Rooted in emotional intelligence.
Ready for the AI era.
We give schools a life-skills curriculum, live teacher training, and AI fluency for the adults, so emotional intelligence gets taught on purpose.
We need the emotional intelligence to handle the artificial intelligence.
We moved 1st grade into kindergarten and called it rigor.
Over the last 25 years, kindergarten absorbed expectations once reserved for first grade: more instruction, more assessment, less play, less art. The research has had time to grade the experiment. Here is what it found.
Reversed
The first randomized trial of a state pre-K program found the academic edge gone by second grade, and reversed by third.Lipsey, Farran & Durkin, Vanderbilt, 2018 / 2022
−18 pts
Daily music in kindergarten fell 18 percentage points in twelve years. Daily art fell by 16 points.Bassok, Latham & Rorem, AERA Open
3.2×
Pre-K children were expelled at 3.2 times the K–12 rate, mostly for acting like 4-year-olds in a setting expecting them to be older.Gilliam, Yale, 2005
Age 11
Children who started formal reading at seven had caught up completely by eleven. Starting later cost them nothing.Suggate, Schaughency & Reese, ECRQ, 2013
Start with the foundation.
Emotional intelligence first, and everything else comes later. That’s the foundation we help schools build.
For Schools
Become an EI-to-AI Foundation School™
A year-long path for schools that want to teach emotional intelligence on purpose and be thoughtful about when AI enters the picture. The license includes the DROPLETS™ curriculum, monthly live training for your teachers, and an AI workshop for your adults.
Schools that complete the year earn the EI-to-AI Foundation School™ designation, a public mark of the stance your school has taken, renewed annually.
It starts with a ninety-minute PATH Session: your leadership team leaves with a North Star for AI at your school, yours to keep, with or without us.
What does the license include?
A curriculum written for each stage of childhood, from age 3 through 15, plus monthly live training for your teachers and an AI workshop for your adults. The skills grow deeper roots while the themes grow up with the child.
Ages 3–5
Mini DROPLETS™
Where the foundation is laid. Mini DROPLETS™ introduces feelings named, curiosity protected, and takes play very seriously.
Ages 6–10
DROPLETS™
A life-skills curriculum, approached through the lens of language arts. With 9 themes and a 5-step rhythm, skills are emphasized all year long.
Ages 11–15
DROPLETS Bridge™
Written for the middle years, DROPLETS Bridge™ focuses on strengthening executive functioning through independent projects.
High school (partner program)
AI Readiness Institute
AI readiness for students who are nearing the working world, delivered by our partners at Humans Plus Agents. School leaders join for free, with regular coaching included.
Students never use AI in DROPLETS™ lessons.
Not supervised, not “age-appropriate,” not ever.
We’re building self-trust, and that takes time. So we slow things down, giving kids the chance to make a habit of thinking critically, asking questions, taking risks, and trying again. Emotional intelligence grows through picture books, conversation, and practice. AI belongs to the adults, on purpose. Whether older students use AI in projects or in other classes is up to you. The PATH Session helps you make that decision purposefully.
Our Story
It started in a preschool. It was never meant to stay there.
The Drizzle Effect® was founded by Mary Ostrowski. It began at Weems Creek Nursery School, where children arrive every day curious and delighted. Over time, Mary kept asking, “How do we keep this joy for learning alive in elementary school?” Thus, DROPLETS™ and The PATH from EI to AI™ were born.
Since then, the work has run through a public charter school’s full teacher-training program, an independent school’s leadership lab, a homeschool pilot Mary taught herself, and the classrooms using DROPLETS™ today. Preschool is where the argument starts, and preK–12 is where it lives.
