Dear Families,

I hope this note finds you all well and having had a lovely holiday season in spite of the challenges this year has brought with it.

Important Dates

Jan. 4th- School resumes on  at 8:30 am. Thank you all for your extra efforts at promptness; the group has benefitted from starting together in the morning.

Jan 18th – Monday- No School- Martin Luther King Day

Jan 19th- Parent Education/ Potluck Dinner- postponed earlier- Topic- Social and Emotional Growth of Children and Parenting- Potluck /Sing-up on the sign in table

Talking About Families- January  Curriculum

We will begin the year talking again about families. This time we are going to create family trees and talk about a bit about family history and origins. We have such a wonderfully diverse group and it will fun to look at the countries of family origin. We would appreciate it if you sent us information about your family tree- grandparents, aunts, uncles, and great grand parents if you know about them. Also, where do these family members come from heritage wise. I know we have Thailand, Philippines, Guatemala, other Hispanic, Croatian, and many more backgrounds. We will use the map and other ways of depicting backgrounds.

We would also like to make some foods from the different backgrounds. Would any of you like to volunteer to help make a dish? If not, you could send in a recipe that we could make. We have use of a microwave, a blender, a crockpot, and a mixer. We do have a no nuts policy in deference to allergies. We could take home something to bake and bring it back the next day. We do have an electric skillet but do not use when cooking with the children for safety reasons.

We have also had great fun with food tastings. We have tried different kinds of apples, potatoes ( we chose which ones to plant), cheeses, berries, etc. perhaps there would some different items of food that are culturally appropriate that would be fun to try.

Other heritage and cultural items would be welcome- music, instruments, outfits, old photos, scrapbooks, etc. Use you imagination and give us a little time to plan for the experience.

School Scrapbook Making

We are going  to make a school scrapbook/memory book. We have photos from different times in the classroom. If you have photos, especially from the Teddy Bear Picnic, Halloween Parade, Thanksgiving Feast or Holiday Sing, please email me or bring them in. We especially need those as melissa and I were busy and didn’t take pictures. They will only be internally in the school.

Licensing

We are hopeful that the Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division will be doing their licensing analyst site visit as the last step in the change of ownership process. Then the new license will be issued in Deborah’s name and the school will officially be Children’s Center Preschool. With the hiring freezes and furlough Fridays, a long process has been much longer. Licensing requires a proper sign-in/sign out procedure. Please remember to both  sign in and out with your printed name and signature as well as the time. There are two lines provided on the sheet for both steps.

Teachers

Rebekah Valcarcel, who has been our wonderful and reliable substitute, will be moving to Florida at the end of January. We will miss her and wish her well. She will still be part of our January but we will also be trying out a few teachers to have as substitutes and perhaps the next teacher we will add as our numbers grow.

Extra Clothes

The weather has changed and some clothes have gone home. Please check to make sure that you have a warm change of clothes for your child in the ziplock bag. Thanks!

Happy New Year to you all and we look forward to a wonderful new year together!

Deborah and MelissaTweet