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

I am sitting at my desk in Florida. Florida, whose nickname is “The Sunshine State,” has been anything but sunny for the last few weeks. Tropical storms and hurricanes have been in our weather forecast constantly. I’ve watched intently as Gustav made his way up the Gulf Coast, leaving flood waters, downed trees, power outages, and destruction in his path. Now as Hanna and Ike bear down on the United States, we’ve secured our home and gathered emergency equipment, food and water in the event that any of these storms hit us. We cautiously wait and watch as the storms churn around us, our nerves a little frazzled and our anxiety levels heightened. We are alert and ready to take action if necessary.

Young children are very susceptible to fear and anxiety about storms, too. This is particularly true if they:
• have had direct experience with a bad storm in the past.
• are sensitive to your heightened anxiety.
• have a vivid imagination.
• see and hear about the storm on TV.

So, I’m wondering what preschool teachers and parents do to reassure children and help them overcome their fears. This is such an important topic, I’d love to hear what you’ve done that works.

Here are 2 comments from parents in Orlando:

Alaina: As much as possible, I try to keep to our regular schedule. It makes my daughter feel more secure and heads off those “I’m over-tired tears.” Bedtime is the hardest time, so I make sure that we eat at our regular time, bathe, and get ready for bed as we always do. Then, we snuggle up together and I read Emily’s favorite story – Good Night Moon.

Carissa: We prepared for the storms by securing patio furniture, garbage cans, and other objects that might become airborne projectiles. Since Spencer loves to build things, I alleviated the tension by bringing the patio furniture into the playroom and letting him build forts with it. It kept him busy and his mind off the wind and the rain outside.

Please take a minute to share your experiences and suggestions.

With all this talk about nutrition and healthy choices, you may be getting the feeling that this is serious, serious business. While it is all very important, there is no need to bypass the fun. How about:

• using colorful cupcake wrappers to hold nuts and pieces of cut-up fruits and vegetables.
• using cookie cutters or ice cream molds to shape rice, scrambled eggs, beans, etc.
• having the children decorate their own placemats on construction paper. Once you cover them with contact paper, you’ll have placemats that will last through many uses.

Instead of teaching children to always clean their plates, a healthier alternative is to encourage them to eat to their appetites. Growth spurts and a child’s mood will make for inconsistent interest at meal times. By creating smaller portions, children can gauge how much they want to eat at each sitting. Establish an environment where it is perfectly alright to ask for seconds and thirds.

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.

Where do your preschoolers eat? A positive and comfortable eating area in the classroom helps children focus on the food when it is time to eat. Provide a place for each child at an appropriately sized table.

To help transition in and out of snack time from activity times, assign children specific tasks that must be completed before and after each meal break. Perhaps it is someone’s responsibility to place a napkin at each spot or to make sure that all the garbage ends up in the garbage can. Wow parents by modeling and role-playing appropriate table manners. Have certain meals be extra special ones so everyone can practice and show-off what he or she has learned.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the best way for children to learn about nutrition is when they are involved with actual food—”not simply answer[ing] questions in workbooks or sing[ing] songs about vegetables.”

Here’s a snack-time activity to combine healthy eating with fine motor-skill development and the proper use of utensils. Set out small containers of fruit yogurt and graham crackers. Have the children use spoons or cheese spreaders (no sharp edges) to add yogurt on top of the crackers. They can experiment and decide just how much yogurt to add to get the best taste combination.

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

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.

Here’s a fun Dramatic Play Learning Center activity from The InvestiGator Club Prekindergarten Learning System that you can complete with your children.
 

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.