Get to know Peregrine Elementary!

Come to Art Beast on Monday, December 5th from 5:30 to 7:00 and learn about Peregrine Elementary while kids enjoy free art, music and science activities. Peregrine Elementary teachers will be there to host activities and talk with prospective families about our program. We'll also be serving delicious homemade snacks and cider.

Art Beast is located at 2226 K Street in Midtown Sacramento, just 18 minutes from our Elementary campus in Davis.

Peregrine Elementary serves children in grades one through six (our early childhood center in West Davis serves children ages two through six.) Our program focuses on project based learning and includes spanish, low student–teacher ratios, integrated thematic curricula, yoga, drama, music and dance speciality classes, bi-weekly field trips, gardens, homemade nutritious snacks and lunches, and more. We nurture the whole child and believe that social and emotional development work in harmony with academic achievement.

To learn more about Peregrine School, please visit our website, or come by for a tour.

See you on December 5th!

El Mundo

The Escuelita classroom has been working on a wonderful postcard project to go along with their "Around the World" theme. Below is a write up of the project by head teacher Megan Forcum. This is a great example of how Peregrine School encourages emergent literacy in preschool-aged children.

While discussing travel in regards to our “Around the World” theme we talked about ways to remember our travels and sharing our experiences with friends and family. The concept of postcards was introduced as a way to visually share our traveling experiences with our loved ones while we are actually traveling. Each child was asked to take a postcard home and fill it out with a travel experience. Once returned to school the students were asked to place the postcards in the mailbox that they all decorated. Everyday during circle the teachers would read one or two postcards and asked the child to share any additional memories from his/her trip.

The postcards allowed the students to learn that experiences could be written down and shared with others. Some students attempted to write on the card themselves. This activity allowed the students to explore literacy in a way that differs from the traditional reading of books. The students enjoyed and took pride in placing their postcards in the mailbox and even more so when listening to his/her postcard as it was read in circle.

As students became more familiar with the function of postcards they became interested in “writing” their own. Students were provided postcards that they could fill out with drawings and have their messages written down by their teachers. Scribble drawings are one of the first steps of emergent literacy. Children begin by drawing what they are thinking about or wish to say. Teachers then document what the child is illustrating or the message they would like to say to others. This leads to the connection between oral and written language.

HALLOWEEN!

Austin showing off his lobster costume!

Everyone at Peregrine School gets into the spirit of Halloween, and this year promises to be extra fun with a weekend trip to the pumpkin patch followed by our annual parade and potluck at school on Monday.

Bring the whole family to Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon on Saturday, October 29th from 10:30 to noon for pumpkin picking, hay rides, and a snack provided by the school. Kids under five are free! The pumpkin patch is located at 6585 Milk Farm Road in Dixon. Sign up in the Escuelita classroom. 

Then come (in costume!) to our annual parade and picnic in the park on Monday, October 31st at 11:00 a.m.! After we parade around the park, we'll eat and celebrate until about 12:30. Please bring a peanut-free dish to share along with a list of ingredients. Thank you for remembering that all baked goods must be homemade. For full food guidelines, please see the parent handbook. 

Happy Halloween!

Emotion Coaching

Friday's parent meeting was a huge success!

Thank you to all the parents who came out to learn about parenting styles and emotion coaching, a style we use at Peregrine to teach kids about their emotions. Parent involvement is essential in creating a fluid home to school connection.

To learn more about the research Carol Weiss presented at the meeting, please visit the Talaris Institute's website. It is full of fascinating articles about children's emotional, academic, and social development.

On Friday, Carol Weiss highlighted four common parenting styles. They are the dismissing style, the disapproving style, the laissez-faire style, and the emotion coaching style. Here they are in more detail:

The Dismissing Style
"Just get over it!"
Dismissive parents deal with emotions by avoiding them. Rather than discussing emotions, dismissive parents may tell their children that there is no reason to feel the way they are feeling. Dismissive parents miss important opportunities to connect with their children, and their children are discouraged from sharing their feelings.

The Disapproving Style
"You shouldn't feel that way!"
Disapproving parents often do not acknowledge their own emotions, and discourage their children from acknowledging theirs as well. They may believe that emotions are a sign of weakness, or that they are not to be trusted. Children of disapproving parents have no model of how to express and talk about emotions in a healthy way.

The Laissez-Faire Style
"Anything goes!"
Laissez-Faire parents tell their children that all emotions are valid and therefore all behaviors are as well. While this is an improvement on the other styles, Laissez-Faire parents fail to teach their children how to manage their emotions. Children raised with this parenting style often do not know how to calm themselves down, have difficulty concentrating, and have difficulty with friends.

The Emotion Coaching Style
"Empathize and guide."
Emotion coaching parents give their children language for their emotions and help them find solutions to their problems. Like the laissez-faire style, emotion coaching values all feelings, but it differs in that it does not condone all behaviors. Children learn how to name their emotions and how to act on them.

The five steps of emotion coaching are:

1. Be aware of emotions.
Tune into your child's feelings and your own.

2. Connect with your child.
Use emotional moments as opportunities to connect.

3. Listen to your child.
Respect your child's feelings by taking time to listen carefully.

4. Name emotions.
Help your child name and identify emotions.


5. Find good solutions.
Explore solutions to problems together.


If you missed this meeting, please stop by the office to pick up a brochure on parenting styles and emotion coaching. Please let us know if you are interested in parent meetings and/or workshops with Carol Weiss in the future!

Parent Meeting Tomorrow!

Carol Weiss, MA, MFT

Tomorrow evening from 6-8 p.m. is our first parent meeting of the year. The topic is emotional intelligence coaching with children. Chef Julie will be providing a delicious pizza dinner and child care will be provided in the Escuelita classroom.

We're very excited to host Carol Weiss, a local marriage and family therapist and consultant. Carol has been consulting with Peregrine School for several years. Past presentations have focused on positive discipline and mindfulness. 

Drawing on research from the Talaris Institute, Carol will be speaking about parenting styles and how they affect children's academic, social, and emotional growth. She'll also be highlighting emotion coaching, a technique Peregrine teachers have learned to help children understand their emotions.

Please RSVP to lily@peregrineschool.org

See you there!