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Northfield
Daycare Center FAQ
What
are your hours?
NDC is open daily from 7:30 am until 5:30 pm Monday through Friday all
year except for holidays. You can bring your child or pick her or him
up at anytime during the day. Just remember, your child's friends will
be eagerly awaiting their arrival to get ready to play.
What is a typical day like?
The day starts with chatting with a teacher and welcoming friends and
some drawing and small toy play. The children will then, usually
without much direction, go on to play where they choose to play: in the
block room, the doll house, the hide out, engage in dress-up play or
quietly read a book or help the teacher prepare a snack. One teacher
will initiate an art project while one of our Carleton student workers
will prepare a mid morning snack. We will have a short group time
before we get dressed to go outside (which we'll do almost ALL days of
the year). After lunch (prepared in our kitchen from scratch) the
younger children, and all who wish to, take a short nap, while one
teacher takes the rising kindergartners for a walk in the neighborhood
which includes downtown Northfield and the Carleton campus. Often
parents will join their child to celebrate his or her birthday with
treats and a singing. In the afternoon the morning more or less repeats
itself, with the children often continuing the game and free play they
got started in the morning, or sometimes even days ago. They develop an
amazing attention span sometimes and their make-believe can become
quite intricate and elaborate and characters come and go. We couldn't
make it up for them! Most days, parents arrive much too early to take
their child home in the mind of their friends.
Is there TV?
Northfield Daycare has been in operation for many decades without any
TV's, computers, or other electronic games. They do not fit our
philosophy of free and make-believe play, problem solving, and getting
along with your friends (and it keeps the electricity bill low). Why
watch "The Land of Make-Believe" on TV if you could be right in the
middle of such a land, right here at Daycare and make up your own
story? We guide the children in wondering about the world, social and
natural, that they see and experience every day themselves. We
discourage families from bringing toys from home, other than a small
nap toy. We have plenty of toys and we are proud that we maintain our
toys to serve many generations of kids, as does our furniture, pots and
pans in the kitchen, etc.
Can you explain the focus on play rather than
learning basic math, Spanish, etc?
We believe that a young child's job is to play. There is no proof that
a child who can read at age 4 will enjoy reading at age 17, nor that a
child who can do basic arithmetic at age 5 will excel in calculus in
college. Children are generalists in their curiosity and interests and
develop at a different pace from each other; none of this is an
indication of their intelligence or joy of learning in later years. We
recognize that and allow them to take the initiative and we avoid any
formal instruction. Children who try hard to color between the lines in
a coloring book, may loose interest in expressing in drawings how they
felt when their mom took them to the pool or when their sister was mad
at them. We encourage children to draw and tell their own stories (and
soon enough they will learn to write these down), to take worms apart
in the play ground, to figure out which way water flows that is spilled
from the water table, or to marvel at the flowers in the yard that
weren't there a week ago (let alone the bumble bees) - it is that type
of learning and discovery that has turned generations of Daycare kids
into engaged learners throughout their school and college years. When a
child is ready to write their name, not only will the teachers help,
but also many of the older friends, who learned from their friends the
year before.
Click here
for an article that talks about the many benefits of playtime.
Are there some parents I could talk to about
the daycare?
Northfield Daycare parents past and present are happy to share their
experiences with the Daycare. Feel free to contact NDC for the names
and contact information of the parents.
What food is offered during snack and lunch?
All food is prepared at the Daycare and our food is purchased locally.
All meals meet the standards of the Minnesota Department of Health and
go well beyond that by using fresh fruit and vegetables whenever
possible. We can meet most children's dietary requirements with the
food we serve on site and we will work with you if you have special
needs or concerns. We provide a hot lunch in addition to morning and
afternoon snacks. And often parents will celebrate their child's
birthday with treats at lunch.
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