Learning can be fun and a new children’s book by Lakeside resident Jeanette Crystal Bradley is focusing on just that in preparing both children and parents who are facing sending their child to preschool for the very first time. While conducting a Christmas program using “The 12 Days of Christmas” at her preschool, Bradley said that she immediately was inspired and began writing.
“When the kids began practicing their songs, I just began to write a different version of the 12 Days of Christmas, and I thought it would be super fun to write the ‘The First 12 Days of Preschool’ and the kids just loved the song. It just developed from there and we ended up putting it into a book,” she said.
A book of music, song and movement, Bradley said the book gives children a “sneak peek” into the classroom, and that the book is put together in a fun way to get them excited about preschool, learn some basic things of what to expect, and to help relieve the anxiety of parents, especially those that are sending their children to preschool for the very first time.
“This book is told in such a fun way,” said Bradley. “There are animals in the classroom doing activities with the kids. It gets them really excited. Then it helps the parents not be so anxious about it. This is a fun, great, sneak peek into preschool.”
Through the musical journey, children learn how to count, when to raise their hands, where to line up, to be kind to each other, be anything they want to be, look without touching, how to work together, different colors, shapes of different sizes, clean up all their messes, how to write letters, and to lay down without talking.
“These are things that kids always learn in preschool,” she said. “They are singing, they are dancing, doing music with movement, but then they are also counting forwards and backwards. There is so much learning interweaved throughout the book.”
Bradley said in the recording studio for the song, she was able to enlist and sing with local recording artist Lady Dang, also enlisting her 4-year-old grandson and her best friend’s 9-year old. She hired a crew from Los Angeles and shot video for the book for two days, putting the song in action.
“It feels like there is such an anointing of joy on it,” she said. “I have watched so many people over the past few months, interviewed people to help me with the marketing, the song, the promotion, and all of the different facets. Every time I show them the book with the song, their whole expression changes and I see joy. The first time I took it to my students, they just kept saying, do it again, over and over. That is when I realized how fabulous this was and the part that was so amazing to me. This book has come to life.”
Bradley said this kind of book is important as more and more children are going to preschool.
Bradley is no stranger to preschool. Her and her best friends were pregnant together, and when she noticed that her friend’s daughter knew her letters and colors at 18-month-old, and her son did not, her friend told her to get him into preschool.
“We had a construction company, and he would come to work with me,” she said. “My son has never left my side at that point, ever. And I was not going to leave him with someone else, so I will have to build him a preschool. I had never been to preschool, and I had never worked in one either. I decided I would do this for my son.”
So, Bradley opened Door to the Future Preschool in Santee, next door to the family’s construction company. After 24 years, she now has three grandchildren, all who attend the preschool.
“The First 12 Days of Preschool” launches in the U.S. on Aug. 6, and in Germany and Mexico. The book will be available for sale at www.jeanettecrystalbradley.com and available on Amazon.
