A Normal Day at the Playground

We focus a lot on the educational benefits of quality preschool programming for children living in poverty (e.g. that kids from low-income families with preschool experience do better in school and ultimately in life than those who do not have the opportunity to attend preschool). However, it is also important to take time to highlight that children love preschool. They love learning. They love playing in a safe environment where they run around with abunch of children their age and scream! This is one of the things we provide to children on a daily basis that they may not othewise be able to partake in with the same sense of safety and adult supervision. Now that it is spring, we couldn't resist sharing with you how cute these kids are on our playground. For a web album with more pictures from a normal day at the playground click here. Enjoy!

Mom's Learning Too!

Ana Paniagua from El Salvador joined our ESL classes in September 2007. She has one daughter, Yosselyn, who is in one of CFNC's preschool classes. Anna tested as a beginning ESL Literacy student when she started ESL. That means that she could only understand a few isolated words, and extremely simple learned phrases. Her vocabulary was limited to a few isolated words and she had no control of grammar.

Anna has been coming to the ESL classes regularly after she drops her daughter off in the morning. She has gradually become more comfortable in English. She has started helping other students in the class. She has told me how she uses learned vocabulary with her daughter. She reads the books she has read in class with her. She sings nursery rhymes with her and she volunteers in her daughter’s class.

She volunteered to read an English children’s book in her daughter’s class. She had received the book through the Reading Connection which had given a reading workshop in our ESL class. She had learned how to use rhyming words when reading to a child. She did exactly that when she read the book in her daughter’s class. She also acted the story out and she asked the preschoolers questions. The children loved it and her daughter was beaming with pride (they are both pictured above).

After 60 hours of ESL instruction she took a post ESL test. She became a High Intermediate ESL which means that she can now understand simple learned phrases easily, and can participate in basic conversations in a few very routine social situations. She has now some control of basic grammar.

By Eugenie Ballering, ESL Instructor

What Does Success Smell Like?

Peggy Ashbrook, who developed our Preschool Science! program, recently taught CFNC kids to explore their sense of smell. She writes of this picture, "Children and teachers [are] gathering and recording the data from their activity: using their sense of smell to understand that people have different favorite smells."

For more pictures from our Preschool Science! program, click here.

It is an unfortunate truth that children living in poverty – particularly minority children – are less likely to excel in the fields of math and science and thus are less likely to have careers in math, science and technology. Early childhood programs must effectively engage children in math and science in order to close this achievement gap because, as the President of Chicago’s Erickson Institute argues, “the roots of later competence [in math and science] are established long before school age.”

Our Preschool Science! program ensures that our children have the pre-math and pre-science skills they will need. Preschool Science!, taught twice a month in every classroom, is designed to encourage our children to observe the details of the natural world, laying the foundation for their excitement of the discovery process and perception of themselves as young scientists. By participating in the Preschool Science! curriculum, the nearly 200 children who attend our programs will be prepared to succeed in the science education programs they will encounter in elementary school and beyond.

Our New Website

Some of you hopefully noticed that we recently overhauled our website. The new website was made possible by Pixels and Ink's generous in-kind donation of their time, talents and resources through their Gift of Design. We are thankful that we live and labor in a community with businesses like Pixels and Ink that are committed to giving their time and talents in service to those most in need. I am confident you will all agree that their design team did an excellent job and hope you will join with me in congratulating and thanking them for their hard work!

A couple of notes on the website: I would like to point your attention to the home page: when you refresh the page or return to it, you will see that the photos, quotes, and key supporters change. Also, you will notice that several sections remain under construction and for the next couple of weeks we will be working to finalize each section of the website. I encourage you to reply to this post if you notice any problems with the site's functionality, typos in website text, important information that is missing, etc. We will also be accepting praise for a job well done! I hope you will take the time to explore the website. On a final note, more names will be added to the supporters and partners sub pages in the upcoming days. I do not want anyone to feel that we have forgotten them or fail to appreciate their generous support. These next couple of weeks will be used to iron all of that out.

Posted By: Ryan Smith, Grantwriter

WELCOME

Welcome to the Child and Family Network Centers' new blog! The purpose of this blog is to share on a regular basis the stories and successes of our children, families, teachers and staff with our friends, partners, and supporters. We want you to have a better sense of the amazing things that occur here on a weekly basis. So I hope you will check back often.

Posted By: Ryan Smith, Grantwriter