 Dear Parents, I serve on the HEDP parent board and also on the Brookline Extended Day Advisory Council (BEDAC), which brings together representatives for all of the districts Extended day programs. I am writing to direct your attention to a critical situation that may affect the future of Extended day in Brookline. Below is a letter from the president of BEDAC, Peter Villa and some important documents detailing the considerations of the task force called Schools Sub-Committee of the Override Study Committee, which is making recommendations on how the town of Brookline can save money before an override would occur. Please take the time to read the information below. It is absolutely essential that HEDP parents attend these meetings and support Extended Day Programs. Best, Jen Mataraza Good afternoon, BEDAC. This a huge email with a great deal of important information, so please bear with me. Under normal circumstances I would wait until our next meeting to send you all of this, but things are moving too fast for us to wait that long. As many of you know, the Override Study Committee (OSC) is beginning to form its recommendations to the Selectmen. You can find some background information about the OSC here: http://www.brooklinema.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1578&Itemid=1794 Part of that study involves a task force that is titled the "Schools Sub-Committee of the Override Study Committee." This task force is looking at every program in order to find efficiencies and save money before the override. I urge all of you to read the attached "Task Force Outline" document and share it with every member of your individual EDP (extended day program) boards. Everyone should be informed about what they are considering. I would also emphatically ask that you and/or other members of your boards attend any/all of the following 7 meetings that will be taking place over the next two weeks. These next two weeks are critical, as I believe the subcommittee will be making its recommendations by middle/late February. BEDAC needs to be a strong, vocal presence at all of these meetings. The town needs to understand how much we value the quality of our EDPs and the excellent staff that they employee. And, of course, they need to be reminded that Brookline is a town where parents are proud to run eight individual, but united, non-profits. The meetings listed below are also available for viewing on the town calendar at: http://www.brooklinema.gov/index.php?option=com_jevents&view=month&layout=calendar&Itemid=1647 What: Schools Sub-Committee of the Override Study Committee When: Friday, January 31st 8:30AM – 10:00AM Where: Town Hall, Room 103 What: School Policy Review Subcommittee Meeting When: Wednesday, February 5th, 8:30am-10:00am Where: Town Hall, 5th Floor Conference Room What: Override Study Committee When: Wednesday, February 5th, 6PM – 8PM Where: Town Hall, 5th Floor School Committee Room What: Schools Sub-Committee of the Override Study Committee When: Thursday, February 6th, 7PM-9PM Where: Town Hall, Room 310 What: School Committee Meeting When: Tuesday, February 11th 6PM-9PM Where: Town Hall, School Committee Room, 5th Floor What: Override Study Committee When: Wednesday, February 12th, 6PM – 8PM Where: Town Hall, 5th Floor School Committee Room What: Override Study Committee When: Wednesday, February 19th, 6PM – 8PM Where: Town Hall, 5th Floor School Committee Room Please let me or Noelle Ahearn know if you can or any member of your board can attend these meetings. We need to have our say before it becomes too late. Thank you, Peter Villa Chair, BEDAC
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 JANUARY
Happy New Year!!! We hope all of you had a great December and Happy Holidays! We can’t believe it’s already January, these past four months have just flown by! We enjoyed learning about music and instruments during the month of December. We experienced a variety of music from classical to pop! We thoroughly enjoyed the children sharing with the class their love of music through dance, song and by playing an instrument. What a talented bunch we have!!! Our class celebrated two of the children’s birthdays in December on the 13th birthday bash! The children had fun sprinkling candy canes on cupcakes. This month we will have fun creating winter crafts; snowmen, snowflakes, sugar cube igloos, snow dough and polar bear masks. We will be holding “Wish Days” in honor of birthdays from the past 5 months. Your child has made a request for a specific activity to take place at HEDP for all to participate in, please check the sign-out for reminders of these days so your child may be included. A couple of reminders this month… * Please sign your child out EVERYDAY! * Please make sure your child has extra clothing (especially socks) as they may get wet while outside in the snow. We recommend Snow pants, boots, 2 pairs of gloves/mittens (most are wet and coldat arrival to HEDP), extra socks, hat, jacket... * No School January 1st & 20th • Birthday Bash- January 17th Wish List Clorox Wipes Paper Towels Thank you to all that donate to our classroom, we greatly appreciate it!  Chillin’ in Extended Day - What’s happening in January_____ Happy New Year to everyone, hope you all had a fun filled winter break, we missed everyone and are glad to be back! We will be starting off the month talking about our favorite fun times during winter break, and beginning January 6th we will start our Author of the month study, we will be reading a variety of books by Jan Brett this month and completing various crafts related to her stories. As well, we will be talking about the children’s favorite books and reading them as a group. Through the month of January we will continue to work our way through the alphabet,with our letter of the week curriculum, learning about the letters F,G,H and I. We will kick off January with and “F is for friendship” unit, revisiting “The Giving Tree” we will focus on the importance of sharing, caring, and how to be a good friend. *F-Friendship, *G-Giving, and *H-Helping *I-Inuit- during this theme we will learn about the traditional Inuit way of life, tools and gear that inuit invented and methods practiced that help them survive in the harsh climate they reside. Through the fall season we met with all the children and learned some activities and topics that they are interested in learning about. We will be using these topics of interest to create our curriculum from here on out. Some of the activities to look forward to are, making an explosion and building a volcano, playing organized games in the gym, and cooking some of our favorite foods. Reminders: ** Since the cold winter weather has moved in please dress your child(ren) accordingly with snow gear and warm clothing appropriate for being outdoors as we do try and go outside daily. Please pack all snow gear in a reusable shopping back. It is most helpful to have each item labeled with your family name. We strongly suggest boots, mittens/gloves, hat, snowpants, heavy jacket, change of socks and extra gloves since some are still wet from the morning recess when your child arrives. January 20: Schools Closed - MLK Day  January 2014
2-3 Newsletter “The 2-3 classroom teachers would like to take a moment to thank the parents for the generous gifts we received during the the holiday. Your generosity and kindness is truly appreciated! We wish you a wonderful New Year” We are excited to welcome the children back after the winter break and eager to hear about everyone's vacations. We can’t wait to jump into the new year! The entire month of January will be focused on the weather, snow and many crafts! The children will settle back into their daily routine of spending at least fourty-five minutes of their day when they arrive at HEDP working silently on either homework or reading. while enjoining a snack. Whenever possible, the children will then go outside release some of their energy while interacting with their peers outside. Finally, the children will come inside participate in winter themed activities which will include consist of making stuffed snow people, having a “snowball fight” in the gym, cooking snow flakes in the skillet, making snow man pops and many more fun activities. We are very happy to announce that the 2/3 team will have a new teacher beginning immediately! Robin Mamon is a well experienced and intelligent educator who is very happy to be joining our team. As a season veteran of the the Bever Summer Program Staff, she is already been aquainted with familar families, and the town of Brookline. She has a love for travel, crafts and children! Robin just returned from teaching English in South Korea and worked as a councelor at Fransiscans Childrens Hospital prior to her trip over seas. We are lucky to have found such a well rounded and experienced educator! Please help welcome her by sharing a warm smile and introducing yourself. We will also be welcoming 2 new chidlren to the 2/3 classroom., Ethan and Melissa will be joining us for many great activities and adventures. Welcome! Reminders: P.lease send your child to HEDP with appropriate outdoor gear packed in a recycled/reusable supermarket bag., as we do go outside most days. January 20 - School Closed - MLK Day Wish List: Rainbow Loom bands tubesocks/stray socks lysol wipes  January 2014
Heath Extended Day 4-6 Newsletter “ A much appreciated thank you for the holiday gifts, treats and warm holiday wishes. We are so grateful for your generosity, kindness and thoughtfulness. Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2014!” -Malaina and Kevin Student Goals Students’ yearly goals have played a major role in shaping the daily activities and curriculum in 4-6. For example, the great amount of cooking opportunities the students have during monthly family dinners, is a way teachers can help students achieve student goals that involve cooking. Providing daily outdoor play and/or open gym time is a way for teachers to help students achieve athletic goals. Charts have been created for students that have specific goals so he/she can keep track of his/her progress throughout the year. The upcoming months will be dedicated to themed based units based on student goals. Units will include: Paris, U.S. landmarks, Art techniques, U.S. states. Wish Days Wish days are special days where students pick from of list of “special” activities or create their own “special” activity. Wish days are a fun way for students to have ownership of a days activity. Students have really looked forward to their wish day in the past and know that wish days are a big hit among the students. Once each student has picked his/her wish day, a wish day calendar will be created allowing your child to know when his/her wish day occur. If your student is out on his/her scheduled wish day, we will reschedule it. Wish days will be spread out throughout the next couple of months. Homework and computer use Homework time is from 2:35-3:35pm Monday-Thursday and 1:45-2:35pm on Fridays. We have assigned seats and the children are responsible for taking out the appropriate assignments and begin working independently. Our team is here to give assistance, encourage good time management and remind the children of appropriate behavior. We are very proud of how well the children do and wanted to share this news with you. After a considerable amount of observation on the use of computers during homework time, a new sign in/sign out policy has been put into place to keep track of students’ computer use to be sure time on computers is efficient so that all students have time to start or complete their work. 4-6 students have four computers to share throughout the day. We are finding that students will do many days worth of homework in one sitting, which gives other students very little or no time to use computers. Our observations also include children spending 20 minutes on changing fonts, playing games or looking up assignments rather than doing the actual assignment. We are asking students to do any paper homework first before computer homework. This allows computer use to be staggered throughout homework time. We also recommend students to only do computer homework that is due the next day so that more students have time to use computers. With the new computer sign in/sign out policy, students must note the time they begin computer use, the website being used/homework assignment and the time they are finished. If you have any questions or concerns with computer use, please feel free to speak with a 4-6 teacher or Noelle. No School Monday, January 20th Wish List Laptop computers with word and wireless internet access Headphones (5) Lysol Wipes Rainbow Loom Bands |
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