Hello Infant Families,
Happy New Year and welcome to a new semester at NIUs CDFC! We are excited to begin the semester with you and your child and see what it has in store for us. In the few weeks we have already been together, we have seen so many changes in the children from last semester. This is what’s so fun about the infant room–seeing all the growth and development that happens at such an early age is such a rewarding experience!
Practicum Students
This semester, we are very excited to welcome four practicum students to our classroom. Over the next 16 weeks, they will be with the children daily documenting their growth and development, creating and implementing activities for the class during their lead teaching weeks, holding parent teacher conferences with you towards the end of the semester, communicating daily with your family, etc.
Transitions
In the infant room, the spring semester usually becomes a transitional period for the children the children are already one, or will be turning one. Once a child turns 15 months, they will sleep on a cot rather than in a crib. Some of our children are already doing this, but a lot of the children will begin this this semester. Those over 12 months, we are also working towards one nap a day with them, after lunch. At this age, we also try to transition them off of bottles to using sippy cups and to eating the three meals we offer throughout the day (breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack).
- Breakfast usually begins between 8:45am and 9:00am
- Lunch is served around 11:30am
- PM Snack is usually served between 2:30pm and 3:00pm
With all this being said, being in the infant room, we do have the flexibility to meet the children’s needs and will do so as they show the necessary signs. We always follow the cues of all children to meet their needs throughout the day.
Bringing the Outside, In
Due to the extremely cold temperatures we have been experiencing our first few weeks of the semester, we have been unable to take the children outside. With all the snow we got, we filled a media table bucket with snow and brought some into the classroom. Laying a towel on our table and placing the bucket in the middle, the children were supplied with cups, spoons, shovels, sifters, basically sand toys, to use with the snow. Some children used the tools, while others enjoyed eating the snow!
Developmentally Appropriate
As your children begin walking, with walking comes falling, climbing, and bumping heads. They are still working on their balance and coordination and it is very common among newly walking children. This also goes for children that are just starting to crawl, sit up, and pull themselves up on objects. They are exploring their surroundings while also working on their balance and coordination. Please know that we will do our absolute best with supervision while they are exploring new ways of movement, but accidents may happen. Due to these accidents, you may see an increase in incident reports, which is just to document what happened and what protocols we took.
As the children begin to move into their toddler years, you may begin to see some challenging behaviors such as tantrums, hitting, biting, etc. This is absolutely normal for children this age. They are learning to express themselves with limited language to communicate. At the CDFC, we use positive guidance techniques with the children and modeling a lot of what we encourage the children to do. If we see any hitting, we encourage to use gentle touches, to wave, etc. If children are biting, we offer them a teether. It is important to also recognize the children’s feelings, especially if you are experiencing any tantrums with them.
Reminders:
- Please bring in new family pictures for our family board. Pets can be included as well 🙂 Feel free to bring in a copy that can be laminated, or you can email them to
- With cold weather here, please bring appropriate outdoor clothing for your child for days that we are able to go outside. This includes hat, gloves/mittens, snow pants/snowsuit, coat, boots (or snowsuit that covers their feet). We do try to get outside daily (weather permitting) and can do anything from playing on our playground to taking walks around campus.
As always, if you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to reach out to one of us. We look forward to the semester ahead!
Krysten, Eisa, and Ecila
