With another summer break on the horizon, it’s time for parents and guardians to begin thinking about summertime care for their children. But does the level and type of care differ at child care centers between the school year months and summer months? If so, in what ways, and how can you as a parent or guardian ensure that your child receives the best care year round?
School-Year Care
During the school year, quality daycares and child care centers focus on building skills and knowledge for preschool children. Programs that have curricula designed around early childhood development milestones and academic themes are ideal and will provide the richest learning experience for children. In addition, these programs will prepare preschoolers to enter kindergarten at an above-average level, setting them up for academic success.
In addition, child care during the school year can include a variety of activities and extracurriculars that reinforce childhood learning, such as learning a new language, watching a scientist perform age-appropriate scientific experiments, and more.
Summer Camp Care
School’s out! But that doesn’t mean days should be spent in front of the television. Unfortunately, for many parents in America, finding suitable summertime child care isn’t so much about ensuring their child has an enriching and engaging care experience, but is more about where the child is safest during the day. As a result, the risk of summer learning loss—where a child can lose the knowledge and skills they’ve gained over the summer months—becomes a very real issue.
But to ensure the very best care for your little one, seek a day camp or summer camp care program that has a focus on bolstering your child’s knowledge and skills learned during the school year, and couples that with enriching activities that encourage overall growth. In a program like this, your child will have a better chance of avoiding summer learning loss and be all the more prepared for the next learning and academic milestones.
What to Look for in a Summer Camp Care Program
So what should you look for when choosing a summer camp care program for your child? For one, children need to continue to be engaged with learning opportunities throughout the summer months. One surefire way to achieve this is to select a summer care program that encourages reading and offers support with appropriate reading instruction.
But summer camp should also engage children in ways that pique and foster the growth of their unique interests. For example, your child may have interests that lie outside of a specific school subject or activity, and summer camp can be the perfect time to explore them. Programs that involve music, art, food and cooking, dance, foreign language learning, and others are excellent options.
Programs with these types of offerings are essential in helping young children continue to develop key skills and concepts they’ve been working on throughout the regular school year.
Summer Camp and Care at Cresthill Academy
Cresthill Academy is New Jersey’s premier daycare and child care center, and just because summertime rolls around, we don’t stop the fun and learning. In fact, our Summer Camp program is an extension of our popular enrichment program and takes an exciting approach to engage young children of every age. We schedule off-site excursions and on-site visitors, always making safety a priority and keeping the health and wellbeing of your children and our staff a priority. In past Summer Camp sessions, our young campers have enjoyed cooking demonstrations, talked to scientists and artists, been wowed by magicians, and enjoyed some special time with animals in petting zoos. And what summer camp program would be complete without delicious visits from banana ice cream trucks!
The early childhood experts at Cresthill Academy are focused on providing exceptional care and education to all of our enrolled children, whether school’s in session or on break for summer! To learn more about us, contact Cresthill Academy today and schedule a tour. We offer a variety of day care programs for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners with locations in Harrison, Hoboken Uptown, Hoboken Downtown, East Hanover, and Lyndhurst, New Jersey.