Day Nursery openings

If you are searching for full day child care built on a solid foundation of best practices in early childhood education, you have come to the right place.  Day Nursery has been educating the youngest children of Indianapolis for over 110 years. Here’s a recap of the openings we have right now.  Please contact the center you are interested in for more information.  All the contact information for the centers can be found by scrolling down the right hand column of this page.

• Downtown: Day Nursery Federal Center 226-5487 at 575 N. Pennsylvania Street has a few openings for preschool children ages 3 and 4 as well as one opening for a young toddler 12-17 months.
• Downtown: Day Nursery State Center at 100 N. Senate, N150 233-1776 has openings for toddlers 12-24 months, and preschool 4 and 5 year olds
• Downtown: Day Clarian 283-3838at 21st & Senate does not have any immediate openings.  Call for waiting list information.
• Northside: Day Nursery Ruth A. Lilly Center 926-1203 at 3522 N. Central has openings for 3 year olds
• Hendricks County: Day Nursery Avon 271-2603 at 1351 N. Ronald Reagan Parkway on the campus of Clarian West Medical Center  has an opening for an infant starting in January. They also have preschool openings for 4 and 5 year olds
• Northwest: Our newest center is located in Park 100 at 5735 W. 73rd Street. They will have openings for infants after the first of the year.  Currently they have openings for toddlers, 2 1/2 year olds, three-year olds and in the kindergarten classroom. For more information call 291-8048.
• Northeast: Our Start Smart 4 Children Center 377-7015 has a limited number of openings for 2, 3, 4 and 5 year olds.  The center is located at Ft. Harrison.

Santa sighted today near Ft. Harrison

Debra Ballard, Director of the Day Nursery Start Smart 4 Children at Ft. Harrison called me to say she was emailing me pictures of the live reindeer that visited her center this morning with Santa.  Boy was I fooled.  Look at the picture I got.  Too cute!

Santa visits Day Nursery Ruth A. Lilly Center

The heck with posing for pictures. Dayon wanted to make sure Santa knew what was on his list.

Annie Terry has been teaching at Day Nursery for 30 years. She deserves a few extra minutes to tell Santa what she wants for Christmas!

Santa has been making the rounds of the Day Nursery centers.  I missed his visit to the Ruth A. Lilly Center on Central on Friday, but luckily Center Director Shannon Garrity snapped a few pictures to share.

Eddi' Lynn smiles sweetly for her picture with Santa.

The importance of parent-teacher conferences

 

Diane Taylor

Shirley Williams

In checking the Day Nursery center calendars, I noticed that parent-teacher conferences are going on this week and next at our Federal Center. Day Nursery conducts parent teacher conferences three times throughout the year. The schedule varies slightly by center but the usual timetable is during November/December, near the end of February and then again in May. I asked Patty Fisher, Day Nursery Director of Center Administration to explain the reasoning behind the multiple yearly meetings. ”This allows the teachers to focus on the child’s interests, development needs and progress, and to develop strategies to ensure individualized teaching practices for the child. The teacher and the parent have these opportunities along with daily communication to be partners in the child’s early childhood education and builds positive relationships among the teachers and families.” Day Nursery teachers enjoy meeting with parents during conference time.  Two of the Federal Center’s preschool teachers shared their thoughts about the importance of these meetings. Ms. Diane Taylor, Preschool teacher with Day Nursery for 29 years says  “It gives teachers a chance to talk with parents about how their child is adjusting to the classroom, and a formal opportunity to talk about any areas we as teachers and parents should focus on with that particular child.  Finally, it really helps to further open the lines of communication between parents and teachers.” Ms. Shirley Williams, Pre-K teacher with Day Nursery for one year says “It gives parents and teachers a chance to get to know one another better, and sometimes opens the door for families to share more personal information with the teachers that will help the teacher understand their child better.  It also gives the parents a formal opportunity to ask questions maybe they didn’t have time to before, or didn’t think to ask before.  Finally it gives teachers an additional opportunity to go over different things relating to the classroom like different procedures—making sure the parents know where the children’s mailboxes are and different classroom routines.”  We hope you had an opportunity to sit down with your child’s teacher recently.  If you have not yet scheduled your appointment, please see your center director.

Best Illustrated Children’s Books for 2009

The New York Times released its list of Best Illustrated Children’s Books for 2009 as part of a holiday gift guide.  Have you read any of these books with your children? If so, I would love to hear your comments. With the way the weather has been acting today, I think The Snow Day written and illustrated by Komako Sakai will be the first book on the list I track down. Running a close second will be Lucy Cousins’ colorful YUMMY: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales.

First snowfall through the eyes of a child

Xavier and Christian, age 3, play with the snow their teacher Ms. Diane Taylor carried in for their sensorary table.

Today’s snowfall was a surprise to me.  Judging by the news reports this morning, it was also a surprise to a lot of drivers.  While adults often grumble at the hassles of a snow-covered rush hour, children have a different view.  Here’s a look at today’s snowfall through the eyes of children at the Day Nursery Federal Center (thanks to Director Sarah Parks) and the Day Nursery Clarian Center at 21st and Senate (thanks Director Rene Withers).

Lydia, a toddler at Clarian painted this foam snow flake

Two year old Sarah is working on her snowman

Clarian's Twos1 class assembled these cute snowmen this morning

The Twos2 class at Day Nursery Clarian Center helped their teacher paint and dress this snowman

Caden, age 3, making a snow angel on the Day Nursery Federal Center playground.

Born to help

Artwork by Day Nursery Clarian Center students

A newsletter I just received from the staff at  Child Care Exchange just pointed out a very interesting article in the New York Times titled, “We May Be Born With an Urge to Help.”

“Children are altruistic by nature,”writes Dr. Michael Tomasello in his book Why We Cooperate , “and though they are also naturally selfish, all parents need do is try to tip the balance toward social behavior.”  This helping behavior “seems to be innate because it appears so early and before many parents start teaching children the rules of polite behavior.”

As the parent of a ten-year old, one of the most interesting parts of the article for me was this comment about something that had been puzzling me for the last 5 years, for parents who may think their children somehow skipped the cooperative phase, Dr. Tomasello offers the reassuring advice that children are often more cooperative outside the home, which is why parents may be surprised to hear from a teacher or coach how nice their child is. “In families, the competitive element is in ascendancy,” he said.

Dr. Tomasello is a developmental psychologist and  is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Meet Carla Burnett, the newest member of the Day Nursery team

Carla Burnett

 Day Nursery wants to welcome Carla Burnett to the family, as the assistant director and office manager of the Day Nursery Federal Center downtown.  Carla is a mother of three – twin boy Xavier and twin girl Amiah who will be two in April and daughter Samantha who will be a year in January.  She enjoys shopping and spending time with her family and friends. She is a full time student at DeVry University Keller Graduate School of Management where she is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Human Resource Management. She also has an Associate Degree in Child Development from Ivy Tech State College and a Bachelor Degree from Ball State University. She began her career in Child Development over 12 years ago and later decided to go into the corporate life and work with Nationwide Insurance as a Complaint Coordinator and Community Outreach Coordinator. Welcome Carla!

Hanukkah Haiku

Blue Apple Books ISBN 9781934706336

I have been reviewing the December calendars from our centers today and the monthly theme is holidays around the world. In researching Hanukkah, which begins at sundown on December 11th this year, I found several glowing reviews for a book called Hanukkah Haiku with poetry by Harriet Ziefert in the haiku poetic form and paintings by Karla Gudeon.  

The book is written for preschoolers and is designed with pages of varying widths so that each time you turn the page, another candle appears on the Menorah, the ceremonial candleholder used during Hanukkah. 

When you are shopping for books for holiday gifts, if you start your hunt at www.goodshop.com a portion of your purchase will benefit Day Nursery when you indicate that you support Day Nursery Association of Indianapolis.  

Happy Holidays!

What does Santa like for breakfast?

I am always on the lookout for fun things for you to do with your family without breaking the bank.    I just got an email from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources with information about a special event at Ft. Harrison State Park on Indy’s northeast side.  This seems very reasonable for a Santa breakfast compared to many I have seen this month. The Inn at Fort Harrison State Park is having a breakfast with Santa this Saturday Dec. 12, from 9 – 11 a.m. in the Main Lodge. Adults $5.25, Kids $3.99, (5-12) Under 4 is free. The park’s naturalist will be on hand to help children create some holiday nature decorations Reservations are recommended; call (317) 638-6000. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own camera to capture a picture of themselves with Santa during the program.

If you are up for a drive with the family, there are a lot of holiday and winter special events planned for Indiana State Parks.