A license isn’t necessarily a guarantee of quality. It merely shows that the facility has met the minimum health, safety, and teacher training standards set by the state. In some states, having a license means only that a preschool has registered as a business; in others, it means a preschool has passed a stringent test. In any case, ask to see the preschool’s license when you visit to make sure it’s at least up to date, and check here to see what it takes to get one in your state – http://nrc.uchsc.edu/states.html. You can also check a preschool’s license by calling your state or county social services department (look in the phone book).

What does it mean if a preschool is “accredited”?
Accreditation may be a more telling sign that you’ve found a good preschool. Look for one that has passed the tough accreditation process formulated by the National Association for the Education of young Children (NAEYC), a benchmark of quality. So far, NAEYC has accredited only a fraction (approximately 6,000) of this country’s more than 96,000 licensed preschools and daycare centers. About 12,000 more have ordered materials from NAEYC that outline what a center must have to be accredited. Keep in mind that the accreditation process can take up to 18 months and cost more than $400, which is one reason why so few centers have yet to seek that stamp of approval. What’s more, preschools must update their accreditation every three years, and this can be time consuming for a small school with limited personnel.

To search NAEYC’s database and find out whether your preschool has made the cut – http://www.naeyc.org/accreditation/center_search.asp

[via Parent Center]

Most preschools operate on an installment plan, and the more quickly you pay the tuition in full — in two installments, say, rather than monthly — the cheaper it will be for you. Many schools charge interest if the tuition payments are spread out over a period of months.

Parent-run cooperative preschools generally cost less but require more of your time. Fran Brook, a mother of three in Novato, Calif., chose a co-op when she sent her third child to Novato Parents’ Nursery School. “I spent one day there every other week leading the kids in activities the director had planned,” she says. “We also had one evening meeting a month and one or two work Saturdays a year.”

Brook still had to pay something, but she estimates it was half what a regular school would have cost. What’s more, it was a great way to become part of the community. “I was new in town,” she says. “Through my son’s preschool I got to meet other parents with similar interests.”

[via Parent Center]

Watch your children for signs of fear and anxiety they may not be able to put into words. Have your children become extra clingy, needing more hugs and kisses than usual? Have your children started wetting the bed or sucking their thumb after you thought they had outgrown that behavior? They may be feeling the pressure of what is going on in the world around them. Use play to help your children express their fears and encourage them to use art or pretend games to express what they may not be able to put into words.

Use your family like a security blanket for your children: wrap them up in family closeness and make sure your children have lots of family time. During times of stress and change, spend more time with your children playing games, reading to them, or just holding them close.

Young children especially crave routine and rituals. If bedtime is the time you read stories to your children, make sure you keep that time for stories. Your child may be less able to handle change when he or she is going through a particularly rough time.

[via APA]

The latest research shows mixed results. According to an ongoing study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Md., which has tracked more than 1,300 children in 10 cities since 1991, preschoolers who attend day care for a year or more have an increased chance of discipline problems through the sixth grade, regardless of sex, family income or the quality of the day care center. On average, the more time that a child spends in day care (especially as an infant or toddler), the more problems arise.

But the study, published in the March-April issue of Child Development, also found that high-quality day care attendance is linked to children’s higher vocabulary scores through elementary school.

The takeaway message is that both the quantity and quality of child care do matter,” says Sharon Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education in Washington, D.C. As a result, Ramey recommends that working parents should try to arrange their schedules creatively so that a child doesn’t have to be in nonparental care for excessively long periods of time — say, more than 30 to 40 hours a week.

In addition, Ramey says that research is just starting to show that not only is it important to find high-quality child care, but it’s also important to find the type of care that works best for your son or daughter and that takes his or her personality and individual needs into account.

In other words, a place that works for one youngster may or may not be the right place for another youngster. Thus, working parents need to be on the lookout for any signs of stress or distress in a child who attends day care — such as unusual crying or hitting incidents — and deal with them proactively.

Still, despite the somewhat troubling research findings regarding day care and discipline problems, Ramey notes that this new study “also affirms, again, that home environment has the largest and most lasting effect on a child.” This includes the overall quality of parenting — which is a stronger and much more significant predictor of developmental outcomes than any early child care experience.  

[via Revolution Health Group]

Math at the elementary level revolves around learning conceptual frameworks and understanding patterns, in addition to the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Younger students begin to understand basic amounts–whole, half, and quarter–as they start to see math expand its significance beyond the classroom. Lessons that focus on estimation, inequalities and averages help your child begin to implement these lessons in the grocery store, on the baseball field and even at the dinner table.

If you can solve the problems below, you might be able to keep up with your child–and be a real help with arithmetic homework.

Estimation is the act of finding an approximate answer, not an exact answer.
To round off decimals:
Find the place value you want (the “rounding digit”) and look at the digit just to the right of it.
If that digit is less than five, do not change the “rounding digit” but drop all digits to the right of it.
If that digit is greater than or equal to five, add one to the “rounding digit” and drop all digits to the right of it.

To round off whole numbers:
Find the place value you want (the “rounding digit”) and look to the digit just to the right of it.
If that digit is less than five, do not change the “rounding digit” but change all digits to the right of the “rounding digit” to zero.
If that digit is greater than or equal to five, add one to the “rounding digit” and change all digits to the right of the rounding digit to zero.

Inequalities are mathematical expressions that show two quantities are not equal. An inequality is used when the exact value of an expression is unknown. Instead of an equals sign, use one of these symbols:
> greater than
< less than
≤ less than or equal to
≥ greater than or equal to

Mean, Median, Mode, Range
Consider the set of numbers: 80, 90, 90, 100, 85, 90.
The mean is another term for the average, found by adding a set of numbers and dividing by the quantity of numbers there are in that set.
(80 + 90 + 90 + 100 + 85 + 90) / 6 = 89 1/6
The median is the number in the middle. To find the median, put the values in order from lowest to highest. Then find the number that is exactly in the middle.
80 85 90 90 90 100
If there is an even number of values, average the two values in the middle
90 + 90 / 2 = 90
Notice that there is exactly the same number of values above the median as below it.
The mode is the value that occurs most often.
90
The range is the difference between the lowest and highest values. The range shows how spread out the data are.
100 – 80 = 20

Shapes
Polygons are flat, closed figures with three or more sides. The most commonly recognized polygons are triangles, rectangles, and squares. Here are a few terms that may have escaped your memory.

A quadrilateral, such as a square or a rectangle, has four sides.
A pentagon has five sides.
A hexagon has six.
An octagon has eight.
The number of sides also determines how many angles a polygon has. A quadrilateral has four angles, a pentagon has five, etc.

Prime and Composite Numbers
A prime number is a counting number that only has two factors–itself and one.
A composite number has more than two factors, such as 6, whose factors are 1, 2, 3, and 6.
The number 1 has only one factor (itself) and is neither prime nor composite.

[via Sylvan Learning Center]

Most preschools operate on an installment plan, and the more quickly you pay the tuition in full — in two installments, say, rather than monthly — the cheaper it will be for you. Many schools charge interest if the tuition payments are spread out over a period of months.

Parent-run cooperative preschools generally cost less but require more of your time. Fran Brook, a mother of three in Novato, Calif., chose a co-op when she sent her third child to Novato Parents’ Nursery School. “I spent one day there every other week leading the kids in activities the director had planned,” she says. “We also had one evening meeting a month and one or two work Saturdays a year.”

Brook still had to pay something, but she estimates it was half what a regular school would have cost. What’s more, it was a great way to become part of the community. “I was new in town,” she says. “Through my son’s preschool I got to meet other parents with similar interests.”

[via ParentCenter]

- You want to take out a contract on the kid who broke your child’s favorite toy and made him/her cry.

- You have time to shave only one leg at a time.

- You hide in the bathroom to be alone.

- Your child throws up and you catch it.

- Someone else’s kid throws up at a party and you keep eating.

- You consider finger paint to be a controlled substance.

- You mastered the art of placing food on a plate without anything touching.

- Your child insists that you read “Once upon a Potty” out loud in the lobby of the doctor’s office and you do it.

- You hire a baby sitter because you haven’t been out with your husband in ages, then you spend half the night talking about and checking on the kids.

- You hope ketchup is a vegetable because it’s the only one your child eats.

- You find yourself cutting your husband’s sandwiches into unusual shapes.

- You fast-forward through the scene when the hunter shoots Bambi’s mother.

- You obsess when your child clings to you upon parting during his first month at school, then you obsess when he skips in without looking back.

- You can’t bear to give away baby clothes–it’s so final.

- You hear your mother’s voice coming out of your mouth when you say, “Not in your good clothes.”

- You stop criticizing the way your mother raised you.

- You read that the average-five-year old asks 437 questions a day and feel proud that your kid is “above average.”

Toddler, 2, sees her parents murdered
Scotsman – A TWO-YEAR-OLD girl who saw her parents murdered in front of her own eyes, may become the only witness to the gangland-style execution of six workers in a Chinese restaurant in Germany. Police found the girl crying near the bodies of her mother and

Boy, 2, found safe in woods behind home: Was in bitter cold for 45
Patriot Ledger – A Kingston toddler who wandered out of his home and into yesterday morning s frigid winds was released from a Boston hospital late in the day. Everyone loves a story about a boy and his dog, especially one with a happy ending. Thanks in part to a

Local Man Pleads Guilty To Sexually Abusing Toddler
WTOV 9 – A Moundsville man pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a toddler in what he called “Dora The Explorer.” William McClellan, 38, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl. McClellan was supposed to go to trial Monday but instead

Toddler gets frostnip after being left in car
KSTP – D ULUTH, Minn. (AP) – A 14-month-old toddler has been taken into protective custody in Duluth after police say the child was left in a parked car for half an hour on one of the coldest days of the year. Police say the toddler was inappropriately

WOSAR joined search for Braddock toddler
1960 Sun – White Oak EMS Search & Rescue teams responded to an Amber Alert from Allegheny County police in the case of a missing 23-month-old Braddock girl later found dead not far from her home. Paul Falavolito, commanding officer of White Oak Search and

Braddock Toddler’s Death Ruled Homicide
WPXI – 2:45 PM UPDATE: The medical examiner’s officer ruled Page’s death as homicide. Officials said the 23-month-old died of exposure and hypothermia. 11:45 AM UPDATE: Channel 11 s Kimberly Easton says the investigation is under way. An autopsy is

Body of toddler found in wooded area outside Pittsburgh
Philadelphia Inquirer – PITTSBURGH – The body of a young girl was found in a wooded area outside Pittsburgh on Sunday, just blocks from where a 23-month-old girl was reported missing a day earlier. Rankin Mayor Nicholas Glova said investigators found the body of a girl

ROUNDUP: Toddler Survives Massacre At Chinese Restaurant In Germany
Playfuls – A young girl, reported to be aged just two years, was the sole survivor of a bloodbath at a Chinese restaurant in northern Germany which claimed the lives of seven people, police said Tuesday. Amid fears that the Asian couple who owned the Lin Yue

Stepfather Sentenced In Toddler’s Death
KOTV – CHANDLER, Okla. (AP) A Meeker man accused in the beating death his 2-year-old stepdaughter was sentenced today to 30 years in prison. Lincoln County officials say Michael Lee Porter pleaded guilty to enabling child abuse by injury and was sentenced

Toddler burns bottom on hot slide
Stuff – The boy was flown to Palmerston North hospital at midday yesterday from Ngaruru Station, a remote farming settlement northeast of Marton. Square Trust rescue helicopter pilot Dave Fielding said the accident had happened at the boy’s home, and his

Toddler’s death from cold ruled a homicide
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – The death of 23-month-old Nyia Page, whose body was discovered Sunday in a wooded area of Rankin, has been ruled a homicide, but authorities were releasing little other information yesterday. The Allegheny County medical examiner’s office said the

Body of toddler found in wooded area outside Pittsburgh
Philadelphia Inquirer – PITTSBURGH – The body of a young girl was found in a wooded area outside Pittsburgh on Sunday, just blocks from where a 23-month-old girl was reported missing a day earlier. Rankin Mayor Nicholas Glova said investigators found the body of a girl

Dad Allegedly Uses Stun Gun On Toddler
Channel 6000 – ALBANY, Ore. – An 18-month-old baby is in protective custody after his father allegedly shocked him with a stun gun. An Albany woman brought her son to the police department Saturday to report the abuse. Rian James Whittman, 23, is accused of using a