Refund Policy

Minimum and maximum attendance requirements exist for all camps. PlayThrive reserves the right to cancel or change any scheduled activities due to lack of enrollment, unforeseen weather conditions, etc.

• Between March 1 and June 1: Receive a full refund minus a $25 processing fee
• Between June 1 and July 1: Receive 50% refund of the camp tuition
• Refunds will not be available for cancellations after July 1

If you have any questions email us at registrar@playthrive.org

Spaces still available in Kinder through 4th grades at the 2018-2019 PlayThrive Mandarin Bilingual After School program!

Here are upcoming opportunities to learn more:

Thursday, May 17 – John Gill School Open House |  6:00pm – 7:30pm

• John Gill teachers and students will be showcasing student work and art. Upper grades will be doing a dance performance.
• Stop by the PlayThrive table to learn about the after school program and tour our space.

Tuesday, May 29 and Thursday, May 31 – PlayThrive Tours | 4:15pm

• Meet the PlayThrive teachers and see what students are up to after school!
• Starts at the Library. Park on Avenue Del Ora.
• Email registrar@playthrive.org to sign up.

All events are open to the public. Please share with friends and colleagues!

Join us for PlayThrive’s 2018 Toy Workshop Summer Camp!

Come see friends, meet new schoolmates, and refresh on Chinese the week before school starts. We’ll be learning about, playing with, and making different Chinese children’s games and toys.  There will be jianzi, spinning tops, and sand bags, to name a few!

Sign up by May 21, 2018.

Dates: August 13-16, 2018 (4 days)

Time: 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Location: John Gill Elementary, 555 Del Ora Ave. Redwood City

To Register:

• New Students – please fill out the online application PlayThrive New Student Registration Form.
• Current After School Students – email registrar@playthrive.org indicating your interest in signing up for summer camp.
• Submit $350 Total Fee online or by check to PlayThrive, PO BOX 852, Redwood City, CA 94064-852. (Fee is refundable if minimum number of students is not met.)

I am really excited about PlayThrive’s initiative to introduce Social Emotional Learning to its curriculum. In this age of “ultra academia,” and standardized testing, so little emphasis has been placed on how children learn, how they manage their emotions, and how they develop relationships with others.

So what exactly is Social Emotional Learning? Is it just some hogwash fad that educators are fabricating?

What is Social Emotional Learning?

You can find an official definition of SEL here on CASEL’s website. There is a huge body of validated research behind social emotional learning. Peer reviewed research shows that social-emotional learning increases academic success, decreases stress levels in children and prevents negative behaviors such as bullying, drug use and violence.

SEL is a systematic way of teaching children how to respond to their emotions and social surroundings in a way that promotes improved quality of relationships with others (kindness, compassion, empathy), accurate self-judgment (motivation, adaptation, resilience, self-esteem) and making responsible decisions (self-control, focus, predicting consequences).

Something that Happens in My Household Quite Often

My dear daughter is bright, smart and extremely competitive. Whenever we would play monopoly or some competitive game, my heart would be filled with trepidation because I knew there was a high chance a meltdown or tantrum would follow if she lost the game.  The tears would start rolling down and her brain goes into a negative overdrive, “I never win Mommy. Brother always wins. It’s not fair.” And yet, when she does win, she knows to surmise to her brother or to me, “You’ll win next time! Don’t worry.”

There is clearly a disconnect here.

She knows rationally, when she has won the game, that someone else could win the game the next time and she is even empathetic enough to comfort the others who did not win. However when she does not win, our daughter does not have the emotional competency to deal with her feelings of disappointment which clouds her judgment about the future or the current situation.

“I never win Mommy”- which is untrue because she has.

“It’s not fair” – again untrue, because the game was played fairly and within the rules.

This is where social emotional learning comes in. My response to my daughter could be, “Oh that’s just silly,” or “Stop this whining, you’re being unreasonable.” In SEL, my response to her emotions is just as important as her learning to cope with them. I realized that she needed explicit instruction and direction about how to manage her feelings of disappointment and loss. Instead, these days, before we embark on a board game or play a competitive game, I discuss first with both my children, how they might feel, and what their sibling might feel were he/she to lose the game. I also make sure they know that it is quite OK to feel sad and disappointed when they do not win. We talk about concrete ways to express those feelings. I encourage them to comfort each other when the other party does not win. We practice how to use those words of comfort.

The meltdowns post-game have since stopped, but it isn’t that it’s stopped that I’m happy about. My daughter still has tears when she doesn’t win, but she knows how to handle that disappointment. She takes a deep breath and says, “let’s play again.” Sometimes, she takes a break to write a notecard to me after she loses to express why she is sad and how she is sad. She is able to reflect on it. In return, I acknowledge her disappointment and help her feel safe with her emotions. In doing so, she is able to see beyond “never winning” and realizes that she has the grit to try this game again.

How SEL Works in a School Setting

Now, I am not an SEL trained teacher; I did this because I started reading about SEL and decided to try some of the ideas out. A trained SEL trained teacher delivers explicit lessons that teach social emotional skills and then reinforces the lesson throughout the day in various settings. There are various SEL programs but they all share the same elements. They are:

• Sequenced: connected and coordinated sets of activities to foster skills development
• Active: Active forms of learning to help students master new skills
• Focused: emphasis on developing personal and social skills
• Explicit: targeting specific social and emotional skills.

(From “Why Social Emotional Learning is Essential for Students,” Edutopia.org)

PlayThrive has selected Responsive Classroom as the curriculum we will use and follow for SEL.  Our teachers will be trained to use effective teacher language to promote SEL and to encourage engagement by giving students meaningful choices.  One aspect I would like to highlight is how Responsive Classroom is designed to start each day with a positive tone for learning. In PlayThrive’s schedule, you will see time set aside daily for our students to meet and talk to each other about how to begin their day at PlayThrive.

Most recently, we have also asked for help from Dr. Shani Robins, a licensed psychologist with a private practice, who is also trained in Social Emotional Learning and teaches at Stanford University and Foothill College. Dr. Robins will visit PlayThrive at least once a month as a consultant. During various times of the day, you are going to see Karen and Dr. Robins play different games that emphasize cooperative learning to build a sense of community and shared purpose.

Full disclosure here: I am an educator by trade and I am a board member at PlayThrive. Perhaps I am naturally inclined to promote SEL. So don’t just take my word for it. Check out these links to SEL classrooms and the research behind it.

Social Emotional Learning: Why Now?

Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

Responsive Classroom: PlayThrive will be using this SEL curriculum.

Video: TedX University of Nevada: Trish Schaffer & Social Emotional Learning

Teresa Ong is an educator, mother of three, and board member of PlayThrive.

Photo Credit: Rainier Martin Ampongan under a CC license