As a new school year begins, educators around the country are often reflective on what they want their children to learn and what they will experience in the new school year…… usually this revolves around benchmarks, milestones, state mandates, testing, and other data-driven factors. But what do children really need to be successful in life? What do we want them to have in their “toolbox” to help them navigate as they get older and are often faced with difficult choices in an uncertain world?

At Pinnacle Presbyterian Preschool, the teachers focus on the brain development of our littlest members of the Pinnacle community. We focus on teaching emotional and social skills that will help them be successful not only in preschool but also life. We teach the children to be thinkers and doers, have empathy and kindness, to be filled with gratitude and love, and most of all to do everything with joy!

The following analogy is a fabulous representation of our work as teachers at Pinnacle Presbyterian Preschool:

 You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee?
"Because someone bumped into me!!!"
Wrong answer.
You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.
Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.
Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.
Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it until you get rattled.
So we have to ask ourselves... “What’s in my cup?"
When life gets tough, what spills over?
Joy, gratefulness, peace, and humility?
Anger, bitterness, harsh words, and reactions?
Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it.
Today let's work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation; kindness,
gentleness, and love for others.

What will you fill your cup with??