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Earth Day Activities

child on swingAt our St. Johns preschool, we hold the belief that sustainability in childcare is important for the future of the community, environment, and our students. That’s why we instill various sustainability initiatives in our students from a young age. As Earth Day approaches, a day to educate and demonstrate support for environmental protection, it’s important to think of activities we can do with our children to help celebrate the earth. Here are a few ideas:

Plant a Fruit or Vegetable Garden

A lot of children love digging around in the dirt, so this is definitely an activity they can get excited about. Whether you plant in your own backyard or a rented garden plot, planting your child’s favorite fruits and veggies will help teach them how to nurture the environment. As an added bonus, fresh, homegrown fruits and veggies make a great snack!

Scavenger Hunt

Make a list of various things your child may find outside like sticks, rocks, leaves, pinecones, and things like plastic bottles or paper cups. Once they’ve collected everything on the scavenger hunt list, you can discuss the impact each of the items has on nature (pinecones carry seeds to help grow more trees, birds use sticks for their nests, etc.). For any paper or plastic items, discuss how these do not belong in nature and how they should be properly recycled to have a good impact on the earth.

Sort Recyclables

If you don’t already have separate bins for recycling purposes, make some with your child and have them help in the sorting process. After you’ve collected and sorted a lot, together you can take the recyclables to machine for depositing bottles or cans. See how many items you can recycle, and let your child keep whatever money you get for them as a reward for her efforts.

How to Teach Kids Healthy Eating Habits from a Young Age

child holding carrotsMany young children put up a fuss when it comes time to eat, especially when it comes to eating healthy. This is partially because their taste buds haven’t yet developed and partially because there’s always something else they’d rather be eating or doing. Fortunately, it is possible to teach kids healthy eating habits from a young age that can go on to inform your children’s lives as they grow up.

Enroll Them in the Right Preschool

At Bartram Academy, we believe in eco-conscious sustainability in childcare. Since you won’t be the only adult in your young child’s life, you need to rely on babysitters and preschool centers to continue your work of encouraging healthy eating. You can rely on Bartram Academy and our instructors. In addition to serving healthy food, we offer a number of activities in our curriculum to encourage creativity and an interest in the natural world.

Make It Fun

  • Take your child to a strawberry farm to pick fresh fruits together.
  • Get your hands dirty in the garden together, like planting, watering, or harvesting.
  • Ask your children to complete age-appropriate tasks to help with preparing and cooking a healthy meal.
  • Encourage your children to get excited about activities that lead to healthy eating, and they’ll look forward to eating their fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and organic foods.

The younger they are, the more likely they are to find these activities enjoyable if you make them seem fun!

Shop Smart

Limit or even eliminate sugary snacks from your entire family’s diet, not just your children’s. Shop at organic stores when possible and encourage your children to choose their own healthy snacks for the week.

Finding the right preschool can help your child get on the right track as well. Enroll your child in Bartram Academy, where healthy eating is just one of the many advantages we offer our students. We serve organic, all natural fresh or fresh-frozen food, which helps provide the energy and nutrition your child needs to get the most out of their education. It’s just one of the eco-friendly practices our Reggio Emilia-style preschool engages in to give children the best possible start in life.

How to Nudge Your Children into Loving the Outdoors

children playing outsideWith so many technological devices, TV, and streaming programs competing for kids’ attention, it’s no wonder more children than ever are staying indoors most of the day. This not only deprives them of Vitamin D, but can also result in lethargy and irritability. Even if you’re busy at work most of the day, there are ways to encourage your children to prefer playing outside. If you make the outdoors fun for them instead of leading them to think it’s a chore, you’ll foster a love for the outdoors that lasts a lifetime.

Choose the Right Preschool

When searching for a daycare in Jacksonville, FL and the surrounding areas, look to Bartram Academy. We incorporate the outdoors into as many activities as possible in our eco-friendly, student-driven curriculum. We believe that combining educational and creative activities with outdoor play helps make learning second nature. This allows children to be free to move outside the confines of the traditional classroom.

Play as a Family

As often as possible, get outdoors with your children and play games. Play sports or encourage the children to play a game like tag, hide and seek, or red light/green light. You can even subtly nudge a more reluctant child to spend time outside by reading them a story or bringing a board game outside to play on a picnic table or blanket. As long as they’re outside, they’ll be enjoying the benefits of fresh air.

Dine Outside

As often as possible, enjoy a picnic together as a family at the park, or even just in the backyard. Your children will begin to associate the outdoors with good food and laughter. Plus, if any of you make a mess, it’s far less of a hassle to clean up outside. Don’t limit yourself to “cookout” food, either. Cook a healthy meal indoors and simply serve it on a picnic table. Use reusable dinnerware, not paper plates, to encourage your children to think in eco-friendly terms.

Children enrolled at Bartram Academy get plenty of outdoor activity time every day. We pride ourselves on our Reggio Emilia approach to learning, which involves encouraging children to find a spark of creativity and innovation within themselves. We provide the enriching environment for children to flourish.

Essential Oils and Natural Cleaning Products in Childcare

aroma therapy essential oilsOur dedication to the children in our early learning center includes ensuring they stay healthy inside and out. We’ve already discussed the benefits of the organic food we serve, but our focus on sustainability in childcare goes beyond the food we serve. This is why we don’t use any bleach or other harsh chemicals for our cleaning supplies, and utilize essential oils and other all-natural products instead. Some examples of the products we use and their purposes include:

Lavender Oil

This is diffused during nap time to promote calmness and sleep. This gentle oil is capable of being used without being diluted for purposes of relaxation, pain relief, enhanced blood circulation, digestion and more. Lavender oil is considered a “virtual first aid kit in a bottle” to many because of its numerous antibacterial properties.

Protective Blend of Oils

During flu season, we diffuse a blend oils to help cut down the spread of airborne germs. Many oils have immune-boosting and germ-fighting properties that can be vital during this time. Some of these oils include tea tree, eucalyptus, lavender, lemongrass, and sage.

Lemon/Lemon Grass

Many store bought sprays and cleaners contain chemicals that can be toxic if not handled properly. We’ve integrated a cleaner into daily use that’s made with lemon and lemon grass oil to prevent the children being exposed to these dangerous toxins. Lemon grass is also beneficial because it naturally deodorizes, repels bugs, kills bacteria and fungi while also supporting boosting the immune system.

Learn more about our focus on sustainability in childcare by requesting a guided tour of our facility!

How to Create a Lifetime Love of Learning in Your Young Child

child drawingA love of learning isn’t something kids are simply born with or without. While some may be genetically predisposed to be curious and seek out new learning experiences, what’s more important is the environment in which a child is introduced to learning. Get your children away from the desks and lectures and let them flourish in active, engaging environments that will make them lovers of learning for life.

Enroll in a Reggio Emilia School

The Reggio Emilia model has proven effective at giving children — from infants to four-year-olds — a head start in life compared to their traditionally schooled peers. At Bartram Academy, our teachers are considered collaborators or “co-learners” alongside of our students. We guide the children to learn through activities they decide to explore themselves, and we work one-on-one to adjust the curriculum to each individual.

Encourage Engagement in the Arts

At Bartram Academy, you’ll see children painting, creating, building, and crafting throughout the day. An interest in the arts develops a child’s creative mind, but can also make learning analytical skills less cumbersome and more natural for them. For example, a child can learn about gravity while building when the blocks come down at their touch.

Teach Tactile Learning

When students learn through touching and moving, they experience a more tactile form of learning than their peers stuck at desks. Tactile learning makes remembering easier and allows students to see concepts in action.

Schedule a tour of Bartram Academy or contact us for more information today. We encourage you to start the admissions process for your child as early in life as possible — although it’s certainly not too late if your toddler or preschooler has already attended another school or daycare before. The best head start can make all the difference when it comes to teaching your child a love of learning.

P.S. Check out our shout out in Diaries of a Working Mommy’s blog!

Benefits of Eating Organic

organic vegetablesAt our St. Johns preschool, we put a focus on sustainability and staying healthy inside and out. That’s why we make sure to pay attention to all of the chemicals your child may be exposed to each day, both in their environment and in what they eat. Because of this careful attention to detail, we serve only organic, all natural, fresh or fresh-frozen foods. Here are some of the biggest advantages to eating organic that your child will benefit from:

No pesticides/chemicals – Numerous chemical pesticides have been linked to a number of diseases including leukemia, Parkinson’s disease, depression, and breast, prostate and other cancers. If your child is eating organic, you can feel safe knowing these harmful chemicals aren’t on the food they’re consuming at school.

More energy – Without chemicals and processed additives in the food your child is consuming, they’ll have a stronger and more energetic body. Junk food, on the other hand, bogs down your system and leaves you craving more.

It will adjust the their palette – It’s one thing to be in control of what your child eats daily, but it’s another for them to actually crave the food you want them to be eating. Food items that are heavily processed, like certain junk foods, have addictive qualities because of processed sugar and MSG. However, after a short period of time eating natural, healthy foods, your child will actually begin craving these tasty foods instead.

These are only a few of a plethora of benefits that eating organic can have for your child. For more information about our belief in sustainability in childcare or the programs at our St. Johns preschool, visit BartramAcademy.com today.

Welcome to Our Blog

Welcome to our blog at BartramAcademy.com! At our daycare in Jacksonville, FL, we know your child deserves the best and we’re determined to help you give them that. We provide services to help care for children when you’re at work and offer programs to help your child get a head start on learning. Our academy offers programs for children as young as six weeks old up until VPK as well as camps for children up to eight years of age. So, we make it easy to enroll your kids in one place and even offer discounts for siblings!

It’s been proven that children with high-quality early education have a tendency to perform better in social situations and develop more advanced math and language skills. This leads to better results in school and higher wages earned when they’re adults! For these reasons, it can be incredibly influential to take advantage of the early years of brain development in order to prepare your child for the future.

By choosing an early learning center that is nurturing, caring, and allows individual expression your child we be sure to succeed. Our eco-friendly childcare center started with a few kids in our home center. In less than five years we grew to over 200 children and this due directly to the success of our students in  our Reggio program. Learn more about our early learning approaches at our daycare in Jacksonville, FL by visiting BartramAcademy.com or calling us at (904) 419-7563.