We care about your child's HEALTH, SAFETY, and NUTRITION

Garden of Blessings Child Care cares about your child’s health, safety, and nutrition. For this reason we teach hygiene skills to reduce the spread of contagious illnesses. Research shows that healthy children are better learners. We discover that germs are what make us sick and that we need to be good germ fighters to stay healthy. In order to take care of ourselves, we need to be good germ fighters and do things to keep viruses and bacteria from attacking us. One way we teach children to take care of themselves from viruses and bacteria is teaching proper hand washing techniques. We wash our hands various times throughout the day. For example, when we come in from outside we go into the dinning room to wash our hands. After potty we will wash our hands in the bathroom. Before and after eating we will wash our hands. When we wash our hands we 1st wet our hands, 2nd put soap on our hands, 3rd rub and scrub our hands and wrist. It is recommended that you wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. This is a perfect opportunity to sing the ABC song. We then rinse our hands until all the soap is removed. We take a paper towel, dry our hands, use the towel to turn the water off and then throw it into the trash.

Garden of Blessings takes many precautions necessary to ensure that illness and communicable diseases are kept to a minimum within our home. However, sickness does happen and is to be expected. Therefore, the safety of all the children within our care is planned for and guidelines are in place. Each child will be observed daily for illness. Children are considered ill when there is a fever in excess of 100.4 degrees, vomiting, excessive diarrhea, or any potentially contagious disorder (www.health.state.nm.us). When a child becomes ill during his or her day, parents will be notified and expected to pick up their child as soon as possible. The child will be kept isolated from the others as much as possible to try to prevent the spreading of the illness. If a contagious disorder has been diagnosed a plan based on the State of NM (www.health.state.nm.us) will be discussed with parents/gardians as to when the child will be able to return to class.

Research shows that children who eat good nutritional meals have more energy, can think clearer, and can focus better in order to learn effectively. Garden of Blessings provides an environment that allows children to be a part their nutritional choices. Eating healthy starts way before food is set before a child to eat. We have field trips to the farmers market and explore various selections of fruits and vegetables. Children are welcome to choose what they would like to bring into the kitchen. Then children are invited into the kitchen to be a part of food preparations. We encourage ownership in making a healthy meal by allowing children to wash, cut, pour, stir, peel, and serve the food to one another. We enjoy the social encounter of sitting down together to enjoy these choices. We encourage the children to discover the wonders of various tastes and textures that foods have to offer by encouraging them to discuss their experiences. Starting in the spring of every year we plan a garden. The children learn where some of their food comes from. They discover the importance of caring for the garden by watering the plants. They take pride in pulling weeds to prevent them from stealing water and nutrients from their plants.

Garden of Blessings welcomes the involvement and support of parents/guardians concerning their child’s health, safety, and nutritional well being. There are some simple things that can be done at home to show that involvement. One is encouraging the child to show what the steps are for good hand washing. Because sickness happens we suggest parents/guardians to consider establishing a family plan for when their child is sick. Whether that is setting aside sick time from work or established other adults within the child’s life to care for the child. Another suggestion would be to evolve their child in the grocery shopping and talk about the various foods served at the table and how they are nutritious.