Paticakes Pre School and Day Care

Fun day today at Paticakes! Pre St “Pati’s” Day party!

Story about Leprechauns

What If We Let Kindergarten Be Kindergarten Again?
I do not think five-year-olds should be taking standardized tests.
I do not think there should be any formal testing before they even know how to tie their shoes.

In fact, when we look at many high-performing countries around the world, formal academic testing does not begin in Kindergarten. Early years focus on development only!

What if our Kindergarten classrooms were built around:
• Play as real learning
• Projects instead of packets
• Stories instead of screens
• Outdoor time every single day
• Movement woven into the day
• Teaching kids how to handle frustration
• Teaching them how to share, speak up, and solve problems

What if we cared less about how fast they can read
and more about whether they love learning?
Here is what the research shows.

Children who build strong self-regulation early on are more likely to succeed later academically. They focus longer. They manage stress better. They bounce back from mistakes. They persist when work gets hard.

Those skills predict long-term outcomes more consistently than early decoding speed.
You can teach reading in first grade.
It is much harder to teach resilience, curiosity, and confidence once a child starts believing they are not good at school.

Five-year-olds do not need acceleration.
They need foundation.
Kindergarten should not feel like preparation for a test.
It should feel like preparation for life.
And that begins with joy, belonging, and roots deep enough to support everything they will become.

copied from a friend
FOR ALL MY CHILD CARE PROVIDERS/FRIENDS

“I Want to Be Present for the Children”

I want to be present for the children—
but the CACFP binder is open on the table,
meal counts waiting,
milk quantities measured,
signatures missing in blue ink instead of black.

I want to be present for the children—
but DHS just changed a rule,
and I am rereading policy pages
while a toddler tugs my sleeve
wanting to show me the worm he found in the garden.

I want to be present for the children—
but the food auditor is coming,
so I double-check the fridge thermometer,
recalculate grain equivalents,
and count strawberries one more time.

I want to be present for the children—
but the state just pulled funding,
and now I am recalculating tuition,
reworking budgets,
wondering how to keep my doors open
without breaking families.

I want to be present for the children—
but licensing just pulled in the driveway.
Ratios.
Training hours.
Emergency forms.
Handwashing logs.
Outdoor square footage.

I want to be present for the children—
but QRIS wants documentation,
evidence,
portfolios,
environmental rating scales,
lesson plan reflections typed and uploaded.

I want to be present for the children—
but the STARS visit is next week,
so I label shelves,
print policies,
highlight credentials
to prove what love already knows.

I want to be present for the children—
but state auditors need reports,
attendance verified by the minute,
sign-in sheets aligned with subsidy portals
that freeze without warning.

I want to be present for the children—
the babies learning to trust the world,
the two-year-old finding her voice,
the four-year-old asking why the leaves fall.

I want to sit in the grass
and listen to their stories.
I want to rock the fussy infant
without glancing at the clock.
I want to kneel eye-to-eye
and marvel at their questions.

But instead,
I document.

I file.

I upload.

I calculate.

I prove.

And somewhere in all the oversight,
all the compliance,
all the monitoring and measuring—

they forget.

They forget
that behind every binder
is a provider holding a baby.

Behind every spreadsheet
is someone wiping tears.

Behind every regulation
is a child who just wants
connection.

We are not factories.
We are not numbers.
We are not portals.

We are caregivers.
Teachers.
Nurturers.
Safe places.

And above all—

We are trying
to be present
for the children.

Come sport EPHA at Old Chicago! It’s Ugly Sweater Contest and the boxes are all looking good!!

Pilgrim Peggy came to visit today!

Storytime!