Parent e-News
THANKSGIVING GATHERING
Christopher Lawrence 11/13/08
We are one week away from our annual Thanksgiving Gathering on November 20th from 4:00-6:00 p.m. in the Taylor Hicks new cafeteria!
Each classroom now has a sign-up sheet for families to designate what they are bringing for the Thanksgiving Gathering pot-luck meal. Please sign the sheet for your child’s teacher as soon as possible so that we can plan for where we may be short items. If you do not come to the school during normal hours or if your child rides the bus, please call the school and we will be happy to add you to your child’s classroom list, or you can email your child’s teacher the item that you will be bringing.
Also as advertised, Discovery Gardens will be holding a Silent Auction this evening to raise funds for our program. Each classroom has a theme that we are asking for parents to donate one item to. We are asking that these items be brought in by Tuesday November 18th at 3:30 p.m. so that we can get the baskets completed and ready in time for Thursday afternoon.
The themes for the classrooms are as follows:
Ms. Gerry – Kids art- Items will include playdough, watercolors, papers, colored pencils, crayons, tempura paint, etc.
Ms. Stacy – Movies- Items will include gift cards for Harkins, Blockbuster, popcorn, candy, etc.
Ms. Polly - Spa/Bath- Items will include anything related to relaxation and could be soaps, oils, candles, bath products.
Ms. Ely – Princess- Items will include a wand, crown, make-up etc. Please speak to Ms. Ely or Ms. Trudy to see what items are still available to choose from as they have specific requests.
Ms. Alley – Family Game Night-Items can be anything that would allow families to have a game night. Ex: Games, snacks, etc.
Extended Preschool- Kids Bath- Items will include bubble bath, rubber duckies, floating bath toys, kids washcloths, fun towels, bath art materials, etc.
These items would have been requested earlier but we have had to make last minute changes. Please try and take care of your child’s classroom first but do not feel limited if you have items that you can donate to help out others. We will also be having other baskets available for bidding that parents are working on. The highest bidder at the end of the auction time will win the basket and payments should be made through check to Discovery Gardens.
DISCOVERY GARDENS THANKSGIVING GATHERING
Christopher Lawrence 10/16/08
It’s that time of the year for Discovery Gardens Annual Thanksgiving Gathering.
This annual tradition of Discovery Gardens will be held on Thursday November 20th from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the cafeteria of Taylor Hicks. The event welcomes all families of Discovery Gardens (extended families as well) to participate in a pot-luck style meal, coming together for conversation, sharing of stories and viewing items prepared by the students.
A first to the Thanksgiving Gathering this year will be a fundraising event. We are asking community members and businesses to donate items which will be available through silent auction. The funds raised through this event will allow for items to be purchased for the classrooms and playground. If you have a business that would like to participate by donating items or an entire gift basket to be auctioned off, please contact me through email.
If there are any parents that would be interested in assisting with this event, please contact me as well as we are in need of people to help with the preparation, set-up and clean-up of the event.
This is a great tradition that typically draws several hundred people in attendance each year. Please mark the date and time on your calendars as we look forward to seeing you and your family at the Discovery Gardens Thanksgiving Gathering.
NO MODIFIED SCHEDULE FOR DISCOVERY GARDENS THIS WEEK
Christopher Lawrence 10/16/08
Prescott Unified School District is operating on an Early Release schedule this Thursday October 23rd and Friday October 24th except for Discovery Gardens.
The school district has scheduled conferences for Elementary School through High School for these days. Discovery Gardens will be operating on our regular schedule and will provide classes for students at their normally scheduled times.
Discovery Gardens bus students will be affected by these changes and if you have not spoken to Nancy yet, please call her immediately at 442-1283.
Thank you.
PARENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE 10/15/08 SUMMARY
Christopher Lawrence 10/16/08
I want to take a quick moment to summarize last night’s Parent Advisory Committee meeting. I am happy to report that we had our largest turnout in the PAC’s 1 year existence. In attendance we had 14 parents and 1 guest speaker. There was great dialogue and many great thoughts and ideas shared. I am confident that we will continue to grow the size of this group and the results of these meetings will have an extreme impact on our children and the school as a whole. Thank you to those of you that were in attendance and for those of you who were unable to attend please read the summary below and feel free to respond to it.
PAC 10/15/08 Summary
Agenda Item #1- Guest Speaker Luann Tardibuono
Luann is one of the founding representatives of DEAR (Developmental Education and Research) which is a group of parents and community members who care about the issues related to children with special needs. These needs can be physical, medical, social and/or educational.
Students who fall in the range that they are concerned about can be anywhere from self-contained special needs classrooms for students with more severe special needs to the student who receives assistance for tutoring. DEAR bases their work using 1) Educational Strategies, 2) Research-based Resources, and 3) Alternative Approaches.
DEAR offers their services to help teachers and parents who may struggle with or who do not understand the scope of special education services available or where to start. If you know someone who’s child is struggling with some aspect of education, DEAR asks that you give that family their contact information so that they may help.
Developmental Education and Research (DEAR)
www.dearinc.org
928-777-8844
Agenda Item #2- Handouts Regarding Reading Development
One of our parents is a Certified Reading Teacher and has several different publications relating reading development from the ages of birth through grade 3. These publications were picked up by many of the families last night but I still have dozens of them left. These items give parents suggestions on how to work with their children in a developmentally friendly manner to encourage good reading skills. There are also checklists that are included to assist parents in determining what they should be looking for “next” in their child’s development. If you are on campus and would like a copy, please stop by the office and pick one or more up. If you do not come on campus or if it is difficult for you to make it to the office, please reply to this email and I would be happy to place these publications in your child’s cubby.
Agenda Item #3- Open Discussions with Parents and Director
At this point in the meeting the floor was open for anyone to voice their concerns or ideas.
A) Parents would like more conversation with Preschool teachers when their child utilizes the full-day program and rarely sees the Preschool teacher.
-The Director stated that he has approximately 150 students who attend the school and has approximately 120 of their families email addresses. The school is in the process of setting up each Preschool teacher with access to these email addresses and when they are, this will facilitate better opportunities for communication between the staff and families. It was also stated that each teacher’s email address is available via the Discovery Gardens portion of the Prescott Unified School District website at www.prescottschools.com.
B) Parents expressed an interest to volunteer within the classrooms and to also take items home to prepare for the teachers but need to know from the teachers what can be done to help. The Director will be passing this information on to the teachers to inform the families.
C) A few parents had comments pertaining to not being informed regarding pushing and other playground occurrences when they happen. The Director stated that unfortunately that this is a part of young children learning their boundaries but that these are not tolerable actions and that the teachers do intervene when these things occur. It was also mentioned that if we reported every occurrence, our entire day would be spent writing out these notes. If the child does become injured from these actions a note will be sent home to inform the families.
D) A Parent School Beautification Workday was discussed. There have been a few items that have been started around campus that have not be able to be completed as well as others that need to be started. Parents were excited about this opportunity to help out the school. It was suggested that this occur within the next few weeks to avoid the cold weather. Besides physical work being donated, other items that are needed include trees and/or plants to go in the playground area, borrowed tools to do some basic landscaping and any other items that may add to the learning experiences for our students. Look for an email in the near future regarding this.
E) Parents were thankful for less paper being sent home and to keep going with the email route.
F) Starting a Fundraising Committee to enrich our campus. The Director explained that in today’s economy that additional funds are needed to enrich our program. One way to do this is participate in simple fundraising activities which have to been initiated by parents. School officials generally cannot run this process so the idea was solicited to the PAC. Ideas for fundraising included signing up your “rewards” card at Fry’s to our school. I have one parent that expressed interest in looking into this and I am hoping to have that link started within the next few weeks. This is one of the easiest methods of raising funds as it cost you nothing and requires you to do nothing extra than the initial linking of your card to our school. Other places of business do this as well such as Target so please keep your eyes out of how we can generate extra funds for our students. It was also mentioned that restaurants have fundraising nights where a portion of the proceeds get returned to the schools. Places that participate in this program are Macayo’s, Sonic and several others. If you are interested in looking into a specific place, please let the Director know before doing so to ensure that we are not doubling up on one location.
I Hope that I took sufficient notes and was able to report on everything that we discussed. If I did leave anything out that should be shared and you were in attendance, please let me know and I will make sure to pass the information along.
Thank you very much for participating in this discussion forum to stay informed regarding the happenings at Discovery Gardens.
REQUEST FOR PROOF OF INSURANCE FOR YOUR CHILD
Christopher Lawrence 10/14/08
Good morning,
Some of you may be aware of this and to others it will be new news but Discovery Gardens is in the process of obtaining accreditation through National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Discovery Gardens has held this accreditation in the past and we are looking at renewing under their new, stricter criterion standards. We are scheduled for a site visit between the dates of October 20th to November 7th.
In preparation for this visit, the classroom teachers are pulling together documentation for our assessor to look through to show the high quality education that we provide your children. The assessor will be observing each classroom, staff files, child files and the overall facility.
As we go through the checklist and double check for items that we need, it was discovered that the new criterion requires us to keep on file a copy of the student’s insurance information.
PLEASE SEND IN A COPY OF YOUR CHILD’S INSURANCE INFORMATION BY MONDAY OCTOBER 20TH PRIOR TO 12PM.
You can send this to us by faxing it to us at 442-9268 or bring in a copy to the school. If you are unable to make a copy, please stop by the office and we will be happy to make one for you. If your child is uninsured, please provide a statement with your child’s name and birth date, your name as a parent and something to the effect that “my child is currently uninsured at this time”. You do not need to explain yourself as to why your child is uninsured, just the statement that they are not insured will be sufficient.
Thank you for your assistance with this important step in helping us regain our accreditation under these very strict guidelines that ensures we are providing the highest quality education possible for you child.
If you have any questions regarding the accreditation process or what NAEYC is, please email me or call me and I will be happy to speak with you.
Thank you.
DG NEWS
Christopher Lawrence 09/12/08
I just wanted to give a quick reminder and clear definition of how we are operating at Discovery Gardens during the upcoming Fall Break. Fall Break this year is during the week of October 6 through 10. The preschool portion of Discovery Gardens will be closed this week but the extended preschool will remain open. A change in our hours for the extended preschool will also begin effective Monday October 6th.
Discovery Gardens is now going to begin offering an “Early Bird” program for those families that need care earlier than our normal opening time of 7:30 a.m. We have had several families express an interest in having their children arrive to school a little earlier to assist with the parent’s morning routines. So, as of the 6th, we will be opening one of our classrooms at 7:00 a.m. It will not matter who your child’s assigned extended preschool teacher is, all children will go to the same room until 7:30 a.m. In order to be able to financially make this option work, we need to charge a separate $2.50 per use fee for this service. This fee will only be charged for the days that you use the Early Bird program. We are asking that you anticipate the day(s) that you may need this service and make payments for it to the office the week prior to needing the Early Bird program. Making arrangements/payments the week prior will allow us to provide adequate coverage to maintain the quality that you have come to expect.
To make the arrangements in advance, you can either personally do this through the office or utilize the payment box located in room 108. If you decide to utilize the payment box, please provide payment and a note stating the day or days that your child will be attending the Early Bird program.
If you have any questions or need clarification on this matter, please do not hesitate to call 442-1283 or email me or call the office and ask for Julie as she can assist you as well.
COMING RIGHT UP...PICTURE DAY AND COUNTY FAIR FIELD TRIP
Christopher Lawrence 09/12/08
Discovery Gardens Families,
A quick reminder about two events that are coming up next week:
On Tuesday, September 16th we will be having our one and only time for School Pictures this year. The pictures are done by a great group out of Flagstaff known as Images-4-Kids. This group has done our pictures for several years and is very child-oriented with our students. NO MONEY IS DUE AHEAD OF TIME!!! Just send your child in the clothes that you would like pictures taken in and when the final product is sent home, that’s when the money is due! If your child does not normally attend on Tuesdays, please call our office at 442-1283 to schedule a time that you can bring them in for their individual pictures.
On Thursday, September 18th, we will be taking our annual field trip to the County Fair. A permission slip should have been sent home yesterday and needs to be returned early next week. As always, each field trip will cost only $1 which should be sent in with the completed permission slip. Below is our schedule:
AM Classes- Leave Discovery Gardens at 9:00 a.m.
Arrive at County Fair at 9:30 a.m.
Depart County Fair at 10:30 a.m.
Return to Discovery Gardens at 11:00 a.m.
PM Classes- Leave Discovery Gardens at 1:00 p.m.
Arrive at County Fair at 1:30 p.m.
Depart County Fair at 2:30 p.m.
Return to Discovery Gardens at 3:00 p.m.
PLEASE ARRIVE TO SCHOOL NO LATER THAT 15 MINUTES PRIOR TO CLASS START TIME!!! Morning classes should arrive before 8:45 a.m. and afternoon classes should arrive before 12:45 p.m.
Have a great weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather that we will be having. If you are looking for a great family event, Prescott Valley is holding its annual World Arts Festival. There are many activities for children and adults including games, food and music. Follow this link to read an article about the events that will be going on.
http://www.pvtrib.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1&articleID=48279