'Progressive Montessori' School Teaches Positivity At Pre-School Level
MCKINNEY (CBSDFW.COM) - Little hands and little toes reach up.
Inside Daffodils Preschool in McKinney students slowly breath in and breath out. The school is using an age-old practice to help stop a modern problem before it even starts.
"We are a Progressive Montessori," says the owner of Daffodils Preschool, Sabiha Tanvir.
Tanvir says Daffodils Preschool is using the Reggio Emilia approach along with other traditional learning approaches to provide children with a creative and aesthetic learning environment.
The Reggio philosophy was developed by a teacher and some parents after World War II who lived in small Italian village.
"The whole philosophy is based on the idea that each child is made of one hundred," says Tanvir. "They speak, explore and learn a hundred different ways. They speak a hundred different languages."
Tanvir says they have found that allowing children to use different forms of creativity as a form of expression, not only provides a strong foundation for future learning, but also helps children with aggression and other behavior issues.
Agressive behavior in children can begin at a very young age, according to the Empowering Parents website.
However, Tanvir says in her experience a pesrson can't assume young children are bullying, since they are too young to understand that behavior.
"When kids they might be exhibiting aggressive behavior, which to adults might come across as bullying, but kids are not doing it with the intention or premeditated or it's not a deliberate act of aggression at this age," says Tanvir. "However kids do exhibit early signs of either anger issues or tempermental issues or discipline issues, which you know if addressed at this point -- don't lead to later disciplinary problems or even bullying nature."
Daffodils Preschool has found a creative way to help kids channel their frustrations in soothing ways. It begins the second they walk into Daffodils.
Parents and students are greeted with warm and soothing colors; children's artwork lines the walls.
The kids paint, pick pears, sing and practice their yoga. At the school they don't just do art, but they experience art.
"The relaxed creative atmosphere is what really excited us about this school," says parent Courtney Wesson who has two children at Daffodils.
She says that her son is very energetic and the school has found a way to use that energy productively, "They put him in roles like leader roles and it really helps his personality."
Teachers have noticed when students struggle to communicate frustration quickly builds and that can turn into anger.
"We have found that kids who have early signs of discipline issues or anger management issues if you can redirect them through art through creative learning it helps them address a lot of discipline issues because they learn to communicate their creative energy or their perspective through art," says Tanvir.
Estra Pope's two little ones are students at the school. She says the program has really helped her three-year old son Skyler.
She says before when Sklyer would get frustrated he would quickly get angry, but now she's noticed he's much calmer.
"The overall process is helping the kids to learn to translate their feelings," explains Pope "What they are feeling what they are thinking and communicate that either through the art project or conversations or songs they sing or the rhymes."
Through art, music, mediation the young kids are learning to stop potential trouble before it even begins.
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