Communicating With Teachers

Open communication with teachers is an important guiding principal at the Goddard School. With the new school year under way, you might be wondering how to best communicate with their child’s teachers to keep the lines of communication open so everyone has a wonderful school year. Here are a few tips to cultivate a strong relationship with your child’s teacher:

• Take time to touch base with your child’s teacher on a regular basis. Find time before and after school to have quick conversations about your child. These quick conversations can be a great supplement to parent/teacher conferences. But be conscious not to cut into your teachers daily planning and preparation time.

• Spend time in your child’s classroom if possible. Many schools advocate parent participation through reading to children and helping out during class activities. Not only does this help your teacher out, it is a great way to experience how your child and teacher interact.

• If your child’s teacher comes to you with a problem or if you have to address a concern with your child’s teacher, try the following:

o Listen to the teachers point of view
o Express your concerns calmly and productively
o Avoid assigning blame
o Collaborate to determine the proper solution to the problem

It is important that you and your child’s teacher work as a team. Working as a team offers consistency at home and at school and results in stronger, quicker solutions.

The main thing to remember is that working together to find out the best way to help your child will help to foster a positive and nurturing learning environment and set the stage for a great school year.

After School Snacks

Now that the kids are back to school, you have probably witnessed the scene when the kids walk in the door home from school.  They head right to the refrigerator to find something to eat.  As a parents your concerned they might ruin their dinner or are they getting a healthy snack.  Below are a few tips to keep everyone happy.

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•          Carrots and celery with ranch dressing
•          String cheese and frozen grapes
•          Fruit with yogurt dip
•          Apples and peanut butter
•          Hummus and pita chip
•          Yogurt Sundae with low fat yogurt, berries and low fat granola
•          Fruit Smoothie (low fat yogurt, ice cubes and a cup of fruit)
•          Low fat popcorn sprinkled with parmesan or cinnamon
•          Fruit Salad
•          Frozen yogurt pops (place some yogurt in small paper cups and freeze for a few hours)
•          Homemade trail mix

Make it easy on everyone by cutting up fruits and vegetables before you leave the house in the morning.  Make it a special time preparing the snacks with your kids even little ones can help you grab a few items from the refrigerator, the plus side it they can tell you all about their day.

Learning Rules

Rules are an important life skill. At home, at school and then at work, rules are a fact of life. So starting early to begin to teach and reinforce the importance of your children following rules is a good idea. You might be asking yourself, how early can I start to teach this skill? Well, studies have shown that kids start to understand the difference between right and wrong as early as a year one year old. And, since rules are based on right and wrong you can start with some very basic rules at this age.

 • Young babies need one word reinforcement. Use the words no and yes to reinforce good from bad. As your child gets older, begin to introduce the consequence behind the rule. No, don’t do that, because you will get hurt.

 • Be specific about rules as your baby develops. For example, no don’t color on that picture book. Rules aren’t always black and white; it’s o/k to color in a coloring book but not in a picture book.

 • Like teaching any skill, it is important to be consistent with rules. It may be a pain to always be the enforcer but if kids know rules can be bent or broken they will try to bend them and break them.

 Your child looks to you and other adults to provide structure to their lives. Rules can actually provide comfort, support and boundaries to your child. This can help them become confident teens and well-adjusted adults.

Packing Healthy Lunches

 It’s that time of year again and the kids are going back to school. Many parents struggle with what to pack in their kid’s lunches. Here are a few healthy lunch ideas that hopefully will keep you and your little ones happy.

 • Cold-cut roll ups (lean, low-fat turkey, ham, or roast beef with low-fat cheese on whole wheat tortillas)
 • Single portion-sized cups of unsweetened apple sauce or fruit without added sugar
 • Trail mix made with cereals, nuts, pretzels, dried fruit or raisins, and a few chocolate morsels
 • Low fat cheese spread on whole wheat crackers
 • Veggie sticks with low-fat dip or dressing
 • Baked chips or pretzels are a better choice than high-fat potato chips or cheese snacks
 • Whole grain bagels topped with cream cheese-vegetable spread
 • Air-popped popcorn flavored with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese
 • Low fat cheese cubes and seedless grapes make a delicious side dish for sandwiches or wraps
 • Cold strips of grilled chicken with honey mustard dip
 • Dried cranberries or cherries are a sweet alternative to raisins
 • Cold pizza (shredded mozzarella cheese with pizza sauce on a flour tortilla, whole wheat pita, English muffin, or mini pizza shell)

Leaving Your Child On The First Day of School

What do you do now? Your getting ready to leave your child’s preschool classroom for the first time and it starts: crying turns into grabbing which turns into a full blown screaming and a sense of panic.

Here are some tips for handling the situation.

• First, take comfort in the fact that this is normal – how kids react to their first day is as individual as each child. It’s a new environment and there is bound to be some fear and apprehension. If your child is crying it doesn’t mean that you didn’t prepare them enough for preschool. So don’t feel guilty.

• Remember that the teachers and staff have been through this many time before – take comfort in the fact that they have helped kids with this transition successfully and they have the skills to calm your child down

• Reinforce that you will be back to pick them up – explain to your child in a calm voice that they will be at school for a short time and then you will be back to pick them up as soon as school is over.

• Reinforce the fun they will have at school – tell them how much fun they are going to have doing activities and learning to become a big girl or boy.

• Stay committed to leaving – if you remove your child from the classroom on the first day it’s probably going to be even more difficult the second day and thereafter.

• Don’t sneak out – distracting them and running out sounds like a good idea but it may enhance your child’s feeling of abandonment. Tell them your leaving now, give them a kiss and reinforce you’ll be back in a short while and exit calmly.


Like many parents you might break down into tears in the car but it will get easier each day. Just remember that preschool is an important step in the growth and development of your child.


Source: http://kidshealth.org/
http://preschoolers.about.com/

First Day of Preschool

It’s a time when you realize your child is growing up and for many moms and children it is a time of intense emotion, the first day of preschool. Since many moms will be sending their child off to school for the first time, we thought it would be good to collect some tips and share them with you to make this transition easier.

Dealing with fear

• Feeling comfortable – it’s important for you to be comfortable with your decision to send your child to preschool. The more unease your child can sense the more uncomfortable they will become.

• Invest time in the transition – you can’t expect your child just to wake up and be ready on the first day. Start discussing the idea of preschool with your child several weeks prior to their first day, what activities they will participating in, what their day will be like and how their teacher will interact with them.

• Mock-preschool – play preschool with your child throughout the day. Set up desks and chairs and actually complete some activities that will be part of their preschool day.

• Visit preschool prior to the first day – a week or two prior to the first day stop in and visit the school. Let your child spend some time in their new surroundings. Let them play with the toys. All of these familiar things will give your child comfort the first day of school.

• Downplay the significance of this milestone with your child – remember that the more you build the first day up to your child the more they could become scared.

Try to be calm, cool and collected when you drop them off for their first day. The calmer you are, the easier things will go. Children are resilient and they will be playing with the other kids, having fun and learning soon after your departure.

Moving to a Big Kid Bed

When should you move your child from the crib to the big kid bed? Well, like many of the biggest questions parents often ask, there is no hard and fast rule. As a generalization, many experts point to three years old as a guideline. Of course, only you know, as a parent, when your child is physically and mentally ready for this big change. Here are some tips to help with this transition:

· Set the stage – like all change in a child’s life, introducing the topic gradually is a good way to start. Bring up the topic of a new big kid bed with your child. See if they are receptive to the idea. Try to create some, but not too much, excitement. Let them help shop for, and pick out their new bed or, let them prepare the room for its arrival.

· Keep some comfort items around – the tendency for adults is to start with a clean slate. Resist the urge to totally redecorate your child’s room. This might be too much change all at one time. In fact, if your child is really attached to their crib, leave it in the room. This let’s your child know that change can be gradual and change is usually for the positive.

· Pick the right time – too much change can be overwhelming to a child. Try to pick a time that is relatively calm. Avoid coordinating the move to a big kid bed with other family events like the birth of a sibling or the start of pre-school.

Patience is important during this milestone transition. But your child will love their new, roomier surroundings in no time.