The Benefits of Outdoor Play in Child Development
As an adult, it can be challenging to cut back on screen time and sometimes it can be much more of a challenge to encourage your children to take a step back as well. They live in a world where digital games, TV, phones and iPads are more accessible than they’ve ever been before. However, while screen time does have some benefits, research shows that finding a healthy balance between physical and outdoor play and screen time can help improve physical and mental health. Furthermore, research confirms that physical play can partially reverse negative effects on the brain associated with exc...
5 Ways to Help Children Adjust to Daylight Saving Time
As we approach the end of Daylight Saving Time, many families may be bracing for a shift in their children’s sleep routines. Although gaining an extra hour sounds appealing, it often takes time for children to fully adjust, and that adjustment period can sometimes lead to upset children and disrupted sleep schedules. Here are five helpful tips to ease the transition and ensure smoother mornings and restful nights for your children. 1. Begin the Shift Gradually A few days before Daylight Saving Time ends, you can start moving bedtime and wake-up time by small increments. Adjusting the sc...
Halloween Safety Tips for Families
Halloween is an exciting time of year for children and families. As the big night approaches, it’s important to ensure that fun is paired with safety. Here are some practical safety tips to keep your Halloween celebrations enjoyable and worry-free. Careful Costume Considerations Think Visibility: Visibility is one of the biggest safety concerns for trick-or-treaters, especially after dark. Help children be seen by adding reflective tape to their costumes and treat bags. Glow sticks and flashlights with fresh batteries are also great ways to ensure that your child stands out in the dark...
Essential Skills Parents Can Help Children Develop in the Early Years
The first five years of a child's life are filled with rapid growth and learning, and it’s during this crucial time that children lay the foundation for their future success. At Stepping Stone School, we recognize the importance of equipping children with a blend of academic, social, emotional, and physical skills that are essential for success in elementary school and beyond. While our nurturing environment and Future Strong™ approach provides a solid foundation at school, parents play an invaluable role in extending this learning at home. Here are key skills parents can help their chi...
Prioritizing Health and Nutrition Early
If you are a parent to a young child, odds are you have already begun to prioritize health and nutrition into your child’s daily routine. With a heightened awareness of the lifelong impact of early dietary habits, it is important for toddlers to receive balanced and nutritious meals. Why is nutrition so important? Good nutrition is important for all of us, however it is especially important for children in their early years. Young children have very specific energy and nutrient requirements supporting their growth and development. Making sure your child has balanced meals daily can someti...
The Importance of Water Safety Instruction
With summer just around the corner, the allure of pools and water activities is undeniable. As we prepare for a season filled with fun, it's essential to prioritize the safety of our children around water. Water safety instruction might seem like just another item on your schedule, but they are incredibly important for your child's safety and development. Let's explore why enrolling your children in a water safety instruction program this summer is a wonderful decision. Why Water Safety Instruction Matters Safety First: Water safety is a critical skill for children, especially presc...
Outdoor Classrooms
As parents of young children attending Stepping Stone School, you're likely aware of the importance of outdoor play in your child's early education. But do you know just how impactful it can be? Let's explore the numerous advantages that outdoor play brings to your child's learning and development. It Invites Children to Learn Science - Nature is a perfect classroom for young explorers. You don't need formal science lessons; outdoor play naturally encourages your child's curiosity. Children are born discoverers, and their questions can become group inquiry projects. Outdoor play natur...
Safety & Security at Stepping Stone School
At Stepping Stone School, the safety and security of our students and families are the foundation on which everything rests. Providing a learning environment that is safe and secure is our number-one priority! Our outstanding safety measures give parents comfort and confidence. Our safeguards include: While on campus and during events all staff wear official apparel with the Stepping Stone School logo. Video cameras in each classroom provide real-time video feed at a color monitor located in the welcome area or the principal’s office 24/7 security video surveillance at the fr...
Your Guide to Exploring the Great Outdoors with Your Child
As the weather warms and Summer approaches, most parents are planning fun outdoor activities with their children. For a child, everything is new and even the tiniest things are interesting and exciting. In today’s technology-driven world, exploring the great outdoors is an opportunity for children to actively engage in learning. Children are natural explorers. They like to run, jump, dig, climb as they discover new places and use their senses to explore. As with any outdoor exploration, it is important to set some basic boundaries so that children can discover their surroundings in a s...
Good Gut Health is Important for Brain Development
A healthy diet can play a vital role in a person’s life and one of the most important factors of our well-being, frequently overlooked, is the health of our gut microbiome. As with an adult’s gut, a child’s digestive tract contains dozens of natural and beneficial bacteria that serve a variety of functions, such as regulating immune function and metabolism. Scientists are now studying how children’s diets influence their gut health and also, more importantly, how it might affect everything from mood to mental health and cognitive development. A well-balanced diet rich in whole fo...
Peace of Mind for Parents - Make Mealtimes Learning Opportunities!
Mealtimes are great opportunities for children to have conversations, use their manners, and even practice math. Here are some ways to keep the fun and learning going at your next family meal. Set the table. Together you and your child can count the number of forks you need, note where each piece of silverware goes, and point out that there is one place setting for each person. This allows children use and practice an important math skill: one–to–one correspondence. Try new foods. Children learn to be more independent and open-minded when they choose to try a new f...
Preventing and Helping Choking in Young Children
Infant choking is scary, but it is largely preventable. Infant and young children’s airways are smaller and easily obstructed. It also takes time for infants to master the ability to chew and swallow food, and infants may not be able to cough forcefully enough to dislodge an airway obstruction. As infants and toddlers explore their environments, they also commonly put objects into their mouths, leading to choking. Sometimes health conditions increase the risk of choking. Children who have swallowing disorders, neuromuscular disorders and developmental delays, have a higher risk of...
Halloween Safety in the Age of COVID-19
Halloween is right around the corner and all of our traditional ways of celebrating the holiday now need to be reconsidered based on the presence of COVID-19 in our communities. While traditional Halloween activities are fun, some can increase the risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19. Below are some ideas you can utilize to have a happy and safe Halloween this year. Wear a Mask. Make your cloth mask part of your costume. Costume masks are not a substitute for cloth masks. Also, do not wear a costume mask over a cloth mask, it can make breathing difficult. Wash Your Hands. Br...
How to Make Taste-Safe Moon Sand
How to Make Taste-Safe Moon Sand Moon sand is a special craft sand that can hold its shape for a brief time similar to the sand you find at the beach. Most moon sand recipes require actual sand, but not this one! This recipe uses ingredients from your kitchen and is safe if it accidentally finds its way into your young child’s mouth. Playing with moon sand is not only a wonderful sensory experience, it also strengthens the muscles in your child’s hands. While shaping the sand with their fingers, children are developing fine motor skills which are necessary for gripping a pen...
Banana Pancake Snowmen!
This is a fun and easy recipe you can make with your children on Christmas morning, or anytime during the holiday season! Ingredients 1 cup complete buttermilk pancake mix 3/4 cup water 1/3 cup mashed ripe banana 1 teaspoon confectioners' sugar Pretzel sticks, chocolate chips, dried cranberries and/or halved banana slices Instructions In a small bowl, stir the pancake mix, water and banana just until moistened. Pour a scant 1/2 cup batter onto a greased hot griddle, making three circles to form a snowman. Turn when bubbles form on top. Cook until the second...
Teaching Your Child Health and Wellness Habits
As a parent, you instinctively want your children to grow up leading happy and healthy lives, while developing good habits. Not only are good eating habits important for a child to learn, but, establishing health and wellness habits that nurture the mind, body and spirit as a whole are significant as well. Teaching your child a healthy routine when he is young can prove to be beneficial for his mental development and encourage a positive relationship with his health. Here are some of our favorite healthy habits: Eliminating junk food. Feeding your child a balanced and nutritious diet h...
Cooking with Children
Have you ever had Thunder Cake? It was my first successful from-scratch cake and I made it with a classroom full of four and five-year-olds. I was still fairly new to the world of Early Childhood Education and my principal challenged me to incorporate some cooking into my classroom highlighting the many benefits. Initially terrified at the thought of cooking with young children, I had brought in a prepackaged mix so the children just had to add water, stir, and bake - not a very engaging or tasty experience. Several weeks later, a colleague introduced me to the book Thunder Cake b...
10 Safety Tips for Independence Day
My memories of Independence Day celebrations are filled with cookouts, visits from friends and family members, and staying up late to watch the fireworks displays. My siblings and I would spend most of the day chasing each other around in the backyard and then join with our neighbors in the front yard to share in a cookout. It was always an exciting time Now with my own children in tow, the celebrations and fireworks take on a slightly different kind of excitement: keeping my children safe throughout the crowded parade routes, cookouts, and firework spectaculars. I have compiled s...
Healthy Habits for Happy Teeth!
Even if your child is only an infant or toddler, you can start now to help your child develop strong, healthy teeth and build habits that last a lifetime. Begin cleaning your infant’s teeth as soon as the first tooth appears. Use a damp cloth to swab clean. When more teeth emerge, use a small, soft-bristled brush and water only. Around age 2 or 3 add a pea-sized amount of fluoride toothpaste to brush. As your child gains hand and finger control, encourage him to brush his own teeth. Supervise until around the age of 7 or 8. Encourage your child to spit out the toothpas...
Seven Ways to Encourage Healthy Eating Habits with Your Children
Stepping Stone School is your partner in raising healthy, happy and confident children. To that end, we serve balanced and nutritional meals and snacks and offer the following suggestions for encouraging healthy eating in children. Keep healthy food on hand. Keep snacks like fruits, veggies and low-fat cheese in a special place that children can access easily. It’s OK to have an occasional treat, but if you buy smaller packages of “junk food,” it’s easier to keep these snacks to a minimum. Make healthy foods fun. When offering something new try to mix it up and be crea...
School Safety: Stepping Stone School Emergency Preparedness Plan
Stepping Stone School is committed to every facet of safety and security for the children we care for each day. That’s why, in addition to all of the safety lessons incorporated into our classroom curriculum, we have developed an Emergency Preparedness Plan that is implemented in all Stepping Stone Schools. This plan details the policies and procedures for handling a variety of emergency situations, allowing Stepping Stone School to be fully prepared to protect our children, staff and families. This plan incorporates several features that allow for the highest level of se...
Encouraging Healthy Eating on a Working Parent's Schedule
Healthy eating for children sometimes seems to be a bumpy road pitted with obstacles and hurdles. As parents, we want to give our children the foundations for achieving all their current and future goals. And of course, we know that achieving goals requires a healthy body, which in turn, requires healthy food. With many children, this can be a challenge, especially for working parents with busy schedules. So how can you serve healthful meals … and how can you get your child to eat them? Planning A little planning can go a long way toward preparing nutritious (and stress-fre...
Five Tips for Healthier Eating
Stepping Stone School is your partner in raising healthy, happy and confident children. To that end, we serve balanced and nutritional meals and snacks and offer the following suggestions for encouraging healthy eating in children. 1. Keep healthy food on hand. Keep snacks like fruits, veggies and low-fat cheese in a special place that children can access easily. It's OK to have an occasional treat, but if you buy smaller packages of "junk food," it's easier to keep these snacks to a minimum. 2. Acknowledge healthy choices. When your children choose healthy foods, praise the...