What do we celebrate in May?
Last year we talked about May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Month!
It’s really important that we educate ourselves and honor all the cultures that we are blessed to have around us. MORE importantly, we must share what we learn with our children and teach them that we change and grow our whole lives, and that learning is a huge part of that.
Check out this Award Winning Children’s Book ISLAND BORN that we would like to add to our list!
SPEAKING OF LEARNING: What Else do we celebrate in May??
MAY IS AMERICAN CHEESE MONTH!!!!
This one may seem pretty CHEESY, but if you want to get your young eater to try new foods, celebrating with a THEMED MEAL can be the ticket! You could make dips, pizzas, fondue, desserts! They could grate it into cheesy confetti and put it on tacos!
Hey… that’s an idea! Why don’t you read DRAGONS LOVE TACOS or SPACE MICE or THE GREAT CHEESE ROBBERY while you snack on cheese and crackers with a picnic!
Here are tons more CHEESE RELATED kids books to add to your bookshelf of life long favorites.
You can also try asparagus DIPPED in cheese… because May is also NATIONAL ASPARAGUS MONTH!!!
MAY IS JEWISH AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH
There are so many ways to learn about our Jewish friends, family members, and neighbors. You can find amazing events and learning opportunities here everywhere from the National Archives and National Gallery of Art to the Holocaust Museum and Library of Congress.
One of our favorite ways to teach our kids is, of course, cooking together. A full-body, multi-sense experience with quality time and learning baked right in is the perfect way to instill lifelong lessons and love for other cultures.
Here are 20 traditional recipes you can cook with your kiddos. Latkes, Chocolate Babka, Bagels and Lox, Savory Potato Knishes with Caramelized Onions, there are so many amazing foods that you can make on this list! While making these yummy treats, you can discuss the importance of these foods and what they represent to Jewish Culture.
There are also several amazing Jewish Heritage children’s books Listed Here. Some of our favorite titles include: Here is the World, Koala Challah, Lights Out Chabbat, and, and Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.
MAY IS MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH
The best part about learning and practicing Conscious Discipline for our classrooms is that we are learning so much about how to take care of our own mental and emotional health. It is important to support and honor our feelings and the feelings of our children to promote mental health!
You can practice Deep Breathing together! Diaphragmatic breathing can help bring a person into a calmer state, and more able to face friction and problem solve. We have a post about Breathing on a Tropical Island that can help you out!
You can also take the time each day to talk about all of the things you felt, good and bad, and how you got through it. Let them speak, take your turn to speak, and sit in close proximity to one another. Just knowing that our emotions are valid and supported by loved ones can be a huge boost.
We use the NINJA LIFE HACKS series in our classrooms to help explain complex feelings and emotions to our preschool and kindergarten kids. We highly recommend them all!
MAY IS NATIONAL FOSTER CARE MONTH
Families come in all shapes and sizes. What we recommend most of all is to instill this in your children. Talk about how families come in all shapes and sizes! Talk about adoption and foster children. Talk about expanded families and families with one parent and families with two mommies or two daddies.
Explain what foster care really means: There is great need for loving foster families for these children in need of stability, and that fostering is a temporary arrangement. Keep the conversation where your children can understand based on their age.
Kids Need to be Safe and The Foster Dragon are two incredible kids books that can answer a lot of questions, provide perspective, and inspire empathy in kids who may have never met a child in foster care before!
MAY IS NATIONAL BIKE MONTH
We have been using our new strider bikes out on the playground with the older preschool kids, and they could not be more thrilled! The weather is getting warmer and Reston is FULL of incredible bike trails. Take this month to turn off the tv and GO OUTSIDE to explore! Remember to go over Bike Safety with your kids, including the importance of wearing a helmet, sticking with your grownup, and keeping your listening ears on!
What other things do you all celebrate in May? How do you celebrate? Let us know in the comments!!
May is National Foster Care Month
Here at Common Ground Childcare we are dedicated to helping all children grow in a loving, nurturing environment.
Which is why we are using our voice to bring attention to National Foster Care Month. Foster care children are in more need of advocacy than ever. The Covid-19 pandemic has done a lot to shine a light on the inequalities of representation and support, especially for our minority children in the foster care system.
What can you do to help?
Educate Yourself
What is Foster Care? Why is it necessary? How can I get involved? These questions and more are answered Here.
Key Facts and Statistics
Include these key points in your messaging to demonstrate how child welfare and legal professionals can prioritize foster care as a services to families by engaging young people in all aspects of permanency planning and helpingthem maintain meaningful connections with family and other support systems while in out-of-home care.
There are over 423,000 children and youth in foster care. Over half have a case plan goal of reunification with their parents or primary caregiver.
Juvenile and family court systems can influence whether children are reunified with their families or reenter care.
Meaningful and appropriate involvement of youth in their court hearings and case planning greatly benefits all participants and leads to more favorable outcomes for families.
Competent legal representation for parents is associated with the achievement of timely reunification.
A strong support system of professionals and family can help young people address the challenges they face during their transition to adulthood. Virtual engagement tools can be used to establish and maintain that support system by enhancing connectedness for all involved.
In addition to supporting brain development, encouraging young people to be active participants in planning their own lives supports the development of leadership skills, improves self-esteem, and helps form critical social connections.
The Resources that child welfare professionals need to have access to are HERE. This site has a lot of info for adults in every level of involvement, including how to volunteer and be a personal advocate for a child in need.
A Proclamation from the White House - This is an acknowledgment that all foster care children, even ones recently aged out, need extra support. We need to do everything we can to make sure these kids don’t fall through the cracks just because they aren’t little.
Share what you have learned and how essential our impact is to foster children. Share it with friends and family, share it on social media, shed light on the inequities of our system and work to help us change it. Here’s a link to an Outreach Toolkit to show you the basics.
Donate: There are tons of non-profits all over the country that donate to help Foster Care Children in some capacity. We recommend checking Charity Navigator or doing your own research before picking one, but there are so many ways to help! For example, the Blue Ribbon Project aims to make sure foster kids are provided with a backpack full of essentials to make them more comfortable in their new homes.
Help your kids understand Foster Care
Explain to your children that Foster Care kids are just like them. Like all children, they need empathy, care, and patience while they figure out the world around them. This is always easier with books:
The Foster Dragon: A Story about Foster Care — One of the Dragon Series books that helps kids begin to understand what Foster Care is and what Foster Care Kids need!
Kids Need to be Safe: A Story about Kids in Foster Care — A children’s book for children IN the foster care system, and for kids who want to understand why the Foster Care system is so important.
Home for Awhile — A Children’s Book about Calvin, a kid in foster care who wants to feel safe in their “for awhile” home.
Love You from Right Here — Featuring a diverse representation of characters including men, women, boys, and girls, it is written from the perspective of the foster parent to the child in foster care.
No Matter What — A little squirrel’s journey to find love!
Above all, please keep abreast of the situation politically. Keep pushing for equity with your local representatives! Together, we will make a difference.
Love Love Love,
LJ and your Common Ground Family