First 4 Daycare

Doron the magican entertaining the children at our 12th birthday celebration

🪱 DEWORMING: DO OUR KIDS REALLY NEED IT?

It’s one of the most common questions parents ask… and the answer might surprise you.

Deworming isn’t just something we do “just in case”, it actually plays an important role in your child’s health, especially in growing bodies.

👶 Why is deworming important?
Worm infections can:
• Affect your child’s growth
• Cause tummy pain, bloating, or diarrhoea
• Lead to poor appetite
• Contribute to iron deficiency (and even anaemia)
• Impact concentration and energy levels

🦠 How do children get worms?
It’s easier than you think!
• Playing in soil or sand
• Not washing hands properly
• Nail biting or thumb sucking
• Sharing contaminated toys with other kids
• Eating undercooked meat , especially pork

💊 How often should you deworm?
In most cases, we recommend every 6 months, but this can vary depending on your child’s symptoms and environment. Start at 12 months of age generally.

⚠️ Signs your child might have worms:
• Itchy bottom (especially at night)
• Restless sleep
• Unexplained tummy issues
• Loss of appetite
• Grinding teeth

👨‍⚕️ Important:
Always use the correct medication and dosage for your child’s age, chat to your doctor or pharmacist if you’re unsure.

💛 A simple step like deworming can make a big difference in your child’s overall wellbeing.

📩 If you’re unsure when your child was last dewormed, feel free to reach out, we’re here to help!

Dr Willem Smit
Paediatrician

💧 Swimming is about so much more than safety for toddlers.

When little ones move through water, their brains are working hard—processing balance, breathing, sound, pressure, and movement all at once. This helps strengthen brain connections, improve coordination, and support emotional regulation.

Water also gives gentle resistance, helping muscles and joints learn control without strain. That’s why many toddlers seem calmer, more focused, and better regulated after swimming.

Early swimming can support:
• Motor coordination and body awareness
• Confidence with movement
• Attention, learning, and problem-solving skills
• Natural safety awareness and calm responses in water

At this age, swimming isn’t about performance—it’s about building regulation, coordination, and trust in the body.

When children feel safe while they move, they learn that calm and challenge can exist together. 💙

When We Taught Children How to Rest — And Then Forgot Why It Mattered

In the 1950s, there was a moment in every kindergarten day so predictable you could set your watch by it.

After the singing.
After the crayons worn down to stubs.
After circle time and sticky fingers from graham crackers and small cardboard milk boxes—

The lights would dim.

A record would settle onto a turntable.
The needle would crackle, then find its groove.
Something soft would fill the room. Something slow. Something kind.

And twenty little bodies would stretch out on striped mats or faded rugs. Shoes tucked under cots. Blankets—frayed, thumb-worn, familiar—pulled up to chins. A room full of children learning, together, how to exhale.

Naptime.

For millions of children growing up in the 1950s, ’60s, and early ’70s, this ritual was as essential to kindergarten as finger paint and the alphabet. It wasn’t filler. It wasn’t babysitting.

It was the lesson.

Stillness Was Once Part of the Curriculum

Educators believed something we’ve slowly forgotten:
young children need quiet.

Not just sleep—but stillness.
A pause where feelings could settle.
A space where overstimulated minds could wander safely.
A reset before the afternoon rush of blocks, numbers, and playground dust.

The science agreed. Children’s brains and nervous systems were still under construction. Rest wasn’t a reward. It wasn’t optional.

It was developmental maintenance.

Teachers became guardians of calm. Soft voices. Slow footsteps between rows of breathing bodies. A whispered story read to no one and everyone. A hand smoothing a blanket. A steady presence in low light.

A lighthouse.

The Quiet That Shaped Us

Some children slept—deep, open-mouthed sleep—exhausted by morning play and the overwhelming newness of school.

Others didn’t.

They stared at the ceiling.
Counted tiles.
Watched dust motes dance in a thin blade of sunlight slipping through the curtains.

They drifted into that rare kind of daydreaming that only happens when you’re five—when time is wide and nobody is rushing you to become something yet.

Even the kids who hated naptime learned something important.

That sometimes you have to be still, even when you don’t want to be.
That rest is not the opposite of learning.
It’s part of the work.

For many children, it was the only stillness in an otherwise loud, busy day. A quiet bridge between lunchboxes and hopscotch. Between learning letters and learning how to share.

Then We Decided to Hurry

By the 1970s and ’80s, something shifted.

Kindergarten stopped being about socialization and curiosity and started being about readiness.
Pre-reading. Early math. Staying on track. Getting ahead.

Schedules tightened. Testing crept younger. Parents worried about falling behind before childhood had even properly begun.

Naptime began to feel inefficient.
Unproductive.
A luxury we could no longer afford.

So the mats were rolled up.
The record players disappeared.
Overhead projectors replaced them. Then computers. Then tablets.

By the 1990s, naptime was mostly gone from public kindergarten classrooms—surviving only in preschools and full-day programs for very young children.

A Day With No Pause

Today’s kindergarteners move from reading groups to math centers to screens to lunch to more instruction. Recess—if they get it—is brief. Quiet is rare.

There is no dimming of lights.
No permission to close your eyes.
No collective exhale.

And we act surprised when childhood anxiety soars.

What We Remember — And What We Lost

Those who lived it still remember:

The rows of striped mats.
The scratch of a needle finding vinyl.
The smell of that one blanket that probably only got washed twice a year.
The relief of being told it was okay—expected, even—to stop trying so hard.

Naptime wasn’t just about sleep.

It taught us that rest has value.
That quiet has purpose.
That you don’t need to be productive every minute to be worthy.

It was a lesson we didn’t realize we were learning—until we grew up in a world that never stops and makes us feel guilty for needing to pause.

Maybe That’s the Lesson Worth Remembering

To parents: your kids likely don’t have this anymore—and they’re expected to perform at full speed all day long.

To teachers fighting to protect play and rest: you’re not being soft. You’re honoring what science has always known.

To anyone who feels ashamed for needing rest: we used to teach five-year-olds that stopping was part of learning.

And to those who say childhood is “too easy” now—today’s kindergarteners have more structured academic time than third-graders did in the 1950s.

We didn’t make childhood harder because it was necessary.

We made it harder because we forgot how to slow down.

We once dimmed the lights, put on a record, and gave twenty small people permission to just… be.

Maybe it’s time we remembered how.

Enjoy every precious moment of their joy today!

Wishing all our families and staff a blessed Christmas.

Well done, only 4 gold certificates issued in a class of 24

The parents of our past learners have been very proud to share the accolades their children have achieved. We have learners in Hurlyvale Primary, Dunvegan Primary, Founder's Hill, Assumption Convent, Our Lady of Lebanon, Leeuwenhof Akademie, St Catherine's school. Each child has done consistently well achieving top awards. We are very proud of the foundation our school has laid for these learners.

Full academic colours! Well done!

Awards for public speaking, show and tell really pays off!

More and more Accolades!

And the Accolades keep on coming! So very proud to offer a solid foundation to our learners.