SUMMER INSTITUTE COURSES 2010

* Earn Antioch University of New England Graduate Credits

July 5-9

An In depth Study of the Twelve Senses From the Inside Out

July 12-16

Cycles and Rhythms for Working with Young Children

Nurturing the Child in the First Three Years

Creating Programs for Parents and Infants (3 day course)

July 19-23

Nurturing the Child in the First Three Years (second week)

Puppetry For Very Young Children

Creating an Outdoor Environment for the Young Child and  Imbuing it with Life    Canceled

 Today’s young children are eager for life, for exploring the world, for encountering others in a meaningful, intimate way.  To support these young ones to grow into adults who have strength, enthusiasm, confidence and joy for life asks deep devotion to their care.  As teachers and parents, our gift to the growing child is to recognize and support above all his or her unfolding spirit.  We must also prepare ourselves in practical ways to meet the children who come into our lives.

Summer 2010 at Sophia’s Hearth Family Center offers three weeks of professional development courses.  Our summer faculty brings depth of experience and knowledge developed over years of caring for young children and their families, and studying the development of the child. 

Our courses for the coming summer bring a clear emphasis upon looking at early childhood education through the lens of human development and the unfolding human spirit.  There are moments when life calls us to find a new viewpoint, to clarify our vocational commitment and personal path.  Perhaps you find yourself in such a moment.  We invite you to join us this summer for study, colleagueship, renewal, and new views.

Week One  -  July 5 – 9

An In Depth Study of the Twelve Senses from the Inside Out

Jane Swain

During the first seven years of life, incredible development of the child’s senses is occurring which has far reaching ramifications for physical, social, emotional and spiritual development.  It is tremendously helpful for today’s children if there is an adult in the child’s life with cognitive understanding of this sensory development.  Perhaps more importantly for the child is that the adult also serve as a model of healthy sensory functioning for her.  This is becoming increasingly difficult as many of us as adults find ourselves, for a variety of reasons, distanced from our bodies.

Can we learn to discern the connections between the foundational senses and the higher senses in every day life?  And is it true, as Rudolf Steiner says, that the higher senses of the adult directly influence the development of the child’s foundational senses?  We will explore these questions through a rich assortment of nonthreatening sensory activities designed to enhance the capacities of the participants’ higher senses. 

Through additional experiential work, case studies and videos of children displaying various aspects of sensory development, we will increase our awareness that each of our senses is a doorway into a unique and specialized understanding of the world.  The essential goal of the course is to enable each participant to confidently support the healthy sensory development of the children in his or her care.

This course will be based upon a unique blend of insights from Rudolf Steiner, Emmi Pikler, Jaimen McMillan, Jean Ayres, and current leaders in the sensory integration movement.  It will focus on children from infancy through seven years.  Mornings include Spacial Dynamics® exercises, and afternoons will include artistic activity.

Week Two  -  July 12 – 16

Cycles and Rhythms for Working with Young Children

Andrea Gambardella and Kim Snyder-Vine

What are characteristics of each of the first seven years? How do we work with the child’s continuous growth and change in a framework of consistency, order and love? How do the care provider and educator maintain constancy while making self-development a life-long journey?

This course will enable each participant to build an understanding for working with young children as they grow through the year and years in her care and in her particular setting working from the essentials of Waldorf early childhood education.  The course will also include the inner life of the teacher and caregiver through images from the cycle of the year and the “monthly virtues”.

The day will be completed with Kim Snyder-Vine’s work in Creative Speech, described below.

Creative Speech:  A child is born into the world with the truly wondrous capacity for speaking fluent Cosmic Speech. Thousands of amazing sound combinations flow from the infant's mouth in gushing abundance. Slowly, with the daily influence of the mother tongue, the vast variety of sounds and their combinations becomes smaller and smaller. How much smaller depends on the specific language the child was born into as well as the quali­ty of the speaking of the language that surrounds the child every day. It is important that the adults who care for the child also commit themselves to feeling their way back into the words once again, thereby insuring that the child is surrounded by living words and not lifeless abstractions.

In these five days we will make a firm exploration into feeling our way back into the word through a reintroduction to the sounds, vowels and consonants, and the necessary breath to fill them with new life. Our guides will be the sound content of the nursery rhyme, the young child's best speech exercises. We will also venture into the world of prose through simple children's sto­ries. In both verse and story we will explore the living gestures of the sounds, the words, the phrases and the sentences. 

This course may be eligible for graduate credit form Antioch University New England.

CREATING  PROGRAMS FOR PARENTS AND INFANTS

 Nancy Macalaster

This three day course will enable participants to develop a seamless continuum for parents with infants and young children from newborns to age three within the context of a facilitated playgroup program.  The course will look at newborns, older infants, and toddlers and the playgroup needs of each age in forming the physical environment, the rhythm of the day, insights into parents’ changing questions and needs through these three stages.  The role and tasks of the facilitator will round out the themes for the course.  The course itself will be highly experiential, and is designed for those interested in initiating parent-infant groups as well as those already engaged in this work.  Be prepared to bring your questions and experiences.

NURTURING THE CHILD IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS

This is a two-week course.  Participants may enroll for the first week alone or for both weeks.  With permission of the faculty and based upon prior experience, participants may enroll for the second week only. 

What is it that is so distinctive about the child in the first three years of life?  This period brings many questions and needs for sensitive care.  Designed especially for playgroup leaders, childcare providers, early childhood teachers, parents and expectant parents, this two-week course offers an understanding of the sensitive processes taking place in the beginning of life.  Out of these insights, we will build a foundation for caring for infants and young children.

Jane Swain, Susan Weber, and Kim Snyder-Vine

The first week of this two-week course (July 12 – 16) begins by examining the child's development from the perspectives of her spirit, her physical growth, and emotional life.  Each of these aspects of the child's development is approached through study of the child's gross and fine motor development, infant reflexes, the sensory development of the child and the adult's support of it.  Hands-on experience as well as lectures and discussion provide the foundation for learning.  Practical insights and perspectives for the teacher or parents’ care of the child includes infant and toddler caregiving evolving out of intimate relationships between adult and child, understanding the progressive rhythms of infancy and the early years, language development and its foundation for thinking, the unfolding of play step by step as a foundation for learning.  The course also explores approaches to programs for expectant parents as well as for parents with infants and young children. The day will be completed with Kim Snyder-Vine’s work in Creative Speech.

This course may be eligible for graduate credit form Antioch University New England.

A child is born into the world with the truly wondrous capacity for speaking fluent Cosmic Speech. Thousands of amazing sound combinations flow from the infant's mouth in gush­ing abundance. Slowly, with the daily influence of the mother tongue, the vast variety of sounds and their combinations becomes smaller and smaller. How much smaller depends on the specific language the child was born into as well as the quali­ty of the speaking of the language that surrounds the child every day. It is important that the adults who care for the child also commit themselves to feeling their way back into the words once again, thereby insuring that the child is surrounded by living words and not lifeless abstractions.

In these five days Kim will make a firm exploration into feeling our way back into the word through a reintroduction to the sounds, vowels and consonants, and the necessary breath to fill them with new life. Our guides will be the sound content of the nursery rhyme, the young child's best speech exercises. We will also venture into the world of prose through simple children's sto­ries. In both verse and story we will explore the living gestures of the sounds, the words, the phrases and the sentences. 

The second week of this two week course (July 19 – 24) includes focus on the integration of the self between two and three years.  This overall focus is approached through several themes: how adults can support the young child in developing social skills and in learning to navigate conflict; understanding bonding and attachment as spiritual processes and supporting families in this phase; healthy sensory and social experience as a foundation of social competence.  The course explores the evolving approach of the adult in working with infants, toddlers, and older children.

This course may be eligible for graduate credit from Antioch University New England.

Week Three July 19 - 23

NURTURING THE CHILD IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS (Second Week)

PUPPETRY FOR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN

Libby Haddock

This course will enable you to feel well prepared for working with storytelling and puppetry with young children. We will learn how to construct needle felted woolen table puppets to enliven the characters of both people and animals in simple stories.  You will learn how to build an innovative and beautiful foreground for your plays using wool fleece and silk.  We will work to transform your body and lap into a stage. 

Puppetry is invaluable in the early childhood classroom through its capacity to enable the child to take in a story deeply through the aid of a puppet who is an ‘egoless’ being. The imitative nature of the young child enables the experience of puppetry to be brought directly into the child’s play. 

As the crafting of puppets and creating a setting for them is only the first step in bringing the power and healing magic of puppetry to young children, we will work each day learning how to move your puppets so that they truly express the gestures and qualities of the people and animals that they represent.

In preparation for the course, participants are asked to be thinking of nursery rhymes, folk tales and fairy tales that you would like to illustrate in movement, setting, and puppet creation. 

Creating an Outdoor Environment for the Young Child and Imbuing it With Life--with Carol Nasr   Canceled

This five day exploration of bringing the natural world to life for young children will be lead by a gifted teacher who, in her own life, has cultivated an intimate personal relationship with the natural world, and has imbued that relationship through her study of therapeutic insights.  This will be a hands-on course that includes a study of the child's need for healthy development of the senses in the realm of nature as well as a wealth of practical activity for the teacher.

We will create a plan for an outdoor space that includes the four elements, encompasses the four seasons, and activates the child's four foundational senses of touch, balance, self-movement and well being.

How does the development of the four foundational senses in a natural setting affect the child's cognitive learning and social life?  We will consider the design and construction of play equipment, the planting of a garden and the care of a composting area working with the principles of biodynamic gardening.  We will explore the possibilities of outdoor areas, both small and large; urban or rural; forest, field or modest back yard.  Students will complete this week confident about special ways to find a rich outdoor environment wherever they are located.

Included in the course will be a hands-on community project at Sophia’s Hearth Family Center’s new building, where a beautiful outdoor landscape of fields and woods invites our participation to enhance its gifts to the children in its new childcare program.

Suggested reading for the course is Daniel Udo de Haes’ book, "The Young Child: Creative Living with Two to Four Year Olds".  although out of print, it can often be found for a reasonable price with on-line booksellers. Also the book "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv. 

 
TRAINING COURSE 

The two week course described above, Nurturing the Young Child From Birth to Three , serves also as the first session of the training course.  For further information about the training course, please call us for a conversation (603-357-3755), email for a complete print brochure (info@sophiashearth.org), or view the brochure here.  Students begin the program with the two-week summer session and must attend all sessions; partial enrollment is not offered.

COST
Tuition for each Summer 2010 Course is $525 (discounted price of $515 for cash/check).  This includes a healthy daily  prepared lunch, shared in community, as well as all handwork materials.  A $75 deposit is required for all courses.  Please note that there is a $35 late fee for registrations less than 10 days prior to any course.

Full course information and registration forms are available.

THREE WAYS TO REGISTER:

1.  Download our  Brochure and Registration Form: Print, fill out and mail.

2. Call or email us and we’ll send you our July 2010 Summer Courses Brochure and Registration Form.  Simply fill it out and return by mail.

3. Register on line by clicking here: Register On Line

Phone: 603-357-3755

E-mail: info@sophiashearth.org

Address: 700 Court Street, Keene, NH 03431

THREE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR DEPOSIT PAYMENT:

1. Mail a check with your printed Registration Form.

2. If you would like to use a credit card, please call us at 603-357-3755.

3. Pay when you register on line.  Register on Line

QUESTIONS?

We’re available to consult with you about course choices or other questions you might have.  Simply call or email us!