Longs Chapel CEC K-Prep

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! Except for the little bit of rain yesterday, the weather has been pretty! Before you know it, snow will be here! Ugh! I have a love/hate relationship with snow. It's beautiful and peaceful but I have adult kids that drive to work and I worry about them and then I get stuck on my mountain and can't get down, which sometimes is ok! A snow day once in awhile is good for everyone!

If you haven't done this already, go to wlos.com and sign up for their text alerts for closings and delays. Not only will this be good for your child's last year in preschool but you will need it for big kid school as well. This should be the link http://www.wlos.com/community/features/text-alerts/#.UnZkz1Io45t It will give you a list of options of what you can get text alerts for such as severe weather, traffic, school closings, etc. You can choose our school and you might as well go ahead and sign up for the public school your child will be attending next fall. I also suggest to parents they start watching the new first thing in the morning to check for closings and delays. I learned the hard way when we moved here that this area will close schools if there is a snowflake in the air and the reason being is that even though Waynesville and Clyde may not get much snow, Maggie Valley, Fines Creek and Balsam usually get hit hard and those kids can't get to school. Sometimes a burst water pipe will close the schools or if it is way too cold in the morning for the kids to be standing at the bus stops they will do a delayed opening. Trust me, from personal experience, it's a good idea to get used to watching the ticker on the bottom of the local news first thing in the morning! Nothing like driving your kid to school only to realize it's closed! This is what happens when you come from the flatlands of NJ where they never close schools unless the snow is really deep!

This past week was a busy one! We worked on letters Uu and Vv, numbers 31 and 32, the rhombus shape (formally called the diamond!) and the word up. One of the things we did was conduct an energy experiment with an energy stick, provided by one of our parents. The children could hold it themselves to create energy only if they touched the metal parts on the stick and when we formed a circle and held hands, the energy was transferred around the circle until someone dropped hands and then the energy stopped! We learned that we all were important in making the lights turn on in the energy stick and if one of stopped helping, we wouldn't get the lights to work, which was also a good lesson in teamwork! We also had our Halloween party! I want to give a special thanks to Miss Margaret (one of our Foster Grandmothers) and Mrs. Michelle (one of our staff members) for helping to prepare our fun snacks for the kids! We couldn't have pulled it off without them! For the party we had witches brew punch, spider crackers, apple slices with caramel dip, witches hat cookies, cupcakes and cheese sticks. We played ring toss with an octopus, darts with a ghost, pin the tail on the cat, bean bag toss with the rooster and had our pictures taken in a scarecrow face. We also watched a Berenstein Bears Halloween movie, listened to some Halloween stories and had lunch in the Fellowship Hall. In the classroom we made ghost mud with toilet paper, ivory soap shavings and warm water...we mixed it all together and made ghost mud. We then took some of it and put it on black construction paper and created our own ghosts. As they started to dry we painted eyes on their faces. Because the mud was pretty moist, they are going to take awhile to dry completely but you can see them hanging off the clothes line in our windows! We are working on a new way for the kids to quiet themselves when we are working as a group in circle time and in the hallway when we get excessive talking...we are using the "quiet coyote" and when quiet coyote comes out, we have to get quiet! Here is a link to the quiet coyote hand sign http://rowdyinfirstgrade.blogspot.com/2011/08/quiet-coyote.html. The kids seem to like it and for the most part are using it well!

This week is going to be yet another busy one...the fall/Christmas season tends to be really busy in our classroom! We are going to be working on letters Ww, Xx, numbers 33 and 34, the triangle shape and the word "and". Our Bible verse is going to be Exodus 14:14 "The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm." We are going to be starting our crafts for our annual Thanksgiving Feast as well... Each child is going to need to bring in a plain white t-shirt we can transform into an Indian vest for the kids to wear to our feast. If you have any extras, and don't mind sharing please bring an extra one for those who have forgotten or ones we mess up on...Mrs. Wendy isn't always the greatest at her sewing and fabric cutting skills! :)

Leader Calendar for the week of November 4th to November 8th:

Monday:       Dara
Tuesday:      Grant
Wednesday: Ella
Thursday:     Logan
Friday:          Dylan

Upcoming Events:

Thanksgiving Feast:   A yellow piece of paper was put in each child's tub...please write down the number of people you expect to attend our feast and bring the paper back to me so our cook will have a count of the number of people attending.

We will be closed on Monday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.

Things Needed:

plain white t-shirt....as soon as possible

Reminders:

Weather this time of year is very unpredictable and can be 65 degrees one day and 45 and windy the next. Please keep your on the forecast so you will know what type of clothing and coats your child should wear to school. We go outside every day unless it is pouring rain, really hot or really cold (below 25 degrees) Please make sure your child has a coat/hoodie/sweater to put on when we go outside. Wal-Mart has their hat/glove sets out and I usually recommend parents pick up one of those $1/$2 hat/glove sets to keep in their tub at school. This way you know they have it for school and don't have to bring one back and forth every day. We don't keep extra hats and gloves for the kids and don't let the kids share hats. An extra pair at school comes in handy! I bought an extra set for me so I don't have to worry about bringing it back and forth everyday!

With the change of the seasons, please change out your child's extra set of clothes and include pants and a long sleeve shirt.

If your child has been sent home sick or has been sick at home, they may not return to school until they have been fever, vomiting and diarrhea free for 24 hours without medication. This is to help prevent the other children and staff from becoming sick as well.

If you would like to pack your child's lunch for them, per our food program guidelines, please make sure they bring a nutritiously balanced lunch including fruit and/or veggies and some protein. If you pack them juice, it has to be labeled 100% juice or we can not give it to the children.

Chapstick and Germ-X are not allowed in the classroom or in the reach of other children. If your child wants to use these things, please make sure they use it before coming to school or you can apply it to them when they arrive at school.

Things for the kids to practice at home:

Blowing noses

Buttoning

Zippering

Putting on a coat

Putting on their shoes and tying them

I know this was a lot of information today...if you have any question, please email me, unless it's an emergency, then please call me at the school at 452-7574.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Mrs. Wendy

some pics from this past week:

Jamie and Nathan...my two youngest "kids"!