by Sophia Moros

Rooting Conscious Citizenship Values with ACS Athens Early Childhood Mascot

by Sophia Moros, Director of Early Childhood and Development, JK - Grade 2

ACS Athens Early Childhood Department continues to meet the increasingly diverse needs of our youngest students by tapping into creative and innovative approaches to learning. In the Spring of 2022, a new, state-of-the-art playground was inaugurated. This playground was specially designed to boost students’ physical and cognitive skills, promote free exploration opportunities, ignite creativity, and foster positive and constructive social interaction. The playground equipment provides ample opportunities for developing our early childhood students’ emotional, sensory, and gross motor skills. The landscape was intentionally designed to optimize independent and cooperative play and offers children plenty of options to utilize developmentally appropriate equipment to engage in free exploration.

The sustainable and inclusive play environment promotes inclusion, so all students feel welcome and safe while enticing their imagination. The playground environment encourages children to recognize their own unique abilities and the characteristics they share with each other. This actively promotes equal opportunities so that all children feel included and valued while learning to participate in conversations and listen to each other. These rich outdoor learning opportunities not only help children understand their own capabilities but also helps them increase critical thinking and academic skills, and learn social and communication skills. Therefore, the various ways that children experience play in outdoor environments benefit their educational attainment and the development of resilience and self-confidence.

Coming this fall, we are proud to introduce our new Early Childhood mascot. A comfortably dressed bear named Conscious Cub will help communicate our school philosophy in a child-friendly manner. He will bring the “Portrait of ACS Athens Graduates” and the core beliefs of our school mission and vision to life during community events and school performances. Conscious Cub will create an approachable environment that will help new students adjust to the community and feel more comfortable and receptive to the topics they will learn. Besides helping build concrete definitions and modeling actions for a greater understanding of school concepts, Conscious Cub will create lasting memories and build school traditions. Increasing school traditions through spirit events will build a deep-rooted sense of pride for our school, making it easy and attractive for students to emulate positive behaviors. In turn, the Conscious Cub mascot will be seen as a buddy who increases confidence and encourages students to make positive choices and understand what it means to be a conscious citizen.

At ACS Athens, educators focus on developing conscious citizenship through daily examples during the school day and place value on connecting behaviors to a higher purpose. Such opportunities include how students learn to problem-solve with each other through our school’s restorative approach. Children are guided to communicate through a four-step process, “Own It, Fix It, Learn from it, and Move on” from peer conflict. We emphasize the importance of human life and the relationship with all living things and model the various ways to take responsibility for transforming skill into action through ethical decision-making that will improve life and living on the planet. Conscious Cub will be an excellent role model who will sport the importance of Global Goals and sustainability to instill these traits in early childhood students.