Manners for Toddlers

July 2025

Summer is not OVER! Keep enjoying every minute until... the smell of crisp fall weather arrives. We already have pumpkins at HVS. Is it going to be an early fall? Maybe?

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Manners and Toddlers

How do we teach kids manners and why is it important?

• Manners give children confidence
• They must have a role model they trust
• Start with early simple habits
• Understand why we have manners
• This leads to good social skills as they age

📺 2 min video: Etiquette & The Story of King Louis XIV – Cindy Post Senning shares how the word “etiquette” came to represent our social customs through a story of King Louis XIV and his summer celebrations at Versailles.

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New Class: Gradual Introduction to Preschool

Caregiver and Me Class – Join us for an hour. You choose: story time, snack time, outside play, or learning time.

Sign up on Calendly

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https://calendly.com/jivins77/caregiver-and-me-class

UPDATE from Miss Jessica

This summer, I took a trip to New Jersey and visited New York with my daughter Marissa. We enjoyed the shore, relaxed by the pool, and even had a pretend “pool boy” (really my bestfriends husband) bring us drinks. Yes, I still pretend as an adult!

I finally started working out—and I’m enjoying it! I gave the preschool room a makeover, created a new solar system mobile, and installed pulley systems in the classroom. At home, I now have an automatic chicken door—more time for coffee in the mornings!

Marissa, my youngest, will be a senior this year. She bought a moped and has been zipping all over Sandy, Draper, and South Jordan. Give her a wave if you see her!

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The Decline of Unstructured Play

by Michael Patte, Ph.D.

In the past, play was child-initiated and open-ended. Today, for many kids, it’s adult-directed and highly structured—impacting physical, cognitive, social, and emotional growth. Michael Patte, professor of education at Bloomsburg University, explains why unstructured play remains essential.

Read the rest here

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Consistency: A Key to Raising Secure, Well-Behaved Children

Consistency is one of the most powerful tools for helping children grow into emotionally secure and well-mannered individuals. Like a steady compass, it helps kids know what to expect and how to behave.

Benefits of Consistency

• Creates a sense of security
• Builds trust in caregivers
• Reinforces learning through repetition
• Shapes behavior effectively
• Strengthens emotional regulation

Why HVS Excels in Consistency

We’re small, stable, and dependable—always the same teachers, never random substitutes. This predictability makes our environment safe and home-like.

Examples in the World

• Church – studies link religious upbringing with greater success
• The seasons – predictable and reassuring
• Sunrise and sunset
• Flowers blooming and fading
• Evergreen trees staying green year-round

Our Approach to Religion

Religion isn’t part of our curriculum, but if a child talks about church, we listen respectfully. Sometimes a child asks to pray before snack, and they’re welcome to do so.

Living in Utah

It’s common for kids to ask, “What church do you go to?” You can simply reply: “I’m happy you’ve found peace at your church, and thanks for thinking of me. I’m at peace with my choice.”

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How Do I Get Through to My Teenager?

Conversations with teens can feel impossible. My creative solution: a picture frame in the bathroom, right above the toilet paper. I rotate the content—jokes, quotes, or reminders. They have to look at it, so maybe they’ll read it!

Sometimes it works, sometimes not—but when they quote something from the frame, I know: mission accomplished. Start this when they’re young so it becomes normal. Change it often.

🖼 Frames for Quotes or Art

📄 Printable Top 10 Cell Phone Rules

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Emily Post Website

Preschool Hours

This year’s preschool hours: 8:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

If you’re in a bind, I can often accommodate. For full-time daycare, my neighbor runs Canny Kids with two locations in Sandy. I can even drop children off there if needed.

Canny Kids Drop-in Day Care

PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM 21st century

What do you think of when you hear PRESCHOOL? Do you want to send you child? Are you sad? Do you want to control every environment your child will be in? Do you just want a break from your child? Worried? Happy? Stressed?

All emotions are valid. Talk yourself through this. It will be okay.  Some people think it is time to teach your child the ABC's. But before you you teach that we should be teaching them to identify feelings. MAD, HAPPY, SAD, EXCITED. This will help them to understand themselves. NOT the ABC's. And they are egocentric at this age any way. ABC's come naturally and so do most things kids need to learn.

Have you ever had a teacher teach a lesson and you didn't care for the content or their voice? Well, how do you think a kids feels? When a child is not interested they get up and run around. They leave the area. They do not sit still. I taught in the classroom and can tell you that there are some kids that will sit through a lesson and some kids will not. What do teachers do with the kids that won't sit? Get a $379 CUBE chair and make them sit. Give them a toy in the cube chair so they do not disturb the other children. That child is getting nothing out of it. The other children may get something out of it. Are they listening? 

Education needs reforming. The younger kids are always on the back burner of getting help. Colleges are starting to recognize that Freshman need support because of the high drop out rate and suicide rate. And high schools are trying to help kids. Middle school is starting to have calming rooms and grade school has more psychologist and calming rooms for students and teachers. And Preschool is Preschool. 

Obviously, kids and adult need some more help with the sky-rocketing anxiety and suicide rate. Let's teach kids how to recognize anxiety before it becomes habitual thought. Help them develop skills before it's a problem. DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, is a new therapy that teaches that you can cope and there may be more than one truth. Everything isn't black and white. If we look at Piaget's theory 

We learn that he found 4 specific stages we learn from.

Now. If we are the genius human's that we claim to be wouldn't we perfect education by now. No. We know a lot but the only education system that follows Piaget's theory is the Swiss. They start formal education at age 7. In the United States they start at 5. Preschool is optional in the US and Kindergarten is optional in some states (Utah). With our knowledge of our learning stages the United States Education System still doesn't listen to the specialist. They continue to begin teaching kids younger and younger. 

What happens if a child skips a stage of learning? What if he doesn't get enough sensorimotor experiences?

A child will not skip a stage of Piaget's theory. Does that mean that we must go through each phase. In my experience if a child doesn't get sensorimotor, they are still in that phase for a while longer. 

Do they move on to the next stage? Do we still believe kids are capable of Formal Operational Stage in the 21st century? Kids are much more immature than in the 20th century. 

So the reason we can't perfect being a human is because as soon as we figure out what it means, it changes!

However, the Sensorimotor has not changed much. Baby Einstein tried to mess with this stage by teaching babies to talk on the television.  

It didn't work.

So! All this points to teaching kids more...

Here is my curriculum. 

So have fun and remember all this above means PLAY WITH YOUR CHILDREN.

Nothing takes place of Interactions

 How can you tell a good school from a not so good school?

Does a good school let child cut with knives?

NO, a good school allows as many interactions to take place as possible. 

 Ratio is 1:4. Kids are not afraid to speak up and are allowed to feel heard. 

Does a good school let child cut with knives?

NO, a good school allows as many interactions to take place as possible. 

 Ratio is 1:4. Kids are not afraid to speak up and are allowed to feel heard. 

I would say to judge a place by interactions. Wholesome interactions. Supportive interactions. Learning interactions. If the ratio of teacher/ child is too low, 1:1 it may not get enough interaction. That is why mom's know it is easier with 2 kids vs. 1 child. Because 3 is more fun than 1 and 3 is also a number that is pleasing to the eye in the arts. 3 is also a significant number, with many stories. But don't make this your determinant for having another child. 

In this video the child is talking on the phone that his father called him on. His father is in the other room. He has 2 other adults supporting him in his interactions. He is 15 mos. and has the typical babble talk with connotations. 

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Self guided study to understanding language. 

I believe the most interesting thing about Language is that we all acquire it. We do not have to have sit down lessons on. We learn by doing. We make mistakes. We create new rules. Then, slowly after 3-5 years we got it. Our language continues to grow until age 12-13.  By then we have it. Ages 0-3 are the most important years for learning language. We begin listening to language in the womb and continue learning as long as we want. If you are in a dual immersion class we will be able to write and speak, but interacting will always be a struggle until we do it. Interactions are the best. 

Next in my self studies are : How do cell phones interrupt interactions? 

Click below  to read the study: 

Language study in early childhood 

I delved ... here are the highlights:

By way of summation, according to the behaviorist (e.g., Skinner [9], children learn language through reinforcement and association, whereas Chomsky took the view that children have an inborn capacity for language understanding and use.

The most distinctive print of a culture has been defined as its language.

 Notably, interaction has a significant role in language acquisition.

Acquisition of a child’s first language begins at birth and continues to puberty (the ‘critical period’). Spada and Lightbown [6]; DeKeyser and Larson-Hall [2] noted that during the first three years of the child’s life, the child gets exposed to the language in his/her environment.

linguistic environment where they can continually hear, interact and communicate in that particular language. 

Language is a social phenomenon. According to Spada and Lightbown [6], children can also be exposed to the language through audio-visual media, but that exposure is without interaction, but, without using the language to express themselves, the children cannot acquire that particular language.

Children communicate first by using different languages, such as body language, sign language and oral language

Therefore, the first words the child learns are those that directly relate to the child’s sensory experience and connect the child to his or her exploration of the environment

age Newborn: This is the first stage of language where children babble and coo according to Tomasello      and Bates [12], just to exercise the articulatory organs in an experimentally random and playful manner.

age 6 mos - 9 mos: the second stage is when the child starts to babble in a pattern similar to the patterns of adult speech, this happens between the ages of six to nine months.

age 12mos. one-word stage, where babies use only one word

age 1 yr 8 mos two word stage, "dada chair"

age 2- 2.5 telegraphic stage, rudimentary sentences, "I good girl."

age 2-  predictable phonological errors or deviations

children first start by over-generalizing the rules

processing the rules of language

a process of development to full competence of the language use leading them to understand the exceptions to the rules

a process of development to full competence of the language use leading them to understand the exceptions to the rules

 language grows organically in the child’s mind rather than artificially constructing it in the process of learning

There is no disagreement about the effectiveness of early language acquisition, but what if the language learner has a positive attitude towards the culture in question. Positive attitudes produce motivations in the students. According to Spada and Lightbown [6], “The overall findings show that positive attitudes and motivation are related to success in second language learning, [and consequently acquiring a second identity]” (p. 56). There are two kinds of motivations at issue in this process: a. Curiosity: A desire to understand a group of people and their way of life; a desire or interest to know why a group of people do things differently from us, or why they believe in so many things that we have never considered. b. Empathy: Upon repeated exposure, one might come to the conclusion that this group of people has a more sensible handle on things than we do. 

Conventional Preschool

What is Conventional Preschool? Hopefully they understand the value of play when it comes to learning.

It may look like the children are just hopping, dancing, singing, coloring and laughing together, but studies have shown that structured play can hone a child’s language, math and social skills. Conventional Preschool generally follows an evidence-based curriculum that line up with the core standards of learning at the kindergarten level.

Teachers are pressured to meet District expectations. They are busy taking data (which takes valuable time away from interacting with the children.) Conventional Preschool Teachers are generally not certified teachers. They are not expected to have skills for mindfulness.

And some schools are so desparate for help they will lower their expectations when it comes to who works with children. There is more to 3-5 year olds than ABC's and 123's. Social and Emotional skills need to be priority at this age. And children require more 1:1 help at this age than any other age. They always have something to add to the conversaton, but in conventional preschool they have to be quiet when the teacher is teaching because there are over 12 children.

This is me in my conventional preschool classroom with my daughter. She enjoys the preschool room still today. Teachers do a great job helping classrooms feel like home, and many home-based preschools are in basements in Utah. In a basement? No sunlight? When I was teaching I was moved to a classroom without windows. This is when I decided to make the bold move and quit the school district job. No windows fro preschoolers, especially the kids who love outdoor play was like losing valuable learning possiblities and mental well-being. When we are stressed, seeing out the window can calm an adult or child. The etheral of the trees, and plants helps calm the soul. Swedish academics show that children do not need academic settings until age 7. Children do not start school in Sweden until age 7 and they are one of the top performing academia around the world. So embrace the home-based preschool program, toss the conventional programs out the window (if they have one) and see the benefits of The Hidden School, Mindful Prechool.

At the Hidden School there is always something happening in our "Mr. Rogers" neighborhood ie. houses being built, trees being cut down, puppies, goats, decomposing apple, or a peregrine falcon crashing into the window while chasing a finch. Just look around where you are standing.

You'll see, your missing whats happening right infront of your nose.

Rockefeller Center Miracle Tree of 2008

Once upon a time Mary Kremper took her first steps onto American soil. It was a hot and humid August day. She paused as she stepped off the vessel in awe. New York was a sight to behold. The dust did not give a hint of the deep depression that would come to take America by suprise. Her seventeen year old vocabulary did not know a word of English. “Itt vagyok,” she whipered. I am here.
Mary had two dimes in her wool coat pocket. She kept them in her left pocket because she had a hole in her right pocket. She wondered the streets of New York for three days. It was overwhelming. She slept on the side of the store until the owner told her to get out or else she would call the orphanage. She only wanted to come to New York, like a rebellious teen running away, she did not have a plan.
That is when she was on a corner watching the people cross the street when Sandra was picking up her laundry. She noticed Mary on the corner. Sandra noticed something about Mary's stout figure. She returned with her bag and asked Mary if she had anywhere to go. Sandra asked her if she would like to come home with her. Mary did not have to think about it, she clutched Sandra's arm and off they went. Sandra offered Mary a job cooking in the kitchen. Sandra family enjoyed Mary's German Hungarian cooking.
Sandra adopted Mary into her family. Sandra’s family was known as the Hilton’s. They were of German Hungary descendants. Mary learned English easily. Sandra’s brother worked in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He knew of a Hungarian gardener that worked for him in Titusville. He told Sandra that he was a good gardener with talent. Sandra did not care about the green thumb, she wanted to introduce the two Hungarians. “We need to introduce Mary to Joseph,” Mary told her brother with the excitement.
Sandra invited Joseph over for dinner with her brother. Joseph Varanyak was born in the United States. However his family had moved back to Hungary when he was three. When he was seventeen he learned he was from America and he headed back to find his future. They introduced Mary and Joseph and it was instantaneous. Joseph had never seen simplicity and beauty as he saw under Mary’s navy felt hat held tightly with hatpins. She saw his hard working hands and memories of her father’s farm in Hungary flooded her day dreams. They only spoke in Hungarian. Talking English was fun, but talking in her tongue was natural. They arranged to be married three months later. Three seemed to be her lucky number.
One month after they were married they received a wonderful gift from Joseph’s boss. Conrad Hilton purchased Joseph and Mary their first piece of land. “You are talented with your hands. Put your mind and hands to work and build a tree farm,” Conrad advised Joseph. Joseph did and the Farm came to be known in Mercer County, New Jersey as the Varanyak Farm.
It was 1931 and Mary and Joseph were about to celebrate their first Christmas on the Varanyak Farm. They strolled toward the back of the property relishing this moment of their first Christmas. Joseph was the gardener; however, he was not the one that spotted the tree. “This is the tree, it’s perfect,” She told Joseph.
Joseph went to work to unearth the 4 foot Norway Spruce. They carried it to their home in a bucket. Decorating it was a delight, even during the Great Depression. After Christmas, Mary and Joseph planted it outside their home. Mary bore a son three years later, then twin boys. She continued to care for the tree. Cow manure was the main ingredient. Mary went to the tree to share her cares, tears, fears, pain, happiness and dreams.
In 1933 Mary remembered hearing about the first Rockefeller Tree in New York. She did not dare say it out loud. One day my little Norway Spruce will make it to New York. Little did she know that the first Rockefeller tree happened in 1931 by construction workers decorating it with tin cans and scrap paper.
Her pain came with the debilitating accident of her oldest son. He suffered a construction accident and she had to make the heart breaking decision to admit him permanently to a nursing home.
Mary and Joseph taught their twin sons, Bill and Bob, how to run the farm. “Mom, what are you doing with that cow manure?” Bill and Bob asked their mom. Mary would stir and liquefy the manure in a bucket for the tree. "Feeding the tree. This tree is going to be in New York one day!" The tree continued to grow; meanwhile, Bill and Bob grew up. They graduated in 1952 and worked for their father. The Norway Spruce that was once 4 feet was now a little more than 20 feet tall.
Mary lived another 46 years. Her husband, Joseph passed and the boys took care of the farm. Bill did some traveling around the world, but eventually returned home. In 1998 Mary Kemper Varanyak passed. She did not get to see her tree make it to New York.
Dreams do not die. Bill and Bob continued working the Varanyak Farm. One March Day in 2008, Bill noticed a helicopter hovering their property. Little did he know they had spotted their mother's tree. Two days later, the late David Morvak knocked on their door and said, “I think your tree would look great at the Rockefeller Center!” Bill and Bob were astatic. The tree was about to go to New York, from country to City, just as their mother had done in 1929.

December came quickly with a snow storm early. Bill looked out the back door one morning after the snow storm and saw a blue bird sitting on the Norway Spruce. The blue bird was rare in the middle of winter, especially after a snow storm. The next day came and the blue bird was still there. The blue bird stayed for 3 days in the 72 foot spruce. Then after the third day came, the trucks and chainsaw showed up. The blue bird was gone. Mary had continued her lucky three day trend. The boys knew the tree was happily on its way to New York. However, the tree did not have to wait three days to find direction. A New York City Parade awaited the tree!

By Jessica F. Ivins
Thank you to Bill Varanyak for the telephone interview in September 2011

This is non-fiction, however, there were some added information to clarify the story. I was not sure what vessel she came over to NY in or what she said when she got here. Bob said it was the Queen Mary, but it did not land here until 1936. Needless to say, Mary Kemper did land in NY and wonder the streets for three days. Their older brother did have an accident. Mary did want the tree in Rockefeller center. The tree was found by the famous helicoptor eyes of David Morvak, and the rest is history.