Holiday Craft: Mistletoes!

When you need ideas for crafts, snacks, games and other fun ideas - Pinterest is the best place to look! We use Pinterest all the time to find inspiration and ideas to use here at Goddard. Check out the Goddard School of Wall's Pinterest page by clicking here.

This week we found an adorable holiday craft that we couldn't wait to share. This craft is perfect for the little ones! It's called "Mistle-toes." This cute little ornament will be one you want to save for years to come. This craft was originally created for a child's first Christmas, but you can make it with any of your kids.

Here is what you will need:

• 2 packs of oven baking clay in green
• 3 red stem balls 
• 10-inches of red string to fold over
• 1 straw 
• 1 hot glue gun
• 1 glue stick 
• 1 sharp knife
• 1 baking sheet 
• 1 Sharpie marker or pen

Instructions: 

Preheat the oven as directed on the oven baking clay packaging. Take clay out of packaging and flatten with hands to the size of your child's foot. Make sure the surface is smooth so the footprint comes out visible. Place your child's foot on the clay, pressing down on the heel, top of foot, and all the toes for a good impression. Lift straight up and check out the impression. You can use your fingers to fix areas or make them deeper to see better. 

Take a sharp knife and cut along the footprint. Smooth out the edges and if you need to reshape the toes a little to make them more recognizable. Take a straw to make a hole at the heel for the string to go through after they are baked. 

Place in the oven for 30 minutes. Let cool. Decide how wide you want the feet to be and line up the holes at the heels and use hot glue gun to glue together. Double the 10-inch string so it's 5-inches long and string it through the holes at the heels. Tie a knot then tie another knot at the very end of the string so you are left with a small loop to hang the mistletoe. 

Lastly, you take the 3 stem balls and with the wire attached to each red ball, twist them together and use the now single wire to string through the holes in the heels. Take the wire and wrap it around the front holly so that it secures them but also hides the wire. Write the child's information on the back so you remember who, when and how old. Then hand the mistletoe where you would normally hang mistletoe for kiss. This is great for gifts to the family and friends! 

Happy Crafting! 

'Tis the Season

Christmas time is here once again. Can you believe it? Here at the Goddard School it feels like just yesterday that we were in the Halloween spirit, planning parties and parades. Then Sandy came along and washed away our holiday, our homes and our hope. That didn't last long though. We weren't going to let this Frankin-storm hold us down! We celebrated Halloween the Goddard way - with a dance party! (Better late then never). Some of our families suffered severe damage to their homes. But with some kinds hearts and gracious donations, we helped them collect the items they needed to get things back to normal. Our hope was restored with the power, and we realized that in times of need; we can come together to support each other.

Thanksgiving has come and gone and Christmas is in the air. The holidays are a beautiful, joyous time of year when we remember how many blessings we have in our lives. We at the Goddard School are lucky to have such an amazing staff of teachers, wonderful children and supportive families that make it all possible. We are looking forward to a new year of fun, love and learning.

Now, let's talk about Christmas! Gordon the Goddard Elf has been sneaking around school, keeping a close eye on all the children and reporting good behavior to Santa. We're keeping the Christmas spirit alive by collecting donations all month for Toys for Tots. These donations will go towards less fortunate children and families at Christmas time.

We want this blog post to be an outlet for conversation. So we want to know, what are your kids asking for Christmas? What is Santa going to bring? Where are the best deals this season and what are the hottest items? Post your comments in the comments section below!

Bonding, Crafting and Halloween Fun!

Arts and Crafts are a great way to bond with your kids, especially when the whole family gets involved. These days kids (and parents too) are so consumed with technology that they often don’t even know what making crafts means. 

Set aside some time to do crafts with your kids. You can do this on a weekly or monthly basis. Find a fun craft that you know your child will enjoy and block out some special time with them. Crafting together is an easy way to get one-on-one time with your kids and find out what’s going on in their minds. 

If you craft with your child specifically for the purpose of bonding with them, keep your craft time fun. Try not to obsess about how perfect they are painting or getting the bead glued on just right. Keep your craft time relaxed.

Here is a fun Halloween craft that you can do with your kids:

Halloween Hand Print Ghoul Banner

Things you will need:

Construction paper: white, black, yellow, green, red, purple, black and orange
Black marker (or crayon)
White paint pen (or crayon)
Scissors
Glue stick

On any one of the colored papers trace your child’s hand. Stack green, yellow, purple, red, orange and black sheets on top of each other with the traced hand print sheet on top.

Tip: to keep the sheets together you can paper clip them on all four sides.

Cut out the hand print, cutting through all six sheets at once. If you prefer, do each one individually or only 2 or 3 at once. Whatever works best for you! With fingers of the cut outs pointing downward, have children draw faces on the hand prints.

Fold a sheet of white construction paper in half lengthwise. Open up and cut along crease. Attach the two lengths of white paper together with glue stick, end to end. Repeat this step with a sheet of black paper as well, only this time after folding in half, trim off about 1/2″ from the long ends and the same on the short ends. The idea is to make the black the foreground color, placing it on top of the white banner, making the white banner the border.

After you trim the black sheet, go ahead and cut it in half lengthwise like you did with the white one and glue on top of the white sheets. Attach the hand print ghouls to the bottom of the banner with glue stick. Use white paint pen or white crayon to write Happy Halloween across the banner. Hang!

Fire Safety Week at the Goddard School of Wall

Fire Safety Week

This week at the Goddard School of Wall, the theme is Fire Safety. The children are learning who firemen are, when to call 911, what to do in case of an emergency, how to "stop, drop and roll," and what not to touch. Many accidents can be prevented by teaching children about fire safety at  young age.

Fire prevention week is a great time to emphasize fire safety with staff, children, and families, and an excellent annual reminder of the importance of fire safety education for adults and children. This is a time to check smoke detectors and make an emergency fire safety plan.

Children and Fire

Curiosity is an important part of a child's development. Children learn through their senses and the color, heat, and movement of fire can make it seem fascinating and mysterious. Fires can often be started by a combination of children's curiosity, lack of supervision, and access to matches or lighters.

Young children may associate fire with holidays and celebrations because they have watched parents or other adults light candles, campfires, or grills for special occasions. Children may not be able to see why fire is dangerous because of their lack of experience and limited reasoning ability.

Children frequently repeat actions that they see adults perform and incorporate those actions into their role playing. For example, a three-year-old may not see any difference in her mother lighting candles on a cake and trying to light candles by herself.

Our Advice

Give children under 5 years-old specific instructions of what they should and should not do. With older children,  it's better to also explain why. You will probably need to talk about fire safety more than once, to make sure they have remembered and understood what you have taught them. Here is a list of things you can tell your children:

• to tell a grown-up of they see matches or lighters lying around
• never to play with matches, lighters or lighted candles
• never to play, or leave toys, close to a fire or heater
• not to put things on top of heaters or lights
• not to pull on electric cables or fiddle with electrical appliances or sockets 
• never switch on the stove or put anything on top of it 
• never touch the stove or any saucepans on the stove

It's important to talk through with children what to do if there is a fire. Don't avoid the subject for fear of frightening them. Children need to know how to react, as there may not be an adult around to tell them what to do if a fire happens. Here are the basic instructions to give your children: 

• if they see smoke or flames, they should tell a grown-up right away
• get out of the building as soon as possible 
• never go back into the building for anything
• never hide in a closet or under a bed - get out of the house and call for help right away
• if there is no adult around, find a phone and call 911 - try to give them the address slowly 
• make sure children know their address 

As a cautious parent, you should always prepare your children in case of a fire. An escape plan that is uniformly followed by the entire family should be organized and practiced as a drill until it becomes a well known routine. You should also have working, reliable smoke alarms in your home. 

As fire safety week rolls on here at the Goddard School, we will continue to teach the children about the dangers of fire and the importance of knowing what to do in case of an emergency. We hope this post has given you some ideas of what to talk to your children about at home as far as fire safety and we encourage that you practice these things with your children all year round. 

Fall Festival Open House

The Goddard School of Wall would like to invite you to our annual Fall Festival Open House.

The date for this event is this Thursday, October 4th from 6:30pm - 8:30pm.

This is an exciting event that we hold every year to bring together parents, children and members of the community. We will have pumpkin painting, snacks and refreshments and other fun fall activities. Everyone is invited to this event - bring the whole family! 

Take this opportunity to tour or school, meet our teachers and get to know the Goddard School of Wall! 

We hope to see you there! 

Amazing Athletes

Here at Goddard, we know that physical activity is important for children.  Physical activity produces overall physical, psychological and social benefits. Inactive children are likely to become inactive adults – and active children are more likely to be active adults. The American Heart Association recommends that children and adolescents participate in at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day.

With this in mind, we incorporate the Amazing Athletes program into our classrooms at Goddard. Amazing Athletes is a year-round developmental sports and physical fitness program for children aged 2 ½ to 6. Every Wednesday, there is a 35 minute class which involves two developmental sports lessons along with activities proven to build and mature a child’s motor development, hand-eye coordination, and cardiovascular fitness.

The program is a result of the action-packed curriculum which allows every child to build their skills at their own pace within a non-competitive, learning-based environment that emphasizes patience, teamwork, and self-confidence.

Today, Coach Jamie is back and started off the school year with a free trial. Today, all the kids participated and got a feel for the Amazing Athletes program. The nine sports Amazing Athletes covers are: baseball, golf, hockey, volleyball, tennis, football, lacrosse, soccer and basketball.

The #1 goal of the Amazing Athletes program is to introduce children to sports and physical fitness in a fun and pressure-free environment so they can focus on what is most important; themselves. Growing up isn’t easy, but the benefits children gather from Amazing Athletes can help them through the journey from toddler to teen and even into adulthood.

Amazing Athletes will be here at Goddard every Wednesday of this school year. After today, enrollment forms will be available for parents to fill out. If you want to learn more information about Amazing Athletes, or if you have an questions, please feel free to contact us today. 

10 Tips for Breaking In the Back to School

As the summer rolls to a bittersweet end, the beginning of a new school year is right around the corner. Here at Goddard, we are excited to start a new year of fun and learning!

We know that this time of year can be stressful for parents as well as children. For kids, the end of summer means an abrupt end to staying up late and playing all day. It also signals the beginning of brand new challenges and perhaps a case of the back-to-school jitters. For parents, the chaos of preparing for school and the stress that comes along with it can be overwhelming.

Here is a quick list of 10 tips to start a successful, stress free school year!

1.      If you and your child have fallen out of your bedtime routine this summer, get back into it! - A week before the first day of school is a good time frame to get back into a regular bedtime schedule.

2.      Shop for healthy breakfast and lunches a week in advance - this will save you time and prevent stress in the long run.

3.      Go shopping for school supplies together - shopping from a teacher-supplied list will ensure your child has the right supplies and could save you a ton of money and time.

4.      Save time on those busy school mornings by preparing your child's clothes a week ahead of time - place a pair of socks, underwear, a shirt, and matching bottoms together in the drawer so that your child can easily grab 'em and go.

5.      Support positive study habits early! - create a homework center – a specific area in the house where your child can do homework each evening. Make sure that it's in a quiet place and stocked with plenty of supplies.

6.      Pack light - a backpack should never weigh more than 10-20% percent of the student's body weight. Use both shoulder straps; slinging a backpack over one shoulder can strain muscles.

7.      Prepare your child for social situations in the classroom - a certain level of social anxiety is normal for elementary school aged kids. Teach your child to introduce them self and make friends. Play various social scenarios with them, from sharing classroom supplies to encounters with other kids.

8.      Keep encouraging literacy at home - read frequently with your children and make trips to the local library.

9. If you pack your child's lunch, write them a little note - a reminder that you're thinking about them can make a rough day better.

10.  Parent involvement in education in education is important throughout elementary school! - talk to your child’s teacher regularly about their educational and social development.

The first day of school at Goddard starts September 4th. We will be having a special back to school night for adults only on September 27th at 7:00pm. Come join us for wine and hors d'oeurves and learn about the new school year.

Interested in enrolling your child at Goaddard? We have open enrollment all year long, so there are no deadlines to hit or miss. Give us a call at 732-974-8314 to schedule a tour and to meet with our director Samantha!