Dirt Isn't Dirty!

“Don’t touch that, it’s dirty!”

“Wash your hands before you eat!”

“You’re getting mud all over the place!”

How often do we hear and use these phrases with our children? In the last decade or two, D-I-R-T has become a four-letter word in the eyes of a vast majority of parents. The fact is that dirt, it seems, is not so dirty. Actually, it’s incredibly beneficial to your child’s growth and development, both physically and mentally.

We have already talked about how getting outside is important in getting young children to stay active, helping to avoid major health issues such as childhood obesity, diabetes, and vitamin D deficiency. It turns out that dirt takes this one step further. Being exposed to the different bacteria and other microorganisms found in dirt helps build your child’s immune system. Certain bacteria can even stimulate the production of serotonin in our brains (an affect similar to that of exercising or taking anti-depressant medication), keeping our children naturally happier.

Here at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers, we are doing our best every day to make sure our children experience the joy of dirt! Even last week’s lingering April showers couldn’t dampen the spirits of our preschoolers, and everyone found themselves enjoying being outside and getting a little dirty.

Over in Long Beach our two’s took nature walks and noticed that they saw more insects on the grey days that were a little cooler, rather than when the sun was out. Our three’s also spent time outdoors as they began preparing our nursery school garden for plants. They dug in the dirt, and even made a mud pie. Yum!

Our Long Beach Pre-K kids got an extra special treat this week when the Truck Farm visited from Brooklyn! Ian and James told us all about the garden they grow in the back of their flatbed truck, and (thanks to plexiglass sides) showed us not only the plants they grow, but their roots and layers of soil as well! We asked a lot of questions about planting and gardening, but most importantly learned that you can grow plants practically anywhere (even in your Daddy’s hat)!

Long Beach Pre-K loved the Truck Farm!

Friday in Merrick/Bellmore was Special Person’s Day. We were all so excited to share our love of the outdoors with some very important people! We began the day by making a fun art extension project together with our special people. Next, everyone made their way outside to our playground to do some planting! We have new planter boxes outside, and had lots of fun taking turns digging up the dirt to put in flowers. We can’t wait to watch the bloom and bring so much natural beauty to our playground!

Planting with a "Special Person" in Merrick/Bellmore

Meanwhile, in Oceanside the children were spending so much wonderful time outdoors. Our Pre-K classes set butterflies free after watching their metamorphosis from caterpillars. It was so exciting to see them fly off into the sky!

Miss Caryn’s class decided it would be a ton of fun to express themselves artistically outside of our building. We all hit the pavement with lots of colored chalk and had a ball covering the sidewalk (and ourselves) with brightly colored chalk dust. Don’t worry,  soap and water rinsed it all away!  The Oceanside two’s also had a great time running, jumping, climbing and sliding all over our playground. No matter what the weather, we have fun outdoors!

We love sidewalk chalk in Oceanside!

Interested in learning more about the benefits of your child getting outdoors and getting dirty? We love this great report from the National Wildlife Federation!

Of course, don’t forget to check out our Pinterest  for more ideas of things to do in the great outdoors. And head over to our Facebook for tons of photos from this week’s fun!

A Word From Our Directors...

Let's Get Reading!

Ellen Hoffman, Vice President of Merrick/Bellmore Services

            Summer is just around the corner, and so too is the importance of reading daily with your children. 

         Reading together provides a wonderful opportunity for one-on-one time with your little one.  Jim Trelease, author and educational authority on reading aloud, has found that there is a strong correlation between being read to and a child’s desire to read.  Choose books to read aloud that are two levels above your child’s age or grade.

 Take a book with you this summer wherever you go.  During a car ride you can discuss a book you’ve read the day before.  Play a game recalling details of a story by omitting key words and let your child fill them in.  Children love repetition and enjoy reading the same book over and over again.  Ask your child to “read” the pictures and tell you the story.  You will be surprised to learn how much your youngster retains!

Technology is amazing and plays a very important role in all our lives, but should never replace that very special time of the day when you cuddle up with your child and a special book.

HAPPY READING!

Looking for a great read? Check out our Pinterest board for some of our favorite books!

Screen Free Week!

Last week, the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers participated in a very special project: Screen Free Week!  The CCFC (Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood) encourages families every year to turn off as many screens as they can, for as long as they can for 7 days. In doing so, we learn to “turn on life” and practice healthy habits such as playing outdoors, reading, and spending quality time with family.

All of our children were very busy all week long learning and playing in many different ways; none of which involved a screen!

At our Merrick/Bellmore site, Spring is the big topic. Some of our classes have butterfly kits and are busy observing the daily changes in their caterpillars as they start to turn into butterflies! We are watching them eat and grow as they get ready for this exciting transformation!

Also at Merrick/Bellmore, we are learning about April Showers and May Flowers (although it seems lately that the showers have come in May as well)! Not only are we making umbrellas and beautiful flowers to decorate, but we are also learning about how flowers and plants need the rain in order to grow. 

Finally, each of our Merrick/Bellmore families were fully encouraged to participate in Screen Free Week by filling out a daily log of screen free activities. We found out that our families played dress up, went to the playground, drew pictures, and even baked their own pizzas! We are so proud of everyone for truly recognizing this great holiday.

In Oceanside, our children celebrated another holiday as well as Screen Free Week: Cinco de Mayo!!  While we could log onto the internet or watch something on TV to find out about Mexico’s heritage, we chose to lean about it in a more hands on way. We wore Mexican costumes and marched around with cool instruments like Maracas to showcase what we learned!

Happy Cinco de Mayo from Oceanside!

At our Long Beach branch, everyone is a flutter about butterflies! Just like our friends in Merrick/Bellmore, we are witnessing firsthand the incredible transformation process of a caterpillar into a butterfly. This week we were excited to see our caterpillars begin their chrysalis phase of metamorphosis. Everyone was so fascinated; it was hard not to touch them!

In keeping with Screen Free Week, everyone read books about butterflies to enhance our learning. Our two’s read Dawn Bentley’s “Goodnight Sweet Butterfly,” and the classes “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. They also made paper butterflies that we decorated with beautiful colored tissue paper. Our three’s took a slightly different approach and made their butterflies out of plastic bags filled with sequins and glitter! They then also read “The Butterfly Garden” by Sue Harris.

Last but not least, our Long Beach Pre-K enjoyed reading “Angelina and the Butterfly” by Katherine Holibird.  Afterward,, everyone was so excited to watch their teachers carefully transfer this week’s newly formed cocoons into their new butterfly pavilions! We are all hoping that the butterflies will emerge from their cocoons in time for this week’s trip to the Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds!

See how much fun and learning can happen when we turn our screens off? Even though Screen Free Week is over, we would like to encourage everyone to continue every day to spend as little time as possible in front of their television and computer screens.  If you’re ever looking for a great activity to fill in the time usually spent with video games or the internet, check out the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood on Pinterest! We promise to post great activities on a regular basis in order to help provide your family with the best ideas for learning, growing, and having fun together!

Want to see more great pictures of our week? Head to our Facebook page for some great smiling faces!

A Word From Our Directors...

The Importance of Summer Camp

Helene Nelson  

Director of Early Childhood- Oceanside Branch

As summer quickly approaches, it is the perfect time to explore why a summer camp experience can be so important for the youngest of children. 

Children as young as two, who are involved in day camp program are exposed to social, physical and sensory activities that allow them to take risks in a safe, nurturing setting. Through art, children are free to express their creativity, develop fine motor skills and expressive language skills. Age appropriate sports, swimming/water play, music/dance, help enhance gross motor development. Social skills are an important part child development as well.  Taking turns, sharing, choosing partners and following directions play an important role in developing social skills, as well as developing self confidence.

With the alarming rise of childhood obesity, it is important to note that children in camp are spending their day being physically active. Being unplugged from the many technological devices at home (yes…even as young as two!) children are allowed to use their imaginations and explore their environment using all their senses. 

When choosing a camp or summer program for your child, it is important to look at who will be with them all day. Who will influence their development and encourage them as they explore their surroundings. 

At the Friedberg JCC early childhood camps, we encourage and guide young children through summer experiences designed especially with them in mind.

Summer camp is also a wonderful opportunity for parents to help their young child transition to school in the fall. It’s a great place to make lifelong friends and special memories.

And most importantly…camp is fun!

Interested in finding out more about our summer camps? Come on out to our Camp Open House this Sunday, May 6^th at the Henry Kaufman Campgrounds in Wheatley Heights, NY. We’ll be there from 11am-1pm ready to have a great time with you and your children!

Can’t make it this Sunday? Check out our website, give us a call, or stop into any of our three branch sites at any time for more information!

Preschool Camp Contacts:


Oceanside: Helene Nelson, Director of Early Childhood 
Hnelson@friedbergjcc.org 516-634-4167


Long Beach: Paula Wall, Early Childhood Coordinator  
Pwall@friedbergjcc.org 516-431-2929


Merrick/Bellmore: Ellen Hoffman, Vice President of Merrick/Bellmore Services    Ehoffman@friedbergjcc.org 516-379-9386

Happy Birthday Israel!

Wow!! What a wonderful week to be at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers. Yesterday, April 26^th we celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut- Israeli Independence Day, and boy do we know how to throw a party!

In Oceanside all of our children donned special Israeli flag hats and signs as we marched around the whole building! We waved our Israeli flags high in the air so that all of the JCC members would know we were celebrating this very special birthday.

At the end of our special parade, we all gathered for a wonderful sing-a-long with Miss Diane and Miss Brooke. This was made extra special when Rabbi Greenspan from Oceanside Jewish Center joined us and taught us how to sing “Happy Birthday to Israel” in Hebrew!! We were all so proud of ourselves for learning to celebrate Israel in its national language.

We finished off this spectacular day by heading back to our classrooms for snack. But this wasn’t just any snack… we had blue and white birthday cupcakes that we baked ourselves for this very special occasion! Everyone had smiles (and frosting) all over their faces!!

Yummy Cupcakes in Oceanside!

Meanwhile over in Long Beach…

We kicked off our celebration with an outdoor parade around the block wearing hats that we made so the whole neighborhood could rejoice with us!! Earlier in the week, every classroom made their own flags to wave, which we all did in different ways.  Our Two’s used their flags to review the colors blue and white, while the Three’s broke down the different shapes on the flag and talked about rectangles and triangles. Finally, our Pre-K kids learned how to illustrate their own flags.  Drawing one triangle right-side-up and another one up-side-down can be quite difficult, and we were touched to see our children who grasped the concept the easiest helping their friends until they were all successful!

After our parade we came back to our classrooms and talked about why Israel is important to us. Some of our favorite responses included:

Two-year-olds: “Because it’s Israel’s birthday!”

Three-year-olds: “My Safta lives there!” and “They have lots of dreidels there!”

Pre-K: “It’s a really old country; it’s bigger than a city; it’s 64 years old” and “Because it’s close and very far away at the same time!”

Our Long Beach children also had the pleasure of working with Miss Yochi to learn the Israeli national anthem- Hatikvah. We’re so proud of them!! Check out this wonderful video of our Pre-K  kids singing:

As you can see, it was a spectacular week full of celebration!

Next week is really important to us too; it’s national Screen Free Week. We have been talking all month long about the importance of outdoor play and recently celebrated Earth Day, so it makes perfect sense that it all culminates in this celebration. You will hear all about Screen Free Week from us next Friday, but in the meantime check out http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/screenfreeweek/ to prepare yourself and your family for the week ahead.

Check out our Facebook for more great pictures from this week’s celebrations!

Let's Play Outdoors!

Take a deep breath……..close your eyes……….. and think back to your  best childhood memories from the four seasons. If we had to guess, we would imagine they look something like this:

Jumping in piles of leaves and pumpkin picking in the Fall.

Building snowmen and going sledding in the Winter.

Digging for worms and wiggling your toes in the mud during Spring.

Running through sprinkler, climbing trees, digging in sand in the Summer.

Were we right?

Now try it again, only this time think about what you see children (yours and others) doing during each of those seasons. We don’t know about you, but we see less of outdoors and more video games, watching television, and sitting at a computer.

As the speed of our day-to-day lives starts to move faster and faster, so do the lives of our children.

Too often we see parents, who are exhausted and over extended, sitting their young ones down in front of a screen for hours on end. Even in Walt Disney World, a place designed for families to share experiences and create memories, parents were seen handing old iPods to fussy children in strollers rather than engaging them in their surroundings.

Outdoor play not only moves us away from this “screen epidemic”, it is also incredibly important to your child’s growth and development.

Outdoor play encourages physical activity!

According to First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, “ nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese”- a problem that may lead to heart disease, diabetes, or a number of other health risks. Outdoor, open spaces encourage running, jumping, climbing, and many more physical activities that are beneficial to adults and children alike!

Being outside promotes creativity!  

The moment they step outside, your children are surrounded with colors, shapes, and textures. What a perfect place to inspire a young artist or builder without the fear of ruining your new carpeting! Throw on some old jeans and a ratty t-shirt and get to work building with mud and drawing on sidewalks.  Draw on the sidewalk with chalk or water color paint!  We promise your children (and you) will love this form of self-expression!

The outdoors is incredibly stimulating!  

There is so much learning that can go on the moment you step outside.  Young children learn through their senses so, the simple act of smelling a flower, watching a butterfly flap its wings, or hearing the leaves rustle in the breeze help shape their minds as they begin to understand the world around them.

Here at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers we will be joining the rest of our nation to celebrate two very important “holidays” this month:

Earth Day on April 22^nd.  What better way to celebrate Earth Day than getting outside?  Join us at the Henry Kaufman campgrounds for an open house.  Meet former NY Yankee Ron Blomberg and enjoy some fun Earth Day craft projects. Check out our website for more information!

Screen Free Week from April 30^th-May 6^th.   Throughout the next three weeks, we will be encouraging every one of our families to move away from their screens and into the great outdoors! We’ll be posting our favorite ways to do this on our Facebook page starting Monday!

Looking for more information on the importance of getting outdoors? Check out this great article Take It Outside! from Early Childhood News!

Zissen Pesach Everyone!!

Looking at the pictures of the three centers’ Passover celebrations is a sight to behold!  It’s amazing how much learning took place while the children had a blast. 

Egyptians Marching At Oceanside!

What’s particularly interesting are all the ways that Passover is celebrated in our centers.  It’s reflective of the many ways  that we celebrate Passover in our homes.  Our children take the lessons they’ve learned in school and add another dimension (often extremely entertaining) to our Seder tables.

Singing Passover Songs At Merrick/Bellmore

At my own home, our favorite time at the Seder table were our boys singing “Frogs here” or “Bang, Bang, Bang,” with such feeling that you knew the moment created a lifetime of happy memories.

As we prepare for tonight, many of our children are helping decorate the tables with their own Kiddush cup, Seder Plate or Matzoh Cover they made at school.  These experiences are learning at it’s finest.   Interactive, hands on and fun.

Enjoying Yummy Matzah At Long Beach!

However you celebrate, from our homes to yours, we wish you a Zissen Pesach, and lifetime of memories.

Check out more great seder pictures here!