Every child is
born a naturalist. His eyes are, by nature, open to the glories of the stars,
the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life. — R. Search
Fostering
Self-esteem, Resilience and Problem Solving
Esteem for all
aspects of oneself is key to personal wellbeing, to good relationships, to find
a meaningful place in the world and to feel compassion for all living things.
In building
self-esteem, what is important is that all aspects of the child needs are
acknowledged and respected. The child needs to learn respect and esteem for
their own individuality, their thinking capacities, their feeling capacities
and their capacity to work with strong will. Part of the respect for the will
is what today is being called resilience, which means a healthy respect for
one’s will power, one’s ability to have the courage to try, to try again, to
persevere, recover and learn from failure.
Nurturing
their special interests and promoting problem solving is also part of our
commitment to support their developmental process. It is important for children
to learn that solving problems is not something that we have to do alone. We
can all have good ideas. We can help each others. When children feel like
they're making a difference by helping another individual – even doing a small
thing - they feel more confident.
Fostering
children's self-esteem is our ongoing task all through childhood. It takes
mindfulness in those involved in children's growth and education. Self-esteem comes
from a sense of competence and a confident child needs a positive and realistic
perception of his or her abilities. This comes from achievements, great and
small.
Risk-Taking
and Developing Indipendence
Risk-taking
-in age-appropriate ways- is another important aspect of our approach to
learning. Providing opportunities for courage, independence and initiative
(also making mistakes and learning from them) is fundamental for children to
learn carefulness, responsibility and resilience.
In our risk
averse world children risk to be deprived of opportunities to develop their
physical skills, coordination as well as their will.
In this
context it is worth underlining that we need to ensure that children are given
the opportunity to try things for themselves.
Independence
for children begins with children finding the confidence to try something for
themselves. Children rely on adults for so many different aspects of care and
it is a big step for a child to attempt to tackle a task independently. By doing
things independently children will soon realise that their actions have an
effect, and will continue to explore and make sense of the world around them,
attempting a wider range of tasks independently.
True
understanding and knowledge begin with wonder and awe, then becomes an interest
in the world. Everything else follows from there. It all takes time. True
knowledge comes as a result of integrating all that children have experienced
and thought about.
Coming from
what the children know for themselves is the best way to increase understanding
of things beyond their experience.
Nurturing
Imagination and Creativity
At Kiddywinks
we know how important it is to nurture children's imaginations and take joy in
their creative thoughts and acts.
Einstein said,
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." Imagination is the
door to possibilities. It is where creativity, ingenuity, and thinking outside
the box begin for child development.
Imaginative
and creative play is how children learn about the world.
Everyone
aspires for children to reach their highest intellectual and social/emotional
potential. Imagining, trying new ways of doing things, using open-ended
materials and experimenting help develop critical thinking in children and foster
creative problem solving. Furthermore, imagination builds social-emotional
development by allowing children to contemplate different resolutions, thus
growing in their confidence, which can be used in interactions with others.
Imagination
and creativity are skills that our children will need in their future.
Developing Thinking Capacities
Thinking
capacities take time to develop, along with language, memory and consciousness
and so should not be forced. Our role is to encourage children's natural way of
thinking and give them time and encouragement to share their own thoughts about
things.
In young
children this begins with the concrete world which they know, and with the here
and now. Yet as their imaginations grow, they build their thoughts in quite
observant and creative ways. In listening to their talk, we should show
appreciation for their creative thinking and problem solving.
Our Daily
Commitment
“This is our mission: to cast a ray of light and pass on” M.Montessori
Kiddywinks
has an holistic approach which respects the uniqueness in the style of each
child. “The teacher is seen as a mentor, a facilitator, or an experienced
traveling companion” (Forbes, 1996) “ Schools are seen as places where students
and adults work towards a mutual goal. Open and honest communication is
expected and differences between people are respected and appreciated,
Cooperation is the norm rather than competition. The reward for children is
helping one another and growing together”.
Our approach focuses on the observation of children while they are
experiencing and on the consequent review and reflection of their ongoing
individual processes of learning.
We always take into consideration their physical, emotional, social and
identity needs and we strive to facilitate children in dealing with their
emotions, becoming aware of their emotional state as they respond to specific
situations and using language to express their feelings.
As teachers and educators, we always plan all the activities to support
children's exploration but we are flexible in order to adapt learning to the
particular situation, take ideas from the students and build on what they
initiate.
Following the Montessori concept of education our environments are designed to allow the child
to work independently with joy through concentration and self-discovery.
Teachers introduce materials and children are free to choose them, again and
again, concentrating, working and discovering, and ultimately finding their
interests and developing accuracy, coordination and thinking skills. Our
primary goal is to foster and enhance each child’s natural sense of joy and
wonder as well as supporting their natural gifts.
“It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him
feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the
desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his
experience.” M. Montessori
Kyddywinks Library
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” —
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman philosopher
At Kiddywinks we aim to build an authentic passion for reading by
sharing our love of books and our belief in the power of literature. The early
years are critical to develope a lifelong love of reading. Reading help
children gaining a sense of themselves in the world, sparks their imagination,
stimulates curiosity and help their development, helps children understand
change and new or frightening events, and also the strong emotions that can go
along with them,. It also helps children developing early literacy skills like
the ability to listen to and understand words. This is important for children's
developing social and communication skills.
The special time we spend reading stories with children promotes bonding
and helps to build relationships. The
Kiddywinks library is at the heart of our school and houses a growing
collection of excellent fiction and non-fiction children’s literature in both
Italian and English. The children are introduced to a variety of genres and
authors which stimulates their intellectual curiosity and promotes a love of
reading. Children visit the library regularly with their teachers and are able
to enjoy books anywhere at Kiddywinks. Parents are encouraged to come for
shared reading with children as well. We have a selection of magazines,
educational media and a collection of international children’s literature
written in world languages. A section of useful resources for parents is also
available.