Can you believe that May is already upon us? Where does the time go? Summer break will soon be here, but Sunset Academy is here for your childcare needs offering your regular care and Summer Camp for children who do not regularly attend.
May 8th is a very special day. We would like to wish all of our mothers a very special and warm “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!” We hope you all can find some peace, fun and joy on your special day.
We will be celebrating teacher appreciation week, this first week of May. As you come into the school you will see buckets on the table with Teachers names on them. Please show appreciation to your child’s teacher by putting something in the bucket with their name on it.
We will be having parent/teacher conferences this month. Look for the sign-up sheets at your child’s classroom. If you have any questions, please ask your child’s teacher for more information.
The weather is getting warmer with each passing week. Please be sure to apply sunscreen to your child before dropping them off in the morning. Also, make sure that the sunscreen you provide for teachers to apply to your child has your child’s full name written on it. Please make sure that your child is wearing the appropriate attire, including closed-toe shoes. Even though the weather is nice, remember that close-toed shoes are required as flip flops and sandals can be tripping hazards when playing outside.
As a reminder, we are having our staff meetings on the 2nd Friday of each month. This is for staff training and development like we accomplished prior to COVID. We will be closing at 4:00 p.m. on those days. Dates are posted at the check-in area. May 13th will be our staff meeting this month.
Reminders:
If you are interested in Summer Camp and your child is 5 years of age and up, please see Administration at the front desk for the sign-up form. Please let us know as soon as possible as we will be accepting students from outside the school as well. Time is running out, so don’t hesitate to book your spot for your child.
IMPORTANT: If you receive any new immunizations and/or health checks from your child’s doctor, please remember to provide those updated documents to the school for your child’s records as they are required per State Licensing.
We truly appreciate all of you parents, for your precautions keeping your child at home when sick or not feeling well. We know the extra stress this creates, but as you all know it is required to keep everybody safe and healthy. We truly appreciate you all. Even though things seem like they are coming back to normal, there are many different sicknesses besides COVID that can spread rapidly in an environment like childcare.
Parenting Tip: Tips for Gardening with your Toddler
At this time of year, many people are working on their annual gardens. Here are some great tips to get your Toddler involved and teach them about gardening.
1. Know your stuff. Be smart about gardening before your small helper joins you. Do some research to find the best times to plant various crops in your area. Prepare your soil so it’s soft enough for your toddler’s shovel and spade. Try to find a space that is mostly sunny and not too shady. Add compost generously.
2. Relax. Toddlers will pick the first green tomato before it ripens. They will put your pepper starts into the ground upside down, roots up, breaking off stems. They will plant 32 bean seeds in one hole and then forget to put any in the second hole. They will cry when the compost needs to go on plants because they were using it for dirt castles. Toddlers are too young to see the big picture.
3. Keep your goals simple. This year we have late tomatoes and no zucchini. Why? We started planting late. After all, we have a toddler! We do have many green beans, as these are planted later in the summer, and in a few weeks the tardy tomatoes will fruit. Your garden doesn’t need to be perfect. What is important is allowing your child access to growing a few crops and tasting what he has planted.
4. Make your planting rows obvious. We don’t have wooden edges around our vegetable beds in our gardens because it’s hard to keep the soil fertile in a contained box. Other gardeners with young children often raise their beds in boxes to make a visual “keep out,” Since we avoided this, our vegetable beds in the garden must stand out (for feet). We used bark to accomplish this, as it made the walking paths a different color and texture). This way we could coach our toddler to stay on the bark and off of the baby plants. We also used tomato cages to keep our toddler off of less obvious young plants.
5. Have a “can-do” garden. Our toddler can dig, fill pots and bags, pull off ripe tomatoes and peppers, carry a watering can, hold a hose, taste the produce, and push a cart. When we go to the garden with her, she likes to help for a little while. She enjoys it long enough to harvest tomatoes but not long enough to weed. When she wants to help, we try to assign her an important job, but then we let her play with her plastic tractor or feed the chickens when gardening is no longer fun. That way the message in the garden is “Yes.”
6. Eat what you grow. Children imitate what they see. If you want your toddler to try a radish, try one too. If you want your toddler to taste Swiss chard, taste it too. There are many fun recipes to try with toddlers (like vegetable soup or tomato sauce), but it’s wise to plant some crops that can be eaten right away (says the mother of the toddler who repeatedly tasted our raw potatoes).
7. Have fun. It’s okay for your toddler to hoard the bean seeds, hide under the sunflowers, and pretend the peppers are tongues. Gardening doesn’t need to only involve watering, weeding, planting, and harvesting. As with any other process, toddlers think outside the box. Soon enough they will be planting in rows. This is the time to have a jumbled and joyful garden.
Director, Sunset Academy