As parents I’m sure we’ve all wondered, “When is the right time to talk to my child about X?” or “Is it too early for Z?” I can almost guarantee that the answer is, it is never too early!

Perhaps this is a familiar scene at your house: It’s bedtime, and it’s time to snuggle up for a read-aloud before you tuck your child into bed. Perhaps, like at my house, you have a shelf full of varied and interesting books from which your child can choose. And perhaps, like at my house, your child chooses the same book every night. Do you ever wonder why…?

Seniors who come down regularly to read books aloud in the classrooms have been integral to All Seasons Preschool from day one. They offer openness and love on a regular basis. Some offer their laps, offer to write children’s stories, to check on the muffins, to string popcorn or shape playdough. For all of this, teachers are full of gratitude. But to the children, the senior readers’ biggest offering is the one that matters most: time spent together.

Here at All Seasons, you won’t find mass produced posters on the wall of the alphabet or numbers. You also won’t find a rigid schedule or children in small groups moving from one table to another every fifteen minutes with a teacher instructing them how to do it properly. What you will find is children building with blocks, climbing a boulder outside with their friends, baking cookies in a small group, making cards and delivering them to the grandparents who live upstairs, and setting up tables for lunch.

The Dakota term, Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ, means “we are all related” or “all my relatives” when translated into English. At its core, Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ values stewardship of land instead of ownership of land. For children and grown-ups alike, this Indigenous knowledge can be put into practice by taking the time to get to know the piece of land that we work and play on.

We often find our toddlers painting, singing, building and deconstructing, creating, and imagining, as they find many different ways to engage in sensory play. Even something as simple as filling buckets with water and dumping them into a larger bucket can provoke wide-eyed wonder.

Inviting preschool students to use adult tools like hammers, saws, and clippers might initially seem like a bad idea, but there are multiple benefits to doing so!

There is a long tradition of celebrating holidays at All Seasons Preschool. It emerged from years of sharing holiday activities as a way to connect the children with the seniors. Celebrating the holidays that were important to the grandmas and grandpas feels natural and authentic because it evolves within the context of a community.

This fall, the Autumn Room at Inver Glen began the year with a study of monarch butterflies. We observed caterpillars from the time they were scarcely big enough to be seen without using a magnifying glass until they were beautiful orange, black, and white butterflies ready to be released into nature.

When you think of the wide range of physical activities that preschoolers enjoy at preschool, wrestling may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, this activity offers a range of developmental benefits that can help young children thrive.

I am embarrassed to admit it, but ever since moving back to Minnesota from California eight years ago, the change in seasons catches me by surprise.

Grandpa Al would have been there. The first day of school took on new meaning for the last ten of Al’s 97 years. He’d have been there to greet our students on their first day of school and for every event to follow. He was our first grandpa at All Seasons, the pioneering senior who said “yes” to being a regular reader to our first group of children in 2009.