Day Nursery Federal Center Leap Day Fun

The children made Leap Day frog cupcakes as a special treat today at the Day Nursery Federal Center in downtown Indianapolis.  They baked the cupcakes this morning and decorated them this afternoon when their parents arrived.

Day Nursery Indiana State Center uses hands-on learning for Black History Month

These pictures are from the Day Nursery State Center’s Black History Museum.  Center Director Michelle Terry reported they had 10 stations that were based on improvements or inventions created by African Americans. Examples include Sarah Boone and the ironing board, John Johnson and the wrench, and Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and the first open heart surgery (represented in our hands-on learning experience by the board game “Operation”). Children visited the center’s fitness room and had a chance to explore the different stations. The concept was to have a station that targeted at least one of the five senses.  In addition to the stations, Michelle sent home chocolate chip cookies because they were also invented by an African American, better known as Famous Amos!

Day Nursery students make ‘No Lie’ Cherry Pie

The three year olds at our Ruth A.Lilly Center, 3522 N. Central Avenue made their famous “no lie” cherry pie this week in honor of Presidents Day. They had a blast baking. Center Director Shannon Garrity cannot tell a lie…she said it was delicious! If you know a child ages 3-5 who would benefit from this type of hands-on learning, please call Shannon at 926-1203 and she will be happy to give a tour of her center.

Day Nursery Federal Center February heart project

Day Nursery Federal Center Director Sarah Parks shared this picture of a center wide project going on this month in her location  called How much can a big heart hold? Families are bringing in caps and lids for children to attach to the big heart on her office window.  Preschool children are trying to guess how many lids it will take to fill up the entire heart.  When we last checked, there was still space on the heart with a week left in February.  Stay tuned.

Too Cute {Fat} Tuesday

The Preschool 4 class at the Day Nursery IU Health Center made masks in celebration of Fat Tuesday today.

President’s Day

In case you were wondering….only our Federal  Center downtown and our Ft. Harrison Start Smart 4 Children Center will be closed today in observance of President’s Day.  All other Day Nursery locations will be open.

Day Nursery students help tackle hunger in Indy

Federal Center

Congratulations to the staff and families of the seven Day Nursery early childhood centers and our administrative staff for helping to Tackle Hunger in the Indianapolis area as part of the national Souper Bowl of Caring annual event.  As a group,  Day Nursery made this contribution:

• Total food donated: 559 items
• Total money donated: $340.59

Here’s a recap of our success story center by center. The Day Nursery Federal Center downtown selected their Pennsylvania Street neighbor, The Metro Baptist Center food pantry to support.  In a typical month, this pantry serves 400-500 people.  Federal Center Director Sarah Parks reports her center  collected 118 items and $32 to help them out.

Ft. Harrison Day Nursery

Our Start Smart 4 Children Day Nursery at Ft. Harrison split their collections between the Damien Center on North Arsenal and The New Haven Missionary Baptist Church food pantry.  The center collected 100 food items and $19.22 in cash. Ft. Harrison Center Director Debra Ballard and her head cook Beverly Croom are pictured here getting ready to wheel the donation out to the car.

Day Nursery Hendricks County

The Day Nursery Hendricks County Center collected 73 food items and $31.50 for the Messiah Lutheran Church in Brownsburg. The MLC Food Pantry exists to provide food for families and individuals in Hendricks County who are experiencing temporary financial hardship.

Day Nursery IU Health

The Day Nursery IU Health Center was collecting for Dayspring Center at the corner of 16th and Central Avenue.  Day Nursery Director of Curriculum, Jesse McCloud, who is based out of our IU Health Center knows the Dayspring Center very well because her late mother used to run the food program there. Dayspring provides emergency shelter, clothing, and three nourishing meals-a-day for homeless families with children in central Indiana. The IU Health center collected 34 cans of fruit and vegetables and $143.69 in money for Dayspring. Pictured above, Jesse McCloud joins  Rene Withers of Day Nursery to make the presentation to Dayspring Center Executive Director Lori Casson.

Northwest Center

The Day Nursery Northwest Center chose to do their Souper Bowl of Caring collection for their Pike Township neighbors at the Fay Biccard Glick Center at Crooked Creek,2990 West 71st Street. They collected $81.23 in funds and 20 different non-perishable items.  Ms. Rene’s class, pictured here, collected the largest amount of money and food.  The classroom won a pizza party and Ms. Rene won a Souper Bowl of Caring t-shirt.

Lilly Center

The Day Nursery Ruth A. Lilly Center was so close to the beneficiary of their Souper Bowl of Caring collection that the Pre-K class took the donations over to them in wagons. The students collected 100 food items for donations to the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church,418 East 34th Street. TAB serves meals to their neighbors every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. More than 800 people come through our doors each month for a hot lunch and food to take home to families.

State Center

The staff and families of the Day Nursery Indiana State Government Center chose to collect for the Northside New Era Baptist Church Feed the Sheep program where Day Nursery teacher Debbie Beatty is a volunteer.  The food pantry served over 1400 families last year and is open twice a week. The center collected$32.95 cash and 74 food items.

Day Nursery Human Resources Director Cathy Johnson

Finally, the staff of the Day Nursery Administration office in the English Foundation Building chose to collect food for the Ronald McDonald House to honor our co-worker Marsha Hearn Lindsey, Day Nursery Chief Operating Officer, who is retiring from a position on the RMH Board of Directors.  Food collected will help restock the pantry at the Ronald McDonald House allowing families to prepare meals at the house so they can stay close to their child being treated at Riley Hospital.  We collected 40 non perishable items and also donated fresh fruit and eggs for their kitchen.

Day Nursery students share Valentines and friendship

Federal Center

Ms. Kesha’s Preschool 1 classroom at the Day Nursery Federal Center made dip yesterday to go with their fresh fruit for their Valentine’s Day party today!  Each child got to practice washing their hands and measuring the ingredients for the dip–which included yummy things like marshmallow fluff and strawberry cream cheese.  Today they enjoyed their dip with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and pineapple—all while listening to songs like “I love my mommy & my mommy loves me” and of course exchanging Valentine’s Day cards.

Lilly Center

Day Nursery Ruth A. Lilly Center: The two-year olds were excited to show off their Valentine tree when I visited this morning and they were looking forward to the party in the afternoon with fresh fruit.  Ms. Sally Coombs had lots of fun treats planned for them later. Down the hall, Ms. Sarah and Ms. Caroline were laying out the supplies for their preschoolers to make cupcakes.  Their class also got to make milkshakes in the afternoon for their party.

Lilly Center

Hendricks County

Out in Avon at the Day Nursery Hendricks County Center, Mr. Matt and his students started the day by making strawberry-banana smoothies. Check out Brody…he is really into cutting up those strawberries. Mr. Matt knows this is an excellent fine motor skill building activity. The students used a plastic knife but Mr. Matt was NOT going to take his eyes off Brody as he paused for this picture.

Day Nursery Indy students DROP, COVER and HOLD ON

Yesterday morning more than 2.4 million people across nine states participated in the 2012 Great Central U.S. ShakeOut.  The annual event was created as a tool to educate the general population what to do in an earthquake.  As a licensed child care center, we are required to do these drills every 6 months so we took advantage of joining in the regional effort to share the message with our Day Nursery students.

Federal Center three year olds

Official rescue teams who have been dispatched to the scene of earthquakes and other disasters around the world continue to advocate use of the internationally recognized “Drop, Cover and Hold On” protocol to protect lives during earthquakes:

Federal Center

• DROP to the ground (before the earthquake drops you!),
• Take COVER by getting under a sturdy desk or table, and
• HOLDON to it until the shaking stops.

State Government Center

Indiana State Government Center

If there isn’t a table or desk near you, cover your face and head with your arms and crouch in an inside corner of the building. Do not try to run to another room just to get under a table.

Indiana Government Center

It was a Super Week at Day Nursery Indianapolis

IU Health students collecting food for the Souper Bowl of Caring

As I write this post, I am sitting in the Day Nursery Administrative office just a few blocks away from the heart of the Super Bowl festivities.  Even in our neck of the woods, the Super Bowl is surrounding us.  Out the window I can see tents going up and TV trucks arriving at the Murat to set up for the NBC broadcast of the inaugural NFL Honors tomorrow night.  Helicopters and jet fighters have been circling our office all week and most everyone you bump into ends their conversation with “Have a Super day!”  The Super Bowl fun has extended into our 7 early learning centers too.  Teachers have worked hard to incorporate football into lessons dealing with counting, sorting and colors.  Many preschool classes voted for their favorite team and helped their teacher chart the results. Children are learning lessons about teamwork, sportsmanship and philanthropy.

IU Health football collage

The families and staff members in our centers have pulled together to collect food for local food pantries.  We are off to a great start in 2012.  Here’s a salute the Super Bowl XLVI and our great city from Day Nursery.

Toddlers painting the outside of a huge football that was later stuffed and put on the wall in their classroom at IU Health

Five month old Piper celebrates Baby's First Super Bowl at our Avon Center.

Ruth A. Lilly Center teacher Marti Gough made a special trip to the library to check out books that talked about both teams

Souper Bowl of Caring collection at Day Nursery Federal Center

The Lilly Center preschoolers have been counting down the days to the big game by subtracting a football a day for 100 days.

Vanessa Fletcher of our Child Care Answers program got up early to be in the audience of the Today Show.

"Miss Patty" Fisher made her rounds of the centers today dressed in her Super Bowl finest.

HR Director Cathy Johnson helped collected food for Ronald McDonald House food pantry for Souper Bowl of Caring

Day Nursery Executive Director Carolyn Dederer posed with the Colts Super Fan during a lunch break this week