Fall/Winter 2023 Menu

Children ages 2 and up are provided 1% milk; children under 2 are provided whole milk. Water is available at all meals and snacks; no juice will be served. Substitutions will be made with doctor approval for allergies. Soy milk (approved by CACFP) must be provided by the parent/guardian. The menu may vary due to availability.

*Based on 3 -5 age group. Milk (Borden) and seasonal produce (Scarmando) are locally sourced.

Spring 2024:

Spring 2024 Calendar

  • 1/1 Closed for Winter Break
  • 1/15 Closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
  • 2/12 Walk Across Texas Kickoff
  • 2/14 Classroom Celebration
  • 2/20-23 Spring Pictures
  • 3/1 Read Across America
  • 3/7 Parent Cafe
  • 3/22 Closed for Professional Development Day
  • 4/6-12 Week of the Young Child
  • 4/8-12 Scholastic Book Fair
  • 4/12 Spring Family Fun Night
  • 4/15 Closed for Family/Teacher Conferences
  • 5/3 PreK Graduation
  • 5/7 Teacher Appreciation Day
  • 5/16 Family Celebration Breakfast
  • 5/27 Closed for Memorial Day


*Subject to Change

wellness and nutrition

Everyone has a role in helping to create and support healthy eating patterns in multiple settings nationwide. Over 30% of children are overweight or obese and those numbers have persisted for more than two decades (1).

We help our young children learn how to make healthy choices among foods, beverages, and physical activity as part of their daily lives. This lays the groundwork for a lifetime of healthful eating (2). We work with our families to promote healthy habits for life.

Teachers model our wellness policy by consuming the same foods as children. Teachers lead and participate in active play in both indoor and outdoor settings.

[1] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 8th Edition. December 2015. Available at http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/.

[2] Nemours. Nemours Child Care Wellness Policy Workbook: Creating an Environment for Preschoolers to Develop Healthy Habits for Life. January 2012.

The Becky Gates Children’s Center rotates two, six-week seasonal menus, updated annually including family feedback. We offer a variety of fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and culturally diverse foods. We use locally sourced items when available. 1% milk is served to children two years of age or older; children under two are served whole milk. Water is available at all meals, classrooms, and outside at all times. We do not serve pork, tree-nut products, juice, processed meats, high sugar items (more than 6g sugar per serving), flavored milk, or fried/baked pre-fried food items. Vegetarian, protein-based, options are available for families who request a vegetarian diet in writing.

Children will be provided at least 90 minutes of active playtime each day including 45 minutes of structured physical activity (age appropriate activities guided by the teacher) and at least 45 minutes of unstructured physical activity (active/free play). Inactive time is limited to less than 15 consecutive minutes excluding nap/rest time. Screen time of educational/movement material is limited to no more than 30 minutes per day. Children under the age of two are not exposed to screen time.

  • Teachers participate in orientation and professional development activities two or more times per year to effectively teach children about nutrition
  • Nutrition education will be provided to children through formal and informal means such as meal time discussions about the taste, smell, and texture of foods as well as the benefits of eating healthy foods
  • Children are never forced, bribed, or rushed to eat
  • Food, beverages, active play, and screen time are not restricted nor used as a reward or punishment

The Becky Gates Children’s Center provides a healthy breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack daily. We participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program. “USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.”

The CACFP provides nutritious meals to children and helps them develop good eating habits which they will retain in later years. Both of these nutritional goals can be effectively pursued through family-style meal service.

Family style meal service, where teachers and children sit together, allows children to serve themselves from common platters of food with assistance from the teachers. Each child is equipped with child-sized eating and serving utensils, and is encouraged to take some amount of each required component. This allows children to make choices in selecting the size of the servings. Children are taught to eat appropriately for age and developmental ability (1).

Serving family style is a great way to teach children independence while also developing many skills. Children can learn and practice many social skills, such as taking turns, passing food to others, saying please and thank you, and helping set the table. They will be able to replicate these skills at home. Family style also helps the picky eater. Children often want to try new foods when they see other children and adults eating them. When children sit together and serve themselves, a child may see others accepting foods and want to try the foods as well. It often takes ten or more times of sampling a food before a child learns to like it (2).

Families are encouraged to volunteer/participate in mealtimes.

Please see APPENDIX in the Family Handbook for information about outside food (food bought from home or store).

[1] Child and Adult Care Food Program. Administrative Handbook. September 2015.
[2] National Food Service Management Institute. Mealtime Memo for Child care. No. 8. 2006.

mother feeds her child
Children's Center Curriculum

The Becky Gates Children’s Center utilizes a variety of approaches to offer the best developmentally appropriate curriculum for our center. Emergent, 21st century, and research based curriculums focusing on the whole child and utilizing all of their senses are applied at the center. Regulated by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Child Care Licensing Division, the center meets criteria for educational quality established by Cognia and is a 4-Star Texas Rising Star School. Curriculum at the center utilizes a combination of HighScope Curriculum, Project Approach, COR Advantage, Learn, Grow, Eat, Go!, and Child & Adult Care Food Program.

HighScope’s research-based, active learning curriculum has been carefully designed to promote independent, creative thinking; decision making; and problem solving in children from birth through kindergarten.

In the HighScope Preschool Curriculum, learning is focused on the following eight content areas:

  • Approaches to Learning
  • Social and Emotional Development
  • Physical Development and Health
  • Language, Literacy, and Communication
  • Mathematics
  • Creative Arts
  • Science and Technology
  • Social Studies

In the HighScope Infant/Toddler Curriculum, learning is focused on the following six content areas:

  • Approaches to Learning
  • Social and Emotional Development
  • Physical Development and Health
  • Communication, Language, and Literacy
  • Cognitive Development
  • Creative Arts

Before family conferences, families will be given the appropriate age screening tool (Learn the Signs. Act Early.) to complete and return. The screening tool is short and provides a quick snapshot of a child’s health and developmental status and indicates whether further evaluation is needed to identify potential difficulties that might necessitate interventions or special education services.

For more information please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website

The Project Approach, a specific kind of project-based learning, brings a number of advantages to any classroom and represents best practices in 21st-century education. It fits securely within both a long history of innovative teaching and learning practices—dating back, at least, to the 16th century—and within the framework of today’s growing body of research on what students need to find success and fulfillment in the current (and future) world.

The Project Approach refers to a set of teaching strategies that enable teachers to guide students through in-depth studies of real-world topics. Projects have a complex but flexible framework within which teaching and learning are seen as interactive processes. When teachers implement the Approach successfully, students feel highly motivated and actively involved in their own learning, leading them to produce high-quality work and to grow as individuals and collaborators.

A project, by definition, is an in-depth investigation of a real-world topic worthy of a student’s attention and effort. The study may be carried out with an entire class or with small groups of students—most often at the preschool, elementary, and middle school levels. Projects typically do not constitute the whole educational program; instead, teachers use them alongside systematic instruction and as a means of achieving curricular goals.

Retrieved from: http://projectapproach.org/about/project-approach/

Learn, Grow, Eat & Go! (LGEG) is a 10-week unit of study that is hands-on, multifaceted, and academically rich. LGEG is made up of a 20-lesson based curriculum with optional “Growing further” lesson extensions. It features food exposures through fresh sampling and evaluation, Garden Kitchen recipes, and brief Go Strong classroom exercises to maximize benefits to students.

COR Advantage is built on 36 items that are proven by research to best prepare children for school success. With the fewest items of any early childhood assessment, COR saves teachers time and keeps them focused on what matters most. Teachers use the valuable insight they put in the tool to create individualized lesson plans and detailed reports on child and classroom progress. The online tool’s in-the-moment support increases the accuracy of teacher’s scores, delivering consistent data administrators can rely on to meaningfully guide their program to the next level.

Criterion-referenced and research-based COR Advantage has been proven valid and reliable through rigorous validation studies. COR Advantage is aligned to the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework, Common Core State Standards, and early learning state standards and can be used with any developmentally appropriate curriculum.

The Becky Gates Children’s Center participates in the CACFP. It is a federal program that provides reimbursement for healthful meals and snacks served to children and adults. The center rotates two, six-week seasonal menus, updated annually including family feedback. We offer a variety of fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and culturally diverse foods. We use locally sourced items when available. The CACFP provides nutritious meals to children and helps them develop good eating habits which they will retain in later years. Both of these nutritional goals can be effectively pursued through family-style meal service. The center also has a special allergy and dietary policy and tries to accommodate children based on their health needs.

USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.