Message from the Principal
Dear Merryhill Families,
November is the month of giving, and Merryhill Davis families are the most generous families I’ve ever met. The sense of community here creates an immense feeling of compassion. The children are the ones directly benefiting from this mindset, as they are being taught the value in being part of such a wonderful community.
This month, we will fully celebrate community and friendship. We will wrap up our community service projects of Operation Gratitude: Candy Buy Back AND Kids Can Food Drive. We also welcome all of our families to attend our Friendship Feast & Festival on Friday, November 20th between 5:00-7:00 PM. We will provide games and activities for the children to participate in between 5:00-6:30 and a full meal starting at 6:00 PM. This event is a MAJOR thank you for all you do as parents and families here at Merryhill School!
Also this month, we will host our Scholastic Book Fair Week between November 16th-November 20th. Please know that every purchase made during this book fair directly benefits the school and allows us to replenish all of our classroom libraries. Be sure to mark your calendars for our closures on Wednesday, November 11 and Thurs/Fri, November 26-27th.
I cannot say enough how grateful I am to be part of such a wonderful community. One thing I love is that the safety and security of these children are held at such a high regard. To continue with this effort, it is essential that you are not allowing others to enter our front door by holding it open behind you when dropping off or picking up your student unless you know the person. I know we are trying to help a neighbor out, but in order to maintain the level of security within the building, it is essential to allow families to enter the building on their own accord. EVERY FAMILY has a door code. If the person does not, then they will be required to ring the door bell for entrance. I appreciate your help with these efforts, as I know that we all agree it is an important essential component of the care your child receives!
As always, if you have any questions or concerns about anything regarding the program or Merryhill, please feel free to reach me at your convenience via email or phone at 530-753-9210.
Sincerely,
Jherica McEndree
Principal
Calendar of Events:
- November 6: Operation Gratitude: Halloween Candy Buy Back ~ Donations Due!
- November 11: SCHOOL CLOSED: VETERAN’S DAY
- November 16-20: Scholastic Book Fair Week
- November 20: Friendship Feast & Festival (5:00-7:00 PM)
- November 26-27: SCHOOL CLOSED: THANKSGIVING BREAK
Save the Dates: (More Details to Follow)
- December 12: Parent’s Day Out (10:00-2:00 PM)
- December 18: Polar Express Party with Santa Claus (3:00 PM)
- Students will perform songs, and Santa will be available for pictures.
- December 24: SCHOOL CLOSED @ 12:00 PM
- December 25: SCHOOL CLOSED
- December 31: SCHOOL CLOSED @ 12:00 PM
- January 1: SCHOOL CLOSED
News from Our Classrooms
Infant Classroom
Hello Infant Parents!
We would like to start off by introducing our newest friend into our infant class, Evelyn! We will also have 2 more friends joining us this month, Eva & Bailey! We look forward to watching our newest grow and develop right alongside our already amazing group of Infants.
The month of November is going to be filled with awesome activities! One activity we will be doing is taking some construction paper and putting glue on it and letting the infants put leaves in different colors, shapes, and textures onto the paper! This will help with fine motor development. We will also be holding up large cards with pictures of everyday items such as bottles, chairs, and toys. We will show each infant the picture and slowly and clearly say the name of each object. This will help with language. The baby sign is “more” this month. To sign this word, make an “O” shape with each hand and tap the fingertips together repeatedly. Also, the school is closed November 11th, 26th, and 27th.
Have a great November!
Ms. Hayley & Ms. Nati
Toddler Classroom
We are very excited to bring in the month of November! Starting this week we have some events coming up! Our Kids Can Food Drive wraps up on November 13th. Our school is hosting a Scholastic book fair the week of November 16-20th! This will be a great opportunity to contribute to our school with proceeds AND most importantly, your child’s love for reading and books. Other events we have coming up in the month of November are the Friendship and Feast Festival on November 20th from 5-7pm and of course Thanksgiving. . During this month we will be doing Thanksgiving activities with the toddlers that you will see on our boards as well as in their Links to Learning folder. We hope that all of our families have a wonderful month and enjoy the Holidays!
We want to welcome Miriam and Henry to our class for the Month of November! We have enjoyed every moment transitioning with them into our classroom, and we are happy to have them join us full time. Also, congrats to Ada for moving into our Beginner 1 neighboring classroom.
We wanted to remind all of our toddler parents that on Wednesday, November 11th our school will be closed for Veterans Day. Also, the school will be closed November 26th and 27th
Please let us know if you have any questions! Talk to you all soon! Thank you!
Ms. Kayla K. and Ms. Olga
Beginner 1 Classroom
What a great month we had in October learning about the weather changing, leaves changing, and recognizing common color as red, yellow, and brown. We had a wonderful Halloween Celebration, thank you parents for all your help and participation. This month, we will be celebrating a few holidays and special days including Mickey Mouse Birthday and Veteran’s Day.
November is going to be another month filled with learning for the children focusing on mastering new skills such as naming a familiar object when used is described, walking the length of tape on the floor and drawing a picture that define a shape. The children will practice these skills by doing various activities such as using crayons and paper to draw a picture. We will be going outside to draw with the chalk, the children will be asked to explain what the object is used for and how.
This month, we will read books each week talking about the season of fall, and we will make some art in reference to the stories read. We will talk about how/why Thanksgiving is for giving thanks. We will do many fun activities that tie into these books throughout the months such as leaves collage. We will ask the children what shape is a leaf? We will have a lot a fun learning all the new skills with the children.
Just a couple friendly reminders: Since the weather is changing, the children will need a couple of weather appropriate sets of clothes in their cubby and a warm jacket each day.
We look forward to a wonderful November with the children and we hope you enjoy it! Thanks!
Ms. Li and Ms. Francis
What a great spooky month of October we had. We had lots of fun talking about the weather changes and why the leaves fall. We ended the month of October with a “Boo Bash”. We want to thank all the Beginner II parents for helping us out & bringing yummy treats for our Halloween Party. The month of November is here we have so much fun things to share. This month we will celebrate Día de los Muertos as well as expressing how thankful we are for our Beginners II friends.
Some important dates to remember: November 11th, 26th,27th are holidays and the school will be close. Also Friday November 20th is our Friendship Feast & Festival from 5:00-7:00pm.
We will be working on building vocabulary by having the children “retell a familiar story in own words” for example “What did you do over the weekend?” “What did you have for dinner/breakfast?” We are going to be working on having the children say their first and last name when they are called on. We will also work on mobility and balancing by placing tape on the floor and having the children walk the length of the tape and copying simple body movements by dancing to the “Chicken Dance” and the “Hokey-Pokey”.
The book for the this month are “Peace at Last”, “The Wolf Chicken Soup”, “Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks” and “Pigs a Plenty, Pigs Galore” by reading these books the children will work on number concepts such as understanding the number concept one and two, understanding big and little, and same and different. We will incorporate Spanish when talking about these books and have the children refer to the monthly Spanish yellow //Amarillo// and “hace frio” (it’s cold) and “hace calor” (it’s hot).
We are so excited & want to express how proud we are of our Beginner II friends for reaching a new milestone. Some of our friends are showing interest in the potty while others are now potty trained! To End the month of November we will be Celebration Thanksgiving as a Class. We know some of our friends may be spending this thankful holiday with loved ones so we will have the party a bit early so all our friends can celebrate with us! We are so thankful for our Beginners II Class & would love nothing more than to celebrate how thankful we are for such a great group of children!
Also another reminder the weather is getting colder please make sure to bring proper clothing for your child/children.
Thank you!
Ms. Linda, Ms Amanda Ms. Jalisha
Intermediate Classroom
Happy November everyone! We have a lot of fun things planned for November. We start the month with the book No Jumping On the Bed. We will talk about bedtime and what we do at night. And animals that come out at night..We will be doing some fun projects including designing their own pajamas and making some beds with blankets using fabric scraps. Our second book of the month is I Took My Frog to the Library. In this book a little girl brings all kinds of animals to the library and this causes all kinds of problems. We will be learning all about the library and what you do there and how you act in a library. We will also learn a little about the different animals in the book. We will do some fun animal projects and we will create a class book where each child illustrates a page.
The month of November is Native American Heritage month. We will be talking about Native American culture, the different tribes. We will read some Native American stories and we will listen and dance to some Native American music. We have some fun projects planned. One of the projects is making totem poles. For this project we need empty paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls are not tall enough. We will also be making tee-pees and dream catchers.
November means Thanksgiving. We will be learning all about the first Thanksgiving and we will be talking about what we are thankful for. We will be making turkeys and other fun Thanksgiving projects. We will have our own little feast the day before Thanksgiving. We will post a sign-up sheet as it gets closer to the day of the feast.
We will also continue to play games to work on counting skills and number recognition. We will also continue to work on cutting skills. If you get lots of catalogs in the mail, like me, that you are just throwing in recycle give your child some safety scissors and let them practice their cutting by cutting out pictures in the catalogs. November book orders are due on November 10th. You can order online. The class activation code is on the bin that the order forms are in.
Pre-Kindergarten 1
Dear Pre-K 1 Families,
We would like to thank you for helping our class end October with a very eventful Halloween. We really appreciate it! It was nice to see everyone get creative with their costumes this year.
We can’t believe it is already November, but we are excited about this month because this is the time to really take in everything we have learned and keep moving forward. We will review and introduce more complex words to expand our vocabulary. For example, teachers will ask what is another word that means the same as big and a child may respond and say gigantic, large or enormous. Also we will work on bigger numerals now that our class is starting to recognize two digit numbers from following the numbers on our monthly calendar.
In November, as a class, we will be identifying and learning about the five senses. We will do activities where students are labeling the body parts of the potato head that corresponds to the five senses. The students will also learn their home address and then discuss the safety of crossing the street by asking students how we can stay safe when we cross the streets. What senses are we using when we have to cross the street? It’s important to understand that our eyes are for looking and ears are for listening. We will explore more music in different genres as well as musicians for those specific genres. We will also encourage students to participate in voting as a way of making choices. During the last week of November we will be planning a special STONE SOUP meal for everyone to enjoy. This will be a wonderful way to share and gather for our Thanksgiving feast.
Ms. Cristina, Ms. Cindy and Ms. Beccah
Pre-Kindergarten 2
Our Links to Learning Spanish curriculum this month will introduce new Noviembre vocabulary: Mini poster was sent home in your child’s Links to Learning folders at the end of October. We will be focusing on learning how to say “Feliz dia de gracias!”, or “Happy Thanksgiving!” Children will also be reviewing numbers 1-15, and introducing numbers 16-20 vocabulary.
As well as counting and identifying numbers in Spanish, we will also be concentrating on learning how to count by tens to 100. This is a brand new concept to the children and it may take some children a little longer to understand the idea of it than others. We will also continue to count groups together for a total and introduce subtracting objects to obtain a total.
This Fall, children will continue focusing on constants with more than one sound: C G S W Y. Our Letter Buddies curriculum we have been working with is a great way for children to practice correct letter formation, along with letter sound(s).
Our class continues to practice printing these words in their Journals daily, as well as recordings of their day or special topics. This is something that the children look forward to doing every day following nap time. They are constantly asking me how to spell certain words, thoughts and ideas they would like to write down in their journals 🙂
Re-use, Reduce! PLEASE save your cardboard egg cartons and toilet paper rolls for our classroom! Many of our projects this month require these items. Plus, it’s a great way to teach the children the theory behind recycling. Our class will be having many special snack making experiences this month. November is a great month to make the pumpkin treats and “turkey” inspired creations that I have planned for us. Yum-o!
We will also be celebrating Thanksgiving with a special “family style” lunch on Friday, November 20th. Please bring in one of your child’s favorite holiday dishes to share with the class. We will also be sharing our memories of Thanksgivings past, and of course, what we are thankful for <3
Ms. Jill
News from the Education Department
4 Ways to Instill Thankfulness in Young Children
It’s never too early to teach your child about thankfulness. By learning concepts of generosity and compassion, children strengthen their connection to their community and become sensitive to the feelings of others.
The holiday season is quickly approaching, so now is a great time to reinforce the importance of thankfulness and giving back to those in need.
Below are age appropriate activities that we implement in the classroom, as well as activities for you and your child to do at home.
TODDLERS: Be a good role model
In the classroom: Our teachers introduce “please” and “thank you” to our toddlers by using sign language and verbal communication. Students practice good manners with their dolls, stuffed animals and each other.
At home: Modeling positive behaviors is a great way to teach your child good manners. Say “please” before asking him to do something, and always follow with “thank you.”
Recommended reading: Little Critter® I Am Helping by Mercer Mayer
BEGINNERS: Share your gratitude out loud
In the classroom: Our teachers encourage our Beginner students to name a few of their favorite toys and games, and bring one in from home to share with friends. By sharing their belongings, children nurture connections with their classmates, and build necessary problem-solving skills.
At home: Talk with your child about the things in your life for which you are thankful, and ask him to name a few as well. Extend the discussion beyond physical possessions. For instance, if he is thankful for a favorite toy, say “Grandma bought you that toy, and we are thankful for her.”
Recommended reading: Spot Helps Out by Eric Hill
INTERMEDIATES: Show appreciation through actions
In the classroom: By age three, children begin to understand the concept of appreciation. They create birthday cards for their teachers, make art projects for friends, and write thank you cards for classroom visitors.
At home: Go shopping with your child, and buy a small token of appreciation for a friend or family member. Ask your child to draw a picture or write a thank you note to accompany the gift.
Recommended reading: Clifford’s Good Deeds by Norman Bridwell
PRE-K/PRE-K2: Give back to those in need
In the classroom: During the holidays, many of our schools host donation drives for organizations in need. Our older preschoolers discuss why they are participating, count the items donated, and sometimes have the opportunity to deliver the donations.
At home: Donate canned goods to a local food pantry, and allow your child to choose the food that he would like to donate. Explain to him that you are thankful to have good food to eat, and that you want to make sure that others have the same.
Recommended reading: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
We provide many opportunities for our preschoolers to develop thankfulness and show gratitude towards others. By setting this positive foundation, your child will be more appreciative and generous as he enters elementary school and beyond.
– Lauren Starnes, PhD – Director of Early Childhood Education
November 2015 Newsletter
Message from the Principal
Dear Merryhill Families,
November is the month of giving, and Merryhill Davis families are the most generous families I’ve ever met. The sense of community here creates an immense feeling of compassion. The children are the ones directly benefiting from this mindset, as they are being taught the value in being part of such a wonderful community.
This month, we will fully celebrate community and friendship. We will wrap up our community service projects of Operation Gratitude: Candy Buy Back AND Kids Can Food Drive. We also welcome all of our families to attend our Friendship Feast & Festival on Friday, November 20th between 5:00-7:00 PM. We will provide games and activities for the children to participate in between 5:00-6:30 and a full meal starting at 6:00 PM. This event is a MAJOR thank you for all you do as parents and families here at Merryhill School!
Also this month, we will host our Scholastic Book Fair Week between November 16th-November 20th. Please know that every purchase made during this book fair directly benefits the school and allows us to replenish all of our classroom libraries. Be sure to mark your calendars for our closures on Wednesday, November 11 and Thurs/Fri, November 26-27th.
I cannot say enough how grateful I am to be part of such a wonderful community. One thing I love is that the safety and security of these children are held at such a high regard. To continue with this effort, it is essential that you are not allowing others to enter our front door by holding it open behind you when dropping off or picking up your student unless you know the person. I know we are trying to help a neighbor out, but in order to maintain the level of security within the building, it is essential to allow families to enter the building on their own accord. EVERY FAMILY has a door code. If the person does not, then they will be required to ring the door bell for entrance. I appreciate your help with these efforts, as I know that we all agree it is an important essential component of the care your child receives!
As always, if you have any questions or concerns about anything regarding the program or Merryhill, please feel free to reach me at your convenience via email or phone at 530-753-9210.
Sincerely,
Jherica McEndree
Principal
Calendar of Events:
Save the Dates: (More Details to Follow)
News from Our Classrooms
Infant Classroom
Hello Infant Parents!
We would like to start off by introducing our newest friend into our infant class, Evelyn! We will also have 2 more friends joining us this month, Eva & Bailey! We look forward to watching our newest grow and develop right alongside our already amazing group of Infants.
The month of November is going to be filled with awesome activities! One activity we will be doing is taking some construction paper and putting glue on it and letting the infants put leaves in different colors, shapes, and textures onto the paper! This will help with fine motor development. We will also be holding up large cards with pictures of everyday items such as bottles, chairs, and toys. We will show each infant the picture and slowly and clearly say the name of each object. This will help with language. The baby sign is “more” this month. To sign this word, make an “O” shape with each hand and tap the fingertips together repeatedly. Also, the school is closed November 11th, 26th, and 27th.
Have a great November!
Ms. Hayley & Ms. Nati
We are very excited to bring in the month of November! Starting this week we have some events coming up! Our Kids Can Food Drive wraps up on November 13th. Our school is hosting a Scholastic book fair the week of November 16-20th! This will be a great opportunity to contribute to our school with proceeds AND most importantly, your child’s love for reading and books. Other events we have coming up in the month of November are the Friendship and Feast Festival on November 20th from 5-7pm and of course Thanksgiving. . During this month we will be doing Thanksgiving activities with the toddlers that you will see on our boards as well as in their Links to Learning folder. We hope that all of our families have a wonderful month and enjoy the Holidays!
We want to welcome Miriam and Henry to our class for the Month of November! We have enjoyed every moment transitioning with them into our classroom, and we are happy to have them join us full time. Also, congrats to Ada for moving into our Beginner 1 neighboring classroom.
We wanted to remind all of our toddler parents that on Wednesday, November 11th our school will be closed for Veterans Day. Also, the school will be closed November 26th and 27th
Please let us know if you have any questions! Talk to you all soon! Thank you!
Ms. Kayla K. and Ms. Olga
Beginner 1 Classroom
What a great month we had in October learning about the weather changing, leaves changing, and recognizing common color as red, yellow, and brown. We had a wonderful Halloween Celebration, thank you parents for all your help and participation. This month, we will be celebrating a few holidays and special days including Mickey Mouse Birthday and Veteran’s Day.
November is going to be another month filled with learning for the children focusing on mastering new skills such as naming a familiar object when used is described, walking the length of tape on the floor and drawing a picture that define a shape. The children will practice these skills by doing various activities such as using crayons and paper to draw a picture. We will be going outside to draw with the chalk, the children will be asked to explain what the object is used for and how.
This month, we will read books each week talking about the season of fall, and we will make some art in reference to the stories read. We will talk about how/why Thanksgiving is for giving thanks. We will do many fun activities that tie into these books throughout the months such as leaves collage. We will ask the children what shape is a leaf? We will have a lot a fun learning all the new skills with the children.
Just a couple friendly reminders: Since the weather is changing, the children will need a couple of weather appropriate sets of clothes in their cubby and a warm jacket each day.
We look forward to a wonderful November with the children and we hope you enjoy it! Thanks!
Ms. Li and Ms. Francis
What a great spooky month of October we had. We had lots of fun talking about the weather changes and why the leaves fall. We ended the month of October with a “Boo Bash”. We want to thank all the Beginner II parents for helping us out & bringing yummy treats for our Halloween Party. The month of November is here we have so much fun things to share. This month we will celebrate Día de los Muertos as well as expressing how thankful we are for our Beginners II friends.
Some important dates to remember: November 11th, 26th,27th are holidays and the school will be close. Also Friday November 20th is our Friendship Feast & Festival from 5:00-7:00pm.
We will be working on building vocabulary by having the children “retell a familiar story in own words” for example “What did you do over the weekend?” “What did you have for dinner/breakfast?” We are going to be working on having the children say their first and last name when they are called on. We will also work on mobility and balancing by placing tape on the floor and having the children walk the length of the tape and copying simple body movements by dancing to the “Chicken Dance” and the “Hokey-Pokey”.
The book for the this month are “Peace at Last”, “The Wolf Chicken Soup”, “Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks” and “Pigs a Plenty, Pigs Galore” by reading these books the children will work on number concepts such as understanding the number concept one and two, understanding big and little, and same and different. We will incorporate Spanish when talking about these books and have the children refer to the monthly Spanish yellow //Amarillo// and “hace frio” (it’s cold) and “hace calor” (it’s hot).
We are so excited & want to express how proud we are of our Beginner II friends for reaching a new milestone. Some of our friends are showing interest in the potty while others are now potty trained! To End the month of November we will be Celebration Thanksgiving as a Class. We know some of our friends may be spending this thankful holiday with loved ones so we will have the party a bit early so all our friends can celebrate with us! We are so thankful for our Beginners II Class & would love nothing more than to celebrate how thankful we are for such a great group of children!
Also another reminder the weather is getting colder please make sure to bring proper clothing for your child/children.
Thank you!
Ms. Linda, Ms Amanda Ms. Jalisha
Happy November everyone! We have a lot of fun things planned for November. We start the month with the book No Jumping On the Bed. We will talk about bedtime and what we do at night. And animals that come out at night..We will be doing some fun projects including designing their own pajamas and making some beds with blankets using fabric scraps. Our second book of the month is I Took My Frog to the Library. In this book a little girl brings all kinds of animals to the library and this causes all kinds of problems. We will be learning all about the library and what you do there and how you act in a library. We will also learn a little about the different animals in the book. We will do some fun animal projects and we will create a class book where each child illustrates a page.
The month of November is Native American Heritage month. We will be talking about Native American culture, the different tribes. We will read some Native American stories and we will listen and dance to some Native American music. We have some fun projects planned. One of the projects is making totem poles. For this project we need empty paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls are not tall enough. We will also be making tee-pees and dream catchers.
November means Thanksgiving. We will be learning all about the first Thanksgiving and we will be talking about what we are thankful for. We will be making turkeys and other fun Thanksgiving projects. We will have our own little feast the day before Thanksgiving. We will post a sign-up sheet as it gets closer to the day of the feast.
We will also continue to play games to work on counting skills and number recognition. We will also continue to work on cutting skills. If you get lots of catalogs in the mail, like me, that you are just throwing in recycle give your child some safety scissors and let them practice their cutting by cutting out pictures in the catalogs. November book orders are due on November 10th. You can order online. The class activation code is on the bin that the order forms are in.
Pre-Kindergarten 1
Dear Pre-K 1 Families,
We would like to thank you for helping our class end October with a very eventful Halloween. We really appreciate it! It was nice to see everyone get creative with their costumes this year.
We can’t believe it is already November, but we are excited about this month because this is the time to really take in everything we have learned and keep moving forward. We will review and introduce more complex words to expand our vocabulary. For example, teachers will ask what is another word that means the same as big and a child may respond and say gigantic, large or enormous. Also we will work on bigger numerals now that our class is starting to recognize two digit numbers from following the numbers on our monthly calendar.
In November, as a class, we will be identifying and learning about the five senses. We will do activities where students are labeling the body parts of the potato head that corresponds to the five senses. The students will also learn their home address and then discuss the safety of crossing the street by asking students how we can stay safe when we cross the streets. What senses are we using when we have to cross the street? It’s important to understand that our eyes are for looking and ears are for listening. We will explore more music in different genres as well as musicians for those specific genres. We will also encourage students to participate in voting as a way of making choices. During the last week of November we will be planning a special STONE SOUP meal for everyone to enjoy. This will be a wonderful way to share and gather for our Thanksgiving feast.
Ms. Cristina, Ms. Cindy and Ms. Beccah
Pre-Kindergarten 2
Our Links to Learning Spanish curriculum this month will introduce new Noviembre vocabulary: Mini poster was sent home in your child’s Links to Learning folders at the end of October. We will be focusing on learning how to say “Feliz dia de gracias!”, or “Happy Thanksgiving!” Children will also be reviewing numbers 1-15, and introducing numbers 16-20 vocabulary.
As well as counting and identifying numbers in Spanish, we will also be concentrating on learning how to count by tens to 100. This is a brand new concept to the children and it may take some children a little longer to understand the idea of it than others. We will also continue to count groups together for a total and introduce subtracting objects to obtain a total.
This Fall, children will continue focusing on constants with more than one sound: C G S W Y. Our Letter Buddies curriculum we have been working with is a great way for children to practice correct letter formation, along with letter sound(s).
Our class continues to practice printing these words in their Journals daily, as well as recordings of their day or special topics. This is something that the children look forward to doing every day following nap time. They are constantly asking me how to spell certain words, thoughts and ideas they would like to write down in their journals 🙂
Re-use, Reduce! PLEASE save your cardboard egg cartons and toilet paper rolls for our classroom! Many of our projects this month require these items. Plus, it’s a great way to teach the children the theory behind recycling. Our class will be having many special snack making experiences this month. November is a great month to make the pumpkin treats and “turkey” inspired creations that I have planned for us. Yum-o!
We will also be celebrating Thanksgiving with a special “family style” lunch on Friday, November 20th. Please bring in one of your child’s favorite holiday dishes to share with the class. We will also be sharing our memories of Thanksgivings past, and of course, what we are thankful for <3
Ms. Jill
News from the Education Department
4 Ways to Instill Thankfulness in Young Children
The holiday season is quickly approaching, so now is a great time to reinforce the importance of thankfulness and giving back to those in need.
Below are age appropriate activities that we implement in the classroom, as well as activities for you and your child to do at home.
TODDLERS: Be a good role model
In the classroom: Our teachers introduce “please” and “thank you” to our toddlers by using sign language and verbal communication. Students practice good manners with their dolls, stuffed animals and each other.
At home: Modeling positive behaviors is a great way to teach your child good manners. Say “please” before asking him to do something, and always follow with “thank you.”
Recommended reading: Little Critter® I Am Helping by Mercer Mayer
BEGINNERS: Share your gratitude out loud
In the classroom: Our teachers encourage our Beginner students to name a few of their favorite toys and games, and bring one in from home to share with friends. By sharing their belongings, children nurture connections with their classmates, and build necessary problem-solving skills.
At home: Talk with your child about the things in your life for which you are thankful, and ask him to name a few as well. Extend the discussion beyond physical possessions. For instance, if he is thankful for a favorite toy, say “Grandma bought you that toy, and we are thankful for her.”
Recommended reading: Spot Helps Out by Eric Hill
INTERMEDIATES: Show appreciation through actions
In the classroom: By age three, children begin to understand the concept of appreciation. They create birthday cards for their teachers, make art projects for friends, and write thank you cards for classroom visitors.
At home: Go shopping with your child, and buy a small token of appreciation for a friend or family member. Ask your child to draw a picture or write a thank you note to accompany the gift.
Recommended reading: Clifford’s Good Deeds by Norman Bridwell
PRE-K/PRE-K2: Give back to those in need
In the classroom: During the holidays, many of our schools host donation drives for organizations in need. Our older preschoolers discuss why they are participating, count the items donated, and sometimes have the opportunity to deliver the donations.
At home: Donate canned goods to a local food pantry, and allow your child to choose the food that he would like to donate. Explain to him that you are thankful to have good food to eat, and that you want to make sure that others have the same.
Recommended reading: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
We provide many opportunities for our preschoolers to develop thankfulness and show gratitude towards others. By setting this positive foundation, your child will be more appreciative and generous as he enters elementary school and beyond.
– Lauren Starnes, PhD – Director of Early Childhood Education