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Professional Development Opportunities
   Training & Retaining School Age Staff:

Bring your staff to a winter getaway and rejuvenate your school age spirit! 

Gain information on:

• How to build a system to support staff through survival stage;

• Ways to build School Age Mentor/Teacher Skills;

• Ways to Connect with your staff;

• How to design & implement support and

• The benefits of teacher observations

     When ~ Thursday, January 23, 2003

     Location ~ Kalahari Resorts, WI Dells

     Registration Fee ~ $35

     To Register Contact ~ Judy at 1-715-634-3905

     CEU Information ~ .5 CEUs ~ Content area:  

 The Wisconsin School Age Care Alliance Conference

     “When School Ends…”

Select from more than 30 school age specific workshops; see the latest school age products; and network with other school age professionals in the  state.

     When ~ Friday & Saturday, April 4 & 5

     Location ~ Marriott Inn in Waukesha

     How do I get more information?
            ~ Form the web: http://www.wisconsintrainingnetwork.info/AdvSearch.asp 
                     Choose Wisconsin School Age Care Alliance from the drop down box.
            ~ By mail:  Contact Stacy Randall at stacyrandall@prodigy.net.

 The National School Age Care Alliance (NSACA) 15^th Annual Conference

     When ~ February 27 – March 1, 2003

     Location ~ Salt Lake City, Utah

     To receive information visit www.nsacaConference.com

The 15^th Annual Conference in Salt Lake City will bring together 3000  after school professional – the largest conference of the profession. NSACA 2003 is an opportunity to:

• Learn about the newest developments   in this expanding field

• Hear about successful program ideas

• Network with more than 3,000 peer from all over the US and abroad

• Challenge yourself to grow with this rapidly developing profession

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What is WISACA ?

WISACA is the Wisconsin School Age Care Alliance, an affiliate of the National School Age Care Alliance.  As a state affiliate, our members join with school age providers across the nation to enhance the quality of out-of-school time for all children and youth. The mission of the Wisconsin School-Age Care Alliance is to advocate for school age children and enhance and promote quality school-age programming by providing a professional network for all working in the field. 

To receive more information or to become a member, please contact Stacy at stacyrandall@prodigy.net or Linda at teisele@chorus.net.

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  1983 Book on Dealing with Kid’s Behavior Still has Good Advice

by Jean Colvin

WCCIP Training & Consulting Services Coordinator

Some things never change and that includes good advice about working with kids. Clare Cherry’s 1983 Please Don’t Sit on the Kids is just as relevant for today’s teachers of school age children as it was nearly 20 years ago.

Cherry’s book not only offers practical responses to common behavior problems with children, but also gives the child’s point of view versus the adult’s point of view regarding behaviors and expectations.

Cherry bases her suggestions on eight years of experience directing a California nursery school and a deeply held belief that punitive discipline or punishment doesn’t work. Instead she offers what she calls her “magic list.” This list is designed to give teachers alternatives to punishment such as loss of privileges, timeouts and yelling. Many things on the list will be familiar to school age teachers. Sometimes we find it hard to apply them consistently. They are: anticipate trouble, give gentle reminders, distract to a positive model, inject humor, offer choices, give praises or compliments, offer encouragement, clarify messages, overlook small annoyances, deliberately ignore provocations, reconsider the situation, point out natural or logical consequences, provide renewal time, give hugs and caring, arrange discussion among the children and provide discussion with an adult.

The magic list and, in fact, Cherry’s entire book is built on kindness and respect for children. It may not be difficult for us to give gentle reminders to the smiling, enthusiastic kids we work with who occasionally forget a rule in their excitement of playing a game or being with their friends. It’s much harder to summon the quiet but firm voice and attitude of caring towards the child who is frequently in trouble, uses inappropriate language or is mean to other kids.  

Rather than just telling us to be kind to children, even the most difficult ones, Cherry builds a case for understanding these kids. She devotes a whole chapter to the ways that children irritate adults and offers explanations for their behaviors. For example, on fighting and using physical violence, Cherry notes that children learn to use physical force by seeing others use it and by having adults use it on them. She points out that young children use physical force usually “without thought and probably without malice” and they respond well to being given alternatives.

In her chapter on “Reconsidering Why Children Misbehave,” she describes many of the reasons that busy school age teachers may forget such as immaturity, boredom, curiosity, and sensitivity to food or environmental factors. Another reason she mentions, one that we probably don’t want to consider is “too many nos.” Her suggestion is to offer a considered response rather than a hasty one. She contrasts the way an adult might speak to a child in giving a hasty response versus a considered response. The considered response acknowledges how the child feels and gives an explanation for the “no.” This kind of practical chart, which spells out responses, is particularly helpful for school age teachers trying change their old ways of working with children.

With all her emphasis on understanding the child’s point of view, Cherry never loses sight of the fact that children do need limits for their own safety and need to learn self-control. Her book is a manual for understanding children’s behavior with tips on how teachers can respond. Her message of kindness towards children is just as important in 2002 as it was in 1983 and especially welcome in a world that feels more uncertain since 9/11.

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FUNDING & EVALUATION RESOURCES

The Finance Project is pleased to announce the publication of five new publications focusing on financing and evaluating out-of-school time programs.  For printed copies of any of these publications, contact Charlene Whitfield, Fulfillment Officer, The Finance Project, 202-587-1000 or log onto the Finance Projects website at www.financeproject.org to down load the information.

Replacing Initial Grants: Tips for Out-of-School Time Programs and Initiatives, Available at http://www.financeproject.org/fptips.htm. This book is designed to help new program directors find longer-term funding by providing concrete tips and examples of ways other out-of-school time initiative leaders have succeeded in replacing initial seed grant money by creating a diverse portfolio of federal, state, local, and private funds. It is also intended to provide suggestions for finding longer-term funding and share ideas for program leaders whose grants will expire soon. (Elisabeth Wright with Sharon Deich, December 2002)
Documenting Progress and Demonstrating Results: Evaluating Local Out-of-School Time Programs (with the Harvard Family Research Project), Available at http://www.financeproject.org/OSTlocalevaluation.htm. Produced in partnership with the Harvard Family Research Project, this guide provides out-of-school time practitioners with techniques, tools, and strategies they can use to improve their programs and track their effectiveness over time. It is also intended to provide information about multiple aspects of evaluation, so program stakeholders can become more informed participants and, thereby, more empowered in the evaluation of their programs. (Priscilla Little, Sharon DuPree, Sharon Deich, September 2002)

For more information on these and other publications, please contact:

Martha A. Roherty
Outreach and Dissemination Coordinator
1401 New York Avenue, N.W.
Suite 800
Washington, DC  20005
202-587-1012

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WINTER ACTIVTIES

The American Montessori website has many links for free lesson planning activities that are hands on.  There are many wonderful activities for art, music, and science in their newsletter. For more information go to the American Montessori website at www.amonco.org. Below is a sample of one of the activities found on the website.

Borax Crystal Snowflake
Grow a snowflake in a jar!

You will need:

ˆ string

ˆ wide mouth pint jar

ˆ white pipe cleaners

ˆ blue food coloring (optional)

ˆ boiling water (with adult help)

ˆ borax (available at grocery stores in the laundry soap section, as 20 Mule Team Borax Laundry Booster- NOT Boraxo soap)

ˆ pencil

Directions:

With a little kitchen science you can create long lasting snowflakes as sparkly as the real ones. Cut a white pipe cleaner into 3 equal sections. Twist the sections together in the center so that you have a “six-sided” star shape. If your points are not even, trim the pipe-cleaner sections to the same length. Now attach string along the outer edges to form a snowflake pattern.  Attach a piece of string to the top of one of the pipe cleaners and tie the other end to a pencil (this is to hang it from).

Pipe cleaners and string form a snowflake 
base for the crystals to grow on.

Fill a wide mouth jar with boiling water. Mix borax into the water one tablespoon at a time. Use 3 tablespoons of borax per cup of water. Stir until dissolved, (don’t worry if there is a powder settling on the bottom of the jar). If you want you can add a little blue food coloring now to give the snowflake a bluish hue. Insert your pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the pencil is resting on the lip of the jar and the snowflake is freely suspended in the borax solution. Wait overnight and by morning the snowflake will be covered with shiny crystals. Hang in a window as a sun-catcher or use as a wintertime decoration.

Once you have tried making this snowflake go to the website to see why the borax crystal grew and the science behind the fun.  Good luck.

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Planning Activities

Looking for new ideas, tired of using the same old ideas, go to the Toolbox Training website for an Activity Calendar.  For a monthly activity calendar visit www.toolboxonline.bigstep.com and click on the Activity Calendar.  There are calendars for every month of the year.  Each calendar offers a wide variety of special dates and holidays around which you can plan programming.