For the classroom:

Celebrating with Food

It's the holiday season! However you incorporate celebrations into your classroom, a great way to keep everyone included is through food!

Sharing food can increase your children's sense of community. When children have a strong cultural awareness and understanding, it helps build their sense of identity and self-esteem. Learning about the diversity of cultures and traditions as a young child leads to a greater acceptance and appreciation of all people as adults.

  • Ask your children's families to share a recipe from their family tradition. Talk about the ingredients, who helps make the dish, and stories about sharing it.

Cooking with children helps them develop social skills, life skills, and the success of working together to create something. You can easily add math and science skills as well, through counting, measuring, and talking about where your food comes from!

Eating homemade food is yummy and a great way to model healthy eating habits! What better way to celebrate?

  • Sharing a meal is also a great chance to focus on thankfulness for things besides presents this holiday season. Check out last year's newsletter about the Science of Gratitude for more!

For the home - content provided by our partner:

Celebrating in the Kitchen

The winter holidays are a fun and exciting time to celebrate together as a family. Every family's traditions are a little different, but most families have food traditions that are intertwined with their memories of celebrating holidays. Whatever your family's tradition - holiday cookies, potato latkes, collard greens, or tamales - you can include your child in helping to prepare these special foods.

  • Tell your child about who taught you how to make your favorite holiday foods.
  • Involve your senses: Ask your child to notice different smells, colors, tastes, and textures.
  • Allow your child to help in the kitchen - let them help measure ingredients, stir the bowl, decorate cookies, or just give them an empty bowl and spoon to do some pretend cooking alongside you.
  • Remember to allow extra time and be prepared for some extra mess - children are still developing their fine motor skills and need some help.

Although the holidays are lots of fun, they can also be overwhelming, over-stimulating, and stressful at times, especially for young children. When children get over-tired, we know that tantrums are not far behind. To help your child be as successful as possible, try to maintain a regular schedule and routine, even if they are on vacation from school or childcare. Sometimes, quietly reading stories, listening to music, or snuggling together with a cup of hot chocolate can help families slow down and reconnect during this busy time of year.

Wake Connections is a one-stop coordinated intake and referral system for families in Wake County. One click gets you connected to SecurePath and other Wake Connections programs.

Featured Book: Grandma's Tiny House: A Counting Story

Written & Illustrated by: Janay Brown-Wood

Highlights: In rhyming text, when the whole family and guests show up for the big dinner at Grandma's house, it becomes clear that the house is much too small to hold them all.

Best for: Pre-K, ages 3-5

Wake County Public Library Programming: Reading recipes, measuring, pouring, and mixing are excellent ways to promote early literacy, develop fine motor skills, and practice basic math! Try cooking or baking together this holiday season. This link shows a sampling of cookbook titles for children, and you can find more at your local library!

Literacy Tip: As you prepare your holiday meals, find ways to incorporate counting. Example: count how many seats are needed at the table; count while measuring ingredients for recipes.

December's book selected by the Preschool Librarians of Wake County Public Libraries.

Nothing is more powerful than love. Visit our website today to see how you can make a difference for each child, in every community in Wake County.

Each month we celebrate the child care facilities that have recently obtained or retained a five star rating!

Congratulations to:

Vegetable Soup

Use the classic book, Growing Vegetable Soup, to create a healthy, community meal!

Find additional recipe and activity ideas here!

Visit CCSA's training calendar for all upcoming events.

ITS SIDS

December 12, 6:30 - 8:30pm

CCSA Durham

Click here to register.

Supervision of Young Children

December 13, 6:30 - 7:30pm

Telephone Seminar - Call-In Number

Click here to register.

Good Nutrition Does Matter

December 13, 6:30 - 7:30pm

Telephone Seminar - Call-In Number

Click here to register.

New Staff Orientation

December 14, 9am - 1pm

Wake County Smart Start, Room 204

Click here to register.

The Art & Science of Technical Assistance

January 11 & January 31, 8am - 5pm

CCSA Durham

Click here to register.

"Roll the Ball"

"Roll the Ball" may sound simple, but sometimes the most fun can be found in the simplest pleasures!

Pair up your children, and distribute a ball to each one. (Tennis balls are a good option.) Sing the "Roll the Ball" song (found here), and let your children explore rolling, bouncing, and tossing it to each other.

Fine motor skills are honed with gentle movements, and gross motor skills are used when moving to get runaway balls!

Imagination Library

Want FREE books for your child under 5? Join the Imagination Library today!

Recruiting for

High School

Class of 2033!

Apply for 2019-2020 Pre-K now!

One application allows your child to be considered for NC Pre-K, Head Start, and Title I. WCSS hosts events every week to walk you through the application process.

Click here to print the application and for more information.

 
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