Cultivate Mankato: January 2023 News

UpcomingStudy DecemberGuests

Within our education curriculum, we use studies to guide our lesson planning. Studies are a broad concept that we focus on for 4-6 weeks. Currently our study has been all about Winter. This month we will begin our Health Study. If you feel your family has something special to share in regards to our upcoming study, we would love family participation. Reach out!

Thank you Mankato West High School carolers for being our guests! We love community, and it was so fun to see the oldest children singing to the youngest children. Thank you!

Many of you are familiar with Mr John's visits but for those who don't – Mr John has been volunteering at Cultivate since we opened our doors in 2019. He sings songs with his guitar and reads stories to our preschoolers. And yes, those are mini colored bulbs on his beard. He sure knows how to have fun! Thank you for your time Mr. John!

C O M M U N I T Y C H I L D F U N D C A R E

AreyouLookingtoDonatetoaCause?

CultivateMN is our early education advocacy organization and is a 501c3. We also have a CultivateMN community child care fund. Make a donation to the fund and tell us who you want it to support whether it be a specific family or a general scholarship. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

We put the call-out for volunteers to help in the infant classrooms and WOW did people respond! In December, we had our first volunteer orientation. At orientation we went over expectations and responsibilities of the volunteers and gave them a tour of our infant program. Starting in January we will have volunteers in the classrooms rocking and singing and giving extra love to the babies. Volunteers will always be supervised by the classroom teachers.

SensoryLibrary Coming Soon!

We have been working hard with Sam Olsen, OT with Persist Therapy, getting our sensory library ready for our families to use! Watch for details on when and how you can check out items from our sensory library, which will be located in our administrative office!

Teachers will also be able to utilize our sensory library, and children will be able to come over to the administrative office and use our quiet space if sensory breaks are needed. k k f h ll h l bl b l !

Sensory Library made possible by community donations through CultivateMN

Didyouknowwehavea EarlyEducation CurriculumandTrainingSpecialist?

This specialist is an integral part to the Early Education carrying out the vision and initiatives. They work closely with the Early Education Coordinator on tasks/projects that help support the goals the program has. Some things Alexis does are; tracking teacher accountability with their responsibilities in lesson planning and ProCare communication, tracking of assessment documentation, curriculum support time (she steps in to each classroom so the teacher can step out to work on planning/prepping), maintains teacher resources and supplies, puts together documents to support teachers in their planning, creates material to have on hand for teachers to use when working on specific skills, etc.

Alexis focused alot on curriculum for the 2022 year in her role. For 2023, Alexis is be supporting the program with more initiatives on training by helping create a catalog of trainings that staff can take for professional development credit. 2023 will also have her focusing on supporting the teachers as assessments and conferences are rolled out organization-wide.

GiANTProgram

Here at Cultivate, we implement the GiANT program. The GiANT program helps us to learn more about ourselves so that we can lead ourselves better and lead others better. It helps us to understand what our natural tendencies are (both good and bad) and how we can fine tune ourselves to be the best version of ourselves. This is part of the professional development and professional experience that we are creating at Cultivate or Early Educators. All staff have taken a personal questionnaire to find out what their professional “voice” is. Within the GiANT program, there are 5 voices. The voices are: nurturer, guardian, connector, creative, and pioneer. The five voices can be used to understand yourself and your communication, along with the people you work with everyday. Some of these voices come naturally to you and others you recognize in others but can’t see in yourself. We all have the ability to use every voice. Every so often, we would like to introduce you to one of our team members and share a little more about their voices!

Adrienne Trahms, Infant Assistant Cassandra Theriault, IDC Site Supervisor and Infant Teacher

Katie Nance, Toddler Lead Teacher Kayla Jensen, Assistant Teacher

Preschool Three

Quote oftheDay!

JanMenus

We would like to give families the opportunity to order the bread that River Rock makes for our children. There are two different options to choose from: Sourdough and Midwest Multigrain. Pick up at Cultivate in 1-2 business days.

To place an order: Visit our Cultivate Mankato shop! Questions? Email us at info@cultivatemankato.com

We would like to give families the opportunity to order snack packs for your child(ren) or upcoming event. Choose between a meat or vegetarian option or send us a message to create a custom order. Pick up at Cultivate in 1-2 business days.

To place an order: Visit our Cultivate Mankato shop! Questions? Email us at info@cultivatemankato.com Click