It’s already May and Memorial Day weekend is fast approaching.  Brierwood Child Care Centers will be closed on Monday, May 28 to celebrate Memorial Day, so it’s a perfect day to make plans for you and your family.  

First and foremost, remember to talk with your child about the reasons why we celebrate Memorial Day.  Take the time to remember the ones who sacrificed their lives so that we can enjoy our freedom as Americans.  

Below is a list of events happening here inWestern New Yorkthis Memorial Day:

• Memorial Day Parade at 10am at the Angola Fire Hall on Commercial Street
• ForestLawnCemetery:8:30amMemorial Day services starting with the decoration of graves followed by service conducted by the Erie County American Legion at9am.
• DelawareParkGolf Course: 9:45am Volunteers will be planting American flags at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
• Memorial Day Parade inHamburgat10:15am. Starting atUnionPleasantElementary Schooland ending at the Memorial Park.
• SouthgatePlazaSummer KickOff: Friday, 5/25 from6-9:30pm.  Enjoy live music with the Boys of Summer and Terry Buchwald as “Elvis”.  There will be plenty of fun for the kids with a free ferris wheel and bounce house, carnival games and a huge food court.  Plus a fireworks display at9:30pm
• LancasterOpera House: 5/25@ 7pm-Pirate Dreams, 5/26 @2:30pm-Carnival Kids Steel Orchestra
• Arcade & Attica Railroad: Memorial Day Remembrance @12pm. Visit with Abe Lincoln and the troops as they join you on your train ride.
• Maifest: 5/27SpringGardenPark(3838 Two Rod Road)12pm-8pm.
• ClarenceTownPark: 5/28 Memorial Day Parade and Chicken BBQ 11am
• Memorial Day Parade: 5/28 @11am alongDelaware AveinKenmore
• Memorial Day Parade: 5/28 @2pmVillageofWilliamsville,Main Street

1. Encourage a Healthy Lifestyle:  Making exercise part of your child’s life teaches them the importance of fitness.  Children need physical activity everyday and participation in sports fills this need. Getting your child involved in sports also increases their chances of becoming a healthier adult.
2. Promote Self Esteem:  When a child realizes that they are getting better at their sport, they can’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment.  Choosing a sport your child can grow and improve in gives your child an opportunity to build self-esteem.
3. Learn Goal Setting:  Participation in sports gives your child a fun, practical way to learn about goal setting.  They will be able to see, experience and learn about how goal setting works.
4. Learn and Experience Team Work:  Sports teach children about teamwork and about how their actions affect other people.  If they can’t learn to work together with teammates while playing a sport they enjoy, how will they be able to work with co-workers they may or may not like while performing a job?  Teamwork is a very important lesson to learn.  Encourage your child to be a team player, and as a parent, make sure your words and actions at their sporting events promote this as well.
5. Develop Time Management Skills:  Adding extracurricular activities to your child’s schedule encourages development of time management and prioritization skills.  Teach your child that taking care of responsibilities, such as school work and cleaning up after themselves, comes first.  This gives them their first taste of prioritization.  Next, help your child formulate a plan which enables them to efficiently handle their responsibilities while still leaving time for sports practices and competitions.
6. Learn About Dealing With Adversity:  Everyone makes mistakes.  Everyone has problems.  How well you handle these mistakes and problems directly affects happiness and quality of life.  In sports, we always try to minimize errors, but we’re human.  Mistakes happen.  It’s not the mistake that counts; it’s what you do from that point forward that carries the significance.  If your child learns to deal with adversity, errors and challenges in sports, chances are they’ll be able to translate that skill to real life and effectively minimize mistakes and/or bad decisions as well as competently recover from setbacks.
7. Have Fun!  Positive experiences play an essential role in raising a happy, healthy child.  Sports provide numerous opportunities for positive experiences both for your child as an individual, and for your family as a whole. “Sports parents” are blessed with the chance to watch their child and have fun while learning and developing as an athlete and as a successful adult.

We’re approaching the month of May, and that means the weather should be getting nicer! It’s a great time to take the family outside for some air and new activities. Stumped about where to go? There are plenty of places in Western New York to spend the day or an afternoon. Here are some suggestions:

Buffalo Zoo: A perennial favorite, the Zoo has great animal exhibits from the furry to the scaly.

Aquarium of Niagara: Features indoor and outdoor exhibits, including an opportunity to feed seals!

Niagara Falls State Park: Get wet on the Maid of the Mist or explore the Cave of the Winds. One of the world’s wonders is in our backyard! 

Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens: So many colors to see and aromas to smell. A great place to play and take pictures!

Sail Buffalo Sailing School:  Sail past the 1833 Buffalo Lighthouse, the historic grain elevators and the General Mills plant where most of the world’s Cheerios are produced.

Buffalo Bisons: Take a day off at the ballpark. Have some hot dogs or cotton candy and catch a fly ball!

Adventure Landing Mini Golf: Who doesn’t love mini golf? And at the end of your round, take a trip to the arcade to win some cool prizes.

Arcade and Attica Railroad: Relive your own childhood with a ride on a real train!

Old Fort Niagara: Learn about history and climb all over one of the oldest forts in the area!

Tifft Nature Preserve: Check out some turtles in their natural habitat, fish, or feed the many varieties of birds that call this calm, beautiful place home.

Transit Drive In: Settle in with your popcorn and your pj’s for a late movie night.

Becker Farms: Pick some apples off of the trees or meet some friendly goats at this real working farm.

“Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.
Kenyan proverb

Earth Day, which was established in 1970 in the United States, is celebrated on April 22 each year. It is a day to think about our planet and what we can do to keep it special; saving water and energy, reducing pollution, recycling, protecting our animals, trees and plants, and generally getting kids interested in preserving their environment.

Here are some quick ideas for celebrating Earth Day with your children:

• Plant a tree
• Go for a bike ride or a long walk
• Hold a nature “scavenger hunt” (send the kids out into the garden or park in teams to collect - or spot - various items on a list you provide)
• Talk about saving water when brushing teeth and saving energy by turning off the lights when you leave a room
• Bake your favorite cookie or biscuit recipe and let the kids decorate with icing to look like the planet Earth
• Gather family and friends together and combine a picnic or other excursion with a litter clean-up
• Set up a recycling center in your home

Children ages 3 to 5 acquire numerous skills.  One of the most important is their ability to understand and become aware of printed material and to enjoy the use of language.  These skills, commonly known as early language and literacy development, have significant impact on a child’s academic abilities as they enter the elementary grades.  Language and literacy development doesn’t start in kindergarten.  The time to start working with your child on his language and literacy skills is from birth. 

Readingto your child, singing with them, pointing out objects and naming them are critical in language development.  Researchers at The Child Care and Early Education Research Connections note that language and literacy development in children doesn’t have just one form.  Instead they find that a mix of approaches works best.  Reading aloud to your child as well as giving them a chance to participate in reading by repeating particular phrases are two methods.  It is proven that children who are read to from an early age on a regular basis have better listening skills and are able to articulate clearer and more concisely.  They also have an increased familiarity with written language.  Early exposure to books, typically through being read to, instills a sense of security and comfort. The positive feelings these children get from books grows into a desire to read books for themselves when they are older.

Early childhood language and literacy development isn’t limited to reading, as writing abilities are important as well.  Children need the opportunity to scribble.  Scribbling not only develops the fine motor skills that are required to hold a pencil, but it also helps fine-tune the child’s hand-eye coordination to enable writing.  Language and literacy skills precede reading and writing.  A child who is exposed to printed material has awareness of letters and sounds, can make basic scribbles and enjoys the written word has better opportunity for success in school.

Early language and literacy skills development means that your child can do a number of things.  While he or she may not be able to read, he can manipulate a book properly- opening and closing it as well as turning the pages.  He should also gaze at and recognize pictures, perhaps laughing as a favorite picture appears.  He will show that he comprehends the book, either by imitating an action or a gesture from the story.  He may also mimic your reading to him, by pointing to the pages and babbling quietly to himself.  He will also make scribbles that are largely nonsensical, but he may begin to develop a pattern of lines across a page, mimicking lines of text.

At Brierwood Child Care Centers every child from 6 weeks to 5 years old is read to, sung to and encouraged to draw daily.  We understand the importance that early literacy and language have on children and apply it in their daily routines.  

Make sure to tell the Easter Bunny to be careful if filling up the basket with Kinder Eggs, a popular European chocolate egg that contains a toy inside. The eggs are banned from importation into the United States due to choking hazards.

U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection issued the reminder this week, warning that the candy is considered unsafe for children under 3. Last year, Customs and Border Protection seized 25,000 of them in 1,700 incidents.

Spring will be pretty. Just give it a week, When flowers are blooming down by the creek. Bees will be buzzing as trees start to bud, But for the moment I’m covered with mud. Snow has been melting, since winter is through, Replacing the whiteness with puddles of goo. I stepped off the sidewalk and into the ooze. Next thing I knew, I stepped out of my shoes! Mud on my ankles and mud on my clothes. I stumbled face-first and got mud up my nose. Spring will be pretty, but I must confess, The first days of spring are a muckety mess! 

-Dave Crawley

Some Ideas for Spring Fun

1. Grow something you can eat. We aren’t just talking a little pot with grocery store basil. Pick out a fruit or vegetable that you and your child can plant from seed and nurture together. Try tomatoes, beets, or any kind of beans. Ask a local gardening expert if you aren’t sure what will grow.
2. Take an evening stroll. Listen to the evening sounds. Savor the light of dusk. Wave to the neighbors. Enjoy the little things.
3. Dig for worms. Remember the amazing, and sometimes startling, discoveries under a stone in spring? Who knows what you’ll find lurking below the surface of your yard. Get your hands dirty together and see what you unearth.
4. Make a bird feeder. Kids love to spot blue jays, cardinals, and other feathered friends. Bring the birds to your backyard with making your own bird feeder.
5. Dust off the sports gear. Kick a ball, throw a Frisbee, shoot hoops, whatever sports activity that you and your family do.

Spring and “springtime” refer to the season, and to ideas of rebirth, renewal and regrowth.

One of the easiest ways to develop children’s communication skills is to get them interested in reading. Being read to before bed, or having your child read to you is one of the best ways to stimulate their brain and get them going. 

Wondering what books to get your kids started on? These are some of our favorites:

• Goodnight Moon
• Olivia
• Harry the Dirty Dog
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit
• Babar the Elephant
• The Snowy Day
• Anything Dr. Seuss
• Anything Richard Scarry
• I Am A Bunny
• Clifford the Big Red Dog
• Where’s Spot?
• Curious George
• Make Way For Ducklings
• Madeline
• Corduroy
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Where The Wild Things Are
• If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
• The Giving Tree
• Angelina Ballerina

Have fun reading!

As mild as this winter has been for us Western New Yorkers, it is still not always ideal to play outside with our kiddos.  I’m sure many of your children have used the phrase, “I’m bored” when it comes to being stuck inside all day.  Below you will find a list of some indoor activities that you can do with your child to cure their cabin fever.  

1. Build a fort out of blankets and chairs
2. Make sock puppets
3. Finger paint
4. Have an indoor picnic
5. Look at old pictures
6. Have a tea party
7. Play grocery store
8. Have a dance party
9. Play school
10. Play “hide the toy”
11. Give each other pedicures
12. Bake something
13. Make your own indoor hopscotch with masking tape on the carpet
14. Play board games
15. Play “Win, Loose or Draw”
16. Popcorn and a movie
17. Make paper hats
18. Create a obstacle course
19. Exercise
20. Have a pillow fight
21. Make a fort out of a big cardboard box
22. Swim in the kitchen!  Put down a tarp and fill up a kiddie pool.
23. Make Valentines décor
24. Play Pickle in the Middle
25. Learn a new song
26. Make jewelry
27. Write letters to relatives that live far away
28. Make crowns
29. Play Red Light Green Light
30. Toilet paper a room!
31. Shaving cream fun
32. Write your own story together
33. Play library
34. Make paper airplanes
35. Make flash cards for a new skill they are working on
36. Hot chocolate
37. Make homemade pizza
38. Let them put make up on you
39. Pitch a tent in your living room
40. Play doctor
41. Let them wrap you in toilet paper
42. Practice a fire drill…teach them to stop, drop and roll
43. Play ball
44. Play indoor bowling using empty pop bottles and plastic balls
45. Fill up the sink with soapy water and add some dishes!

Hope this helps with the Buffalo Winter Blues!