Last week the staff from Children’s Village Preschool (Orange, CA) and Edgewater Preschool (Long Beach, CA) joined together for a staff in-service day. The day was filled with both team building activities and lots of helpful workshops put on by the Directors and Administrators. The main focus of the in-service was to help the teachers continue creating an environment that is aligned with the school’s hands-on, child-centered philosophy. The first workshop for the day involved cooking, sensory, and woodworking activities, all of which can help children develop pre-math skills ( measurement, counting, and classifying), skill related to scientific methods (observing and identifying colors, textures, smell and taste), all while developing creativity, fine motor skills, and hand-eye coordination. The teachers were very excited to take back some of these ideas and do them with the children in their classrooms. The next workshops included topics such as positive guidance techniques, parent communication and documenting children’s progress through portfolios. The final workshop helped teachers to examine the infinite possibilities that can arise from dramatic play. There are so many ways to help foster children’s imagination, self-regulation, vocabulary, and pre-writing skills with the children guiding their own learning. Each of the workshops gave teachers the opportunity to collaborate with other teachers, be active in group discussions, and share ideas with one another. The staff also enjoyed mealtime together and used this time to get to know each other better and build deeper relationships with one another. We are very fortunate to have such a great group.
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