NDNCC is dedicated to providing the highest quality
early childhood and school age services to educate, enrich,
and inspire children and youth from culturally and
economically diverse families.

Summer Camp enrollment underway!
It's hard to imagine that it's time to think of summer camp already, but it is!. Our open enrollment began Feb. 6th. Stop by and talk to Irene about enrolling your child/children in our camp program. A link to the 2013 flyer is available on our Summer Camp page. In addition to the regular sports, arts, field trip and swimming activities, our groups participate in service activities. Last year Blue Group did a food drive and collected 380 pounds of food for the Food Bank of DE, and were able to spend an afternoon touring and volunteering at the Food Bank. Green group collected stuffed animals which will be donated to children at A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children. We are very proud of the initiative to help others shown by our campers!

Summer Picnic plans
The annual NDNCC Summer Picnic, held on our beautiful playgrounds, is planned for the evening of June 12th, from 6-7:30. This is usually a great time for the children to play and the families to mingle, while enjoying great food and free entertainment. We look forward to seeing all of our NDNCC families that evening.

Annual Meeting Recap
NDNCC's Annual Meeting was held Thursday evening February 28th. The event included a dinner of Bruschetta Chicken, Rice Pilaf, vegetables in cheese sauce and Balsamic Tortellini salad! Boy was that good! It was prepared by our own wonderful kitchen staff. A short recap of 2012 accomplishments was provided, followed by employee service awards including two 10 years service awards, a 5 year award and several 1 year awards. The families also enjoyed a performance by Clem Bowen, and the opportunity to see our children's creativity through the art displayed throughout the building!

Classroom Events at NDNCC
As we all look forward to spring, the children are enjoying the Chinese culture lessons from the Confucius Institute of the U of D and the music lessons from members of the University Community Music School. Read-Aloud volunteers continue their weekly one-on-one visits with the children. Our school age classrooms are enjoying their afternoon special interest clubs. We all enjoy the yummy scents coming from the kitchen during cooking club. And on Feb. 13th we hosted a special Teddy Bear Tea Party in our ECE classes. Children and their parent or guardian were excited to dress up in their finest tea party fashions to enjoy a tea party luncheon menu with their favorite stuffed animal. And once spring fully blooms everyone is looking forward to spending even more time outside!

New assessment system a hit!
Our ECE staff have completed the first round of child assessments using Teaching Strategies Gold, and held conferences with families reviewing the children's progress towards research-based developmental benchmarks. Feedback from staff and families has been very positive. We look forward to continuing to learn and utilize the capacity of this exciting new tool.

Infant Room supported by Wilmington Flower Market
Our Infant room was the grateful recipient of a grant from the Wilmington Flower Market which facilitated terrific enhancements. We purchased all new cribs with underneath storage for children’s belongings (families love it). In the center of the room is a new brightly colored, stimulating, multicultural rug illustrating various baby sign language images. Also, many new items such as soft fabric photo albums, a plush doctor kit, and a stack of large fabric cubes sporting different texture surfaces are being enjoyed by the infants. All these materials will address a multitude of learning domains and will enhance the curriculum in so many ways.

Thank you volunteers!
NDNCC would like to thank the many Bank of America and Principal Trust employees who recently volunteered at our center. They helped us with the many tasks involved in a center of our size, including landscaping, painting and assembling furniture. These volunteer hours save us thousands of dollars that we can then redirect into the programming for our children! If your workplace would be interested in having a volunteer day at our center, please contact our Exec. Director, John Fisher-Klein at 731-4925.