January Update – Childcare Classrooms – by Nickie Drieth, Director

Welcome Back! Themes:  Welcome back from the winter break! I hope everyone enjoyed the time off and we are excited to be back at school.  This month we will be learning about Winter the first week. The children will be making snowflakes, painting the winter sky with puff paint, creating a snowman with the letters of their name and designing a snow globe collage. They will be experimenting with conditioner and baking soda to create snow, exploring salt snowflakes with water coloring, and learning how frost forms on a metal can. The second week in wraparound we will be exploring space. The children will be learning about the different planets and where they are in relation to the Earth. We will also be discussing the next lunar eclipse which will happen on January 21, 2019. Throughout third week the children will be learning about hibernation and what animals do during winter. The last week of the month the children will learn about Artic Animalsand how they survive in the snow and cold. We will discuss how their habitat differs compared to other parts of the world. Academics:  The children will be re-introduced to the secondary colors of green, purple, orange and pink. We are also discussing the lower case letters i, u, c, o, a, g, d and s. They will work on how to write the letters and about the sounds of the letters. They will be re-introduced to the shapes rectangle, oval, star, and diamond. Our sight words this month are big, to, is and at. Important Information: Registration for Preschool and Kindergarten has already started. Please check with the front office if you have questions. Registration for Wrap Around for the 2019-2020 year will open February 4th online and Registration for Wrap Around Summer Camp will open February 13th for currently enrolled families. All registrations will be done online. Alicia will send out a link forparents. As the weather is changing please remember to switch out your child’s extra clothes and provide a jacket, gloves and hat. Please label everything. We do go outside as much as possible depending on the weather and safety. Please provide a extra set of clothes in your child’s backpack or leave in their cubby for any accident’s that they may have. We will provide a small clear container when a child has a accident per licensing and safety we are not allowed to use plastic bags. Please return the tubs to wrap around. Spark is an “Allergy Aware” school so we ask children do not bring nuts in their lunch at all. An alternative can be sun butter. We will be closed January 21st for MLK Day as well as February 15th and 18th, 2019 in observance of Presidents’ Day. Thursday January 17th, and Friday January 18th are PJ days. Your child may were their pajamas for a $1 to PTO. Our hours in wrap around are 7:00 am to 5:30 pm. We ask that parents be on time everyday to pickup. If you need to talk with a teacher or have extra things to do please come before 5:30 pm. The staff have a 5 minute window to clock out and their shift ends at 5:30 pm.