Grandparents Day lands on Sunday, September 13. Our families spend that day at home together, so we moved our celebration to Friday, September 11. Grandparents are invited to Rise Above to join our monthly cooking class.
Cooking is a genuine part of our early childhood curriculum, and it teaches without a worksheet in sight. Scooping and leveling the flour is math our children can hold in their hands. Putting the recipe in the right order is early sequencing, the kind that later helps them read. The wait for the oven builds patience, which is hard work for a three year old.
There is something else happening at that table. A grandparent tells a story about baking with their own mother, and a child hears about a kitchen from another time. Family history passes down over a mixing bowl, and no one has to plan it.
Our approach rests on a simple belief. Children are capable. They can handle real tools, real ingredients, and real responsibility, and they rise to it when we trust them. That belief comes from Reggio Emilia, an approach that began in a small Italian town and treats children as partners in their own learning.
Grandparents will see that belief at work. They will watch children handle real tools with care, and hear a teacher ask a question and wait while a child thinks it through.
If a grandparent cannot travel to us, another adult who loves your child is welcome to take that seat. Our children just want someone in the chair beside them. Our Rise Above families are invited to join us on Friday, September 11.
