Annual Report 2016-2017
Thank you! This past year, with your unwavering support, we were able to provide our humanistic, child-initiated, experiential education to over 100 children for the 67th year in a row. We were also able to improve our beautiful and historic campus, increase salaries and benefits for our staff, provide scholarships to many of our families, and fundraise over $100,000 in support of our mission.
Going Green with the Green Team
We invited Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen of the 5 Gyres Institute (parents of Avani who attended Play Mountain Place), to give a very educational presentation about plastic pollution in the ocean. The children were so inspired from this presentation that at the next park day, they made a plan and picked up trash.
Making Moves: How Play Mountain Place Fosters Self-Empowerment and Expression Through Creative Dance
Play Mountain Place supports its students to explore themselves and the world around them while encouraging them to communicate authentically and seek their own solutions to challenges they face. Paula Perlman embodies the school’s principle values by facilitating collaborative creativity, problem solving and nonverbal communication through her movement classes, which she has lead for nearly 20 years.
“Robo 1″ and “Robo 2″ Urge Students to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
One day, we had extra boxes donated to Mountain Yard. Willow and Zoe found them and their imaginations soared. Soon, the idea of creating robots emerged. They created “Robo 1″ (Willow) and “Robo 2” (Zoey) to take their message of “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” to fellow students.
Large Bequest Funds Scholarships
Play Mountain Place is pleased and honored to announce the largest donation in its history designated exclusively to fund scholarships for Play Mountain Place students. Director Judy Accardi accepted a check for $100,000 from Margaret Rosenau (known as Heidi Rosenau when a student from 1973-1979), a bequest from her late father, Jim Rosenau.
Mountain Yard Celebrates World Cultural Traditions
Our Mountain Yard curriculum encompasses many areas, including anti-bias activities that inculcate an appreciation of ethnic and cultural traditions. For instance, during late October/early November we honored the Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).
A Must See Talk: Dr. Peter Gray on The Decline of Play
In this talk, Dr. Peter Gray documents why free play is essential for children’s healthy social and emotional development and outlines steps through which we can bring free play back into children’s lives. At Play Mountain Place we provide a space where students have freedom to play.
Mississippi River Flood Plan
Upper Elementary was on their end of the year trip and Primary and Elementary group were in the yard. The Mississippi River had yet to peak, and there had been much flooding along it’s banks. The premise of my plan was to learn in a practical sense about the flooding along the Mississippi river.
Finding and Mapping Treasures – Mapping II
I have had a series of Thursday classes based around cartography. After having led a few successful classes based in the children making maps that were personal to their experience, perspective, and imagination, I wanted to attempt a mapping and graphing project that involved team work and problem solving. I decided to create a project around finding and mapping treasures, somewhat like an archeology dig.
Cartography Class – Mapping
I wanted to bring awareness to where we live in context to the bigger world around us as well as bringing spatial relationships between here and the greater world. I noticed some students didn’t have a concept between city and state. I started talking about the neighborhood and the children narrowed the idea down, all the way to the location of their heart.
Literacy at Play Mountain Place
As a PMP teacher, I have received questions from parents over the years about how students learn to read and write at Play Mountain Place. PMP parents sometimes feel that because children make their own choices about how they construct their day, that perhaps the fundamentals of reading and writing are bypassed. What I can say is that learning to read and write is a very personal process at Play Mountain.
