Reggio approach inspires Day Nursery teachers

Day Nursery teacher Matt Miller shares with his peers his reflections of the morning session

Six of our staff members,  Marsha Lindsey (Chief Operating Officer), Shannon Garrity (Ruth A. Lilly Center Director), Sara McHenry (Lilly Center teacher), Jeannette Wrightsman (Lilly Center teacher), Matt Miller (Avon Center teacher) and Shanna Nowosielski (Northwest Center teacher) are in Kentucky today for a professional development opportunity: Building Continuity of Learning through Reggio Approach: Creating Excellence in Education. While we wish we could have sent representatives from every center, we know these six will bring back great information to share with our teachers. The Reggio approach to education isn’t an early childhood method or set curriculum, but rather a deep knowledge in theory and community-constructed values that have been and are continuously being translated into high quality early childhood practices.

Do we really need Legos just for girls?

Earlier this week I read a posting on Twitter that hit my hot button.

I “retweeted” it and apparently so did a lot of other people because the comments continued to flow.

The buzz started after the media reported the toy maker was launching a new line  called “Lego Friends” full of pink and purples and little girl figures.  Marsha Hearn Lindsey, Chief Operating Officer at Day Nursery Indianapolis said she wished Lego would do a better job of adding new products without giving the impression through the marketing campaign that the products are gender specific.  ”Lego teaches young children so many things including hand-eye coordination, basic principles of science like cause and effect, and in the youngest children early skills like sorting and colors–all the colors.”

Day Nursery Ruth A. Lilly Center

At Day Nursery, Lego blocks (or Duplo for the toddlers) can be found in every classroom. If  you Google the “educational value of Lego” the results scroll for pages.  Mitch Resnick,  Associate Professor and director of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, and a member of the Lego Builders of Tomorrow group believes that through play, children develop and refine their imagination, curiosity and creativity. His work is based on the idea that as children playfully explore and experiment, they develop new ideas and new ways of thinking about the world around them.  He even has a podcast about the importance of creative play in early childhood which can be found through this link to the Lego website.  It is a good interview with him and I especially was interested in his emphasis on the  importance of providing children with opportunities to do things that they care about deeply.

If your child enjoys playing with Lego blocks, drop us a line and share their favorite things to do with Legos.

PS–If you are a fan of Legos…and Year in Review postings, check out The Year in Legos by The Creators Project 

Day Nursery Northwest Center children help create TV commercial

It is back to school time and Day Nursery is currently enrolling for preschool age children (3-6 years) at all of our centers.   To promote Day Nursery to the general community, I worked with  Marsha Lindsey, our Chief Operating Officer and Marla Segal, director at our Day Nursery Northwest Center near 73rd and Zionsville Road and some very adorable children to create a television commercial which was produced and will air on RTV6.  Look for the commercial soon.

Day Nursery preschoolers show off their fitness center to Fox 59

Sherman Burdette of the Fox59 Morning News is notorius for tracking down neat places in our city.  He called us a few weeks ago because he had been tipped off that we had a fitness room in our Day Nursery Indiana State Government Center location and he wanted to check it out.  Yesterday he arrived with a photographer to tape a few segments that are scheduled to air on the station tomorrow (Thursday) morning in the 7 and 8am hours of the show.  Thanks to Center Director Heike Imler and her staff, we located a handful of four and five year olds who weren’t camera shy to show Sherman how the equipment works.  Watch for Marsha Lindsey, our Chief Operating Officer with Day Nursery State Center students Hazel, Lilly, Milan, Sam 1 and  Sam 2 tomorrow morning on Fox59.  Special thanks to teacher Toni Hayward for helping out with the students during the taping.

Day Nursery Indianapolis has a new video!

A little bragging about our staff…

I want to share an excerpt of an email sent out today from Day Nursery Executive Director Carolyn Dederer to our staff and board of directors. The people we are saluting today are often behind the scenes at Day Nursery and don’t get much “face time” in our Early Edition blog. Way to go Mindy Bennett, Molly Manley, Larry Gist, Lynn Harris, Marsha Lindsey, Scott Seip, Pam Jacobs and Wanda Kaiser!

Dear Friends, I have to brag on all our staff who have received CLEAN AND PURE reports on two AUDITS this past week. The first is our overall Greenwalt CPA’s financial audit for Day Nursery Association and the second was the Dept. of Education’s CACFP Audit. (That is the one that inspects all of our free and reduced meals service both at the 100 plus child care homes through Child Care Answers.) The Department of Ed audit was even a surprise one and staff rose to the occasion and passed with flying colors!

These squeaky clean results have a huge impact on our reputation and on our ability to generate funding from outside sources so we take them very seriously. I am very proud of every one of our very hard-working and skilled professionals. Cheers all around!!

Carolyn

Kaiser

Lindsey

Manley

Bennett

Jacobs

Seip

Harris

Gist

Day Nursery in the News

 Watch Channel 6 WRTV news tonight to see Day Nursery Director of Operations Marsha Lindsey talking (one again..it has been a big TV week for Marsha) about keeping children healthy and minimizing their exposure to the flu. Marsha tells me that Stacia Matthews will be live in front of our Day Nursery Ruth A. Lilly Center on Central Avenue at 5pm.

Day Nursery will be on WRTV6 tonight

Look for Marsha Lindsey, Day Nursery Director of Operations on WRTV6 (ABC) tonight on the early evening news.  She will be talking with reporter Derrik Thomas about  preventing the spread of the H1N1 virus in child care settings. Marsha tells me that they got a lot of great footage at our Day Nursery Clarian Center showing the procedures we use every day to prevent the spread of germs (including singing “Happy Birthday” during handwashing to make sure children wash long enough). Here is a great resource on what parents should do to protect their child from the flu from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Day Nursery in the News

Fox59 called today looking for permission to come to Day Nursery to get some footage for the news tonight. They are doing a story about how important hand washing is in the fight to keep the Swine Flu at bay. I found a good page on the CDC website for some basic tips on healthy habits.  You will find a “cover your cough” poster that is great for parents to use at home with their young children.   The simply illustrated poster is available in 9 different languages.

Fox59 will be interviewing our Director of Operations, Marsha Lindsey at the Day Nursery Clarian Center. Look for her on the news tonight!

Conference celebrates best practices in early childhood education

Director of Operations Marsha Lindsey visits the Day Nursery Ruth A. Lilly Center playground.

 Earlier this month, Day Nursery Director of Operations, Marsha Lindsey attended the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) annual conference held in Dallas.  I asked her to send me a note from the conference summarizing her thoughts about the week.  Sorry for the delay in getting this post up.

 As I leave a NAEYC conference I am struck by the optimism of the nearly 20,000 early childhood professionals that attended.   I was surrounded by people from all over the country that were excited about their chosen profession.  People who truly believe that children are the future and who act out this belief daily through their interactions with children.  The number of professionals attending workshops and soaking up all the knowledge possible about young children should put parents at ease. 

As for what is new on the national front, well there are two significant things.(1) The unveiling of the new 3rd edition Developmentally Appropriate Practice, which has incorporated information on implementation of best practices in early childhood education based on new and updated research, and (2) The soon to be released “Call to action” a public policy and advocacy document that will  outline the step necessary for our nation to move into the right direction to ensure all children receive a good start.

You can read more about the conference, including the notes from the presenters, at www.naeyc.org.