Dear Families, 

Over these past few months and, perhaps, the course of this entire year, you would have been hard-pressed to not have noticed that our country's midterm elections were upon us. This goes for our children as well.

As my colleague, Sasha Kopp from the Jewish Education Project writes, 

"Young children are incredibly perceptive. They see and hear the world around them and yearn to make sense of it all. Through play, children experience story-telling, role-playing, hypothesizing, and more.  When you introduce young children to the concepts of democracy and citizenship you are introducing them to a fundamental value of our American educational system. The values that the democratic process teaches are important to learn regardless of whether or not it is an election year. As educators and parents, we can explicitly name these values for young children and help them engage with what they are noticing."

Our students are often looking for ways to share their voices and demonstrate their competencies as community members at school. As such, our Early Childhood faculty provides many opportunities for their students to be a part of decision-making in the classroom - a key tenet of an excellent early childhood program. These exercises bring to life these key values:

•  Everyone has a unique voice

•  Each person can make change happen

•  Each voice is equally important

•  Sometimes we are disappointed

•  Sometimes we disagree

•  Being respectful is important

Most recently in our classrooms, the children have had opportunities to learn about the democratic process in a developmentally appropriate way. Through activities such as reading literature, learning election vocabulary, engineering ballot boxes, casting votes, counting tallies, and debating ideas/engaging in the power of persuasion, our young learners are taking their first steps towards being responsible and engaged citizens of our country and the world.

Warmly,

Abby Aloni,
Head of Early Childhood