“It feels very special to invite children and families into a home where I once played as a child. A home where my dad and his siblings played; where cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends have gathered across generations.
I like to think that quiet whispers from the puppet shows, collapsing block towers, and dollhouse conversations of long ago still echo through the space. I am often told that the love these walls have contained over the years is immediately felt by visitors. That they, too, feel at home here.
When I am asked what makes a home-based program so different from a school-based one, this is what I immediately think of. Homes are personal, often familial spaces. They are hugely shaped by the lives and personalities of the people who inhabit them. The felt sense of being in a home is very different to that of a community building, childcare centre, or a primary school. To me it is not really so much a question of which is “better,” and instead more of an honest acknowledgment that home-based programs are really quite distinct.
The beauty of “homeplace,” as Bell Hooks would call it, is how completely alive it is. The home is a place of nurturing, of nuance, of resistance…it is overflowing with learning opportunities. In the kitchen, in the garden; at the laundry sink, under the pillow fort…there are endless invitations to participate in the art of living; the art of learning by doing and the art of simply being.
I am so excited to be inviting new families into the AIFK community this year. To welcome people home to new friendships, new community, and a strengthened relationship to Nature.
Won’t you join us?”
