The HEDP board would like to ask for your support of the HEDP scholarship fund. Though it is tempting to dismiss the need for this fund in a district that enjoys many advantages, in reality, this is an active fund that we have used and exhausted each of the past 11 years. Currently, the fund is supported solely by Heath Extended Day and allows us to provide assistance to several families who might not otherwise be able to utilize HEDP services. While the primary reason most of us use HEDP is for childcare when we are working or attending school, there are many other benefits of extended day. In addition to maintaining continuity between the school day and after school, HEDP offers homework support, fun curriculum, activity clubs, and an opportunity for kids to extend their friendships across the Heath community and beyond their own classes. These benefits are understood and appreciated within the school, and Noelle and her team have often partnered with Heath teachers and Dr Miner to accommodate children who would benefit from HEDP. Our current model for funding scholarships is to require an application each semester, and we typically fund a portion of each family’s tuition. This approach enables us to maximize our limited funds. During these challenging times we have seen an increase in requests for assistance, and we are finding it more difficult to meet them all. We understand that after school care costs are not trivial, but any donation would be greatly appreciated and put directly toward supporting a family that is temporarily in a tight spot. We are collecting donations by checks made payable to HEDP or through a secure fundraising site that can be accessed with the link below. We are currently using a site called GO FUND ME to collect all online donations. No amount is too small! We appreciate any generosity that your family is willing to Please feel free to talk with any of the board members if you have any questions. Sincerely, The Heath Extended Day Parent Board John Freese, Chair Lara Szent-Gyorgyi Jennifer Mataraza Ellie Weintraub Alan Flint Wilson Liu Andyeliz Papaleo Bryan O’Neil Craig Wohlers & Julie Burkley Min Jen Wu Taylor Greg Fenton
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November 2013 Heath Extended Day 4-6 Newsletter What have we been up to? GO SOX! During the month of October, students in the 4-6 classroom cheered on the beloved Boston Red Sox by celebrating their entry to the playoffs with a playoff party! From Red Sox trivia to special Red Sox Challenges, to baseball activities (Green Monster cupcakes, face painting, caramel corn, Red Sox flags, Fenway Franks), to an appearance from a special guest (Kevin dressed up in a Red Sox body suit), the kids seemed to thoroughly enjoy this special day. We are sure that all of the celebrating helped Red Sox win the World Series! October’s family dinner was tacos and chocolate pudding. Students diced onions, tomatoes and cilantro, seasoned hamburg, cut up lettuce, shredded cheese, made lemonade, and whipped up some chocolate pudding to enjoy! This was a buffet style family dinner where students took turns making tacos to their liking. Some students, who were not particularly fond of tacos, thought of the idea to make cheese quesadillas instead! Students worked hard at pitching in on the clean up! One student volunteered to wash ALL the dishes while a group of students worked by his side drying them as they were finished being cleaned. While dishes were being washed, a group of students were busy vacuuming and folding table cloths. We are so proud of their hard work! They should be the very best helpers during your holiday family dinners! The students also created art and crafts with a Halloween theme. They created Halloween luminaries using recycled jars, tissue paper, modge podge and battery operated flameless candles. In addition, students went on a skeleton scavenger hunt, painted gourds, baked pumpkin whoopie pies, carved pumpkins (students guessed the pumpkin’s weight first) and made pumpkin seeds! During the annual 4-6 Halloween party, students enjoyed mummy dogs for snack! They also participated a variety of games such as a donut eating contest, special Halloween challenges, ghost balloon pop, pumpkin cup knock down, mummy wrap and a spider scavenger hunt. Activities included haunted “gingerbread” houses, slime and Halloween beady buddies. We really enjoyed the wonderful costumes worn by the children! Project Bread Holiday Spoon Project It’s that time a year again for our annual participation in the Project Bread Holiday Spoons Project.. Project Bread is the state’s leading anti-hunger organization, dedicated to preventing and alleviating hunger in Massachusetts. Project Bread funds over 400 food pantries, soup kitchens, and food banks all over Massachusetts. The Holiday Spoons Project is a fun meaningful way for children to learn about hunger and help feed hungry children in Massachusetts. Children will use their creativity and imagination to decorate wooden spoons using a wide variety of art materials. In years past, kids depicted cartoon characters, people, animals and more! We can’t wait to see what they come up with this year! We will sell the kid’s creations to friends, families and teachers for $2.00 each. All the money raised will be donated to Project Bread to help in it’s mission to end hunger in Massachusetts. 4-6 students will be given designated “work times” to sell spoons. Please visit them in the 4-6 room to make your purchase. They will be set up with cash register and will be in charge of collecting money, giving change, writing receipts and advertising! Early Release Days Field trips will be planned on the following early release days. On early release days there is a 12:45 school dismissal. Please look for permission slips at the sign out station. Sign up for trips will be on a first come, first serve basis. Space is limited! Your spot for trips will be secured with the return of the permission slip and trip payment in the form of cash. Tuesday, November 12th Wednesday, November 20th Tuesday, December 4th Wednesday, December 10th On Wednesday, November 17th there is a 12:00 dismissal (day before Thanksgiving). HEDP closes at 4:45 on this day. 4-6 Family Dinner will take place on this day with a Thanksgiving dinner. No School Monday, November 11th- Veteran’s Day Thursday, November 28th- Thanksgiving break Friday, November 29th- Thanksgiving break Wishing all the families a happy fall and happy Thanksgiving! Malaina, Kevin and Jackie NOVEMBER We hope all of you had a great October! We had a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween and it was so much fun to see all our friends dressed up in costume!!! We had lots of fun exploring with spiders, owls, skeletons and pumpkins in October. The children enjoyed creating crafts and playing many group games…they are doing a fabulous job learning to be a good sport! This month we will focus on Massachusetts, Fairytales, and Sports. We will end the month sharing things that we are thankful for. The children will be creating a book titled, “All About My State” which will include many facts about Massachusetts. Children will exercise their imagination while creating magic wands and crowns throughout fairytale week! We will be getting our daily dose of exercise during Sports week; learning about soccer, wall ball, football, baseball and participating in a relay race. The children are very excited to participate in sports week and many of them can’t wait to share their expertise! Lastly we will be throwing a Birthday Bash on November 25th for our November birthdays. Please remember that November 27th is a Noon Dismissal and children should arrive to Extended Day with a bagged lunch; nothing that needs to be microwaved. Thank You A couple of reminders this month… * Please sign your child out EVERYDAY! * No School on November 11, 28 & 29th Early Dismissal (12:45) on November 12 & 20 * Noon Dismissal on November 27rd and HEDP will close at 4:45PM * November 25th Birthday Bash Wish List Paper Towels Clorox Wipes November 2013 2-3 Newsletter During the month of November the children will celebrate the begining of the holiday season with a caring tree which will be posted in the classroom. The children will have the opportunity to acknowledge other children’s kind deeds by adding a leaf to the caring tree when they observe someone doing something kind. I imagine that the tree will be full of leaves in no time at all. To carry on the theme of caring, the children will be creating cards for Operation Gratitude who will share the letters of appreciations with U.S. Service members serving overseas, Veterans, and Wounded Warriors. The goal of Operations Gratitude is to lift the morale of service members - and who better to do this than the 2-3 community? In addition to observing acts of kindness, the children will be planning a Thanksgiving feast which will be taking place on November 20th and. We also will do other fall themed activities: making carmel dipped apples, creating placemats and center pieces for our feast. Parents will be asked to sign-up to donate a food item to make this event happen. This month we are looking to add on specialized activities. We are sampling “the cheer crew” and “Archetectures of tomorrow” for the first round. Students will have the opportunity to sign up with one of the teachers. As the year goes on we will continue to add on more activities based on the children’s insterest. Dates to Remember: November 12th - 12:15p.m. Early Release Day November 27th - 12:00 p.m. Early Release Day - HEDP closes at 4:45p.m. November 28th - No School November 29th - No School Wishlist Items: Lysol wipes Glass jars Tissues Happy Fall Y’all-This month we begin our letter of the weeks unit. Each week we will be learning about a letter of the alphabet and a doing crafts of a related theme. Each child will be completing an alphabet book, this will foster letter recognition, letter awareness, and continue to provide writing practice. -We will begin November by learning about the letter A and Animals. We will be studying animals and the letter A through November 8th. -The week of November 11th through the 15th we will be learning the letter B and studying butterflies. We will be discuss the life cycle of a butterfly. -The week of November 18th through the 22nd we will be learning about the letter C and exploring with colors. The children will be able to hypothesis about what would happen if they mix colors and we will follow that up by conducting mixing experiments. Some crafts we will be working on are, a rainbow craft and color collages. -The week of November 25th we will be discussing what we are thankful for, creating thankful books and harvest crafts. Wednesday, november 27th we will be doing cooking activities and having a harvest feast with our first grade friends. *A theme that is going to shadow our alphabet curriculum is about kindness. We will read The Giving Tree and be discussing how to be kind, the importance of being kind and creating our own version of “the giving tree.” The children may come home talking about “caring chains.” A caring chain will be hanging on our classroom and the children will be earning links to add to the chain when acts of kindness are recognized by a teacher. The goal of this unit is to promote acts of kindness, and friendship. Important Dates to Remember: -Monday, November 11th, No school-Veterans Day -Tuesday, November 12th-Early dismissal 12:40 -Wednesday, November 20th-Early dismissal 12:40 -Wednesday, November 27th- Early dismissal 12:00pm-On this day HEDP closes at 4:45pm, please plan pick-up accordingly. -Thursday November 28th&Friday November 29th-No school Wish List: Clorox Wipes Dry Erase Markers Paper towels Bingo Markers Kitchen Knives Radio with CD player |
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