**NEED TO KNOW INFO**
Communication-I'm always up to chat about anything, but please respect our family time, as well. Please, no texts or phone calls between 10 pm and 5 am. Of course, if it is an emergency or dire situation, do get ahold of me. But if it can wait until morning, I would greatly appreciate it! My cell phone is my alarm clock, so midnight texts wake both Heath and I up. 😕
Fees-all payments are due at morning drop off time on the date due. If your payment date falls on a weekend/holiday/vacation day, please leave your post dated payments BEFORE their due date. If paying by check, please make checks payable to Jaime Allard. If paying by Venmo (@Jaime-Allard), please send your payment at least one day before it's due date to accommodate processing time.
Daily Blog-don't forget to check our daily blog consistently. This is where I post information for the upcoming days and weeks and share all about our daily events! I start each blog with any reminders for the upcoming days.
Show and Tell-with preschool being moved to Thursday/Friday this year, we are CHANGING our Show and Tell day to WEDNESDAYS. The themes for each Wednesday's sharing day will be on the calendar. Please, to help with COVID-19, any item that comes from home, needs to be WASHABLE. It is best to keep stuffed animals, books, etc. at home during this time. I will be disinfecting items upon entry. Remember, just ONE item per child (it’s hard enough to keep track of just one toy per child)!😉
Pick Up Times-please remember that closing time is 5:00 PM. You should be at the house and picking up your child by 5:00 pm. I've had some parents pulling in the driveway after 5:00 a lot lately, so please be sure you are promptly picking your children up on time. There are many times our family is leaving as soon as daycare closes for evening activities, so PLEASE respect my working hours.
Sick Policy- Just as a reminder, here is our Sickness Policy here at Lil' Peeps~
*WITH INFLUENZA STILL RUNNING FAIRLY STRONG IN THE AREA, I WILL NOT ALLOW CHILDREN TO ATTEND CHILDCARE IF THEY ARE TAKING PAIN RELIEVERS FOR ANY SYMPTOMS. ALL CHILDREN NEED TO BE FREE OF PAIN RELIEVERS TO ATTEND CHILDCARE AT THIS TIME OF YEAR.
*The health and well-being of all of the children at Lil' Peeps is very important to me. It is for the protection of the children that I MUST insist on STRICT ADHERENCE to our health policy. Your child may NOT attend daycare if he/she is currently displaying any of the following symptoms:
1) Temperature above 100 degrees (24 hours fever free before returning to daycare WITHOUT the use of fever reducing medications)
2) Severe coughing
3) Diarrhea (keep home 24 hours after the LAST occurrence)
4) Vomiting (keep home 24 hours after the LAST occurrence)
5) Eye or nose drainage or discharge that is constant and or discolored
6) Severe sore throat
7) Skin rash (undiagnosed or contagious)
I will notify you if your child becomes ill and displays any of the above mentioned symptoms while in my care. Your child must then be picked up within the hour in order to minimize the exposure to other children.
COVID-19-as stated earlier, no parents shall enter childcare. Upon entry, I will be taking temperatures, sanitizing hands and helping kids start their day. At pick up time, please wait outside for your child to come to you. I will assist them in getting ready and getting their mailbox items and they will come out to you when they are ready. If any person in your family is showing symptoms of COVID-19, please self quarantine until it is safe to return. If anyone in your family has been tested, please self quarantine until results are negative or if positive, until CDC recommends returning to daycare/school/work without any symptoms.
Back Up Cubbies-back up cubbies need to always have a weather appropriate change of clothes in them (so spring and fall in Iowa means multiple outfits to cover our crazy weather)! I'll be going through back up cubbies the first week of November and sending home notes of any items needed at daycare. Please, if you receive a note, bring in your child's items as soon as possible, so that they are ready for anything the weather may throw our way.
Preschool-FINALLY! Preschool will be starting back up-with several changes! Maddox and Bennett will start preschool on Friday, Oct. 2nd. They will be going every Thursday and Friday. Preschool is from 8:30-11:30. ALL FAMILIES need to arrive by 7:45 on PRESCHOOL DAYS, so I have time to assist all in bathroom duties, getting ready for school and loading up into the vehicle so that we can leave by 8 AM for preschool. PLEASE make sure you arrive by 7:45 on Thursdays and Fridays starting in October.
Schedule Reminders-Please remember that per the contract, each family is allotted 14 days of vacation/personal time off. Half pay will be credited towards these days as long as a full 2 week notice has been given. If a full two week notice isn't given, regular payment is due. If your family uses all 14 days, regular payment will be paid for any days taken off over the 14 day limit. Sick days are not credited, full payment is due on sick days. If your schedule allows for swapping days out within the month, I will allow that with no problem, as long as I am available to watch your child on the day you want to swap out.
November Birthdays-We do have TWO birthdays in November, but I forgot to add them to the calendar. Heath turns 45 on November 13th and Luke turns 9 on November 18th! Happy Birthday to two of our crazy boys in the house!
Driver's Ed-we are working on driver number 2 in our house! Tori has been doing her online driver's ed course, but starting this weekend, the driving starts for her. We don't have her schedule yet, but we may be driving her up to Casey's (in Ely) to meet her instructor for her driving days. It will be a quick drop off, so I don't think it should cause too many issues with parent pick ups. I will let you know on the daily blog each day if we are going to be taking her to her driving lesson.
Stair Construction-if you have dropped off, you have seen our stack of decking boards. The plan is for Heath to get off work early on Friday, November 6th and come home to start a weekend project of rebuilding our retaining wall stairs. If you have seen how the stairs are built, this isn't going to be an easy task, so bear with us as we work through this construction project (feel free to use the hill to come up and around the stairs at any time.
Annual Stone Soup Day-Since 2004, we have celebrated Thanksgiving by having a STONE SOUP DAY. Our Stone Soup Day will be on Tuesday, November 24th. I will have a sign up posted soon, about items to bring for this day (be on the lookout).
Winter Sports-our kiddos are both done with XC, thank you for being flexible this fall with the ever changing schedule for XC while they muddled through with Covid. The boys finished 7th at State and the girls finished 9th! PXC Strong. Now, we are into Winter Sports. Tori retired from Gymnastics last year, but she is still planning to move forward with Archery. Harrison is trying something new and going out for Swimming. I haven't received any schedules for either sport yet, but I am positive Archery shouldn't interfere with daycare at all (most tournaments are on the weekends). As for swimming, I have NO idea how that works, besides that Harrison will be swimming for Jefferson High School (if he doesn't drown....lol-kidding, kind of! I love that he wants to try this, but even he says he isn't a swimmer, just wants to try something different and stay in shape for the track season). On top of Swimming, Harrison is in Show Choir. So far, this is pretty much on the back burner due to Covid, but he is still rehearsing every week. We HOPE we will get to see him perform at least ONCE this year, but so far, a lot has been knocked off of the Show Choir calendar. Stay tuned for schedule adjustments if needed for the upcoming winter months.
Parent's Night Out-every year, I like to offer my daycare families some TIME to either have to themselves or a chance to get some holiday shopping done. Right now, I am still looking at my calendar to see what I can offer. I may be pretty limited on what I can offer to all of you this year, simply because our little library is taking up a lot of my evenings right now, as we try to get ready to expand/build new for Ely. Be on the lookout for some PNO events if I can squeeze them into the calendar.