Posts Tagged ‘The Goddard Schoolol’
Monday, September 13th, 2010
True toys have no bells or whistles, they do not do anything and you do not turn them on. Most toys today have taken the fun out of imaginative play. Manipulating toys and giving them life develops reasoning and problem-solving skills as well as creates a base of simple knowledge of how things work.
Infants
Rattles – Fine motor development toy of the century. Grasping, repetitive motion that creates a desired outcome, music, hand-eye coordination and focusing visually on a moving object are all part of infant learning. Have rattles handy in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes and sounds.
One-Year-Olds
Blocks, blocks and more blocks – Spatial relationships, size and shape discrimination leads to early math skills, fine motor control as well as cause and effect. This true toy is fun at any age! A child may spend hours building and knocking down blocks while developing science skills including balance, gravity and concepts of weight.
Two-Year-Olds
Paint and play-dough – It is messy and that is why they like it so much. This tactile experience will open the doors of creativity and thinking. Let them mix the colors, use different tools and add to the experience by playing some music in the background. Finger paint, paintbrushes and textured paint can be mixed with a variety of painting surfaces for further explanation.
Three-Year-Olds
A ball – Look at everything you can do with a ball – kick it, catch it, sit on it, bounce it, dribble it, play alone or with someone. A ball develops gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination and encourages healthy practices. A child needs to learn to handle a ball before they can handle a pencil.
Four- to Five-Year-Olds
Dramatic Play – Dramatic play is more than dress-up. It is a shovel, a whisk, a pad of paper. It is a pile of dirt, an old tire and a cardboard box. The sky is the limit – if your children have seen it, they want to explore it. Cut the cord off an old landline telephone and let them look inside as the telephone repair man. True toys for a four year old are simply real life items. These toys will allow children to try on new personalities and play out roles.
To learn more about The Goddard School, click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, Add new tag, Back To School, Biting, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Development, Child Vacations, Controlling Worrying in children, Learning through Play, Literacy, Pacifier, Preventing Biting, Saving Money, Staying Cool, The Goddard School, The Goddard Schoolol, Traveling Children, Worrying in Children
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Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Establishing a strong, open line of communication between parents and teachers is an essential part of any child’s education. Doing so allows parents to always remain apprised of their child’s progress and, should a problem arise, allows for easy discussion on ways to address and remedy the situation.
Never hesitate to get the lines of communication flowing. As your child’s teacher greets each new student on the first day of school, take advantage of the situation to introduce yourself as well. Ask how and when would be the best time to contact them if you have questions or just want to check in on your child’s progress.
Try to communicate with your child’s teacher regularly. Frequent chats help build your parent-teacher relationship and allow for a constant flow of feedback so you both can better understand and address your child’s needs.
Becoming involved in school events and/or parent-teacher organizations offers another great forum for developing parent-teacher communication. Make an effort to attend open houses, social events and/or join the school’s PTO.
Once the lines of communication are established, you and your child’s teacher can work together throughout the school year to monitor and guide your child’s educational goals.
To learn more about The Goddard School, click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Biting, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Development, Controlling Worrying in children, Fathering, Goddard School, New Place, Summer Games, The Goddard School, The Goddard Schoolol, The Goddard Schools, Worrying in Children
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Friday, August 13th, 2010
If you want your child to grow up to be a gardener, it’s important to remember to share gardening experiences with them throughout their childhood. These include frequent, pleasurable occurrences, designs that include messy, colorful plots and great memories of working together in the garden. Each child’s capabilities and attention span will vary so it’s important to adjust your expectations. The goal is to teach your children to respect and enjoy gardening as well as experience a feeling of “I did it myself” at harvest time.
The Composting Council of Canada developed the following good reasons to foster a lifelong love of gardening in children.
- Health: Growing your own vegetables makes it easier to get enough servings each day.
- Exercise: Digging, turning, spreading compost, mulching, hoeing, excavating rocks – all burn calories, help build muscles and strengthen hearts and lungs.
- Save Money: Even a small vegetable patch can reduce your expenses.
- Education: Gardening is terrific for providing hands-on lessons in botany, zoology, weather, hydrology, as well as cycles of life, death and physical decay.
- Waste Reduction and Recycling: Compost piles transform kitchen scraps, leaves and yard waste into rich soil amendments. Gardeners can reuse of all kinds of cans, cartoons, meat trays and more.
- Stress Relief: Planting seeds and tending plants can restore balance and perspective.
- Togetherness: Use vegetables grown together to make delicious meals together and donate abundance to people who need it.
- Helps Improve Reading and Math Skills: Children can make plant markers, read seed packets and even help pay for nursery plants.
- Memory Building: Provides great memories for the years to come.
- Satisfaction: The more time you spend with your children in the garden, the more they will feel the garden is truly theirs and the more eager they will be to take care of it.
To learn more about The Goddard School, click here.
Tags: 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, Add new tag, Back To School, Biting, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Controlling Worrying in children, Goddard School, Literacy, Reading, Saving Money, Sleeping, The Goddard School, The Goddard Schoolol, water Play, Worrying in Children
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Managing Parental Emotions of Childcare
by Dr. Kyle Pruett
Don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not.
It’s much better to acknowledge your feelings. It’s normal to feel grief at this change. You will come through sooner and better if you face your feelings head on.
Don’t believe you are a bad parent for choosing childcare.
If you have chosen a good center or caregiver, you can be confident that your child is in good hands, so there is no logical reason to feel guilty. But if you continue to feel guilty, it’s important to come to grips with these feelings. Be especially alert if you are tempted to change your parenting style. For example, some parents start easing up on setting limits to compensate for their guilt. Such behavior leads nowhere you or your child want to go.
Don’t become critical of your child’s caregiver.
It’s important to have a good relationship with caregivers. Their observations and advice can be extremely helpful to your parenting. If you find you feel critical even though the caregiver’s work doesn’t merit such an attitude, recognize that your feelings are a part of the separation process. Then begin to focus on the caregiver’s talents and good qualities. Rest assured that no caregiver will take your place in your child’s life or heart. The new attachments to other warm and loving caregivers are beneficial. They also are good signs of your child’s emotional maturity and your achievement in nurturing that maturity.
Don’t underestimate the importance of the transition to childcare.
If you pretend the new routine doesn’t matter, you may underestimate the good things that can come from this new experience for your child and you – new friends, new learning, new sources of information and new ideas on parenting.
To learn more about The Goddard School please click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Add new tag, Back To School, Biting, boredom, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Child Care Centers in Charlotte, Child Care Charlotte, Goddard School, Learning through Play, Literacy, The Goddard School, The Goddard School-Ballantyne, The Goddard Schoolol, Traveling Children, Worrying in Children
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As a (former) pediatrician and child psychiatrist for three decades, I increasingly respect the significance of children’s fears in shaping our shared everyday lives. Inconvenient though fears of the dark, animals, water, and monsters may be, they are meaningful clues about what children are trying to master about their world.
Worries all mean something, and we let our children down when we ignore and belittle, not to mention waste opportunities to master, so let’s spend a minute to understand them better:
- Fears appear like clockwork in childhood. The adrenalin fears stimulate heightens learning of vital lessons, like when to run in the face of real danger, when to cry for help, and eventually to distinguish what is really dangerous (speeding cars) from what is not (family dog).
- Fears only seem to emerge ‘from nowhere.’ Actually, they typically surface during periods of accelerated development – when children lose their old equilibrium while looking for a new one. Actively toilet- learning toddlers are often more afraid of the dark than before or after they get the potty thing solved.
- Stranger anxiety begins when children start to crawl around and need to be more aware of who knows them and who doesn’t.
- Other common fears which emerge and fade with predictability during preschool years may be insects, animals, loud noises, the dark (and its imagined inhabitants – monsters, witches, ghosts), high places, and parental loss to name a few.
Listen thoughtfully to your children as they describe their fear. Their fears have their reasons, though they may not be instantly clear to you. Reassure your children that you’ll help them feel better- get your flashlight out and check under their bed. Cuddle them a little extra during such times, and let them slip back toward babyhood a little. Finally, when children work it out, remind them that they worked it out. This will help them as new fears emerge.
by Kyle D. Pruett, M.D
Suggested resource: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry website www.aacap.org
To learn more about The Goddard School, click here.
Kyle D. Pruett, M.D. is an advisor for The Goddard School®. Dr. Pruett is an authority on child development who has been practicing child and family psychiatry for over twenty-five years. He is a clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale University’s Child Study Center.
Tags: 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Back To School, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Child Care Centers in Charlotte, Child Care Charlotte, Child Development, Choosing a Preschool, Controlling Worrying in children, Fathering, Goddard, Goddard School, Learning through Play, Literacy, New School, Phonics, Preventing Biting, Role of Fathers, Saving Money, Staying Cool, Summer Games, The Goddard School, The Goddard School-Ballantyne, The Goddard Schoolol, Thumbsucking, Traveling Children, Worrying in Children
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Students at The Goddard School® Ballantyne located in Charlotte, NC, benefit from early exposure to sign language provided for children ages Infant to Pre K.
The sign language program, developed by Time to Sign, Inc., introduces children to American Sign Language (ASL), a manual form of communication where sign mimics experiences with ideas or objects. Children, even infants, learn to sign through the use of songs, games, stories and play.
- Research indicates that a bilingual approach with hearing children enhances literacy skills and activates brain growth and development.
- Sign helps children communicate, understand, acquire, spell, speak and read words more effectively.
- Sign has been shown to reduce conflict, facilitate an understanding of human emotions, and increase children’s confidence and self-esteem.
- Sign allows babies to communicate their pre-verbal wants and needs.
To learn more about The Goddard School please click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Back To School, Biting, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Child Care Centers in Charlotte, Child Care Charlotte, Goddard School, Literacy, Sleeping, The Goddard School, The Goddard School-Ballantyne, The Goddard Schoolol, Traveling Children, Worrying in Children
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Children and Pets
Pets enrich the lives of many children and families. While children raised with pets show many benefits, safety concerns should always be a determining factor when deciding to get or keep a pet in a family with young children.
Choose wisely from breeds or species that are a good fit for your family, your home and your lifestyle. Behavior, temperament, excitability, patience and size are important characteristics to consider in a child-friendly pet that your little one can help care for. Pets should be free of disease and regularly checked by a veterinarian. Family allergies should also be taken into account. Young children should always be supervised during their interactions with pets. Animals can be easily harmed or provoked to attack if hit, poked or grabbed by young children. Children must be taught to play gently with pets and to keep their distance when an animal is eating, sleeping or caring for their young.
Involved parents, planning and open discussion are necessary in order for a family pet to be a positive experience. Young children can help with pet care, but can’t be completely responsible. They may only be able to help you with a few small tasks when feeding, cleaning or grooming your pet. For example, your child can join you when walking the dog, but certainly shouldn’t walk the dog alone. Allow your child to help care for the family pet in small, safe ways and always under adult supervision.
There are many benefits to children raised with pets. Positive relationships with pets can encourage children to love and trust others. Bonding with a pet can also help young children develop non-verbal communication, compassion and empathy. Caring for pets teaches children responsibility and respect. Both children and animals need exercise and pets are great playmates and a fun way to add physical activity into a child’s day. A pet’s life span can also provide parents the opportunity to teach life lessons about reproduction, birth, illness, loss and death.
To learn more about The Goddard School click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Add new tag, Back To School, Biting, boredom, car, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Child Care Centers in Charlotte, Child Care Charlotte, Child Development, Child Vacations, Choosing a Preschool, Controlling Worrying in children, Fathering, Fun in the Sun, Goddard School, The Goddard School, The Goddard School-Ballantyne, The Goddard Schoolol, Thumbsucking, Traveling Children, water Play, Worrying in Children
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Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Children and Pets
Pets enrich the lives of many children and families. While children raised with pets show many benefits, safety concerns should always be a determining factor when deciding to get or keep a pet in a family with young children.
Choose wisely from breeds or species that are a good fit for your family, your home and your lifestyle. Behavior, temperament, excitability, patience and size are important characteristics to consider in a child-friendly pet that your little one can help care for. Pets should be free of disease and regularly checked by a veterinarian. Family allergies should also be taken into account. Young children should always be supervised during their interactions with pets. Animals can be easily harmed or provoked to attack if hit, poked or grabbed by young children. Children must be taught to play gently with pets and to keep their distance when an animal is eating, sleeping or caring for their young.
Involved parents, planning and open discussion are necessary in order for a family pet to be a positive experience. Young children can help with pet care, but can’t be completely responsible. They may only be able to help you with a few small tasks when feeding, cleaning or grooming your pet. For example, your child can join you when walking the dog, but certainly shouldn’t walk the dog alone. Allow your child to help care for the family pet in small, safe ways and always under adult supervision.
There are many benefits to children raised with pets. Positive relationships with pets can encourage children to love and trust others. Bonding with a pet can also help young children develop non-verbal communication, compassion and empathy. Caring for pets teaches children responsibility and respect. Both children and animals need exercise and pets are great playmates and a fun way to add physical activity into a child’s day. A pet’s life span can also provide parents the opportunity to teach life lessons about reproduction, birth, illness, loss and death.
To learn more about The Goddard School click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Add new tag, Back To School, Biting, boredom, car, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Child Care Centers in Charlotte, Child Development, Child Vacations, Choosing a Preschool, Controlling Worrying in children, Fathering, Fun in the Sun, Goddard School, Preventing Biting, Role of Fathers, Staying Cool, The Goddard School, The Goddard School-Ballantyne, The Goddard Schoolol, Traveling Children, Worrying in Children
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FUN IN THE SUN: How to Protect Children From The Sun
Experts estimate that 80% of total lifetime sun exposure occurs before age 18. Children who learn preventative practices early in life may reduce the unhealthy effects of sun exposure.
A = Away
- Avoid long periods of direct sun exposure between 10 am and 4 pm.
- Play indoors or enjoy shaded outdoor activities, especially when your shadow is shorter than you are tall.
- Reflection from water, white sand or snow increases the sun’s damage.
B = Block
- Use a sunscreen with a Sun Protection Factor (SPF) of 15 or higher.
- Apply sunscreen every morning; reapply every two hours.
- Apply sunscreen at least 30 minutes before sun exposure.
C = Cover Up
- Use hats and light-colored clothing to protect skin.
- Sunglasses protect eyes and eyelids from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.
- Cover up after swimming.
S = Speak Out:
- Practice sun safety and show family members how to apply sunscreen.
- Discuss sun safety with coaches, camp counselors and teachers.
Information provided by ABCs of Fun in the Sun,” offered by the American Academy of Dermatology. To learn more about sun protection, visit www.aad.org.
To learn more about The Goddard School click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Add new tag, Back To School, Biting, car, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Child Care Charlotte, Child Development, Child Vacations, Controlling Worrying in children, Goddard School, Preventing Biting, Sun Protection, The Goddard School, The Goddard School-Ballantyne, The Goddard Schoolol, Thumbsucking, Transitions, Traveling Children, water Play
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Pack a Healthy Lunch…that your child will enjoy!
Introduce your children to healthy eating by involving them in the lunch preparation. Children have a tendency to eat and try new foods that they helped to prepare. And children who help in the kitchen build their confidence which makes them feel important and proud.
Avoid brown bag boredom and try the following healthy, easy and fun options. Bonus – your children will want to eat these choices!
Turn lunch into an adventure:
Cut sandwiches into playful shapes with cookie cutters. Children are more excited about eating a star- or dinosaur-shaped sandwich because it makes the experience fun! Choose cheese or deli meats to replace breads and cut them into fun shapes, too.
Make lunch fun by including a dip:
Yogurt is a great dip for fruit.
Provide hummus for veggies.
Use a variety of ‘sandwich’ options:
Bagels, pita bread, wheat wraps or crackers.
Consider packing applesauce or yogurt as a treat in lieu of a ‘sweet’ dessert.
To learn more about The Goddard School click here.
Tags: 28277, 5 Star Child Care Centers, 5 star Preschools in Charlotte, 5-star Preschools, Add new tag, Back To School, Charlotte Preschools, Child Care Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Ballantyne, Child Care Centers Charlotte, Child Care Centers in Ballantyne, Child Care Charlotte, Child Development, Child Vacations, Controlling Worrying in children, Goddard School, Pacifier, The Goddard School, The Goddard School-Ballantyne, The Goddard Schoolol, Traveling Children, Worrying in Children
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