I put the noodles in the water?" Nothing else had been added so far, other than water and soapy bubbles. Other children added some bowls and they scooped and poured as the noodles slowly softened and became slimy. 3. Two other children took some pots, bowls and ladles from the kitchen over to the table near the water and started to pour the water and noodles into the bowls. Anne put a towel on the table to help absorb extra water so it wouldn't pour onto the floor, right before the children declared they were making soup. A third child brought over a wooden knife and cutting board and proceeded to chop the noodles right then and there before sprinkling the pieces into a bowl.

Looking for some parenting insight during this difficult era of COVID-19? This year's Parenting 2.0 Summit focuses on parenting in exceptional times and you couldn't ask for better experts. Nest's GM, Sara, was first introduced to the wisdom of the Lower Mainland's own Dr. Vanessa Lapointe at an ECE workshop 5 years ago. Dr. V is the best-selling author of Discipline without Damage: How to Get Your Kids to Behave Without Messing Them Up, and uses a loving, warm and fun approa...ch to engage fellow parents. Another speaker, Maggie Dent is commonly known as the ‘queen of common sense’ and is the author of Mothering our Boys. Our Head Teacher, Anne, enjoyed her talk at this year's online "Play First Summit", called "Stop Stealing Childhood in the Name of Education." There are several other speakers in this online conference and different admission options to choose from. Enjoy! See more

"This is how you play 'Germs'. You're the germs and I run after you with the spray bottle (it was empty) and I spray you." Play is so important! The children need play to make sense of their world. It is how they process the information they're receiving and what they have been observing around them.

When children have the space to try new things, magical things often follow!

An anecdote from Michelle, one of our ECEs: The teachers can't help but laugh as a child unknowingly leaves a trail of flour on the blue carpet as she walks back to the table where she found it in a bag that is clearly now leaking. Sara leaves the room to grab the vacuum cleaner. Meanwhile, another child discovers the flour on the carpet and begins to pat the flour down with his hands. He rubs the flour in his palms for a few minutes and exclaims, "Snow! I need to get some ca...rs." He gets up and brings the Duplo basket to the carpet, then builds some cars and gives one to me to play with. Sara comes back with the vacuum and sees us using flour as snow in our play and that Anne has swept up the slippery part on the floor. She puts the vacuum off to the side and says that she will clean up the flour later. As there was no danger from this innocent spill on the carpet, clean up could wait. Without interruptions to the play, it expanded from flour on a carpet to driving cars in the snow to blasting rocket ships from the snow to the galaxy.

We are so excited to be up and running again! Nest reopened on July 2nd with new cleaning protocols and temporary shorter hours, but our love of play has not changed. Welcome back friends!

As many of you know, Nest Early Learning uses the Neufeld Institute's Attachment Based Developmental Approach as inspiration for its philosophy on child care. In the absence of this year's conference, Dr. Gordon Neufeld himself created a video about parenting through the pandemic and the fundamentals of attachment theory during this time. If you don't have time to watch a screen for an hour, you can try having the sound on while you multitask during the day. It’s worth the listen.

Here we are again, at the end of another week. We sure miss the children and hope we can open up again soon. As always, it's hard to be confident with our choices when there is conflicting information out there. But what about when it comes to our role as parents during this time? This is no time to worry about putting pressure on yourselves to keep things as "normal" as possible. This is not a "normal" time. Our mental health and the mental health of our children are such im...portant factors, and connection is key. Connection over teaching, connection over routine, connection over normalcy. You may ask how your children will learn the foundations necessary to prepare them for their return to school, daycare, etc. The best way to do this is by making your children feel safe and secure. We always say children learn best through play, but it's important to point out that they must be free to make their own choices in the way they play. Trust in the process and keep your own agendas out of it. Yes, it's great to do fun activities together like make playdough, bake, go on a scavenger hunt, play hide and seek, etc. as these are all activities to build on your connection. But when you're at home and want to give your children something to do, give them a safe space with open-ended materials and let them get creative. That is what we do in daycare because it's how the children make their best discoveries and breakthroughs. However, If you need a break for your own sanity, there's no shame in a little screen time and forgive yourself if things don't go as planned. Here is an editorial that just came out, written by Gordon Neufeld, the theorist of the Attachment Based Developmental Approach, which we follow at Nest.

Who needs a positive distraction right now? During the past few months, the children have become quite engaged in creating elaborate structures with our various building materials, as well as whatever else they've chosen to add. Take a look at the details in these photos!

Wishing our front line companions good health and safety during these uncertain times. There's light at the end of the tunnel, so let's provide our front line workers with the support they need to get through this. Stay home with your loved ones if you can!

Congratulations to long time Nest teacher Yukiko and her husband Mike for the birth of their little girl Jayna! Jayna took her time entering the world, but was born healthy at 3.8 kgs on Saturday, January 25th. We are so happy for the new family of 3!

Wishing those who are celebrating a Happy Lunar New Year! !

We are open today!!

We are closed today due to the weather. Be safe out there!

He was building something, but his intent wasn’t clear as we watched the process. So we listened. He pointed to the bleachers out in the field, which was in his direct view. However obvious this inspiration in clear view may seem to us adults now, there is nothing obvious about what a child is learning and discovering because it’s his or her own individual experience. And sure, it’s nice to know that children are learning and what their process is, but even if we hadn’t asked any questions or observed the experience, one thing is clear...the learning would have happened anyway.

Happy holidays from all of us at Nest!

As our class explored the school field this morning, the children decided to collect as many sticks as they could carry. When I asked, "what should we do with all these sticks?" one of the children yelled out "let's build a camp fire!" As the sticks piled up by the baseball diamond bench, I asked "what can we do by the campfire?" Soon enough, were roasting marshmallows, chocolate cake and sushi while sipping chocolate milk!

Autumn Inspiration! Nature provides us with everything we need :) #coloursgalore #autumnart #exploration

Miniature Icebergs! Blocks of ice, white and blue paint, cotton swabs and magnifying glasses provide an afternoon of chilly discoveries! #learningthroughplay #funscience #sensoryexploration

From all of us at Nest, wishing your families a safe and Happy Halloween!

It was inevitable that the pumpkins we collected last week would get cut open and explored. But as we got creative elbows deep in pumpkin pulp and seeds while carving jack o lanterns, we noticed some parallels with an earlier group conversation. We were discussing what a person can do when they feel angry. Some suggestions we came up with as a group were: -stomp our feet... -cross our arms -make an angry face -cry -say I’m angry! -give the cold shoulder with eyes closed and slowly turn your head away (this was demonstrated to us by a child who is all too wise) As they embarked on the carving activity, they were presented with a choice of how they wanted their jack o lantern’s face to look, and they chose angry. As you can see in the first two photos, they each have their own ideas of what this looks like.

Thank you to all of our families that were able to attend our annual pumpkin patch trip to Richmond Country Farms!

This past week, the children learned a bit about the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which is coming up in a few days. We read two stories that explained some of the traditions of this celebration and shared a favourite treat of apples dipped in honey with everyone. Like many cultural celebrations, Rosh Hashanah focuses a lot on spending time together and eating DELICIOUS FOOD. The children were really engaged and enjoyed the apples and honey treat, which symbolizes a "sweet year". If you know anyone celebrating, make sure to wish them a "Shana Tova!" (Happy New Year)

This child care centre in Hawaii felt it was time to change the narrative against crying and the expectation to hide one's feelings. We feel the same way.

Early Childhood Educators all over B.C. have been eagerly awaiting the revised Early Learning Framework. The updates are in response to the recognition that education is always evolving, as we understand more about children's development and growing trends around the world. In addition, they demonstrate appreciation for inclusion and diversity, with crucial emphasis on recognizing B.C's cultural origins. For a better understanding of the direction that early care and learning are taking, we encourage you to give this valuable document a read.

It’s a work in progress this weekend but our new classroom is coming together.

These curious and adventurous children had their first big field trip on a bus with Nest to the beautiful Centennial Beach in Tsawwassen. It was cold and wet, but that didn't deter most of the children from exploring the tide pools and discovering objects in the sand. There was a lot of rock throwing, splashing, and picking up shells, as well as the frightening discovery of a "sea snake" (it was seaweed). After the children dried off and changed their clothes, we all enjoyed... lunch at the picnic tables together and had a blast at the sprawling playground as the sun came out from behind the clouds. Nothing was collected and brought back from the beach, as the hermit crabs need different objects to dwell in as they grow bigger. This is a group of children that truly lives in the moment, so they were very satisfied to return back to Nest with memories, photos and discussions.

In honour of Pride Week, the staff at Nest Early Learning want to say that whoever you are and however your family looks or is structured, you are normal, you are beautiful, and you are welcome. Some of the core values in Early Childhood Education involve inclusion, and we believe that this shouldn’t stop with just abilities and ethnicity. When people are free to be their true selves, they can reach their full potential without being held back by other people’s expectations. Be kind and respectful, but also, be yourself.

We already know that spending time outside opens us up to more sensory experiences. This is especially true in the summertime, as the warm weather allows us to stay outside for longer periods and explore messy, water-based activities. But being outside doesn't always mean a separation of experiences. Drawing and building (or anything else for that matter) can benefit from different environments to inspire new ideas and expand on existing ones. Another benefit to providing a variety of materials is that it allows each of the children to have options, based on their energy and interests, while still enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

"Unscheduled, unsupervised, playtime is one of the most valuable educational opportunities we give our children. It is fertile ground; the place where children strengthen social bonds, build emotional maturity, develop cognitive skills, and shore up their physical health. The value of free play, daydreaming, risk-taking, and independent discovery have been much in the news this year, and a new study by psychologists at the University of Colorado reveals just how important these activities are in the development of children’s executive functioning."

The Evolution of an Activity It started with a mortar and pestle and some old chalk. After two mornings of mashing and smashing the chalk into a fine powder, Yukiko thought the children might like to add some water into the mix, which created another level of sensory experiences. The children found some more materials nearby and shifted the focus a bit. Some of the chalk mixture became sauce on the pizza they decided to make. Then they cut up little pieces of paper and other small materials to glue on the toppings, and finally put the pizza in the oven to bake today.

A MUST READ! This article has been getting shared within Early Childhood Educator circles lately, because the research is in and we know now more than ever what's important for your little ones in the early years.

Last week, our Head Teacher, Yukiko, took a small group of children on a walk to the dyke. Along the way, they excitedly searched for specific items around the neighbourhood, marking the corresponding pictures with stickers for their "nature hunt". We're so fortunate to be located in such a beautiful area of Richmond, where we can explore different aspects of nature that you can't find just anywhere.

To all the wonderful ECEs out there, happy belated ECE appreciation day!

Some old felt marker lids have been upcycled as open-ended materials for the children to use in their play. Today, two children pretended they were eggs that would break if they used their hands, so they carefully picked them up with the tongs instead and placed them in a dustpan to keep them safe.

To an adult, folding laundry can be one of the most tedious tasks. How lucky we are to have these helpers getting the job done!