Where to begin…

My oldest daughter went away to science camp at Lake Arrowhead for four nights with all of the sixth graders at her elementary school. (This is a story for another time, since it was a life-changing experience for an 11 year old who does not like to sleep away from home – let alone four nights with no phone, email or other form of communication.) Well…she survived.

The students returned on a Friday, and by Sunday night she had 103.7 fever and total body aches. I called her school Monday morning to let them know she would not be coming in that day; within an hour, I had received several phone calls notifying me that “so and so” had H1N1 and so did “you know who”…The long and short of it was that about 55 out 84 sixth graders were out ill with high fevers! I took her into the doctor and they were pretty convinced that she had H1N1, as well, since she showed every symptom aside from vomiting.

After going through my list of questions about what this meant for the rest of our family, and what precautions we need to take, a nurse popped her head in and reported that, luckily, a nose swab indicated that my oldest did not in fact have H1N1, but rather a cold virus. I wish we felt so lucky, but she was the sickest she had ever been – no energy, severe body aches, high fevers that needed to be managed by alternating Tylenol and Motrin, coughing, runny runny nose, headaches, and so forth.

We were managing her illness and feeling a little bit better, until I was awakened Wednesday morning at 1:20 a.m. to one of my four year olds reporting an awful headache. Upon touch, I knew she was burning up. Confirmed: 104.8 degree fever (the highest I have witnessed as a mother)! Another one down…same illness management techniques applied, but now I needed to document everything so I would remember who had what temp, at what time and what medicine I administered.

Then, Thursday morning my other four year old woke us up in the middle of the night with an equally burning body, and a fever of 104.7. Are you kidding me? Three down, and three of us trying to stay healthy and maintain some sense of normalcy.

Many of you already know, but when children are sick, the mother’s day is shot. Her schedule is the first to go, and whatever she needed to have done takes the backseat; not to mention the germ phobia that sets in! My kitchen counter displayed every antibacterial concoction made: cans of Lysol, antibacterial wipes, hand sanitizer, tissues, antibacterial soap. Think it’s funny? You should have seen the other counter: a notepad that looks like a switchboard operator’s notes, listing name of child, day, time, temperature and medicines given, along with an ear thermometer, Motrin, Tylenol, teas, special honey (that’s supposed to be magical)…

Move to Saturday: fevers are consistently high. On Halloween, I might add.

“Guess what kids? Happy Halloween—I’m sorry you don’t get to go trick or treating!”

By this point, we had been in the house for six days trying to get better. It was time to get out. We went for a drive up the coast, which did wonders! The fresh air and beautiful sight of the ocean and beaches was much needed. But just as we arrived home, my husband said, “I’m freezing.” Next thing I knew, he had on his ski cap, flannel jammies and socks. Confirmed: 103 fever! Another one down.

Halloween evening was uneventful. I had cooked quite a bit since I was a “shut in” all week: homemade chicken noodle soup, pumpkin soup and chili with all of the toppings freshly chopped. Too bad no one was that hungry! Saturday, sick; Sunday sick. Sunday night, those fevers that had gone away came back! AGGGGHHH! (Re-enter mother’s fear!)

Monday morning: four family members are now sick and it’s been eight days (excuse me while I go into my bathroom for a moment, lock the door, sit down and CRY—yes, cry, for about 10 minutes!). I had reached my limit.

That ten minutes provide enough rejuvenation, though, to take the twins to the doctor to learn that they had developed a secondary infection; both had ear infections. My husband went off to the doctor and was put on Tamiflu. (Did I mention that husbands are the worst when it comes to managing their own illnesses and containing their own germs? That would make for a good future post as well.)

My husband has been forced to stay in the bedroom with all of his necessary supplies, every window open and, of course, hand sanitizer and Lysol! He should be returning to work tomorrow. My sixth grade daughter is already on the mend and off to school today. The twins will return to school tomorrow. And then…is it true? Will this mother’s schedule return back to normal?

I can only hope, but I’m reminded to “expect the best; prepare for the worst.” This I shall do as my nine year old and I have yet to be sick.

Last week I saw a preview of the site, which will allow any teacher of the Pre K Scholars program to have his or her own personal profile page with details about classes and location. (As an added bonus, Pre K Scholars teachers will benefit from all of our marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts!)

Honestly, the new website is bigger and better than I ever thought possible. I am not a fan of change, so I was quite anxious to preview the site—I was worried that I would be disappointed by the changes merely because they are different from the existing site, which I happen to love. Surprisingly, I felt quite the contrary after previewing the latest changes; I have renewed vigor and I am pleased to say that we have some AMAZING new features.

So why the change? Well, it’s really a matter of functionality. One of our many goals is to help make our teachers successful, and the new tools will be invaluable in this endeavor!

Watch for our new website launch date and Pre K Scholars classes popping up in your area!

Yesterday I was walking to the store with my family, when I overheard a woman tell her friend that she was off to visit her dad for Father’s Day. Her friend replied, “Make sure you give your dad an extra big hug, because my dad is no longer around.”

That really sat with me all day. I feel so fortunate that not only do my dad and I have a very close relationship, but that I have also been able to become business partners with him and have him navigate me through the business world. His credits (see below) are numerous and I value the opportunity to have him as my mentor.

Starting Pre K Scholars has been a fun adventure with a HUGE personal learning curve. I am not fully business-minded—I like the creative side of it all—but I feel like I am getting a hands-on, crash course approach to my MBA. Thank you, Dad, for being my professor through it all, and Happy Father’s Day!

For his gift I surprised him with his very own Pre K Scholars T Shirt!

Alan Pierrot, MD, Co-Founder and CEO
Dr. Pierrot is a retired orthopedic surgeon who discovered he had an entrepreneur’s heart shortly after opening his practice in 1973. With local physicians he launched a hotel-like physician-owned surgery center that grew it into a remarkable new model of care, the specialty hospital. Listening to his patients, he realized they wanted an exceptional healthcare experience with all the customer service of a boutique hotel—so he built a team and a facility that delivered both. The model won national awards for excellence and earned the highest hospital customer satisfaction ratings in California and Alan was named Northern California’s 1991 Entrepreneur of the Year for healthcare. When he heard of the tremendous local success of his daughter Amy’s kindergarten readiness course, he encouraged her to make the course available to parents and teachers alike, and their partnership in Pre K Scholars was born. Dr. Pierrot researched the industry and soon recognized the value and unique qualities of this program. He oversees the business while Amy focuses on keeping the program relevant and creative.

Many of you have already read The Important Book. It is a wonderful book with a repetitive literary pattern on why things are important. It provides a perfect springboard for teachers and is used in many classrooms of all ages still to this day.

One of my greatest memories of teaching kindergarten is of the profound journal entry by a young boy after reading this book. The students were asked to finish the sentence, “The important thing about ___ is _____.” He wrote, “The important thing about home is the feeling you always get when you come home.” I loved that coming from a 5 year old—I could get a sense of that feeling without him describing it any further.

Many of you may not know, but there is a sequel to that book entitled Another Important Book. It is equally as terrific and full of life, language and unique illustrations. It is perfect for preschoolers because it depicts the importance of the ages one to six and all of the wonderful skills that one is able to learn at each age. Irrespective of ability levels and individual differences it repeatedly stresses, “The important thing about being any age is that you are you!” What a great message! It is delivered in such a positive rhythmic way that it is sure to bring a SMILE to any child’s face.

The language is fabulous: “The important thing about Five and Six…You learn how to count. You learn how to read. You know how to dress and get what you need. You can almost tell time. You can speak in rhyme…But the important thing about Five and Six is that you learn a lot of tricks.” I love the confidence it instills and the positive reinforcement it provides.

The illustrations that accompany are just as impressive. The pages are full of action, movement, shapes and numbers. The characters are black outlined and show motion and expression much like the characters of Scholarville. Perhaps that is why I am drawn to them so much—they are captivating!

I encourage all parents of youngsters to read this book to their children and get ready for a marvelous surprise at the end!

Teachable moments prove to be so enriching because they are “in the moment” and personal. The kids are automatically motivated because they are relating to the concepts at that exact moment. They are experiencing the concepts first hand, bringing home the idea they need to “get their hands on it” in order to understand something.

That is what a teachable moment does. It also pertains to the environment in which you are in. However, does the learning need to stop there?

Absolutely not! Extend the learning experience: for instance, I previously mentioned our “teachable moment” at the beach with shells so let me enlighten you on what happened next. We all collected shells and brought them home to our shell jar. The next day I happened to be introducing the letter S to my Pre K Scholars class.

In Scholarville “S” is for “Steven,” who shovels sand on the seashore; the shells were a beautiful hands-on supplement to the activities already provided in the kit. They were very popular amongst my students. They sorted them in a variety of different ways and their reasoning for groups and classification skills were impressive (color, size, type,shape). They counted them (which provided an assessment in the way of their one to one correspondence ability,how high can they count, number sense, number value etc.). They created patterns with them and they put them in order form smallest to largest and largest to smallest. We discussed size differentials. All of this and so much more so don’t let the learning stop at the beach—collect some shells to take home and while you are at it, grab a bag of sand for another multitude of fun activities!

A few ideas: Have the children practice writing their names on a sentence strips with glue. Once they have completed their name have them sprinkle sand (collected from the beach) with a spoon over their name. Shake off the extra sand and voila!, they have their name written in sand. When it dries they can trace over the textured name to practice directionality of writing the letter in their name.

Extending lessons and getting creative with weekly letters is my all time favorite thing to do. S week is full of so many wonderful activities that teach so many useful skills. We used star stickers to count, add, pattern, sort. We introduced sight words and started with the word “SEE” and began to read simple sentences like “I see a__________.” We did sequencing with shells. We used different shapes to create sandcastles on a page before we added sprinkled sand on for some sand art. We reinforced our scissor skills with many cutting activities—all of this and so much more were inspired by using Steven shoveling sand by the Seashore in Scholarville as our springboard!