We would like to invite all preschool parents to our open house on Tuesday August 17th from 5:00-7:00 p.m. This is a great chance for you to meet your child’s teachers, explore the classroom, ask questions, and enjoy cookies & juice! We will also be giving each parent a folder of information regarding things like a class schedule, school supply list, a tentative calendar, etc. If you are unable to attend our open house, please call the center and let us know so we can still get the folder of information to you. If you have other questions as well, please don’t hesitate to ask/call! We hope you can all make it!

Several parents have asked that I post the school supply list so they can begin purchasing items now instead of waiting until the last minute. Please do not mark your child’s name on the supplies as we will be sharing them  throughout the year.

Crayons
Markers (washable)
Colored Pencils
Regular Pencils
White Glue
Glue Sticks
Kleenex
Hand Sanitizer

The preschool class had a great time at Gifford Farm. They spent the last couple weeks learning about the farm so it was great to go on this field trip to extend their learning. Here are a few pictures from their day! Enjoy

Parents:

We are so excited to share that the ECC is featured in the Omaha World Herald today! The focus of the article is on our Nature Explore Classroom! The article can be found in today’s paper under the Living Section. You can also find the article online- here is the link http://www.omaha.com/article/20100419/LIVING/704199983#kids-reclaim-the-great-outdoors 

Check it out and leave us a comment below!!!!!! Have a great day!

We would like to invite all of our ECC families to the next Wednesday night supper here at the church– next Wednesday, March 3rd. The supper takes place in the Fellowship Hall and begins at 5:30. I will post the menu when I know what is being served. We hope you can all make it….we had such a good time when we all came together in January!

Please let us know if you and your family can make it that night (you can comment here on the blog, email, or tell us in person Thank you!

Just a quick reminder that Scholastic Book Orders for February are due by tomorrow (Friday). You can give your order to your child’s teacher or to the office. Thank you so much for your support in helping us build a library! Happy Reading!

Dear Parents,

Thank you to everyone who participated in our classroom Valentine’s parties. Each classroom had a lot of fun playing games, passing out valentines, and eating the yummy treats that were brought by our parent volunteers. Thank you so much to those who brought snacks for their child’s class; it was much appreciated and delicious!

As you know in January we had the Omaha Hearing School come to the center to screen the student’s hearing that wanted to participate. I received a letter yesterday stating that all of the students that were screened, passed! This is great news and I wanted to share that information with the parents whose child(ren) were tested. I was glad that the Hearing School offered this service to our families; hearing screenings are a helpful resource in caring for your child’s hearing health! We hope to have them back in the future!

Everyone at the ECC wishes you all a wonderful weekend and a Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Early Childhood Center @ First Covenant Church
February Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We hope you all have had a chance to visit our new website and blog! We are very excited to have a wonderful website that highlights our unique program. We would like to use the blog on a daily basis for things like newsletters, upcoming events & reminders, and also photos of the children working in their classrooms and outside. We want the blog to be another form of communication so parents are always aware of things that are happening at the ECC. Another reason for the blog is so that we can cut back on the amount of paper that we are using; it’s amazing how fast we can go through a case of paper! It will be great to help the environment and join the “green” movement! We also want to use email so we can alert you when there has been a new post to the blog. The ECC’s new email address is info@earlychildhoodcenter.org. Just yesterday I sent out a mass email from the ECC’s account, so if you didn’t receive an email, please update me with your email address.

In January we invited the parents and staff to join us for Wednesday night supper at the church. We had a great turn out and filled up 6 tables! It was great to see so many of the families and staff come together for dinner. Thank you to those families and staff that were able to attend! We would like to make this a regular event on the 1^st Wednesday of each month. The meals are different each week, but the cost stays the same ($4.00 for adults, $2.00 for kids, and a $15.00 max per family). If you would like to attend, please inform the office so we can get a head count for the cooks. We would like to kick off our annual Wednesday night supper by inviting everyone to come join us on February 3^rd at 5:30 in the Fellowship hall.

The classroom Valentine’s Day Parties will be on Thursday February 11^th. Each classroom will hold their party sometime during the morning. The infant’s have 10 in their class, toddlers have 12, and preschoolers have 8 students. We ask that if you bring a Valentine, please bring enough for each student in your child’s class. They don’t have to be labeled as the children and teachers will hand them out during the party (you can mark who they are from, but leave who they are to blank). We would also like to have 1 or 2 families volunteer to bring treats for your child’s class. If you would like to volunteer, speak with the office or your child’s teacher!

Starting this month we have organized a group of volunteers to come and rock babies in our infant room. We have a group of 12 ladies that will take turns coming for an hour or so each day to rock the babies that may need a little extra attention. All of these ladies are members of the church and they have all had background checks completed through the state. Most of the baby rockers will be here during the late morning/early afternoon hours.  So if you see someone here that you don’t recognize, don’t be alarmed- it’s our baby rockers! We also have organized a 12 person prayer team made up of members of the church as well. The prayer team will pray for our staff, children, families, and new families every day. We are so grateful to these women; prayer is such a powerful thing!

Sorry to inform you that the ACH payment option will not be available for February’s tuition.  Our accountant is still gone to AZ through the end of the month, so hopefully the ACH payment option will be ready by March or April.  We will let you know when this process is ready to begin.  Thank you for your patience and sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.  Just want to remind you that tuition is due the first and third Monday of each month, which ever option you choose to pay.

We also wanted to say a big THANK YOU to Cynthia & Mat Daniels for donating boxes of paper for our toddler and preschool classrooms. We really appreciate the paper as we are always using tons of it for art projects! We really appreciate any and every donation. So if you are thinking of throwing away anything (boxes, toilet paper rolls, clothes, crayons, paper, egg cartons, yogurt containers, etc.) check with ECC first, I am sure we could find a use for it!

On Thursday the Preschool class will be reading the book “Growing Vegetable Soup” by Lois Ehlert. After the class reads the story, they will be making vegetable soup. Each child will need to bring a vegetable or two; please check your child’s folder to see what vegetable you will need to bring.

Finally, we are so excited to share that February 17^th marks the 6- month anniversary for the ECC. We feel so blessed and so proud to have such a wonderful center filled with amazing children, families, and staff. Thank you so much for sharing your children with us and for being a part of our program. We appreciate all the kind words and for sharing the Early Childhood Center with your family and friends.

Thankfully and God Bless,

Irene

The ECC’s Valentine’s Party will be on Thursday February 11th. Each classroom will hold their own party sometime during the morning. The infant’s have 10 in their class, toddlers have 12, and preschoolers have 8 students. We ask that if you bring a Valentine or a treat, please bring enough for each student in your child’s class. They don’t have to be labeled as the children and teachers will hand them out during the party. If you have questions please ask the office or your child’s teacher! Thank you!

**NEW: Also, we are looking for 1 or 2 parents to bring in treats for their child’s class. If you would like to supply treats for the party, please see your child’s teacher or speak with the office. THANKS **

The Early Childhood Center @ First Covenant Church

 Dear Parents,

 We have a new website that we’d like to share with you as you will see your children in this wonderful site.  It is www.earlychildhoodcenter.org.  Please give us comments about it.  We are so very pleased with it and hope that you are also.  Please share this site with your coworkers and friends.  We could really use your help in increasing our enrollment.  Thank you for your support.

 This week is supposed to bring us some warmer weather, which I know we all are very excited to be able to get outside again.  Sorry about being closed for 3 days this past week.  Our policy is if Westside Community schools and all the other schools close so do we.  All of our staff are paid for these snow days too. However, we understand that these last snow days were an inconvenience for many.  We will try very hard to make sure we don’t have any more snow days this winter. We will now be using our website’s blog to communicate the snow day announcements. We are working on getting our phone system to allow us to leave a message on the answering machine but we are not sure if that will work. So, until further notice, please use our ECC blog as your reference. Let’s hope our school closings are over with for this winter.

 Our church serves meals on Wednesday evening for $2.50 each and all our families and staff are invited to attend anytime you would like at 5:30.  So January 20^th, we would like to invite all of you to come and eat with our Early Childhood Staff.  Let us know if you can come. You do not have to have reservations, just come with us.

 We have scheduled the Omaha Hearing School to test our children on Friday, January 15^th. The hearing screening is a free service brought to you by the Campaign for Healthy Hearing in Kids. Please see the attached sheets for more information and if you choose to have your child be tested please fill out the consent form and return the form by Friday.

Sorry to inform you that the ACH payments are not ready for January.  Our accountant has gone to Az. for the month so probably won’t be ready until Feb.  We will let you know when this process is ready to begin.  Thank you for your patience.  Just want to remind you that tuition is due the first and third Monday of each month, which ever option you choose to pay.

 I would like to give you a list of the suggested books we would like you to read so you are on board with our staff and children with the Nature Explore Classroom.

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

Sunflower Houses by Sharon Lovejoy

Roots Shoots Buckets & Boots by Sharon Lovejoy

Gardening Wizardry for Kids by L. Patricia Kite

A Childs’ Garden by Molly Dannenmaier

I Love Dirt by Jennifer Ward

Hollyhock Days by Sharon Lovejoy

These are wonderful easy read books on gardening with children and nature.  Our winter lesson plans are interesting and fun for the children in our outdoor classroom.  Jennifer Ward does a great job offering 10 lessons on winter in her I Love Dirt book.

 We will be hosting an all day workshop on Saturday, June 26th.  We will be giving you more information on these workshops, closer to June.  However, we want to give you first choice in attending.  The Arbor Day Foundation and Dimensions do the workshops for us and all other’s attending.  The information is wonderful and you will want to attend if you can.  This is posted on our National Webpage with the Arbor Day Foundations, along with our certification, which is really a huge accomplishment. 

 We have two new teachers, possibly 3 beginning this week in the infant and preschool rooms.  Jennifer will be the Preschool’s new teacher. Jennifer has taught for me before and comes with 11 years experience in early childcare.  Her major is in music and she speaks Spanish.  We now have a Music teacher and Spanish teacher.  She is a wonderful teacher and we are so fortunate to have her on our staff.

Kara is the new Head teacher in the infant room.  She has taught for me before also and comes with 10 years experience in childcare.  You will love her, as she is the best and she will take our program to a new level. Please welcome these teachers to our program.  We will be adding BIO’s of the teachers to the walls next to their classrooms so you know more about our staff and their backgrounds.

 Thank you for allowing us to love, teach, and share Jesus’ love with your children.

 Thankfully and God Bless,

Irene

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