Celebrating your child’s birthday

During the week of your child's birthday, you are welcome to send in cupcakes.  If your child's birthday falls during a break or during the Summer, we are happy to celebrate them on a different day during the school year.  Please do just make sure that any cupcakes or treats are nut-free.  If your child has other allergies or dietary requirements and you would like to send them in with a different treat when we celebrate a classmate's birthday, please let me know.  I will then let you know the week before we are celebrating a birthday so that you can send a different treat in with your child.  We will make a note in our calendar of when birthdays are coming up so that we can plan to sing "Happy Birthday" during the class closest to their birthday.

Potty Training

Please let us know when you are ready to potty train your child and we will do whatever we can to support your child (and you!) during the potty training period.

We recommend that you keep your child in pull-ups for school for a couple of weeks after they are accident-free at home as it does seem to take two to three weeks for them to also be accident-free in the classroom. Our experience has been that it does NOT confuse children or cause setbacks in potty training at home if they wear a pull-up in school for a couple of weeks after only wearing underwear at home and outside of the classroom.

We will follow your guidance in terms of prompting your child to use the potty at school depending on what you are doing at home. We use a potty seat on top of a regular toilet at school. We can let you know the ones we have at school so that you can order the same one to use at home if you would like to do so.

Separation

Since we returned to the classroom after COVID, drop-off and pick-up has been outside the building.  For some reason, we had fewer children get really upset at drop-off during the past three years than we did when parents were able to come into the classroom for the first week or so.  My experience with my own children was that it was much harder to leave them once I was in the classroom with them and once they knew that I could go in the classroom with them.  

So my intention is that we will continue with the same drop-off policy for the upcoming school year with drop-off and pick-up taking place outside the building.

This program was created by me after my experiences with my own children.  My oldest child walked into preschool with barely a backward glance.  The younger two became intimately acquainted with my legs and had to be physically removed from my legs by very loving teachers who knew (much better than I did) that my children would settle much more easily without me being there.

So please trust me when I say that I know exactly what you are going through as a parent when you contemplate leaving your child especially if it is for the first time.

We work with each family to do what is best for their child. It is perfectly normal and appropriate for a child to be upset for the first few drop-offs. We find that most children can be comforted by us and they quite quickly become distracted by and engaged in the activities.  If your child has been upset at drop-off, a teacher will text you to let you know as soon as they are OK.  If they are inconsolable, we will text you or phone you to arrange for you to come back to pick them up (if you are able to do so).  If they are consolable but still upset, we might text you to suggest that you pick your child up earlier than their regular dismissal time. Then for the next couple of weeks, we will gradually increase the time until they are happily staying for the full three hours.  So we will be very much in contact with you to let you know how your child is doing.  If your child had an easy drop-off with no tears, we will also send you a quick text to let you know how they are doing for the first couple of weeks.

We have seen children who sobbed, screamed and kicked through the first few classes transition into engaged and happy students in a very short space of time.  We had one student last year who cried a lot at his first drop-off and then cried even more at the end of class when he had to go home! 

So our approach is to work with you and your child to do what is best for your child.  There is absolutely NO way to predict how your child will respond so we will be ready for all reactions!