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By MARK E. JONES; Times Leader Staff Writer
Thursday, February 03, 1994     Page: 1 & 2C QUICK WORDS: OUR WINTER

On nostril-freezing days when it’s too cold to play outside, the kids at
local day-care centers forget about their ABC’s and practice the three F’s.
   
Fidgeting, fussing and fighting.
    “Kids get the same cabin fever adults do,” said Cappie Evers, administrator
at Small Wonders Day Care in Wilkes-Barre.
   
“You’ll find them sitting alone for awhile, or you’ll see them fighting
more amongst themselves,” she said. “They become more edgy.”
   
Veteran day-care teachers quickly scrap lesson plans, knowing that kids
won’t sit still. Instead, they turn to “Farmer-in-the-Dell,” “The Copy Cat
Game” and other calorie-burning activities to pull preschoolers through their
long season of discontent.
   
These are the months that kids climb walls, aching to play outside despite
harsh weather conditions. The Department of Public Welfare demands that
day-care kids get fresh air on all but the most severe winter days.
   
But this January’s record snowfalls and recent frigid temperature have
combined to keep local preschoolers indoors for an unusually long time, in
some cases, for weeks.
   
Unfortunately for day-care workers, that means two things, both of them
bad.
   
First, germs are spreading faster. And second, without outdoor play, most
kids have bottled up more energy than the Susquehanna nuclear power plant.
   
“We do a lot of exercises, jumping games, anything to keep them moving,”
said Linda Konefal, a Small Wonders teacher’s aide.
   
At other day-care centers, kids blow steam with “Mouse-er-cize” tapes,
jumping jacks and indoor walks.
   
“We show movies, but that just means more sitting,” said Mary Beth Van Why,
of the Little People Day Care in Wilkes-Barre. Kids ask to play outdoors, she
said, “but every time we clean the playground, it snows again.”
   
Most of the Wyoming Valley’s day-care businesses stay open throughout the
winter, even when public schools close, because working parents rely on their
child-care services.
   
So, during “snow days” and “two-hour delays,” many elementary school kids
end up at day-care centers with their younger brothers and sisters.
   
“For the school-age children, this is totally out of their routine,” said
Carol Weale, director of Magic Years Day Care in Exeter. “I think they’re
getting sick of all these days off.”
   
`Watch out for ice’
   
Most public school students had returned to class by early this week. For a
brief time, the sun shined on Wilkes-Barre. But teacher Debbie Grescavage kept
most of her Small Wonders pre-kindergarten class indoors.
   
“There’s too much ice out there for me to lug 30 kids over to Coal Street
Park,” Grescavage said.
   
“It takes 15 extra minutes to get them dressed — the boots, the hats and
the gloves — and then they decide they have to go to the bathroom,” she said.
“so we have to take it all off.”
   
On the last day of January, Grescavage allowed about 10 kids — each with
the required cold-weather gear — to play briefly on the school’s snow-covered
playground, which is much closer than the public park.
   
They marched out the door, waddling single-file like penguins on parade. In
their rush, the kids barely heard a teacher’s aide warn, “watch out for the
ice.”
   
Quickly, three pairs of boots shot toward the sky. Three bodies hovered in
mid-air. Then a trio of rear ends hit solid ice.
   
Cushioned by baggy snowpants, the falls sounded like a pillow fight in
progress. Whomp. Whomp. Whomp.
   
No tears were shed. But for these day-care kids, the message was
inescapable: Mid-winter is a gigantic PAIN IN THE BUTT.
   
`Hanging in there’
   
If they stay outdoors, preschoolers are exposed to winter’s hardest
elements. If they’re trapped inside, they’re more susceptible to a mild
seasonal depression, caused by a number of factors.
   
February’s days are dark and dreary. Christmas is long forgotten. Energy
builds, making tempers more likely to ignite.
   
To combat the doldrums, day-care workers emphasize the beauty of the winter
season. At one center, the teachers bring snow indoors so that kids can watch
it melt.
   
On milder days, the Small Wonders teachers try to create a “cocoa
atmosphere,” where kids can play in the snow, build igloos and then guzzle a
cup of hot chocolate.
   
Parents like Susan Hankey, mother of 4-year-old Sarah, appreciate the
home-spun folksiness.
   
“You can see the snow falling out the window at work and you think, boy,
it’d be nice to be home with the kids making a snowman,” said the Wilkes-Barre
mom. “And they’re doing it here.”
   
More importantly, day-care administrators take kids outside because they
think it might curb the spread of airborne viruses.
   
Evers said she prods teachers in both Small Wonders Day Care and the
adjoining Wilkes-Barre Academy, a private elementary school, to take their
classes outside as much as possible, even in the dead of winter.
   
“It takes a half hour to dress them, a half hour to undress them and
boogies run down to their knees, but it works,” she said. “It keeps the colds
and illnesses down.”
   
Many day-care workers said they sanitize desks and tables daily, scrub
napping mattresses at least once a week and send blankets home to be washed.
   
Still, kids and teachers are prone to illness.
   
“We have one (Magic Years) teacher who’s been sick about three times,”
director Weale said. “The rest of us are old fogies, and we’ve been hanging in
there. Your immune system builds up after one or two winters.”
   
Kids are reminded to cover their mouths if they cough or sneeze. Washing
hands is enforced.
   
`Up on the roof’
   
But even sanitation became difficult under this season’s extreme weather
conditions, which froze water pipes at one day-care business and caused roofs
to leak at several others.
   
The Magic Years center in Hanover Township was forced to close early one
day because of last week’s meltdown, said Diane Mizenko, district manager of
nine day-care businesses in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.
   
“I think 50,000 other people were out there with the same problem,” she
said. “Fortunately, our contractor, God love him, was up on the roof that
night shoveling snow so that we could open the next day.”
   
Last week, workers piled sandbags in the doorway of Small Wonders to stop
runoff from seeping back into the center.
   
On Monday, preschoolers Michael O’Day and Adam Specht raced by the burlap
sacks on their way outside, to build the best igloo that two 5-year-old boys
could muster.
   
Richard Sypniewski, 4, stayed indoors because he hadn’t brought any boots.
He watched from the window, then got involved in a circle game.
   
Jamie Fleming, 4, also stayed inside, hidden beneath a pink-and-purple
afghan. She had a Capri Sun Juice container and a fever of 102. Soon, her
mother arrived to take her home.
   
Meanwhile, teacher’s aide John Evers watched the action outdoors, where one
child became over-enthusiastic about enjoying the season.
   
“Julian,” Evers yelled. “Don’t eat the snow!”