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A Place Where Kids Can Be Kids

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White Christmas!A big thank you to everyone who purchased tickets to White Christmas in support of the Child Care Center. It was a wonderful performance! It was fun to partner with Northern Stage and we hope to do so again in the future!

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News and Announcements!!The Child Care Center will close at 12:30 on December 24th, and will be closed on December 25th and January 1st.!!Please remember to fill out the attendance schedule for the holidays so that we can plan staff schedules during the holidays. !!Winter weather delays – Remember to check our website on snowy mornings. If the roads are dangerous we may open late, we want our staff to travel safely to work.!!

The Child Care Center in Norwich

January 2014!

What a busy month! The Red Roomers can definitely tell that the holidays are just around the corner, and they have enough energy to keep us all on our toes! This month we would like to Welcome Chloe, who is joining us from the Nursery, and Claire who is new to the Red Room but has a big sister in the after school program. Welcome! The Red Roomers have been exploring the theme of “winter”. They have recently become very interested in hibernating animals as well as snow and the holidays. We have been singing lots of holiday songs recently and would love for families to add any to our list that we might be missing! The Red Room also started a project based on the book Snow Tree in which a group of animals bring a special decoration of leaves, rocks and pinecones to a bare tree to make it colorful in the winter. The Red Roomers will be doing something similar, by decorating the classroom trees with pieces of artwork! Look for the very colorful and creative trees. As a reminder, with all the articles of clothing your Red Roomer has for the colder months, please label everything with your child’s name. We try very hard to get everything back to their cubbies but sometimes we miss something. It is challenging to stay organized when dressing and undressing ten little bodies! Also if your Red Roomer has recently borrowed any clothing from school we would really appreciate its return. We are getting very low on some of our clothing, especially undies; we have so many big kids potty training now that it is nice to have spares. Hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday! !Caitlin & Mary!

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Nursery!A warm Nursery welcome to Ella and her family! Ella’s big brother is in the Yellow Room. We have been baking holiday cookies with the older children, Yum! We have also been having fun with the indoor sandbox, playdough, beans and shaving cream. We are hearing lots and lots of language also. And Aurora is crawling and pulling herself up, yeah Aurora! If you are traveling or have family visiting during the holidays let us know, as it may impact your child’s schedule. We are happy to make accommodations as needed to make the season as stress free for you and your child as possible. Have a safe and happy holiday; see you in 2014! !Karla, Shelly and Jody!

Classroom Updates!

Red Room!

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Our field trip to Norwich was fantastic. The children had a great time riding the Advance Transit and looking for places along the way. We got off at the library and used our picture clues to find the front of the building. From there we walked to the police station where we were met by Officer Mike. In preparation for this field trip we had read the story Officer Buckle. Christine shared this information with the staff at the police station prior to our visit. They were not familiar with the story so before our visit they read the story. During our visit Officer Mike talked to us about safety rules. What a great staff we have at the police station in Norwich, they were wonderful with the children. After leaving the police station we walked to the fire station and spent some time with the fire chief going over safety rules. We also spend some time climbing on one of the fire trucks. After leaving the fire station we continued down the street following more of our picture clues. We found the Norwich Inn, Dan & Whit’s and the post office before getting on the Advance Transit back to Montshire Rd. It was a great field trip and we look forward to doing it again when the weather is not so cold. We do have plenty of outside activities to keep us busy during these winter months. We always look forward to sledding, making snow angels, making tracks and looking for animal tracks on our playground and in the woods. Please make sure your child has WARM boots, snow pants, hats and mittens every day. If you could send in an EXTRA pair of mittens that would be greatly appreciated. We sometimes go out two times a day and if mittens are wet it makes it very unpleasant for your child. !!Christine and Brystol!

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Orange Room!Now that winter has arrived, we have been thinking and talking about snow. Unless it is very cold, we will go outside. One day it was snowing while we were outside. It was so much fun to catch the snow on our tongues and then eat it. We also took a walk in the woods and saw a lot of small animal tracks going back and forth across the path. We think they might be squirrel tracks. We’ve also started reading winter books and consequently have been talking about snow and snowmen. When we get more snow, we’ll try to make a snowman. Since there’s not enough snow to make real snowmen outside, we made some paper snowmen. We’ve also been singing one of Marcia’s songs, and Harper’s favorite, Jingle Bells! There’s also been a lot of playing in the dramatic play area with food and babies. Happy Holidays everyone! !Karen!

Yellow Room!

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One thing about working with the 2-6 grade level children, they never hesitate to correct you if you are wrong! So, I was tempted to start writing about the winter weather, but I can hear your children's voices telling me "It's not winter yet. It's still fall. It's not winter until the equinox." How true. So, the kids have had a blast playing with the first ground-covering snowfall. Yes, we do allow snowball fights at Afterschool: the children need to resolve rules together and work together to make sure the rules are followed. In spite of this, there are always miss tossed throws that end up down the neck or smack on an ear. We also discuss how this is a consequence of playing in snowball fights. Thank you for dressing your children warmly so that we can make full use of the little daylight that we have. We are generally heading in by 4:10 these days. The children continue to enjoy crafts and are making holiday pictures and ornaments. Enjoy the upcoming holidays! !The Afterschool Gang

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Blue Room!Happy New Years! Hooray, it is time to ring in 2014! The Blue Roomers have been having a snowriffic time exploring our winter wonderland outside. We have been observing the changes to our natural landscape. On a recent walk the children observed that some of the Connecticut River is beginning to freeze over. As we bundle up to stay warm, what are the animals doing this time of year? We will be taking more winter walks to explore our local woodland creatures, searching for tracks and signs of their whereabouts. Throughout the month of December the children have been having fun crafting in the Blue Room card factory. We have been making penguin and snow people cards to mail out to loved ones. Our transportation theme has been really fun for the children. We have been reading lots of stories about different modes of transportation. For example, I Stink by Kate and Jim McMullan has been requested many times throughout the month. This book explores the alphabet through the trash that the garbage truck eats. This book gets a little silly and makes for much laughter at story time. Our sea, land, and air mural has been a big hit as students create different vehicles and read the corresponding words on the board. Chica Chica ABC come see our evergreen alphabet tree. Looking ahead we will be jumping into outer space as several students have been showing a lot of interest in the moon and the planets. 3, 2, 1 blast off into a wonderful new year ahead! !Krista & Jodie!

After School!

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Resuming Routines Helps Children Rebound After the Holidays! It seems like everyone gives a sigh of relief when the holiday marathon is officially over! Though most of us have grand times, getting home life back to normal can be a pebbly path to navigate. During the clean up, you find yourself asking what in the world has gone wrong. The kids are testy. They’re into everything, bickering with each other, and gobbling junk food of all varieties. That state of affairs leaves parents frazzled, exhausted, and feeling taken for granted. And kids end up crying at the drop of the hat. Sometimes parents do, too! News flash: This is completely normal! And understandable. Think about everything your family has experienced. While the holidays are exciting, they are also unpredictable and chaotic. Remember how important consistency is to kids? Well, the only thing consistent about holidays is that they are inconsistent! Daily routines and schedules go out the window. Meals are often “catch as catch can,” with sugary, fatty snacks counterfeiting as nourishment. Bedtimes get delayed due to after-work shopping, wrapping, whatever. Vacations from school or child care and out-of-town trips register a jolt in family routine. And think about inconsistent discipline during holiday time. We haphazardly enforce expectations, limits and consequences. We make more exceptions so children can better enjoy the season. (Or so they won’t throw a raving fit in front of the relatives.) And there are the holiday musical chairs to consider: How many relatives’ homes can you visit before the singing stops? Kids are shuffled from one home to another, seeing people they may hardly know. When taking all that into consideration, it’s no wonder kids have a hard time getting back to “normal” after weeks of holidays. Tapped-to-the-max energy level and mood swings take their toll. After all the weeks of holiday build up and celebrations, children’s ability to cope with minor stress and frustrations gradually fades, often crumbling into inappropriate, uncooperative behavior and other symptoms of prolonged anxiety. For kids, as well as adults, it’s not unusual to experience a “let down” after the final crescendo of holiday events. The “holiday blues” is not just an abstract concept, it happens to real people, real families. For kids, holidays are over stimulating. The more we hype the holidays, the more we can expect kids to become fatigued and cranky. As all parents know, tired kids make for some very unhappy campers. Add all that up and you see children’s stress-related behaviors increase. Each child reacts to stress differently. Child reactions may include (but are not limited to): testing behavior (tantrums), regression in potty training or thumb sucking, fatigue, sleep disturbances, whining, trouble separating from parent, unusual withdrawal, aggressive behaviors toward others, rebellion, over- or under-eating, or nail biting (and even people-biting!). Post-holiday readjustment takes longer for some children than others. You know your children best, and are aware of their typical recuperation time. After a routine has been re-established in the home, stress-related behaviors should lessen within two weeks, (perhaps a month for children with more difficult temperaments). Now that the celebrations are over, the parenting challenge is to get back to basics. The sooner your household schedule and routines get back on track, the sooner your kids’ typical behaviors will, too.

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