From the Principal’s Office
We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every parent and child for the privilege of working with you this past year. Thank you for your kindness and generosity over the holiday season! We appreciate every kind word and gift and look forward to serving you and your family in the coming year.
2019 promises to be a great year as we all grow and learn together! Please feel free to drop by the office or call at any time if you ever have a need or a concern. We will always be here to help you in any way possible.
We are overjoyed at the response from you all in support of our Holiday Giving activities! With your help, the Chesterbrook Academies in our NC/SC district presented the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a check for $8718.57. As we move into the new year, we look forward to spending more time getting to know your family and building a community together.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
Lynette Stoker, Principal
lynette.stoker@nlcinc.com
Shari Hale, Asst. Principal
shari.hale@nlcinc.com
Nikki Crowell, 2nd Asst. Principal
nikki.crowell@nlcinc.com
Calendar of Events
January 2019
January 1, 2019 New Year’s Day Chesterbrook Academy Closed
January 21, 2019 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 26, 2019 Open House 10:00am-1:00pm Prospective Parents and Children Welcome!
For Parents and Teachers
Fall and winter are prime times for respiratory illnesses. Most are caused by viruses and bacteria. Sometimes a viral infection can set the stage for a bacterial infection and when this happens, a child is sick with both infections at the same time. Symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection include a runny stuffy nose, irritability, poor appetite, coughing, sore throat, and fever. Viruses can cause sore throats, colds, croup, and flu symptoms. Strep throat is a common bacterial infection. RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, is a widespread lower respiratory tract infection. It is the most common viral infection in infants and young children. Symptoms include wheezing and rapid shallow breathing. RSV may lead to an infection of the bronchioles, the tiny airways that lead to the lungs. Breathing becomes difficult when these airways become inflamed, swollen, and filled with mucus. Children with bronciolitis may require hospitalization.
Pneumonia infects the lower respiratory tract. Viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites can all cause pneumonia. Antibiotics are only used if the infection is caused by bacteria. For children with chronic health conditions, a respiratory infection can develop into a severe illness. Taking measures to reduce and manage respiratory infections in child care will benefit children with chronic respiratory conditions as well as the rest of the child care community. When children and staff are healthy, everyone’s day in child care is more enjoyable!
NC Child Care Health and Safety Bulletin
Winter Weather Advisory
With the threat of winter weather approaching, we thought we’d take this opportunity to share with you our inclement weather policy. We will do our best to be open every day, even during bad weather. However, if it is icy and road conditions are hazardous to the safety of your children and our staff, we will delay opening until after the sun has come up and the roads have had time to improve. In most cases, we will delay opening until 8:30am. If severe weather develops during the day, most parents will begin picking up their children early. When the number of children in the building drops below 20, we will begin calling and asking parents to pick up their child(ren) so that we can all get home before road conditions deteriorate. We DO NOT follow the Catawba County School closing schedule and will be here for your child. In the event of an inclement weather closing or delay, we will always put a message on our voice-mail and on our website stating our intentions for the day. We will also send an email blast through our Links2Home system. Please watch WBTV/Channel 3 or log-on to www.wbtv.com for school closing information. (We recommend going to the web-site if possible…when WBTV3 scrolls through all of the many area closings, it may take up to 30-45 minutes for Chesterbrook Academy -Hickory to scroll back around, and then WBTV will almost always go to a commercial break and you miss it!)
Reminders!
All payments are due on Friday preceding each week. A $25.00 late payment fee is assessed after 12 noon Monday, no exceptions!
To avoid a late fee, make your payment online through the Parent Portal, pay over the phone with credit/debit card, or consider signing up for Electronic Funds Transfer as a back-up. With EFT, if for some reason you forget to make a payment before 12 noon Monday (i.e. your child was out sick, you went out-of-town, etc..) your payment would be made electronically late Monday evening and you would not be charged a late fee. For your convenience, Chesterbrook Academy accepts VISA, MasterCard, and Discover A 2% processing fee will be charged per transaction.
From the Education Department
January, 2019
|
Topics: Language & Literacy
As children begin the toddler stage, they respond to familiar words by shouting, gesturing or reaching for objects. As their language skills develop, their babbles evolve into a mix of real and made-up words and phrases. They learn to express their needs and wants with language and rely less on[.....]
Read More »
Parent Communication
Need a school communications refresher after the busy holiday season? You can stay involved in your child’s learning, receive memorable photos, be aware of holidays and closures, and prepare for the season ahead.. You can keep up with your child’s day to day activities with daily reports and photos from our app Links2Home. If you do not currently have Links2Home on your mobile device, or would like to get reacquainted, you can simply download the app through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. If you’ve not done so, you will need to create an account with the email address we have on file for you at our school. Please let us know if you have any questions.
_______________________________________________
Monthly Parent Folders
Each month, our teacher summarize your child’s learning and send it home in a folder to you all. These folders contain:
- Previous month’s skills, concepts, activities and goals
- A preview of skills for the upcoming month and suggestions of activities to continue the learning at home
- Samples of your child’s work
We truly love creating and sharing these pieces with each of you. Be on the lookout for the January parent folder at the end of the month!
_______________________________________________
Parent Boards
The classroom parent board has valuable information about the progress of classroom curriculum. Parent boards include:
- Monthly Spanish vocabulary and phrases
- Weekly skills focus at a glance
- Weekly lesson plan created by the teacher
- Learning outcome goals for the year/program
Please check your classroom’s parent board for more information.
School Year Calendar
Check out our school year calendar to keep on top of school holidays and closures.
In the event of an emergency that results in the school being closed, we will reach out to you all through text message, email and by posting on our website. http://hickory.chesterbrookacademy.com
Love your school? Share your review!
In today’s connected world, many families turn to online reviews to learn more about the reputation of the schools. That is why we are reminding you that you can find us on Great Schools, Google+, Facebook, and other online directories.
Articles that appear from “Grandma Says” are focused on general parenting practices and philosophy and are not as age-specific as articles that appear in Growing Child.
Making the Connection
Catching up with reading on a flight over Thanksgiving, I read two articles in immediate succession. And immediately said to myself, as my granddaughters used to say with a roll of the eyes, “Well, big duh!” The first article was titled, “Children Not Ready for School at Five” and the second was “Many Children Under Five are Left to Their Mobile Devices, Survey Finds.” Coincidence? I think not.
Let’s just summarize the major points from each article. In the description of the lack of readiness, the author describes children arriving at school lacking in language and motor skills needed for success in the school environment.
No matter what their intelligence, children with immature motor skills may not be able to even hold a pencil, and additionally we all recognize the vital importance of communication skills of speaking and listening as a basis for early literacy.
The author attributes these deficiencies (found in over half of the children studied) to a lack of interaction with parents, as more and more busy parents abandon traditional games, lullabies, nursery rhymes and bedtime stories.
Replacing these are devices, such as seats that can rock babies to sleep so that children can go long periods without physical contact, and electronic screens that can entertain children with a swipe of a finger. But evidently, there is no substitute for real language interaction, or the rough and tumble play of traditional games, in developing language and physical skills.
Moving on to the piece about children using mobile devices, the author reported that nearly three-quarters of children under the age of four had regular access to tablets, smartphones or iPods, and usually used them on their own.
Many parents reported that they allowed their children to play with mobile devices while they did housework, or to placate kids when in public. Parents of infants and toddlers reported that nearly half of their children used a device daily to play games, watch videos, or use apps – this despite the statements of the American Academy of Pediatrics that screen time below the age of two could be harmful, that unplugged play be the priority, and that devices not be used as pacifiers.
Fully a quarter of the parents said they left children with devices at bedtime, although bright screens disrupt sleep. And most alarmingly, most of this media time is reportedly alone. Are you starting to make the same connections I was?
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington was quoted, “It can’t be overstated: children need laps more than apps.” To be fair, the author pointed out that interactive apps may teach children. A recent study reported that first graders who used an app called Bedtime Math with a parent, improved their math skills within months.
So, as the researchers continue to learn how children are changed by the media they use, it behooves us to see that there may be a connection between the ideas of school readiness and screen time, and strive to find a balance in our lives to allow for more interaction, and less tech stuff.
© Growing Child 2016 Please feel free to forward this article to a friend. Receive your free subscription of Grandma Says at www.GrowingChild.com/FreeGrandmaSays or contact Growing Child customer service at service@growingchild.com or call (800) 927-7289 To learn more about Growing Child, and obtain a sample of our products please visit: www.GrowingChild.com
Put your medicines UP and AWAY and out of sight!
Cold and flu season is upon us, and in many homes, families will using medicines for the stuffy noses, coughs and fevers that winter often brings. While it may seem like common knowledge to store medications out of the reach and sight of children, each year more than 60,000 young children—roughly four busloads of kids each day—end up in emergency departments after getting into medicine and vitamins that were left within reach.
A few simple safe storage steps–followed every time–-can protect your child:
1.Store medicines in a safe location that is too high for young children to reach or see.
2.Never leave medicine or vitamins out on a kitchen counter or at a sick child’s bedside, even if you have to give the medicine again in a few hours.
3.Always relock the safety cap on a medicine bottle. If it has a locking cap that turns, twist it until you hear the click or you cannot twist anymore.
4.Never tell children that medicine is candy so they’ll take it, even if your child does not like to take his or her medicine.
5.Tell children what medicine is and why you must be the one to give it to them.
6.Remind babysitters, houseguests, grandparents, and holiday visitors to keep purses, bags, or coats that have medicines in them up and away and out of sight when they are in your home.
7.Program the Poison Help number (1-800-222-1222) into your home and cell phones so you will have it when you need it. Call this number anytime your child has accidentally ingested any substance that you think might be harmful, including prescription medicines, over-the-counter remedies, and vitamins or other dietary supplements.
For more information, please visit the Up and Away website at www.UpandAway.org., where you will find tip sheets for storing medicines safely in the home and when you travel (available in Spanish, too).
It is very tempting, when you are running late in the morning, to stop at Hardee’s or Bojangles to pick up your child’s breakfast. Unfortunately, it is against policy for a child to bring in outside food and eat it in front of the other children. Some children come in as early as 6:30am and may have been too sleepy to eat the breakfast that their parents offered them. When another child comes in with tempting fast food, everyone wants it and obviously can’t have it. It is unfair to expect the other children not to covet your child’s food. If you must pick up breakfast on the way, please make sure that your child finishes eating in the car before coming in. Remember, we serve a nutritional breakfast to all children at 8:30am each morning. Please do not allow your child to bring in gum or candy. We do not allow children to chew gum at our school because of the mess involved if the gum gets in the carpet or, worse yet, a child’s hair.
Although our school is open from 6:30am to 6:00pm each day, no child should be in attendance more than 10 hours per day on a regular basis. There will always be exceptions, of course, for traffic issues, occasional late meetings, or doctor’s appointments; however, no child should be staying at school from 6:30am to 6:00pm every day.
Chesterbrook Academy January 2019 Newsletter
From the Principal’s Office
We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every parent and child for the privilege of working with you this past year. Thank you for your kindness and generosity over the holiday season! We appreciate every kind word and gift and look forward to serving you and your family in the coming year.
2019 promises to be a great year as we all grow and learn together! Please feel free to drop by the office or call at any time if you ever have a need or a concern. We will always be here to help you in any way possible.
We are overjoyed at the response from you all in support of our Holiday Giving activities! With your help, the Chesterbrook Academies in our NC/SC district presented the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a check for $8718.57. As we move into the new year, we look forward to spending more time getting to know your family and building a community together.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
Lynette Stoker, Principal
lynette.stoker@nlcinc.com
Shari Hale, Asst. Principal
shari.hale@nlcinc.com
Nikki Crowell, 2nd Asst. Principal
nikki.crowell@nlcinc.com
Calendar of Events
January 2019
January 1, 2019 New Year’s Day Chesterbrook Academy Closed
January 21, 2019 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 26, 2019 Open House 10:00am-1:00pm Prospective Parents and Children Welcome!
For Parents and Teachers
Fall and winter are prime times for respiratory illnesses. Most are caused by viruses and bacteria. Sometimes a viral infection can set the stage for a bacterial infection and when this happens, a child is sick with both infections at the same time. Symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection include a runny stuffy nose, irritability, poor appetite, coughing, sore throat, and fever. Viruses can cause sore throats, colds, croup, and flu symptoms. Strep throat is a common bacterial infection. RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, is a widespread lower respiratory tract infection. It is the most common viral infection in infants and young children. Symptoms include wheezing and rapid shallow breathing. RSV may lead to an infection of the bronchioles, the tiny airways that lead to the lungs. Breathing becomes difficult when these airways become inflamed, swollen, and filled with mucus. Children with bronciolitis may require hospitalization.
Pneumonia infects the lower respiratory tract. Viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites can all cause pneumonia. Antibiotics are only used if the infection is caused by bacteria. For children with chronic health conditions, a respiratory infection can develop into a severe illness. Taking measures to reduce and manage respiratory infections in child care will benefit children with chronic respiratory conditions as well as the rest of the child care community. When children and staff are healthy, everyone’s day in child care is more enjoyable!
NC Child Care Health and Safety Bulletin
Winter Weather Advisory
With the threat of winter weather approaching, we thought we’d take this opportunity to share with you our inclement weather policy. We will do our best to be open every day, even during bad weather. However, if it is icy and road conditions are hazardous to the safety of your children and our staff, we will delay opening until after the sun has come up and the roads have had time to improve. In most cases, we will delay opening until 8:30am. If severe weather develops during the day, most parents will begin picking up their children early. When the number of children in the building drops below 20, we will begin calling and asking parents to pick up their child(ren) so that we can all get home before road conditions deteriorate. We DO NOT follow the Catawba County School closing schedule and will be here for your child. In the event of an inclement weather closing or delay, we will always put a message on our voice-mail and on our website stating our intentions for the day. We will also send an email blast through our Links2Home system. Please watch WBTV/Channel 3 or log-on to www.wbtv.com for school closing information. (We recommend going to the web-site if possible…when WBTV3 scrolls through all of the many area closings, it may take up to 30-45 minutes for Chesterbrook Academy -Hickory to scroll back around, and then WBTV will almost always go to a commercial break and you miss it!)
Reminders!
All payments are due on Friday preceding each week. A $25.00 late payment fee is assessed after 12 noon Monday, no exceptions!
To avoid a late fee, make your payment online through the Parent Portal, pay over the phone with credit/debit card, or consider signing up for Electronic Funds Transfer as a back-up. With EFT, if for some reason you forget to make a payment before 12 noon Monday (i.e. your child was out sick, you went out-of-town, etc..) your payment would be made electronically late Monday evening and you would not be charged a late fee. For your convenience, Chesterbrook Academy accepts VISA, MasterCard, and Discover A 2% processing fee will be charged per transaction.
From the Education Department
5 Ways to Boost Your Toddler’s Language Development
Read More »
Parent Communication
Need a school communications refresher after the busy holiday season? You can stay involved in your child’s learning, receive memorable photos, be aware of holidays and closures, and prepare for the season ahead.. You can keep up with your child’s day to day activities with daily reports and photos from our app Links2Home. If you do not currently have Links2Home on your mobile device, or would like to get reacquainted, you can simply download the app through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. If you’ve not done so, you will need to create an account with the email address we have on file for you at our school. Please let us know if you have any questions.
_______________________________________________
Monthly Parent Folders
Each month, our teacher summarize your child’s learning and send it home in a folder to you all. These folders contain:
We truly love creating and sharing these pieces with each of you. Be on the lookout for the January parent folder at the end of the month!
_______________________________________________
Parent Boards
The classroom parent board has valuable information about the progress of classroom curriculum. Parent boards include:
Please check your classroom’s parent board for more information.
School Year Calendar
Check out our school year calendar to keep on top of school holidays and closures.
In the event of an emergency that results in the school being closed, we will reach out to you all through text message, email and by posting on our website. http://hickory.chesterbrookacademy.com
Love your school? Share your review!
In today’s connected world, many families turn to online reviews to learn more about the reputation of the schools. That is why we are reminding you that you can find us on Great Schools, Google+, Facebook, and other online directories.
Articles that appear from “Grandma Says” are focused on general parenting practices and philosophy and are not as age-specific as articles that appear in Growing Child.
Making the Connection
Catching up with reading on a flight over Thanksgiving, I read two articles in immediate succession. And immediately said to myself, as my granddaughters used to say with a roll of the eyes, “Well, big duh!” The first article was titled, “Children Not Ready for School at Five” and the second was “Many Children Under Five are Left to Their Mobile Devices, Survey Finds.” Coincidence? I think not.
Let’s just summarize the major points from each article. In the description of the lack of readiness, the author describes children arriving at school lacking in language and motor skills needed for success in the school environment.
No matter what their intelligence, children with immature motor skills may not be able to even hold a pencil, and additionally we all recognize the vital importance of communication skills of speaking and listening as a basis for early literacy.
The author attributes these deficiencies (found in over half of the children studied) to a lack of interaction with parents, as more and more busy parents abandon traditional games, lullabies, nursery rhymes and bedtime stories.
Replacing these are devices, such as seats that can rock babies to sleep so that children can go long periods without physical contact, and electronic screens that can entertain children with a swipe of a finger. But evidently, there is no substitute for real language interaction, or the rough and tumble play of traditional games, in developing language and physical skills.
Moving on to the piece about children using mobile devices, the author reported that nearly three-quarters of children under the age of four had regular access to tablets, smartphones or iPods, and usually used them on their own.
Many parents reported that they allowed their children to play with mobile devices while they did housework, or to placate kids when in public. Parents of infants and toddlers reported that nearly half of their children used a device daily to play games, watch videos, or use apps – this despite the statements of the American Academy of Pediatrics that screen time below the age of two could be harmful, that unplugged play be the priority, and that devices not be used as pacifiers.
Fully a quarter of the parents said they left children with devices at bedtime, although bright screens disrupt sleep. And most alarmingly, most of this media time is reportedly alone. Are you starting to make the same connections I was?
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington was quoted, “It can’t be overstated: children need laps more than apps.” To be fair, the author pointed out that interactive apps may teach children. A recent study reported that first graders who used an app called Bedtime Math with a parent, improved their math skills within months.
So, as the researchers continue to learn how children are changed by the media they use, it behooves us to see that there may be a connection between the ideas of school readiness and screen time, and strive to find a balance in our lives to allow for more interaction, and less tech stuff.
© Growing Child 2016 Please feel free to forward this article to a friend. Receive your free subscription of Grandma Says at www.GrowingChild.com/FreeGrandmaSays or contact Growing Child customer service at service@growingchild.com or call (800) 927-7289 To learn more about Growing Child, and obtain a sample of our products please visit: www.GrowingChild.com
Put your medicines UP and AWAY and out of sight!
Cold and flu season is upon us, and in many homes, families will using medicines for the stuffy noses, coughs and fevers that winter often brings. While it may seem like common knowledge to store medications out of the reach and sight of children, each year more than 60,000 young children—roughly four busloads of kids each day—end up in emergency departments after getting into medicine and vitamins that were left within reach.
A few simple safe storage steps–followed every time–-can protect your child:
1.Store medicines in a safe location that is too high for young children to reach or see.
2.Never leave medicine or vitamins out on a kitchen counter or at a sick child’s bedside, even if you have to give the medicine again in a few hours.
3.Always relock the safety cap on a medicine bottle. If it has a locking cap that turns, twist it until you hear the click or you cannot twist anymore.
4.Never tell children that medicine is candy so they’ll take it, even if your child does not like to take his or her medicine.
5.Tell children what medicine is and why you must be the one to give it to them.
6.Remind babysitters, houseguests, grandparents, and holiday visitors to keep purses, bags, or coats that have medicines in them up and away and out of sight when they are in your home.
7.Program the Poison Help number (1-800-222-1222) into your home and cell phones so you will have it when you need it. Call this number anytime your child has accidentally ingested any substance that you think might be harmful, including prescription medicines, over-the-counter remedies, and vitamins or other dietary supplements.
For more information, please visit the Up and Away website at www.UpandAway.org., where you will find tip sheets for storing medicines safely in the home and when you travel (available in Spanish, too).
It is very tempting, when you are running late in the morning, to stop at Hardee’s or Bojangles to pick up your child’s breakfast. Unfortunately, it is against policy for a child to bring in outside food and eat it in front of the other children. Some children come in as early as 6:30am and may have been too sleepy to eat the breakfast that their parents offered them. When another child comes in with tempting fast food, everyone wants it and obviously can’t have it. It is unfair to expect the other children not to covet your child’s food. If you must pick up breakfast on the way, please make sure that your child finishes eating in the car before coming in. Remember, we serve a nutritional breakfast to all children at 8:30am each morning. Please do not allow your child to bring in gum or candy. We do not allow children to chew gum at our school because of the mess involved if the gum gets in the carpet or, worse yet, a child’s hair.
Although our school is open from 6:30am to 6:00pm each day, no child should be in attendance more than 10 hours per day on a regular basis. There will always be exceptions, of course, for traffic issues, occasional late meetings, or doctor’s appointments; however, no child should be staying at school from 6:30am to 6:00pm every day.