Happy Holidays From FranDelJA!
FEC Leadership Connection
Newsletter – September 2024
FranDelJA means family, and healthy families make time to connect!
7 Benefits of Reading to Your Child
- Bonding – Reading is a nice way to spend time together and wonderful opportunity to connect with your child.
- Listening Skills – Comprehension is dependent on paying attention. Reading aloud builds listening skill for children. You can add voices, puppets and movement. Books on tape are a great addition for your reading time.
- Attention Span – Helps develop concentration and self-discipline. Regular reading gets children listening and sitting still longer periods of time. Listening to a book builds memory retention skills.
- Expanded Vocabulary – Helps expand the number and variety of words used. Descriptive words and specific names of things used more often.
- Social Emotional Skill – Reading helps to cope with stressful and difficult experiences. It gets conversations going and shows children their feelings are normal.
- Life Lessons – Real-world situations in an age-appropriate way. Children enjoy books that feature children in their age range, modeling things they do every day.
- Creativity – Reading serves to help further their imagination. It is important to developing interest and ideas to help children think outside the box, which benefits their emotional health as well.
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Alberta “Teacher Bibi” Walker
Master Teacher
FranDelJA Enrichment Center
Changing Seasons
This is such an interesting season. End of summer heat waves. Cool crisp mornings. Back to school with new routines. Pumpkin spice everywhere you look!
Fall is coming and that means change. Change can be challenging. As a parent, life is a continuous change as we help our little people grow and develop.
Change can be hard. I remember when I was struggling to get my 4-year-old to potty train. Some days she’d say, just let me wear the pull ups! It seemed to never end. But my days of pull ups are long gone, now my nine-year-old is turning into a tweenager and testing all the boundaries. So much like the two-year-old tests and tantrums. Every stage has its challenges, and they pass, I haven’t thought of pull ups in a long time. If your current season feels overwhelming, we have resources that can help! Talk to your FranDelJA team – your teacher or site supervisor (as sometimes we just need someone to talk to). Or they can help you connect with those who can help with your specific needs.
FranDelJA has had a few recent seasons of change. Our beloved co-founders Sandra and Gladys retired, then Gladys passed away. We moved out of our 20-year site, combining the teams and families to one site at Fairfax. We joyfully celebrated graduation and welcomed new children to start in our care!
We are headed into another season of change. FranDelJA Enrichment Center Board of Directors is pleased to announce the purchase of a building to become a new childcare center! Located at the corner of Ingles and Oakdale, the center will continue to serve the families and community of Bayview Hunters Point. This season will take some time, from design to permits to construction this will feel like forever (like potty training). But we will celebrate at completion, the struggles will become memories, and a new season will begin again -when we can celebrate graduations and welcome new families to FranDelJA!
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Tracy List
Executive Director
FranDelJA Enrichment Center
Helping Your Child Transition
As the new school year approaches change can be difficult for families. Some families will have concerns about their child going into a new classroom, while others will have concerns about their child starting a whole new school and being in a new environment. There will be days when drop off is smooth and there will be days when drop off is bumpy. Just remember that this takes time and that consistency is key! Here are some tips to help you along your new journey:
New Students:
- Have your child come with you on the day of the tour so your child can see the school, the classroom, and meet the teachers as well as new friends.
- Before your child’s first day of school, start talking to him/her about their new weekly schedule. Explain their new morning routines and show them the route they will be taking to school.
- Be prepared to stay a few extra minutes. Your child may be slow to warm up to their new environment. When leaving, let your child know who will come to pick them up. Having a drop off routine might be helpful to have for example a kiss to hold, a hand game, a picture to keep, or a transition item like a small toy or a small blanket.
- Once you do leave the classroom, hold back on being the hero and coming to the rescue. We understand that crying may happen for the first few weeks – separations are challenging. Our teachers are fully qualified and trained to handle the situation.
- What you can do instead is call and check in with your child’s classroom teacher.
- Establish a routine: Try to maintain a regular schedule so your child will know what to expect.
- When picking up your child, ask them about their day.
Returning Student:
- If your child is moving into a new classroom, start having conversations with your child a few week before the change happens. Creating a countdown calendar and every morning have your child mark off each day until the move.
- Ask your child how they feel about the new classroom change and express your own feelings to your child as well.
- Talk to the center supervisor and ask if you and your child can have a tour of the classroom and meet the new teachers before they start.
- Make a list of questions you would like to ask the new teachers.
- Plan ahead the day of the change. Your child may be slow to warm up to the new classroom and might need you to be present for a few extra minutes.
- When you pick up your child from school ask them to recall their day.
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Vernee Pulliam Davis (“Teacher Vernee”)
Master Teacher
FranDelJA Enrichment Center
Morning Drop-Off Reminder
This is a friendly reminder that we would like your child to be dropped off at the center by 9:30am. This is to enable your child to fully participate in our school program. If you are going to be late, please contact the school at (415) 822-1699, before 9:30am to let us know your estimated arrival time. Please also know that we finish our breakfast food service at 9:30am, so if you are going to be arriving after 9:30am, please make sure you have given your child something to eat prior to arriving at the center.
Also, when signing in on the iPad please sign your full name. This is a requirement for our state funding. Please do not allow your child to sign themselves in for you.
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Jeff Vessels
Family Support and Enrollment Coordinator
FranDelJA Enrichment Center
FranDelJA Reminder: Upcoming Early Day Schedule on Friday, July 26th
FranDelJA Teachers at the Citywide Festival of Learning 2024
Congratulations to our FranDelJA Teachers: Peaches Jones (Caterpillar Team), Jasmine Green and Jessica Hobson (Ladybug Team) for their outstanding representations at the Citywide Festival of Learning this year!
The Citywide Festival of Learning is an annual professional development event that brings together early educators to share innovative teaching practices through interactive presentations and posters.
Your contributions were an outstanding, thoughtful, and engaging co-facilitation of children!
Stepping up and stepping out is not always as easy as you may have initially intended, but you pressed through and shared what you have learned anyway, offering leadership to those coming up the Early Childhood Education ladder after you. Keep up the awesome innovations with children!
FranDelJA is thankful for your passion!
We hope that you will receive great feedback for the work that you have done with our children and that you will continue this level of dedication and love for the children/families that we serve.
Additional thanks:
Much respect and appreciation for Coach Shirley for innovating and teaching us all year!
Gratitude for Coach Naoko for being hands on, thoughtful with us, and so resourceful in the support. An obvious testament to the innovation of the Early Childhood Field and the power of teaching!
Spring Is in the Air!
Spring is in the air!
With the short days and rainy weather of winter, our kids weren’t the only ones begging to get out. We tend to go to work shortly after sunrise and it’s usually “dark o’clock” by the time we get home. Our family time during the week is often limited to indoor lighting until the weekend comes and weather permitting, we can try to get outside and enjoy a little daylight as a family. As parents, we know that our children are watching everything that we do, so we try to make the best of it, but even the best of parents can find themselves experiencing the “winter blues” that can accompany the decrease in serotonin and vitamin D3 levels that happens during these shorter days.
While we still have some rain in the forecasts, it’s important to make the time for a little sunshine as much as you can. Just be sure to remember the sunscreen even when it seems cloudy out.
Here are a few ideas of outdoor fun things for families with young children here in the Bay Area:
- Enjoy a family walk or bike ride and explore your neighborhood together. Try and find something new that you hadn’t noticed before!
- Have a family picnic at your neighborhood park, nearby beach, or one of these lovely scenic Bay Area spots!
- Fly a kite at the park or beach, or one of these Bay Area locations that are noted as good kite flying spots!
- Go fishing – The Bay Area has locations great for fishing with kids, even for the beginner fishermen!
- Enjoy a garden, even if it’s not yours! The Bay Area has several garden attractions that will leave you and your children in awe of nature!
- Take a hike to one of these kid friendly hiking areas that allow the family to get out and get a little exercise without traveling too far from home!
- Get your hands dirty amidst a naturally beautiful shoreline at Crab Cove Beach!
- Fairy Hunt – Peek your child’s imaginations with a magical fairy hunt.
Even on rainy days, don’t let the weather keep you down as the Bay Area offers exciting ways to enjoy the rain together as families!
My New View
Leaving behind the old Candlestick park empty lot view, for this much busier one.
Thank God for a new building fitted with indoor heat in my office (my old heater competed with the classroom heaters, and blew cold air when the kids needed heat in the rooms), distance from my office to the bathrooms (so I will no longer hear flushes all day long), and for the opportunity to continue to create with children.
I am looking forward to the love and never-ending hope and faith in our next generation that keeps me watching them grow, being led by their thoughts, and helping them overcome challenges to build their resilience and become a part of their community.
God has the wheel and is the best leader!
Happy New Year everyone! May you all be safe, healthy, and happy!
Dianne A.
FranDelJA Site Supervisor – Programs