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Greetings!
HELLO SUMMER!
Welcome to our summer program!! We are very excited to kick off our summer program, “EFC Minnesota Summer” We will be learning about our state with hands-on adventures. The curriculum will be based on the book, “Minnesota for Mini-sotans, written by Debby Anderson.
Each of our classrooms will have a Minnesota map to decorate with postcards and pictures of their travels throughout the state. Let’s see which classroom has the most decorated map! Each class will also pick a new group name for the summer, relating to Minnesota. The unit topic for June is, Minnesota: Water, Land and Sky. The weekly themes are posted on the June calendar.
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SUMMER GARDENS
The preschool children will be planting and caring for their own garden. This year the preschoolers will have planter boxes on our playground to plant their own fruits and vegetables! We are excited to watch our seeds grow and harvest some delicious food! The older toddler class will also grow some vegetables in their own smaller garden box on their playground.
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SUMMER FUN
- On Wednesday, June 13 from 7-8am, we will have Pancakes with Papas! Bring your favorite person to have breakfast with your child to celebrate Father’s Day.
- On Thursday, June 14, the preschoolers will be going to Tamarack Nature Center. Please have your child wear water shoes for this field trip. We will have a picnic lunch before returning to the center.
- Picture Day is Monday, June 4. Photos will be taken outside, weather permitting.
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FROZEN YOGURT FRUIT POPS
Instructions:
Dice your fruit into small pieces. Layer the bottom of a silicone mold tray with the fruit, then fill with yogurt.
Pop your tray in the freezer. After about half an hour, just when the yogurt is just starting to freeze, place your popsicle sticks upright and place back in the freezer until completely frozen.
The yogurt pops slide out easily from the silicone molds when you're ready to eat them.
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EFC STAFF INTRANET
From time to time, we like to share some of the things we are working on as an organization. At our recent Professional Development Day, we unveiled a new resource for teaching staff to use as they plan lessons, seek out additional training, and, for new teaching staff, become familiar with Especially for Children.
We are particularly excited about the EFC Lessons Library, where EFC teaching staff members from all of our locations can share theme and activity ideas with one another. We see this as a place for EFC teaching staff to show off their creativity and inspire one another with fun, fresh, tested ideas that can be implemented in various classrooms.
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HOW DEFINING CORE VALUES CAN INFLUENCE CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOR
Our six-year-old grandchild lives with us, and we have been revisiting parenting techniques to try to minimize a few of his less desirable behaviors. With the advice of a parenting specialist, we were challenged to select
five core values that we want our family to embrace. During this summer we will take each value, one at a time, and find concrete examples of how that value plays out in our daily routines. For instance, if our value is
responsibility,
we will select concrete examples of how we can be responsible at various times of the day. And when one of us is being responsible, we will label the action and recognize that he/she is being responsible at that moment.
In the morning we each have our routines or
responsibilities that help us get ready for the day. Someone makes breakfast, another person sets the table, we clear our dishes, we brush our teeth, we make our beds, and we gather the things we will need for the day. Now instead of just doing all of these things, we will make a list of each of our responsibilities and have a concrete picture of what the word
responsibility means for our family in the mornings. We will do similar lists for how our responsibilities change throughout the day, all the way to bedtime.
The concept underlying this exercise of selecting core values and then identifying what they mean in your family is that the child learns the definition of the value and that it is a value that is important to you. You then demonstrate how you can be a family that works together and cooperates to live the value. In the course of this interactive work, children understand that rules are necessary in order to stay safe and to live together happily. And they experience the joy of being a part of a family unit – a team.
The family values we have chosen to define and live out this summer are
responsibility, honesty, kindness, acceptance and self-control. We plan to spend two weeks concentrating on each value. Hopefully we will be able to keep on track with each of the previously learned values so that by the end of the summer all five values will be clearly lived out in our daily lives.
This may seem a bit structured for your family at the moment, especially for younger children. But it’s not too early to think about some core values that you will want to clearly communicate to your children within the next few years. As your children grow, you may add more values to the list.
Our hope is that the thoughtful and intentional expression of values in our household will lead to increased cohesiveness and fewer moments of frustration. Wish us luck!
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TWIN CITIES
FAMILY EVENTS
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Especially for Children
2 H South Pine Dr.
Circle Pines MN 55014
(763) 786-9410
Center Director:
Linda Burck
Center Assistant Director:
Kris Steffens
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