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What is Sanford Harmony? Imagine a classroom where students are empowered to: communicate, cooperate, connect, embrace diversity, and resolve conflict. Welcome to Sanford Harmony—a social-emotional teaching program that cultivates strong classroom relationships between all students.

The goal of Harmony is to incorporate specialized teaching strategies into classroom activities—from preschool through sixth grade—in an effort to reduce bullying, and help develop the youth of today into tolerant, compassionate, and caring adults for the future.

Harmony can be easily incorporated into lesson plans in as little as five minutes a day, and is aligned with Common Core state standard, national, and district learning initiatives.

Please explore all that Sanford Harmony has to offer, and spend less time managing troublesome behavior, and more time teaching!

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“We piloted Harmony in our three state preschool classrooms this past spring, and the feedback from all of the teachers was very positive!”

Stacy Adler, Ph.D., Mono County Superintendent of Schools, CA

“Kudos to the creators of the Harmony curriculum for getting it right! It is working for us. We are grateful for your willingness to respond to our needs. We appreciate your generosity in providing us amazing materials that include: awesome lessons plans, cards, meet-up ideas, music, coaching, t-shirts, and Z dolls.”

Jo Ann Simmons, Counselor, Holy Family Catholic School, FL

“Sanford Harmony supports the great work being done by the education and nonprofit sectors, providing opportunities to touch even more children’s lives and creating a legacy for future generations. We’re turning a dream of mine into a reality, and you’re going to take it forward and change the world.”

T. Denny Sanford, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist

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from Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, website, Presentations

Understanding both the biology of adversity and the science of early learning is essential for building a strong foundation for reducing disparities in educational achievement. The benefits of evidence-based curricula in the early childhood years cannot be fully achieved without effective strategies for preventing the consequences of toxic stress.

Center Director Jack Shonkoff speaks at Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Askwith Forum, a series of public lectures featuring a wide range of topics, including early childhood, civic and moral engagement, and educating for human rights among others.

"We desperately need fresh thinking and new ideas in the early childhood space and that's the context for my remarks this evening.... We need to set our sights much higher about dramatically doing something about leveling the playing field for ALL children very early in life before they set foot in school."   

"... I'm going to start with the War on Poverty and the great society progress of the 1960s not because it's particularly more important than any other time  but it was the origin of what are really the beginnings of a lot of the policies and programs that we still have today.  So the point is we have 50 years of lessons learned from policies and programs and it's time to take stock and say, "What have we learned, what do we know, and where to go next." 

"Head Start began in the summer of 1965.... That program is still very much with us today.... Community Action Programs were formed at that time.... Clearly the glass is far from full.... We haven't solved this problem."

Model Programs vs. Existing Programs: yellow circles as compared to yellow line

A fun & safe online community where kid readers can: 

Earn Points

and where teachers can get free books!  Bookopolis uses research driven methods to ignite a love of reading.

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”
—Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

DANIEL J. SIEGEL, M.D., & TINA PAYNE BRYSON, PH.D., for Brightly.

The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child

Our new book The Yes Brain opens with the above quote as its epigraph. The Alcott line is a great way to think about the job we have as parents as we seek to empower our children to sail their ships through whatever storms they face. We can give our kids experiences that help produce either a “Yes Brain” mindset that allows them to be receptive, open, curious, and creative in the face of life’s problems, or a “No Brain” mindset that leaves them reactive, shut down, rigid, and fragile. 

What, specifically, do they need in order to captain their individual ships in a Yes Brain way that leads to happiness and fulfillment? What characteristics, in other words, should parents emphasize the most? As we travel the world speaking about our books The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline, we hear some form of that question all the time. The Yes Brain is our response.

We focus on what we call the four Yes Brain fundamentals: balance, resilience, insight, and empathy. These are the qualities we all need to be successful in life, and if we can promote them in our children, they’ll be well on their way to approaching life from a Yes Brain perspective.

And a great way to promote a Yes Brain in your kids is by reading with them. Each Yes Brain fundamental emerges directly and spontaneously when you dive together into the pages of a book. Here are some quick suggestions to help you be intentional about highlighting the Yes Brain fundamentals.

Balance: Balance is all about emotional regulation. When emotions run high, it takes practice, skills, and maturity to stay calm and make thoughtful choices, even when we’re anxious, angry, or afraid. Managing our emotions and controlling our bodies is an essential part of social and emotional intelligence and having good friendships. As children see characters handle their emotions and impulses well and poorly, they can learn skills to handle emotions. As you read stories together, ask your child these questions to explore and develop balance:

• How well do you think the character handled those big feelings?
• What could the character have done differently?
• What do you do when you have big feelings like that?
• What calms you down the most when you have that big feeling?

Resilience: One of the most important things we can help develop in our kids, resilience allows us to bend without breaking when life is hard. It’s not about avoiding feeling difficult emotions or trying to escape adversity, but about tolerating and even growing from the times when things don’t go our way. Resilience keeps us from feeling victim to life circumstances or to our internal emotional distress. As you read stories together, ask your child these questions to explore and develop resilience:

• When the character faced that conflict, how did they handle it?
• Did you see how even though things were difficult/sad, it didn’t stay that way and things got better?
• What makes you strong when things are hard?
• What’s something difficult you went through that made you stronger/smarter/kinder?

Insight: As children observe the feelings and experiences of characters, they learn about themselves. They are given language that helps express what they, themselves, experience and they gain insight into their own behaviors and emotions. As you read stories together, ask your child these questions to explore and develop insight:

• Have you ever felt that way?
• What would you do in that situation?
• How would you decide?

Empathy: Studies show that reading fiction increases our capacity for empathy. As we read about the minds, experiences, and feelings of another, we feel with them. This increases our ability to understand others’ minds and internal experiences so that we can better empathize with them. The more children practice this skill, the more their brains get wired with this capacity. As you read stories together, ask your child these questions to explore and develop empathy:

• How does the character feel? What are they afraid of? What are they excited about?
• What does the character expect will happen?
• What does the character wish would happen?

No matter what book you pick up, reading together can help you raise kids with resilient minds and connected brains. Just the act of physical closeness that occurs when we pull our children close and join together to share the moments that unfold as we read together — laughing, looking at the same pictures, talking about what we wonder about, and sharing the joy that comes from wonderful books — helps create a Yes Brain.

Watch Dr. Daniel J. Siegel discuss the differences between a reactive state and a receptive state, or a Yes Brain state, in this video. Want to learn more about raising children with resilient minds and connected brains? Check out The Yes Brain, The Whole-Brain Child, and No-Drama Discipline by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.

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by Virginia ShillerMeg F. Schneider illustrated by Bonnie Matthews

starred KIRKUS REVIEW

Children learning to read books respond well to adult guidance, patience and understanding. In return, adults typically expect children to daily hard work on learning to read. However, daily willingness put forth by kids toward learning to read is a bigger and wider determiner of success than can be matched by professionals and well-meaning families.

The roles that parents and teachers play for children can make their learning to read a triumph to be celebrated or an ordeal to be endured. Which one it is will impact whether children become lifelong readers and learners or they grow up barely able to read, and rarely choose to do

Early on, children must feel encouraged by adults to select to read books they find interesting so they in turn choose every day to read books for their own enjoyment. This encouragement may require significant participation by a child’s family that knows the child and their interests better than their teachers can.

The materials teachers use and the books we choose to offer to children are certainly likely to match the home culture and language of many of our students, but for other children “book English” is far from the familiar language of their home. For a subset of children, the word choice, sentence structure and cultural conventions in their homes will diverge from that presented in school books written for the average child. If collaborating teachers and parents can connect each child with books that are solid matches to their home lives, languages and aspirations, then there is a higher likelihood they will recognize the personal benefits to be derived from choosing to read. Otherwise, for kids who are required to read books with content irrelevant to their lives, there is much more work to be done than for their classmates whose lives and language experiences more completely parallel that found in their books.

Thus, school and home collaboration in book choices is an irreplaceable asset in helping children learn to read.

Another dilemma faced by teachers and parents alike is that young readers often want to read the same kinds of books over and over. But don’t worry! With adult support and patience, at some point kids will want to read something new—a book that a friend has liked or even one that an adult has suggested. And eventually, with well-earned confidence, they’ll begin to identify and read books that are a little challenging without being intimidating, building a path to continuing growth. Then it’s time to celebrate. Lifelong reading and learning begin.