How We're Reacting to Covid

At Lake Barrington Academy of Stars Child Care, we understand that this has been a very difficult time for many families dealing with the challenges of working from home and taking care of their young children while child care centers remained closed during the shutdown.

Although we always follow strong infection control policies as outlined by Illinois’ Day Care Licensing regulations, we want to share with you all the extra steps we’re taking to ensure the health and safety of our children, the staff, and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With our Emergency License, the following precautions are being implemented for each room that is open at this time to follow all the new health, safety, and social distancing guidelines:

1. We’re following classroom size guidelines.

2. Same teachers every day in that designated room.

3. So far 3 rooms are open with similar aged children.

4. Children are not being combined at the beginning or end of the day. 

5. Drop off and Pick up is at the front foyer. 

6. Every teacher and child has his or her base temperature taken and recorded every day since everyone runs differently. 

7. Teachers are wearing masks and children can too if parents want them to. 

8. Teachers will explain why masks are used so children aren't frightened. 

9. If a child or teacher is sent home or sick, a fever must be gone for 24 hours with NO Tylenol before they come back to school. 

10. Toys and furniture are being disinfected daily. 

The goal with all of these precautions is to keep everyone safe and healthy! Please let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions. 

So far we are off to a great start in June during the reopening plan. Many children are back to learning, socializing, and having fun as much as possible. It’s so great to see and for us to know that we’re helping families get back on the right track!

Exploring Themes With Your Child

At Academy of Stars Child Care in Barrington, our teachers build activities, lessons, crafts. and incorporate books that relate to monthly themes that help children learn about the world around them.

This month, the children are learning the following themes:  

Exploring My World: This theme invites children to become scientists as they explore their world through simple experiments, building, and cooking activities. They will be encouraged to tinker with gizmos and gadgets and perhaps invent something of their own.

Polar Pals: Children will journey to the land of ice and snow in this frosty theme. They will explore snow, ice, and animals that call the Arctic and Antarctica home. 

Here are at home activities you can do at home to coincide with our monthly themes:

1. Does your child have a toy tool kit? Allow her to pound golf tees into Styrofoam blocks. If you own a real tool kit, compare your tools to your child’s kit. Name each tool and discuss its use. Review safety rules of tool use. With close supervision, allow your child to build a simple structure.

2. Practice counting to twelve. Save an egg carton and count together as your child places a small object in each section of the carton.

3. Reinforce the letter N with the following activities. Form an N with raw or cooked spaghetti noodles. Make a name collage with alphabet beads or letters cut from magazines that spell out names of family members. Circle N’s found in newspaper articles. This can be done with M and O, the other letters of the month, as well.

4.  Make fingerprint penguins with black and white finger-paint and blue construction paper. Use the thumb to make a white body and a fingertip to make black wings and a head. With a toothpick, make two white dots for eyes. Stretch out cotton balls and glue them to the blue paper to make an iceberg.

As a follow on to activities, we always recommend reading time with your children to not only work on vocabulary and comprehension, but reading also doubles as a great quality time activity!  

Here are a few book recommendations this month:

• Machines at Work by Byron Barton. At the construction site, the workers gather. Their machines are ready and waiting. A busy day is about to begin. Rhythmic text and bold, graphic illustrations convey all the energy and excitement of the day.

• Robots, Robots  Everywhere! by Sue Fliess. Robots are everywhere in this bright and funny board book – and preschoolers are going to love it! Whether up in space, beneath the seas, or even under couches, award-winning illustrator Bob Staake’s bold and colorful bots make this book a must have.

• How Ramps, Wedges and Screws Work by Jim Mazzanotte. Demonstrates how inclined planes are used to do work as ramps, wedges, and screws.

• Cuddly Duddly by Jez Alborough. Lovable Dudley the penguin just wants to be left alone, but he is so cuddly that no one, neither his family nor the loud man that he encounters, can stop cuddling him.