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One of the best ways for you and your child to connect with Horizon Education Centers is by attending Family Night.
Family nights are designed to not only provide you with the opportunity to meet your child’s teacher, but it also gives you the chance to see what your child's daily routine will be like, meet your child's friends and more.
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Topics: Child Care, Preschool, Toddler Care
What is universal pre-k?
If you aren’t sure, you’re not alone. Although it’s widely in use in numerous other countries, only a few states in the United States offer it right now — and the short answer is that it’s publicly funded, high-quality preschool that is made available to all children, regardless of family income. Right now, many states have pre-k programs that are government-funded, but they’re based on income — and so universal pre-k would expand what’s now available.
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Topics: Preschool
From smartphones to tablets and from laptop and desktop computers, gaming systems, and television sets, we’re surrounded daily by screens. Fortunately, these devices offer plenty of benefits. They’re a way to connect with other people, learn new information, and be entertained.From smartphones to tablets and from laptop and desktop computers, gaming systems, and television sets, we’re surrounded daily by screens. Fortunately, these devices offer plenty of benefits. They’re a way to connect with other people, learn new information, and be entertained.
But what’s the ideal amount of screen time for preschoolers? How much is too much, preventing these young children from engaging in physical activity that helps to keep them healthy?
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Topics: Preschool
During the wintertime, preschoolers can feel pretty cooped up. Because there will likely be times when outdoor activity isn’t possible during this season, it’s important to have physical indoor activities to help keep your preschoolers busy. These include ones that capitalize on gross motor skills — those activities that cause your children to use large muscles and whole-body movements.
To help, here is more information about the stages of gross motor skill development and suggestions from three websites about gross motor activities that are appropriate for your preschooler.
Topics: Activities for Children, Preschool
Early childhood education options like preschool provide a safe, nurturing, educational and social environment for children. While preschool is not required as part of your child’s education, sending them to a highly rated preschool program can have benefits that stretch far beyond the classroom. Here’s what you should know if you’re wondering: Do children really need preschool?
Topics: Preschool
“Students who attend high-quality preschool programs reap benefits that can last through school and their lives, according to a review of research.” (Learning Policy Institute, 2019)
Optimizing the size of a preschool class can play a key role in the quality of the program. That has long been true, but appropriately managing preschool class size is more important during COVID-19 than ever before to create a safe environment where children can learn, socialize and grow. In response, the state of Ohio temporarily modified the teacher-student ratio, but that has since been returned to normal.
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Topics: Preschool
After you’ve chosen the right preschool for your child, you can rest easy knowing that they will be in the hands of trained caregivers and educators. Before that day comes, though, parents can do plenty to prepare kids to enjoy and grow in the preschool environment—on Day 1 and beyond.
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Topics: Preschool
The Cleveland Clinic calls discipline a “key parenting skill” and offers five tips on how to master this skill. The first is to NOT view discipline as punishment. The first is “far more effective” than the second, but it does require more work. Disciplining kids, the article shares, involves teaching self-control and restraint whereas punishment is a “direct, pointed penalty or loss of privilege that serves as retribution.” 
Topics: Preschool
If you could do only one thing to help your child do better in school, the U.S. Department of Education says that would be the following: Encourage your child to read. When he or she learns how to read, it will help in all subject areas throughout the years of school, and also will help your child become a lifelong learner.
Encouraging your child to read comes in many forms. When a child is still a baby, it’s typically appropriate to read to him or her several times a day for a few minutes at a time. As the child ages, he or she probably will indicate when it’s time for storytime to last longer. When your child become verbal, encourage questions. Talk about the story together, and consider pausing your reading at certain points, inviting your child to predict what might happen next. When your child is ready, ask him or her to read out loud to you.
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Topics: Preschool
When your child was a baby, perhaps he or she was comforted by a pacifier, and that felt like a lifesaver. But now that he or she is an active toddler — or perhaps even preparing to enter preschool — your doctor may be telling you it’s time to give up the pacifier. For plenty of parents, that's way easier said than done, so here are tips to help make that happen.
One piece of advice from EverydayFamily.com is especially important: don’t despair. There are many strategies to try, and it’s unlikely that you’ve exhausted the possibilities. Some children actually respond best to a cold turkey approach, one where you simply remove the pacifier from your child’s reach and don’t return it. This can be challenging, early on, but usually within a week or two, your child will have adjusted.
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Topics: Preschool
