My oldest son is in kindy. He loves it and his teacher seems nice. We're vegetarian, so on the food allergy card I indicated that and also let her know that includes no marshmallows (gelatin) and she did well on rice krispy treat snack and gave him something else. All the parents have to provide enough individually packaged snacks for the class. Most of the afternoon snacks are gummy fruit snacks, oreo cookies, chocolate chip cookies, with the occasional cheez it cracker stuck in there. It's not my preference, but okay.
They have a behavior system and when the class is doing well, they can earn stars in the "star jar". When there are 24 stars (number of kids in class), the class gets a star jar party. For the first one, the teacher made puppy chow (the chocolate chip/peanut butter/powdered sugar cereal thing). My son told me yesterday that they earned their last star for the star jar party so they were having the party on Monday and the teacher is making frosted cupcakes. He said they couldn't do it tomorrow (today) because they were doing something else. I asked him what and he said they're making root beer floats. His teacher said she'll keep the ice cream in the cafeteria freezer and they'll make them in the afternoon. I asked him what the occasion was and he said none, his teacher just asked everyone if they thought it would be fun. My son has never had soda. I'm annoyed because while we do have treats, we bake them ourselves and try to make them a bit more healthy (vegan baking, wheat flour, less sugar, etc). If he's going to have treats, I'd prefer to be the one to give them. I feel strange asking for ds to be left out though because even though he's never had a root beer float, he's totally caught up in the excitement and can't wait. There's so much talk about helping kids make healthy choices now while they're young to hopefully avoid struggles later, yet they're being given crap several times a week. There will be 24 cupcake/cookie days for birthdays, plus holiday parties. It just all adds up to a lot of junk. I'm not sure what to do or how (or if) I should approach the teacher. I don't really feel like I'm over-reacting because even dh and my best girlfriend are pretty shocked and they're usually the ones telling me something isn't that big of a deal and it will be fine. At the parents meeting night, the teacher did say that she has a sweet tooth and doesn't limit snacks that parents can bring in like some teachers, but come on! I think the extra sugary stuff probably has a lot to do with the sometimes out of control behaviour he has when he gets home. He isn't like that on days off of school or on the days they have cheese crackers and no extra sugary treats.
My other thing is about movies. Apparently they have movie day on Monday and Friday afternoon. It's on their regular schedule. It's about an hour that they watch a video. My problem here is that we don't watch a ton of tv, even less on school days. The superintendent of the schools even does a radio commercial here about healthy food choices and limiting screen time to no more than one hour a day during the school week. Then the teachers go and use up that entire hour. I remember seeing movies in school but it was like once in every 9 week period, not twice a week.
The last thing, and maybe I'm just too sensitive about it, is that when I picked him up last Friday, she stood right behind my son and told me they did an informal speech eval of all the kids and they were going to have him looked at further. I was surprised because he did speech therapy for two years and finished just about a year ago with articulation well beyond his calendar age. She said it wasn't artic, but that he says "um" and "uh" and "well" and takes forever to get a story out. It just seems weird to me to say that in front of the kid. He does take a long time, but his speech therapist said she believed it was because he had so much going on in his head and his brain was processing faster than his mouth could speak. He doesn't do it all the time in everyday speaking. It just seemed like something that should have been done by note home or an email.
Would anyone approach the teacher about anything (especially the food) or am I over-reacting? If you would approach, do you have any good ideas for not coming off as always complaining or being too critical of her?
They have a behavior system and when the class is doing well, they can earn stars in the "star jar". When there are 24 stars (number of kids in class), the class gets a star jar party. For the first one, the teacher made puppy chow (the chocolate chip/peanut butter/powdered sugar cereal thing). My son told me yesterday that they earned their last star for the star jar party so they were having the party on Monday and the teacher is making frosted cupcakes. He said they couldn't do it tomorrow (today) because they were doing something else. I asked him what and he said they're making root beer floats. His teacher said she'll keep the ice cream in the cafeteria freezer and they'll make them in the afternoon. I asked him what the occasion was and he said none, his teacher just asked everyone if they thought it would be fun. My son has never had soda. I'm annoyed because while we do have treats, we bake them ourselves and try to make them a bit more healthy (vegan baking, wheat flour, less sugar, etc). If he's going to have treats, I'd prefer to be the one to give them. I feel strange asking for ds to be left out though because even though he's never had a root beer float, he's totally caught up in the excitement and can't wait. There's so much talk about helping kids make healthy choices now while they're young to hopefully avoid struggles later, yet they're being given crap several times a week. There will be 24 cupcake/cookie days for birthdays, plus holiday parties. It just all adds up to a lot of junk. I'm not sure what to do or how (or if) I should approach the teacher. I don't really feel like I'm over-reacting because even dh and my best girlfriend are pretty shocked and they're usually the ones telling me something isn't that big of a deal and it will be fine. At the parents meeting night, the teacher did say that she has a sweet tooth and doesn't limit snacks that parents can bring in like some teachers, but come on! I think the extra sugary stuff probably has a lot to do with the sometimes out of control behaviour he has when he gets home. He isn't like that on days off of school or on the days they have cheese crackers and no extra sugary treats.
My other thing is about movies. Apparently they have movie day on Monday and Friday afternoon. It's on their regular schedule. It's about an hour that they watch a video. My problem here is that we don't watch a ton of tv, even less on school days. The superintendent of the schools even does a radio commercial here about healthy food choices and limiting screen time to no more than one hour a day during the school week. Then the teachers go and use up that entire hour. I remember seeing movies in school but it was like once in every 9 week period, not twice a week.
The last thing, and maybe I'm just too sensitive about it, is that when I picked him up last Friday, she stood right behind my son and told me they did an informal speech eval of all the kids and they were going to have him looked at further. I was surprised because he did speech therapy for two years and finished just about a year ago with articulation well beyond his calendar age. She said it wasn't artic, but that he says "um" and "uh" and "well" and takes forever to get a story out. It just seems weird to me to say that in front of the kid. He does take a long time, but his speech therapist said she believed it was because he had so much going on in his head and his brain was processing faster than his mouth could speak. He doesn't do it all the time in everyday speaking. It just seemed like something that should have been done by note home or an email.
Would anyone approach the teacher about anything (especially the food) or am I over-reacting? If you would approach, do you have any good ideas for not coming off as always complaining or being too critical of her?
The teacher isn't the one out there, they have parents that work at the school over lunch who are the supervisors. I think I'll start the letter out asking if she can mention the woodchip incidents to the supervisors so they can keep an eye on things, and end the letter with "Also, ds mentioned that you'll all be having root beer floats today. He doesn't drink soda, so if he can have just the ice cream, that would be great." I'm not sure if I should address the general suckiness of snacks in the same letter or not.
Some people lose patience (although most people are patient with him) but I'm just so used to it being his style.
I hope this helps and good luck. I'd be interested to hear what happens with these issues.
