Simplicity is the glory of expression. -Walt Whitman

News and Reminders: We are closed this Monday in observance of Memorial Day. We had a great Potluck and Parent Collaboration Committee Meeting this past Thursday. Please check back next week for the updated notes.

Summer Footwear

As we move into the summer months please send in outdoor sandals or water shoes for your child(ren). We ask that you do NOT send flip flops as they do not provide enough support or stability for children's feet. We spend a lot of time with our older children in the woods, the little brook near the elementary school, and the sidewalk, we want their feet to be well protected and prepared for all surfaces. Our back playground is full of mulch and sticks so we ask our older children to always keep their shoes on, even when we pull out the hose.

Please let us know if you've had good luck with any specific brand of sandal and we will pass it along. Please let us know if you have a pair that no longer fit that you wouldn't mind passing to another family. Here are a few recommendations we have had success with at school.

L.L.Bean has some really great options.

These are Natives, waterproof and they stay on great.

These are made by Plae and called "Mimos".

These are made by Keen and are currently on sale at backcountry. com Here's the link.

Here's another Keen sandal option.

They even make an infant Keen.

Juice
The American Academy of Pediatrics has come out with a brand new position statement on juice for children. Here are some of their conclusions and recommendations:

Conclusions

1. Fruit juice offers no nutritional benefits for infants younger than 1 year.
2. Fruit juice offers no nutritional benefits over whole fruit for infants and children and has no essential role in healthy, balanced diets of children.
3. One hundred percent fresh or reconstituted fruit juice can be a healthy part of the diet of children older than 1 year when consumed as part of a well-balanced diet. Fruit drinks, however, are not nutritionally equivalent to fruit juice.
4. Juice is not appropriate in the treatment of dehydration or the management of diarrhea.

Recommendations

1. Juice should not be introduced into the diet of infants before 12 months of age unless clinically indicated. The intake of juice should be limited to, at most, 4 ounces per day in toddlers 1 through 3 years of age, and 4-6 ounces per day for children 4 through 6 years of age.
2. Toddlers should not be given juice from bottles or easily transportable covered cups that allow them to consume juice easily throughout the day. Toddlers should not be given juice at bedtime.
3. Children should be encouraged to eat whole fruit to meet their recommended daily fruit intake and should be educated regarding the benefit of fiber intake and the longer time to consume the same kilocalories when consuming whole fruit compared with fruit juices.
4. Families should be educated that, top satisfy fluid requirements, human milk and/or formula is sufficient for infants and milk and/or water are sufficient for older children.

These conclusions and recommendations may not be new to you, however, please consider sharing them with family and friends. If this information is something you haven't heard before, please consider reading the entire article. There is some valuable information in there about the impact of juice on teeth and overall health.

Classroom Updates

Infant I
The big game of chase around the wooden slide continued this week. At least once a day we would see two of the older children catch each other's eye over the slide, then one would follow the other up the stairs, down the slide, and back around again. Then other mobile children would join in as they noticed what was going on and we'd get up to four children at once going around and around. There have been occasional "traffic jams" as two or even three children would try to go down the slide at once, but with some verbal reassurance, they have been doing really well at staying calm and navigating the tight space. Our younger infants have bene enjoying quiet, peaceful morning naps and have also been making strides in mobility themselves. We will probably have two more crawlers within a couple of weeks. Finally, many of our children enjoyed trying out the big new climbed in the playground. There was a bit of trepidation at first, but they make it to the top they are thrilled to be up so high. We have a new teacher joining us for the summer until Jasmine returns from maternity leave. Her name is Sandra and she knows our program well. She has been in graduate school with Megan for the past couple of years and has worked as an infant teacher in Jeffersonville before joining us.

She is singing "Baa-baa Black Sheep", our favorite song this week.

Infant II
This week we had a great time exploring the new climber outside in the playground. We have been talking about going "up" and "down", we have explored rolling balls down the ramp, and standing on the tallest section to watch what is happening around us. It has been very exciting for all of us.

We also spent time exploring feathers. We touched the softness and explored the feeling on our skin. We also liked trying to sweep them up with a small broom. We also spent time painting with watercolors again. As usual, we loved playing with play dough. Squishing, pinching, rolling, and poking are just a few of the things we enjoy doing while playing with play dough.

Our self-help skills with getting dressed have been quite impressive. The children know how to line their boots up near the wall and get their feet into them without asking for help. They are also working hard to pull up zippers. Nap time has also been a time for more independence. The teachers have been allowing the children more time to fall asleep without anyone near by. They all seem to enjoy the time to be quiet and calm by themselves.

Toddlers
We had a very nice week in our classroom. We have been working on being kind and gentle with one another, specifically using words to communicate with each other. We are really enjoying our social interactions with the older kids on the playground and spend a lot of time observing how strong and capable they are. We also worked with paint this week using yellow, blue, green, and red. After a bit we added white to our painting to watch the colors lighten. Please send in a water bottle (well labeled).

Preschool I
The beans in our jars have sprouted and a few of the plants have stretched all the way out of the jar with their leaves. Thought the week the children brought the bean plants outside to compare them to the trees. We compared roots and leaves and discussed how e could follow the big roots back to the trees that they originated from. We are still embedding counting in our daily routes and have begun expanding how we look for letters through the day. As the older children help set out cots of snap time, Shannon and Jacob have drawn their attention to the names written on the cots. Some children have started attempting to spell their own names. We will continue captivating emerging interests in letters and numbers next week.

Preschool II
This week we have spent a lot of time in our outdoor classroom on the Woof Trail. Each day we have been walking the boundaries of the play/work space, then we get to work engaging in play with one another and sometimes independently. A reminder about ticks, please send your child in long pants that are tucked into socks with boots each morning. We are doing tick checks at school, especially around our ankles and bellies but a full tick check at home is definitely recommended. We are getting into a solid routine of getting moving early. We are getting outside first thing, we have circle at 8:15, snack at 8:45, and leave by 9:00 to head out to the Woof Trail. We also spent time looking for fairies, make sure to ask your children about them.

PreK
This week we resisted our interest in ants. We've learned that they live in large colonies with a queen and lots of ants with different jobs. We made the connection that ants are similar to bees in many ways. We've been searching for ants and other insects under logs and stumps. Imagine our surprise when under one stump we found a tunnel much too big to be made by ants. It was a bunny tunnel. We made a map of what the tunnels might look like under our playground.

We also started a sunflower house project in the grassy area by the big sign. First we looked at some books for ideas. We gathered sticks to mark the perimeter and Jen poked holes with a strong stick while the children planted several packs of seeds worth of sunflowers to make the walls. We plan to add other plants and look forward to evolving plans as we see what happens.