Click here to enroll.

Program Goal:

To increase awareness among parents, other family members, and the early childhood community of the need for practices that promote early literacy development:

•  Reading with children daily
• Engaging children in the story
• Discuss new words to build vocabulary
• Ask open-ended questions

For more information and website activities visit www.stopsnoringbernard.com

Please consider helping to make the eggs. Choose morning, afternoon or evening, Monday – Wednesday, March 19-21. Meals are provided for volunteers. Fill out the form below if you are interested in helping!

LAMPETER-STRASBURG SCHOOL DISTRICT

All children who reside in the Lampeter-Strasburg School District and will be five years of age on or before September 1, 2012, are eligible to enter kindergarten. The Kindergarten Registration Round-Up will be held in the Lampeter Elementary School cafeteria on Thursday February 23, 2012, during the following times: 9:00-11:00 a.m., 1:30-3:00 p.m., and 5:00-7:00 p.m. Parents may register during any of the above listed times. It is not necessary to bring your child to the registration. Parents must bring their child’s original birth certificate, immunization records, and proof of residency (deed, lease, utility bill, tax bill) to the registration. Please allow approximately 45 minutes for the registration process.

If you have not yet received a pre-enrollment form for the 2012-2013 kindergarten year, please contact Mrs. Deborah Yinger at 717-464-3311, extension 1027. You must also contact Mrs. Yinger if your child will not be attending kindergarten at Lampeter-Strasburg next year.

The next meeting concerning kindergarten registration will be held on April 2, 2012, at 7:00 p.m., in the Lampeter Elementary School cafeteria. At this meeting, school personnel will provide details about kindergarten and the entrance process. Parents will also receive their child’s small group appointment time. Children should not attend this meeting.

PENN MANOR SCHOOL DISTRICT

Tuesday, March 6, 2012          Conestoga Elementary  8:00-4:00          872-9535

Tuesday, March 6, 2012                  Hambright Elementary 8:00-4:00          393-3818

Tuesday, March 6, 2012                  Letort Elementary 8:00-4:00                 872-9530

Wednesday, March 7, 2012             Central Manor Elementary 8:00-4:00     872-1401

Wednesday, March 7, 2012            Martic Elementary 8:00-4:00                 284-4135

Thursday, March 8, 2012                 Eshleman Elementary 8:00-4:00            872-9540

Friday, March 9, 2012                   Pequea Elementary 8:00-4:00               464-3831

Penn Manor has one evening registration session available by appointment:

Thursday, March 8, 2012                    Eshleman Elementary 5:00-8:00    872-9540

SOLANCO SCHOOL DISTRICT

Kindergarten registration for incoming Solanco students will take place at the end of April.  Registration packets will be mailed in March.  Any family who wishes to make sure that their child is on the list to receive the registration materials, should call Cindy Criswell at 786-8401.

The flu season is upon us and we need to cut down on germs!

Our staff is required to clean tables, chairs, and classroom sinks daily, and your

child is required to wash his/her hands upon enter the classroom.

We need you!  Can you please sign up on the bulletin board to clean toys on

Wednesday, February 22nd at 9:30am in the downstairs kitchen area?

Thank you for your participation in making your preschool clean!

A great tool in this area is your own transparency. You encounter desires and temptations every day. By talking with your children about how you deal with those situations, you can provide your kids with examples that will help them learn what to do with their own desires and temptations.

Twelve-year-old Sean asked his mom why she didn’t get angry when she was cut off on the road, giving Mom a perfect opportunity to talk about how she lets it go so she doesn’t have to harbor the anger. Mom knew that Sean needed that message because he’d been treated unfairly at school and was tempted to act out his own anger. Sean listened and pondered what his mom said. Mom watched the wheels turn in his head and knew she had just connected somewhere deep inside her son.

Don’t miss the opportunities provided by day-to-day life to point out to your children appropriate ways to deal with desires. Explain to your kids why you pursue some desires and let others go, and help your children see how those principles apply to their own lives as well. Your transparency can be a valuable guide as your children wrestle with desires.

To receive these parenting tips, please sign up for the bi-weekly NCBP email Parenting Tips by clicking here.

We encourage parents to teach three simple choices to children: talk about it, get help, or slow down and persevere. These three choices simplify the process greatly. Of course, this is only to get kids started. After they learn these three skills they can graduate to Anger Management 201 that offers choices like forgiveness and responding with kindness or sorrow. Even adults who are struggling with anger need to have it simplified and these three choices will get you going.

Talk About It
If another child is being irritating or hurtful, frustration can be a signal that your child needs to confront or express displeasure. If Derek doesn’t like the way Tyler is playing with his Legos, he needs to say, “I don’t like it when you play rough with my Legos,” instead of getting all worked up about it. We teach young children exactly what words to use, “I don’t like it when you do that.” Kids need to learn conflict management skills. They need to be taught how to talk about it.

Get Help
If your child gets frustrated because the blanket keeps falling off the table when she’s trying to set up a tent or because the friend she’s playing with won’t listen to her, it may be time to get help. Often a child who is struggling with a pair of scissors will need a little help from Mom or Dad and then be able to continue with the project. Parents know that getting help is one of the solutions to frustration and so too often they jump in and relieve the frustration for the child. It’s best to teach your child to ask for help. You might say, “If you need help, just ask me,” and then get out of the way. Let the child learn how to deal with frustration by asking for help. Frustration can be a good teacher sometimes.

Slow Down and Persevere
When a person is mowing a lawn and hits a thick, grown up section of grass, the best course of action is to slow down and take it a little piece at a time. In the same way, sometimes children must slow down, adjust their expectation so that they can persevere and finish the task without exploding.

Each of these three choices is a skill that needs to be developed. If your child is getting angry a lot, you may find that teaching these skills will go along way to bring about peace in your child’s heart.

To receive these parenting tips, please sign up for the bi-weekly NCBP email Parenting Tips by clicking here.

Remember that rules tend to focus on behavior and may miss the heart. But, if you use rules wisely and talk often about why the rules are helpful, you can teach your children a great deal about the values you want to pass on. As you begin setting rules for young children, we would suggest three simple rules:

Obey
Show Honor
Be Kind

Almost any infraction in family life can fall under one of these three. Having just a few rules is especially good for young children. These three become the basis for most other rules as children get older. Each of them represents an important character quality.

These rules are simple and introduce young children to the fact that certain guidelines dictate what’s expected in family life. Talk about them often as you teach and discipline your children. This will help you do heart work even at a young age.

To receive these parenting tips, please sign up for the bi-weekly NCBP email Parenting Tips by clicking here.

Honor means…
Treating people as special,
Doing more than what’s expected,
And having a good attitude.

Use our honor definition or make up your own. The point is that honor changes people. It changes the way that parents relate to their children, the way children relate to each other, and the way children relate to their parents. We all need it.

You can use the concept of honor in correction or when things are going well. You can use it when you teach your children about money, time, and other resources, and you can teach it when conflict comes around. One fun way to teach it is on special occasions when someone wins a contest or earns a certificate. You may show honor by giving that person a fancy place at the table or by decorating his or her bedroom door.

Honor is fun. It’s like oil in a machine. It gets work done with less friction and less heat. Every family needs honor. It’s great when things are going well and essential when family relationships are strained. You can work on honor whether your kids are preschoolers or teens. It will change the way your family relates.

What are some ways you teach your children about honor?

To receive these parenting tips, please sign up for the bi-weekly NCBP email Parenting Tips by clicking here.

Some parents react at the thought of having children come when they’re called. It conjures up visions of authoritarian leadership like a sergeant yelling at a private in the military, belittling a person by pulling rank. These parents need to catch a vision for helping children develop a character quality of responsiveness. It doesn’t come naturally but children who don’t learn to be responsive to another person make poor team members, inconsiderate mates, and difficult employees.

To teach children to come when they’re called, you first have to explain what you mean. With young children you might say, “From now on, whenever I call your name, you need to come close to me and say “What Mom?” or “What Dad?” You might explain that it’s important that they learn to listen carefully to your words and when they hear you call, they need to come and find out what you want.

The next step is to practice every chance you get. With a two or three-year-old you’ll practice it several times an hour. Be careful that you don’t just practice when you want to give an instruction or when your child is running away from you in the store. Practice at home and at the park. Call your child often just for fun. When he comes, say something like “I just wanted to tell you I love you” or “I just want to see how well you can obey.”

The “Come When You’re Called Rule” teaches responsiveness to authority. When children become teenagers you can tell the difference between those who have learned this concept and those that haven’t. We’re not suggesting that teens come running to you when you call, but there is a way that they treat their parents that communicates respect.

The “Come When You’re Called Rule” is a way that parents honor children and teens as well. It says, “I’m not going to yell at you across the house or parking lot. I’m going to take time to sit down and talk to you or get away with you to discuss this issue.”

To receive these parenting tips, please sign up for the bi-weekly NCBP email Parenting Tips by clicking here.