Riley Crossing child care takes a very unique approach to preschool by offering a special intergenerational program that brings preschoolers together with our seniors from the Riley Crossing Senior Living community. They are known as the children’s, “grandfriends.” This unique experience offers both parties a meaningful relationship while simultaneously improving their well-being. Additionally, you will find that our website describes this relationship as one that helps children with developing “key non-cognitive characteristics such as self-discipline, academic motivation, social empathy, and effective regulation of emotions.” It has been stated in other updates as well as our website that a major priority of ours is to prepare your child for kindergarten, and this intergenerational program is certainly the cherry on top.
But what about safety precautions for both the children and seniors during COVID?
Riley Crossing understands that both children and seniors are groups that need to be taking safety guidelines into consideration. Because of this, we have shared a news update under “Our response to COVID19” that will cover all adaptations our program has made to keep your children’s health as our number one priority. And when it comes to our intergenerational program, all in-person interaction has been paused and moved to a virtual experience.
This means the children are given the opportunity to facetime their “Grandfriends” on a weekly basis, do chalk and bike outside of the seniors’ windows, and send them artwork. Under different circumstances, our program would include things such as read-along, gardening, bingo, hi-tech science program, MacPhail lifelong learning music program, special events for families to get to know our Grandfriends, and special meals. While it is a bummer this program had to be switched to a virtual one, we are doing our best to ensure our children are still finding fun and interactive ways to connect with their grandfriends.
