Dilly Days with Beth and Joellyn: Authors of The InvestiGator Club™ for Robert-Leslie Publishing

My good friend and colleague, Maria Gonzalez, and I are delivering a workshop at the NAEYC Convention in Dallas this coming November. Please join us on Friday, November 7 from 10 to 11:30 AM at the Hyatt Regency in Cumberland C. During this session, we will explore a variety of approaches for the Spanish-speaking preschool setting. You will learn to tap into young learners’ curiosity through rich, meaningful Spanish literature, song, and storytelling experiences that develop children’s Spanish literacy skills, including oral language, vocabulary development, and comprehension skills. In addition, you’ll learn about a variety of Spanish literature, song, and storytelling opportunities that invite children to be active participants in content-area learning with a mindful approach. More NAEYC workshop and booth news to come! Stay tuned!

Here is a fun back-to-school activity to help young children understand the concept of personal space.

Have children blow an imaginary bubble over their space on the floor. Have them climb into the bubble and sit down. Tell them: The space on the floor inside your imaginary bubble is your space, and no one else can share it. Stay inside your space as I give you some directions. Listen carefully. Then give directions such as the following: put your hands on your head; clap three times; put your hands on your hips and twist, etc.

Our Program Introduction, Let’s Investigate!, is full of fun back-to-school lessons. To learn more about our curriculum, go to www.investigatorclub.com.

What is your best preschool back-to-school activity? Let us know and we’ll post it to share!

We’re optimistic that more and more teachers and parents understand that food preferences develop early in life. As Beth and I travel around the country, we’re consistently seeing preschoolers being encouraged to choose healthy foods for their meals and snacks.

A lot of the emphasis in this effort is directed towards the fruits-and-vegetables food group. While fruits and vegetables are certainly important to a healthy diet, we need to remember that young children have a lot of other nutritional needs as well. The calcium in milk products, such as cheese and yogurt, are vital for growing children. Good protein sources, like meat, beans, and tofu, should also be included. And let’s not forget about the breads and cereals.

Too many fruits and vegetables can give children too much fiber and too few calories. An unbalanced diet can deprive children of much-needed fats, necessary for proper growth and development. The USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that fats comprise between 25% and 35% of a four-year-old’s total caloric intake.

There are now news reports that some schools are starting to underfeed children. In our zeal to do the best for our kids, we need to guard against overcorrection.

Two days ago in a Chicago suburb, a 3-year-old boy accidentally died when he became entangled in his bedroom’s Venetian blind cord. It made me realize once again just how different the world looks to our prekindergartners.

A lot of us spent time toddler-proofing our environments for a newly crawling or walking child, but have we been lapse in our updates? It helps to get at the young ones’ eye-levels and move around. The world looks different at that height. Teachers can and should do this in their classrooms.

Is the furniture appropriate in size? Can anything topple over if pulled? What is within reach that shouldn’t be? Can anything pinch or trap a limb or a head?

Here are some resources and informative sites about cord safety:

• State Farm
• Parents for Window Blind Safety
• Strangulation and entrapment prevention

Welcome to Spring, everyone! Here’s a Butterfly Color & Match Activity to do with the little ones as the days get warmer.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Here’s one last snack idea for you, and it is the easiest of them all!

Chilly Willy Grapes
Freeze seedless grapes. Take them from the freezer, and eat them while they’re still frosty cold! Yum.

Fruit Smoothie
You’ll need:

• 1/2 cup of your favorite fruit
• 3/4 cup of fat free, sugar free, vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup ice

1. Cut the fruit into small pieces.
2. Put all of the ingredients in a blender and puree.

In honor of American Heart Month, I wanted to share over the next few days a couple of snack ideas that are heart-healthy and fun to make. We’d love to hear about your favorite healthful snacks, too!

Trail Mix
Set out small dishes with the following items:

• raisins, peanuts (pecans, pine nuts, almonds or pistachios)
• banana chips
• pretzels
• carob chips
• dried pineapple chunks.

Let each child:

1. Scoop 1 tablespoon of each item into his or her own small plastic bag.
2. Zip the bag shut and gently turn it upside down to mix the ingredients.

Let children experiment with the ingredients to make a Trail Mix recipe that tastes especially good to them.

Openness and honesty are two of the best ways to control head lice. Parents must not be afraid to report head lice to the school or to each other.

Administrators can do a lot to set an open, trusting tone so families will feel comfortable in their reporting. The following comes as part of a parent letter from a principal in Illinois:

“I’m passing along to you some basic information about head lice with a few reminders:

1. Head lice are inconvenient and even troublesome. It is not life threatening, and there is no need for panic.
2. A case of head lice says absolutely nothing about the student’s hygiene, home life or anything else despite the connotations often associated with this condition. Lice are non-discriminating in their choice of hosts.
3. Parents and students who have reported head lice are deserving of our understanding and compassion. They should not have to deal with teasing or whispers or unkind remarks of any kind. Please refrain from this type of behavior, and please make it clear that you expect the same from your children.”

If families are not ashamed of head lice, then they can help one another to move full steam ahead to do away with it. Families must be encouraged to talk about lice as if it’s another part of life. Hiding the problem is why it spreads. If you don’t know it’s there, you don’t know to check.

One important means to control a head lice outbreak is communication with families and staff. The bottom line is this: staff and families must know when head lice are present in the school community so they can check their children and begin the eradication process if they find it.

Here are ideas for communicating with families:

• Each time a case of head lice is found, send home a note to that class, and to siblings’ classes.
• E-mail or send a weekly bulletin telling how many cases have been reported as well as “closed.”
• Invite a health-care professional to be a guest speaker at a special event.
• Respectfully ask all parents to notify you if their child or children are found to have head lice—even if it’s during a break or weekend and children have already been treated.