What does it mean to be Highly Sensitive? Is that even a real term? What is Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)? Are the two related? What do I need to know if I'm parenting a sensitive child?
Using neuroscience as her guide, Sarah will explain Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), the Highly Sensitive "diagnosis", and most importantly offer some parenting strategies and tips to employ with sensitive kiddos. Sarah is passionate about helping parents create authentic and reflective relationships with their kids. For over 15 years, she has worked with parents to help them define and rewrite their parenting "roadmaps".
This event is free and open to the public. Register here.
About Sarah K. Ahn, MBA, MSW, LSCW: Sarah is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Psychotherapist who is passionate about coaching parents to have authentic, attached, and reflective relationships with their kids. For over 15 years, Sarah has worked with children, parents, and adults at the Kempe Center, Boulder Institute of Psychotherapy and Research (BIPR), Harvard Graduate School of Business, and in private practice.
Artwork made by our 3rd graders will be on display at Tod's Espresso Cafe for the month of December. BCD family and friends are invited to join us for a Viewing Party on Saturday, December 7th from 1:30-3pm. Come grab a cocoa or coffee and support our young artists. Special thanks to Tod's for this fun opportunity.
On Friday, November 15th, students, teachers and faculty came together for a Bulldog Families Assembly focusing on gratitude and giving. We started out altogether in the gym to talk about gratitude and the benefits of ‘practicing’ gratitude. Then we spent time with our Bulldog Families to share, write and illustrate specific examples of things we’re grateful for and things we do for others, with the goal was of keeping the focus on actions and personality traits rather than gifts and possessions. In closing, we highlighted a couple of upcoming opportunities to engage in community service, including participation in the current toy drive for Head Start Boulder County. As a grand finale, a few teachers led a community sing-along of Natalie Merchant’s Kind and Generous. When you have a chance, do take a moment to check out our gratitude and giving banners, which are hanging outside of classrooms throughout the campus!
If you would like to continue thinking about and engaging in the practice of showing gratitude at home, we’ve put together a few resources for inspiration.
BCD partners with Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) for all our athletic coach training becuase we believe their values align well with ours. The Positive Coaching Alliance mission is to transform the youth sports culture into a Development Zone® where all youth and high school athletes have a positive, character-building experience that results in Better Athletes. Better People.
The Big Picture in Youth Sports
A Second-Goal Parent recognizes that there is a Little Picture and a Big Picture in youth sports. The Little Picture concerns things like whether the child is playing the right position, the team is winning, etc. The Big Picture, which often gets drowned out by the Little Pictures, is about what the child is learning from youth sports.
There are two broad goals in youth sports: striving to win and building character so kids develop into successful, contributing members of society. As important as winning may seem, Second-Goal Parents let coaches and athletes worry about the first goal of scoreboard results. Second-Goal Parents have a much more important role to play: ensuring their children take away from sports lessons that will help them be successful in life. That is the Big Picture.
Endless Procession of Teachable Moments
If you embrace your role as a Second-Goal Parent, it will transform the way you see youth sports. It will help you seize the endless procession of teachable moments that will come your way again and again when you are looking for them.
What might have seemed like a disappointing loss or a failure by your child becomes an opportunity to reinforce resiliency. A tough competition in forbiddingly hot, cold, or nasty weather can prompt a conversation with your child about learning to enjoy challenges. Whether your child succeeds or fails on the playing field, you will be able to use the experiences to reinforce the kind of person you want him or her to be.
A Second-Goal Parent focuses relentlessly on the Big Picture – helping their child take away the lessons that will help them be successful, contributing members of society. And, in the process a Second-Goal Parent is able to better enjoy their child’s youth sports experience, which will end all too quickly.
Boulder Country Day School is proud to partner with Positive Coaching Alliance for our athletic coaching training and we are excited to welcome PCA on campus to present to parents.
Second-Goal Parent Workshop - presented by Positive Coaching Alliance
Wednesday, November 6th from 6:00pm - 7:00pm
This event is free and open to the public, see please feel free to bring a friend. Register here.
BCD’s Kindergarten program stands apart in its breadth of offerings and student support. Students are known and nurtured everyday by a faculty of many including their classroom teachers, their teachers in world language, science, innovation, music, art, physical education, and library, as well as, school counselors, literacy specialists from the BCD Learning Center, the Head of Elementary, and our Head of School. At BCD, every member of our faculty seen in this picture will be involved in the education of your student. Come learn more at our Open House on Saturday, November 2nd between 10:00am-noon.
When I was walking through the woods during our Outdoor Ed trip, I could hear the indistinct shouts that Middle Schoolers make when they are outside and allowed to use "outside voices". I was heading towards the climbing wall, a triangular pyramid 25 feet in the air. This climbing wall was one of the many activities available for our Middle School students at Outdoor Education at the foot of the Rocky Mountain National forest. Students also had the opportunity to do other activities, including archery, mountain formation, and team building activities.
Over the course of this past summer I spent a great deal of time reflecting on the concept at BCD that I find most difficult to quantify: the power of our community. Time and time again, from graduating 8th graders to current families, folks mention the strength of the BCD community as a key component of the education we offer. It’s hard to grasp an objective data point or metric when trying to describe what I’ve come to know and love, so I usually rely on experience to tell our story.
The 2019 BCD Gala will be held on October 19th at the Embassy Suites in Boulder. The theme will be the Wizarding World of Harry Potter collides with BCD. We are super excited and hope that you are as well. So Save the Date for this fantastical event!
In honor of our 30th anniversary we thought it wise to document our history in print and video. In the Fall issue of the BCD Magazine, we recognized those on whose shoulders we now stand and provided a timeline that traces our school’s development from its founding in 1988 to present day. Below please find a link to the video we showed at our 30th Anniversary Celebration last month. In it, you will see and hear from many of our families, faculty, and alumni –past and present – who reflect on the inspiring history of Boulder Country Day. The level of effort and commitment it took to get us where we are today is remarkable, and we thank all of you for helping to carry our school forward into our next 30 years.
On Wednesday, April 17th, we held our 30th Anniversary Celebration at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder. The event included performances by alumni musicians Foxman James, senior faculty member at the Boston School of Music Arts, and Henry Dickhoff, professional pianist currently touring with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. As well as performances by Travis and Christine LaBerge, owners of Parlando School of Musical Arts and the BCD Spotlight Singers. It was an elegant evening with 30 years of teachers, parents, grandparents, trustees and alumni joining together to reminisce about the grassroots years, envision a bright future, and celebrate the community that is BCD. Thank you again to all those whose shoulders we stand on.
“I wish I had been here from the beginning”, said my older son half-way through 7th grade at BCD a couple of years ago. When I asked him why, he gave me several reasons: The teachers, the students, the community, the opportunities to explore new interest areas, the leadership opportunities, the service projects, the trips, and last but not least “I am finally getting how to balance academics and the rest of my interests- and I don’t have to choose one or the other- I can just be me”. I liked his answers and with our second son saying to me just the other day that he too wishes he had been at BCD “for more time than I will have here in middle school”, I decided to see how much their comments may be more than a personal story. As a trained education researcher, looking further, deeper and more closely is what I am passionate about; -and when personal experience matches with solid data, I am calling that a “Great Day!”
The BCD travel program creates trips tied to curriculum that enhance our IB education and allow BCD students to discover and embrace their excellence and expand their horizons through unique experiences. This April we have two great trips running.
Next week is Arts Week at BCD. Our students will be exposed to dance, drama, or ceramics depending on what grade they are in. Each year, BCD hosts artists-in-residence during Arts Week. Students work closely with these artists and have the opportunity to delve deeper into a particular medium.
A recent study covered in this Mindshift article found that "adding time for dance, theater, or visual arts isn’t at odds with traditional measures of academic success". Some statistics even show it improves scores on writing tests. In fact, many would maintain that students' lives are enhanced by exposure to the arts at school and to experiences they would not normally have exposure to. Arts Week is a week that we look forward to and that we strongly believe improves the quality of the education we provide.
Below is a full schedule of the week's events:
Working with PS-2: Ryne Haldeman, Dance (Ovation Studio for the Performing Arts)
Working with 3-5: Sean Scrutchins, Drama (Colorado Shakespeare Festival)
Working with MS: Todd Redmond, Ceramics (Todd Redmond Contemporary Ceramics)
When I was a child, the words joy and school were rarely used in the same sentence. Today, as I look around our BCD elementary school building, joyful is the first adjective that comes to my mind.
Boulder Country Day has intentionally chosen to focus on preschool through eighth grade and we believe it is among our greatest assets. We firmly believe that a PS-8 school environment offers distinct advantages during the most critical years of a child’s intellectual, social, and emotional development.
Boulder Country Day School, where academic distinction meets education with character. BCD is a top rated, accredited private school in Boulder, Colorado where every child has the opportunity to discover his or her own unique excellence. Distinguished by small class sizes, outstanding faculty, engaging academics and a focus on community, our preschool, elementary and IB middle school teachers strive to create a well-rounded educational environment that balances traditional subjects with the arts, world languages, athletics and project-based learning.