Terra - Baby Cuddlers

In the rooms with the very youngest children, there is a very important role that volunteers play. The official title of this generous group of people is a 'Baby Cuddler'. Their role is to be with the babies  give them lots of attention. With the very young children, this ensures their needs are being met at all times, ensuring optimum experiences so early on.

Who would not want this job??

Thank you Margaret for allowing me to take this picture of you.

Indoor spaces

The space is arranged to make the materials available to children and support the organisation of materials when children are ready to move on.

Baskets are attractive and things are clearly labeled

I thought these were interesting - I was not sure what they were at first and then I worked it out. 

The crayons indicate the number of people able to be in this space when things start to implode. Often the reason for conflict comes for space issues so if the children are unable to resolve the conflict and work it out, the they need to negotiate who is able to stay in the space - often having to identify someone to leave is enough for them to work it out.

Town of Beaumont ELCC - And here is the little something beautiful

Check out my 'Seeds of Empathy' post to get the back story to this.

Thanks Jodie for taking the time in your crazy world to talk to the family about posting these photos - such a beautiful moment between brother and sister....this made me cry....not sure about my first impressions...crying after being there for half an hour!!

How connected is this!!!

Town of Beaumont ELCC - Seeds of Empathy...and then something beautiful happened

The centre includes an 'anti-bullying' programme called 'Seeds of Empathy'. A family in the community volunteers to bring in their young baby for the year once per week to share the care and tender moments with the children in the centre. The teachers are trained to teach it - sounds a bit like the way the 'Incredible Years' is organised although it is a very different programme. Centres can't 'just do the programme'. 

These are the themes of the programme:

 Here they are tracking the baby's growth

 Representing it here in a graph....stretching the programme to include mathematics learning and graphs

Then something beautiful happened....a young child was sitting on the knee of a teacher on the floor being comforted on his first day...he needed the undivided attention he was receiving to find some calm as he worked through how he was feeling. His sister heard him from the adjoined room and was looking over the low gate at him to check in. I commented to Mary Lynne 'I wonder if they will bring her in to help comfort her brother?' and Mary Lynne replied 'We'll have to wait and see'. Sure enough, we turned around and Jodie was walking over to the young child and teacher with the big sister. It was such a beautiful moment that it bought tears to my eyes! Talk about congruency - taking me through the 'Seeds of Empathy' programme and then we see this happening. I took photos of this moment and will only share them if the family give consent. It worked too!!