All parents or guardians may have unlimited access to the center during its hours of operation after checking in with the administrator and/or teacher.

We feel communication between the parents and teachers is extremely important. Working as a team will allow us to provide your child with the best possible care.

Meals / Snacks

Children do bring their own lunch to school. Lunches must meet nutritional requirements set forth by the Department of Human Services. Bright Beginnings has a NO sweets policy. Lunches may include juice (100% only), water or white milk. We do provide both a morning and afternoon snack along with 100% juice, water or white milk. Water is always an offered at snack time and is encouraged.

• Please be sure to label lunchboxes, bowls, plates, cups, etc. in permanent marker.

Breakfast

If your child will be arriving before 7:45am and you would like to send their breakfast, we will provide the milk. Do not send sweet items (pop tarts, hostess muffins, chocolate milk, donuts, frosted cereals, Fruit Loops, etc.) We can warm oatmeal, etc. in the microwave.

Lunch

Please send necessary utensils, condiments, drink and napkin with your child’s lunch.

Children are required to bring a well-balanced lunch with milk or 100% real fruit juice (not punch) as a beverage. Desserts (pudding, jell-o, cakes, pies, cookies, fruit snacks, etc.) will be sent home. Chips, pretzels, etc., may be sent, however, they may be eaten after the “healthier” food is mostly finished.

Even though they do make “sugar-free” jell-o and pudding now, we still ask that the children do not bring these. It becomes quite time-consuming to read labels and the children don’t understand why one child can have their jell-o and another cannot. We have found that there are plenty of other foods available that may be put in their lunch, so they do not miss these few items.

When possible, unfinished food will be sent home. This will tell you how much lunch your child consumed. If you do not want us to do this, please let us know. Please cut up grapes and hot dogs into small pieces, so they do not pose as a choking hazard. Yogurt is wonderful source of calcium, however, please do not send the sprinkles, candies etc. that might come with it.

All food should be cut-up/prepared for the child to eat, as they would like (i.e. crusts removed, apple/oranges cut, macaroni and cheese prepared—not in pouches to be mixed and then heated).

Meats, vegetables, etc. that need to be warmed may be brought. We will heat them in a microwave. A small ice pack will keep the lunch cold and is required for all perishable foods. We do not have room in our refrigerators to keep everyone’s lunch cold.

If your child forgets his/her lunch- we will provide a nutritious lunch for an additional fee.

Snacks

Children are served a nutritious morning (7:45-8:30am) and afternoon (2:30-3:00pm) snack with whole milk, juice or water. Toddlers are given their afternoon snack upon waking up from nap. Snack menus are posted weekly on all class bulletin boards.

Class Cooking

This is an activity that the children and teachers really enjoy doing together. This is a time that we do allow the children to consume sweets, although cooking and preparing healthy foods is stressed. As this may go against lunch policies, please remember that these sweets are given to all the children at once. This eliminates the “she has a cookie and I don’t” at the lunch table and lets the children focus on eating their nutritious food. By making food, the children learn to follow directions, measure, and note the different steps it takes to produce a food.