Day Nursery Ft. Harrison students visit bookmobile

Preschoolers from Ms. Tracy Wickware’s class at Day Nursery Start Smart 4 Children at Ft. Harrison climbed aboard the Red Cross Bookmobile on Thursday to pick out a book to keep. The books were donated to the Red Cross by PNC’s Grow Up Great program. Preschoolers at each of the 7 Day Nursery centers got to select a book to take home thanks to PNC.

Day Nursery Indianapolis Flashback Friday

This picture from the April 12, 1964 edition of the Indianapolis Star features 6 year old Day Nursery student Toni Stahl on the jungle gym at our old Lockerbie Branch (that’s what we used to call our “centers”).  The picture was part of a larger article about an effort by the Day Nursery Auxiliary to raise money for playground equipment at a new center opening that month at 3522 N. Central.  That center, now called our Ruth A. Lilly Center, is still going strong and is currently undergoing a playground renovation.   Today, a large group of volunteers from Eli Lilly and Company is  helping to turn the playground into a beautiful natural outdoor classroom.

Wooden blocks come alive with faces of Day Nursery children

Day Nursery IU Health Preschool 3 teacher Ms. Tomi Lessaris is already using some information she received last Saturday in our day-long Summer Institute training. One of the ideas she got during the Reggio-inspired environment session was to use photos of the actual children in the classroom attached to wooden blocks.  These blocks can be used by the children to play, pretend, and develop language skills throughout their learning centers.  These ‘block people’ give the children relative people to play with rather than plastic, painted figures that could be store bought.

It’s Shark Week at Day Nursery Indianapolis Federal Center

It’s SHARK WEEK in Ms. Denise’s Preschool 1 classroom at the Day Nursery Federal Center in downtown Indianapolis. Her class has actually been studying sharks the past few weeks. They began by making a list about what they already know about sharks, and then another list about what they wanted to learn about sharks. Then with the help of Ms. Denise, they used their classroom tablet computer to look at pictures of sharks, and found their answers to the questions, and made a chart of what they found. One child visited the Newport Aquarium last month, and when her class started studying sharks, she brought in all of her aquarium pictures to share with her friends as well.

Day Nursery infants enjoy experience with art

Through their senses and actions, infants learn about objects, what they do, and what to expect. This little guy was painting on bubble wrap this morning in the new infant room at our Ruth A. Lilly Center. For infants and toddlers, art activities are sensory-motor experiences that build a foundation for appreciating and creating beauty.