While there are still homes where a child can be with a parent after school, the reality for many, if not most, children is that both parents work. The hours between three and five have been called the “witching hour” because crime and injuries increase between these hours. The need for good, after school programs is paramount. Given the right program, children are safer, happier, and engaged in additional learning. As Richard Riley said, “a child’s mind doesn’t shut down after 3p.m.”

There are several things to look for when selecting after school programs in San Antonio. The first is safety. Is the facility clean? Are there enough people there to look after the children? Do they seem to care about the children and monitor them? Does the program have a system in place to ensure that children are released only to the people authorized by the parent? If the answer to these questions are yes, then that is a good start.

The next thing to look for is academics. One of the best things about an after school program is homework help. Parents are helped enormously if the homework is done by the time they come and pick up their child. Children are helped when there is someone who can answer their questions when they are doing their homework. A good after school program, in San Antonio or anywhere else, will have a schedule in place where kids can get their homework done.

Once the safety and academic issues have been addressed, parents can look for other bonuses for their children. Are their activities that are age appropriate to keep their kids involved. Specifically, will children have an opportunity to do arts and crafts? Will they be able to engage in active play? The last thing a parent wants is for their child to be warehoused somewhere bored. An after school program should be fun. It should be a place where the child wants to go.

The hours after school can be quite dangerous. Baltimore, Maryland, found that when children had access to a good after school program, crime against them went down 47%. San Antonio could see similar benefits. Children in good after school programs are safer and happier than those who are left to their own devices after school.

Visiting the program in person is the the best way to evaluate a program. The staff should be welcoming and happy to show the prospective family all that they have to offer. After visiting several, it will be much easier to decide on a program in San Antonio.

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Introduction

Making the decision to go back to work may be a difficult one. Deciding who will care for your child may be as important. Parents may what to consider the flexibility of the day care provider’s hours, the location and the cost. Parents should also consider the child care center’s licensing, accreditation and curriculum. Learning as much as you can about options for child care may help you make an informed.

The Importance of Professional Child Care

Parents who live or work in San Antonio, Texas may consider various child care options. Parents can choose an in-home care provider, a family child care provider or a professional day care center. Some important factors of professional child care might be the positive effect on a child’s future, academic behavior and achievement. In San Antonio, parents may have the willingness to take their child to a high-quality day carethat provides their children with skills that would benefit them throughout their life.

Benefits of Day Care

When children attend day care life skills may begin to form at an early stage. Children who are around other kids on a daily basis may develop good social and behavioral skills. A professional child care staff may recognize learning disabilities or physical issues early. Children can also learn to adapt to separation. Some children may have trouble copping when parent are not around, but early child care could help them deal with separation.

What to look for in a Professional Child Care Facility?

In San Antonio, a child care facility must be licensed. A professional child care license should be up-to-date and prominently displayed for public viewing. You may want to familiarize yourself with the management team, speak with the staff members and check out the safety standards of the facility. You may also want to make unscheduled visits to see how the center operates, how the staff interacts with the children and if the kids seem happy. This could give you more confidence and a satisfactory feeling before you make a selection for a child care center. You might be able to obtain references from parents who have children enrolled in a facility.

Summary

A child care facility in San Antonio should provide an environment that encourages learning though creativity and structured activities. Careful considerations should be made before making a final decision on a child care center. After completing your research and your checklist is satisfied, the decision you make could lead to a wonderful child care experience.

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Child Care – Raising Emotionally Healthy Children

Our work as men and women raising children is important because our influence lasts a lifetime. But what are the most important gifts we give our children? Self-love, self-concept, and self-esteem.

Self-Love

Self-love is the most essential of all skills. It is a concept children learn from the way parents (and other adults) treat them. Children first need to know that they are loved and accepted for who they are. With this as a basis, their natural impulse is to take that love and learn to contribute it to the world in constructive ways. It is not difficult then, to see that self-love is the best gift we can give our children.

Self-love in children, as in adults, means liking themselves, enjoying themselves, and accepting themselves. Children need to know that although parents may not always like what they do, or have done, we still like and love them. There is a great difference between rejecting a child’s behavior and rejecting the child. Help the child understand that he or she is a human being and as a human being he or she will make mistakes. Our goal personally as well as in the child care field is to help children learn from those mistakes and assist them in making corrections.

We also help the child look for strengths by helping him or her experience success. Success, obviously, means different things to different children. For one child success might mean being able to put on his or her snow boots without help, and being told, “Good job!” Another child may experience success by helping to put the toys away at their place of child care.

Child Care can help teach Self-Concept

Self-concept is the image we have of ourselves. It means liking ourselves just the way we are. At a child care facility, in order to teach children about self-concept, we must look at them without labels or comparisons. If a child is taller than most of the other children in his or her class, he or she may feel awkward. However, if the child is taught that his or her height is an asset of which to be proud, the child will grow up with respect for him or herself and others.

There are things about every child that are unique. It is by zeroing in on each special quality—whether it is their willingness to let someone else ride their trike, their whimsical sense of humor, or their ability to carry a tune—that we give children a positive sense of self. Children take great pride and delight in the knowledge that there is no one exactly like them in the world. Share a child’s uniqueness by looking into his or her eyes with a smile that says, “You are special. I love to be with you!”

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem has been defined as “the sense of being lovable and capable.” When these two qualities are in sync, a child has high self-esteem.

Children learn about themselves and know themselves only by reflection. For the first important years of their lives, parents are the major influence providing this reflection to the child. Later on, teachers at child care and school and friends in addition to parents provide this reflection.

Conclusion

As parents, we want to make everything right and wonderful for our children. We want to eliminate conflict, disappointment, rejection, and failure from their lives. But we need to remember that life is a process. Children will encounter conflict, disappointment, rejection, and failure as they move through life. It is by giving them a strong sense of self-love, self-concept, and self-esteem that we prepare them to learn what life is all about. This is our most important task as parents.

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Is Professional Childcare Right For Your Family?

Things to Consider When Choosing a Provider
Starting the child care hunt early on gives a parent or caretaker time to assess what type of care is best for his or her little one and which options are most accessible. The parent can begin by researching and deciding on the type of professional child care desired and move on from there.

Type of Child Care

A myriad of options are available for child care in San Antonio. A parent may feel most comfortable choosing a licensed at-home daycare for a young baby, desire a preschool that incorporates play-centered academics or want more of a co-op nursery, where parental involvement is typically much higher than a traditional child care center. There are also a variety of care taking and early childhood teaching philosophies like Montessori or Waldorf that stress the importance of the whole child and emphasize creative play/work, outdoor activities and “whole child learning” over formal academic training.

The type of care chosen depends on how much individual attention the parent wants for the child, what kind of parenting/discipline/caretaking philosophies s/he holds and what activities s/he’d like the child to be engaged in during the day. Visiting different programs during the day, asking friends and family for referrals, checking online user review sites and going through parenting groups can help produce a number of leads.

Quality
Regardless of the type of care chosen, it’s important that a child spends his or her day in a positive, nurturing environment where physical, mental and emotional needs are consistently met. Observing a center or program for about an hour can help a parent see how teachers/care takers interact with the children and give him/her a chance to see what kind of facilities and activities the program offers as well as class size and overall demeanor of the other children.

A San Antonio parent should look for constant supervision of all children, even during naps. Discipline from caregivers should always be positive, direct and calm. If diapering is involved, staff should wash hands often, have a sanitized area specifically for that purpose, consistently clean a diapering area after use and encourage hand washing and general hygiene in classrooms with older children. The center should be adequately baby/toddler/child proofed, with toxic chemicals locked away, no presence of toxic substances in the building, and adequate emergency plans/alarms in use.

Ensuring a child attends a center with qualified teachers/directors is extremely important. Licenses are generally always displayed, and the program should have all teacher qualifications/certifications on child for your review. Anyone in contact with the children should have gone through a thorough background check and have received adequate first aid/medication training.

Further Concerns
If the parent has further specific questions or concerns about a center, a good program will ensure that communication is open, and all parental concerns are thoroughly addressed. Though the hunt for child care may seem daunting, keeping these tenants in mind can help the San Antonio parent to narrow down choices and ensure that his/her child is receiving the best care available.

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Locating and selecting a facility and provider that offers quality child care should be the number one goal of all working parents. While it is true that the economy is not quite where it could be, the places where people choose to save money should not be on child care or after school programs. For those seeking quality child care or after school programs in San Antonio, keep in mind that there are also bilingual and Spanish immersion programs available and highly sought.

Superb child care is imperative for many reasons. A child’s brain is developing at a rapid speed during the first five years of life, and even up until adulthood their brain is much like a sponge, absorbing everything it encounters. If a child is spending eight to ten solid hours a day in a child care facility, it would be beneficial for the child to be placed in the care of a qualified and well-trained professional child care provider. It is also important when considering after school programs to choose an establishment offering quality child care services because school aged children need professional guidance and enrichment activities to supplement what they are learning in school. On average, most children who attend after school programs only spend about two to three hours with their parents nightly. It is safe to assume that the child care provider is the one responsible for tutoring and assisting that child with their home work. No price should be placed on the education of children or the importance of a genuine care provider. San Antonio is a city known for offering excellent child care facilities with professionally trained staff.

It has been proven that students who attend a quality child care program excel socially and develop stronger math and language skills. It is no wonder that children who receive excellent child care do well academically. With so many opportunities for cognitive and social growth through the use of games, recreation, creative lesson plans, and even through play, children are exposed to a plethora of stimuli shapes them into well-rounded critical thinkers.

Another reason why quality child care is important to families is because it reduces the stress levels of parent and child. Trusting a child in the care of others can sometimes be an overwhelming experience, especially if the parents are apprehensive about the quality of child care their children will receive. When a parent is confident and has full trust in the child care providers, they will encounter less fear and guilt when dropping their children off for the day. With the large number of child care providers and facilities within the city, San Antonio parents are surely some of the least stressed parents in the country.

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A special thanks to Bob Orrison, father of Karli Orrison in Ms Jeanine’s class for taking all of these photos of the Pre K field trip to Fiesta Farms.  Enjoy viewing these photos and thanks again Mr Orrison for your fine photographic work.

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Both parents and day school personnel are primary caregivers for a large number of children in San Antonio. Studies paid for by the National Institutes for Health have determined that quality, early childhood professional child care has a positive effect on children’s future academic behavior and achievement. This is probably a result of early acquisition of skills needed for academic learning. These tests have also shown that children who were in high-quality day care have better behavior in future school environments than children who did not have professional child care. Daily contact with other children allows a child to more easily develop the social skills to get along well with other children.

Since trustworthy, talented day school personnel can positively influence the social and cognitive development of children under their care, professional caregivers can give San Antonio parents the peace of mind to confidently support their family financially knowing their child is in good hands. The safety of their children is paramount in the minds of parents. This must be unquestionably and consistently assured and provided by any quality day care center.

 A San Antonio Day School you can trust

Despite the common belief that the ability to care for groups of children is present in most people, this is not the case. Group child care skills should be taught to the providers by knowledgeable instructors. Day school teachers must be able to properly structure the school day plan, provide nutritious, tasty meals that children will like and be talented at offering fun activities that will keep the children safe, calm and amused. They must also know how to maintain gentle but firm control of young children during quiet activity times such as when making crafts or reading books to them. Additionally, all personnel must be trained and qualified to give appropriate emergency first aid for all the ages of children in their school.

Quality day school centers in San Antonio are ones that offer a secure, healthy environment. They also furnish a low provider to child ratio and nurturing caregivers who are familiar with the proper development of children. They must hire consistent, dependable, loving staff who foster a sense of well-being for every child. Each child is an individual with distinctive needs and desires. All the teachers must be sensitive to the individual circumstances and needs of each child in their care. All San Antonio day care facilities should provide adequate information about their school and encourage parents to visit their center to assure themselves that this is a nurturing, safe, beneficial place for their child’s present and future development.

As a trusted preschool in San Antonio, Appletree Day School pays close attention to your children by active individual observation.

Give us a call at 210.509.1919 or come by for a quick tour at your convenience as you research reputable childcare in San Antonio.

See our other posts for more information about our Day School in San Antonio

Good after school programs in San Antonio ensure that children are kept safe and secure after the regular school day is finished. Great after school programs offer much, much more. The right program will not only help a child keep up with daily school work but will offer the child to educational opportunities not offered in the regular school’s curriculum. The child will engage in opportunities to increase social skills as well, as important consideration in today’s modern world, where so much depends upon effective networking.

Great programs in San Antonio will have staff trained to recognize that children can have different learning modalities. Some children learn best through hands-on activities, gaining from projects that keep them physically engaged. Others learn by watching and benefiting from instruction that features visual aides. Children who learn by listening are adept at interpreting verbal instruction. Parents should ensure that their San Antonio after school program engages their children in the manner best for them.

When it comes to choosing great after school programs, the facility’s environment matters as well. It’s important for parents to inspect the facility’s play areas, study areas and bathrooms to ensure that everything is clean and safe. The program should have safety policies and procedures in place, with clear signage and evacuation maps that children can easily understand.

The facility should not only be safe, secure and clean but should include a variety of teaching tools too. High-tech computers are necessary for a child’s future success, but the program should include a variety of other learning methods as well. To discover and develop capabilities and interests, children need exposure to a broad array of subjects.

There are some great After School Programs in San Antonio…

A great after school program will provide extra-curricular activities that the child may not have the opportunity to engage in during regular school hours. Programs with opportunities to study music, art, science and mathematics help children learn valuable cognitive skills that will be useful to them in many professional fields.

Parents will want to ensure that the program meets the educational goals that the parents have for their children. Whether it’s one-on-one tutoring, opportunities to develop team skills or the chance to work on independent studies, a great program will be the one that best suits the student’s individual needs as well as the parent’s goals.

In the right environment, children will be eager to learn and expand their knowledge. A San Antonio program that engages a student’s natural curiosity, making them eager to attend the program every day, can be defined as great.

As a trusted preschool in San Antonio, Appletree Day School pays close attention to your children by active individual observation.

Give us a call at 210.509.1919 or come by for a quick tour at your convenience as you research reputable childcare in San Antonio.

See our other posts for more information about our After School Progams in San Antonio

Summer Camp Letter 2012

Kinder thru 2nd Grade Calendar

3rd thru 5th Grade Calendar