Batting Into Fall in the Child Development Center
As Fall approaches, the Child Development Center at Westminster Canterbury Richmond is gearing up for an exciting new season! Each quarter, “friends and family boards” with a specific theme are decorated throughout the Center with photos of family fun and togetherness. This season’s theme is sports/team related. Families will add pictures participating in their favorite activity or wearing their favorite team jersey. The friends and family board is intended to build community and links the home family to the school family. Meghan Kaloski, Assistant Director adds, “It helps our families get to know each other and helps us to notice connections that we can use to build relationships.”
This creative idea supports the Conscious Discipline approach, which is practiced through the Center. Conscious Discipline is a comprehensive social-emotional learning program based on current brain research, child development information, and developmentally appropriate practices. Built on the premise of developing discipline within children rather than applying discipline to them, it sets everyone (kids, families and staff) up to feel safe, loved and ready to learn and is the basis of our School Family! The children in the Child Development Center are part of a family, not only within the Center, but throughout the Westminster Canterbury campus. They often interact with residents through our intergenerational program, which is one way of introducing the children and seniors to each other to share and to be loved.
The friends and family boards, with their inspirational messages and photos of smiling, happy faces are a way of creating that sense of connection between home and school and a reminder that raising children takes team work! Quoting one bulletin board, “We are all different but as a team we fit together”. We look forward to winning season!