At Especially for Children, we love books! Each day you will see:Teachers reading and telling stories to groups of childrenTeachers reading and telling stories to individual childrenChildren reading and telling stories on their ownWe learn new vocabulary and many facts from stories. Stories stretch our...
In our infant classrooms, we provide a caring and safe environment for children and a program that challenges infants to achieve new developmental goals. Our toys are developmentally appropriate and encourage curiosity and self-discovery. We use small structures to promote large motor skills. We love...
EFC, as a company, follows The Creative Curriculum by Diane Trister Dodge. A major part of The Creative Curriculum is the emphasis put on different interest areas, one of which is blocks. Building with blocks (in this case, ice blocks) teaches children many different math...
Physical development is one of the core components of our early childhood program at Especially for Children. As children participate in physical activities, they are also developing cognitively and socially. Watch three different age groups dance to the music of the I AM MOVING I...
It is often fascinating and fun to watch your child learn to play with others. You may not realize all that is happening in their brains as they are stacking blocks, cooking "breakfast" or passing a ball back and forth with you or another child.The...
A guest blog post from EFC Edina parent, Mary Lou Wichlacz: I’ve always thought it is a bit ironic that the first breath of life is, in the best of situations, accompanied by a piercing cry. A cry means the child is healthy,...
In the March 2010 edition of Work and Family Life there is a great article that I want to share with you. While you are in the midst of the ever-challenging job of being a parent, it's helpful to stand back now and then to...
At our staff training entitled “I AM MOVING, I AM LEARNING” we learned that early childhood is the time to build and pave the highways for communication between body and brain. An interesting example is how a child’s ability to catch has its...
As I reflect on my own interactions with children over the past 40 years, I’m left wondering if I unknowingly overused the technique of praising children. I studied child psychology, became a nursery school teacher, then a center director, started Especially for Children and, with...
In Ellen Galinsky’s newly published book, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs, she offers many suggestions of how we as parents and teachers can promote focus and self-control in children. It starts as early as infancy when children get...
Back in January, I blogged about sleep requirements for children. NY Times blogger Lisa Belkin recently posted the results of a study from The Journal of Family Psychology about the quality of children's sleep and how parents (for statistical reasons, the study only looked at...
We asked teachers at our Coon Rapids location to tell us some of their favorite quotes from the children. Here are the top picks!“I just love it when the little people come in here!” -Sicily, age 4, when the toddlers joined them for a...
Does your child say things that make you laugh? Does parenting give you a new perspective on life? Have you learned parenting strategies that work - or some that don't? Tell us about it!We are opening up the EFC blog to EFC parents who would...
Last month I attended a powerful workshop on trans-racial adoption. Steve and I adopted one of our daughters from Korea when she was two years old. She is now 35. We attended the workshop together and left with many valuable ideas. After watching a movie...
Thank you to all of you who responded to our communications survey. Your input will be very helpful to us as we determine how best to reach prospective families. We also got some great feedback on what types of media and resources you prefer to...