From the Principal’s Office
It looks like fall is officially here; the days are definitely chillier and feel a lot shorter! The time change doesn’t seem to help the matter any, just confuses the internal time clock. We will be quite content to take the current weather over what we can expect in the coming weeks.
Thank you to everyone who helped with the Halloween parade and parties and were able to attend. It was definitely an interesting day with the snow! We hope everyone enjoyed themselves despite the weather. The children enjoyed their day and had lots of fun with their special guests.
We have had some early winter weather already so wanted to get the information out about how to learn about school closings. Weather related closings will be announced on radio stations WJBC 1230am, WBNQ 101.5fm and WBWN 104.5fm. We also have the option of sending a notification to parents by way of Links to Home, so if you don’t already have the phone app, now would be a good time to install it. The school’s voice mail will also be updated as well as the school website. The decision to close will be made by 6:00 am.
We are currently holding a food drive to benefit Center for Hope. Non-perishable food items will be collected until November 22nd. Pre-k 2 will deliver the collected food to Center for Hope on Monday, November 25th. We will host a class party for which ever classroom collects the most items, so be sure to support the outreach program and drop off your canned and boxed food in the decorated boxes outside the classrooms.
Chesterbrook Academy invites our parents and other special guests to join their children for Thanksgiving Lunch on Friday, November 22nd. Lunch will begin serving at 11:00 and will include turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, rolls and pumpkin pie. We will have a serving line set up at the front desk for parents to fix a plate and then join their child/children in the classrooms. The teachers will prepare plates for the children in the classrooms as they normally do. If you plan to join us for lunch that day, please let your child’s teacher know so we have an idea of how many to expect. We hope you are able to join us!
Administration is getting new email addresses to go into effect soon. Our new emails will be our firstname.lastname@chesterbrookacademy.com instead of @nlcinc.com. Emails sent to our old email address will be forwarded to our new inbox, so we will receive them, but we wanted to let you know so you can start using the new one. The switch to the new email addresses should be completed by Monday, November 18th.
The school will be closed November 28 and 29th for Thanksgiving and the day after. We wish all of our families a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Until next month, Shawna
Dates
November
November 1 – Parent survey closes
November 2 – Parents’ Day Out ~ 10:00-3:00
November 4 – Yankee Candle sales begin
November 4 – Food Drive begins
November 4-8 – Parent Reports distributed
November 5 – Links to Learning folders returned
November 11 – Professional Development Day ~ center closed
November 13-15 – Parent/Teacher Conferences
November 16 – Open House 10:00-1:00
November 22 – Food Drive ends
November 22 – Thanksgiving Feast
November 25 – Pre-k deliver food donations @ 11:00
November 27 – Links to Learning folders distributed
November 28 – Thanksgiving Day ~ center closed
November 29 – Day after Thanksgiving ~ center closed
Open House
November 16 ~ 10:00-1:00
For Parents and Teachers
Our fall Professional Development Day is scheduled for Monday, November 11th. The teachers will travel to Champaign to meet with the teachers from out Champaign schools to attend a variety of trainings. The teachers get a great deal of information that they bring back and put into action in their classrooms. We appreciate your support of our continuing education efforts with our staff.
The children will continue to go outside as long as the weather permits. Please be sure you are dressing the children for outside play. Hats and gloves/mittens are highly encouraged as the temperatures turn cooler.
We are asking that parents who drop their child off in a room other than their own to please take their child’s belongings to their assigned classroom. Drop off time can be very busy especially if breakfast is happening, and personal belongings can be misplaced despite the teachers’ best efforts. The children never seem to recognize their own belongings, and if a teacher doesn’t know who things belong to, it turns into a search to find the right owner. We appreciate your help with this.
For Parents
Our fall picture days went off without a hitch and the proof sheets have all been distributed and orders placed. The picture packages should deliver in a couple of weeks, so we will distribute them or let you know they are here as soon as we get them. The children did a great job and there were lots of great smiles!
Please be sure to let us know if you would like to use for vacation credit over the holidays. Each family earns one free week per year after six months of enrollment. We ask that you put your vacation week request in writing, either with a note dropped off at the front desk or by email.
Reminders
An Open House for prospective parents is scheduled for November 16th. Please be sure to share this information with family and friends looking for a preschool.
The school will be closed on Monday, November 11th for a staff Professional Development Day. Please make other arrangements for care for the day. We will reopen as normal on Tuesday, November 12th.
Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 28th. We will be closed for the day as well as the day after, Friday, November 29th.
Information for Consumer Product Safety Recalls: Website – http://www.cpsc.gov/en/recalls or Mobile app – RECALLS.GOV
Coming Up…
The classrooms will hold their holiday parties on Friday, December 20th. There will be signup sheets at the classrooms for parents to volunteer to help with the parties by acting as a room parent or bringing in treats, juice or paper products. You will need to check with the teachers to find out specifically what they need help with or brought it.
Chesterbrook will close at 12:00 on Christmas Eve, December 24th and will be closed December 25th for Christmas Day. We will close at 3:00 on New Year’s Eve, December 31st and will be closed for New Year’s Day, January 1st.
Open House
November 16 – 10:00-1:00
School Highlights
INFANTS 1: Happy November! Brrrrrr…has it gotten cold, but with cold comes the holidays, and we are counting down the days. This month, your little turkeys will be reading two awesome books that will have us learning about different shapes we can see throughout fall harvest and how different families spend Thanksgiving together. We have a lot of exciting new craft ideas, pictures and sensory bins to explore, so don’t forget to check out the boards in the room and the kids’ cubbies for take home projects! We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!
INFANT 2: Happy November! We have definitely entered into the Fall season! The leaves are changing color and falling to the ground, and the Infant 2 class has enjoyed watching and discussing the process through our classroom wall of windows. This month, our focus will be music in the classroom. Music is made accessible in our classroom via a variety of easy instruments, our CD collection, featuring several different genres of music, and our collection of books, containing many simple rhythmic chants. Just the other day, I had the pleasure of individually slow dancing with each child, to soul songs, such as Otis Redding’s “Sitting by the Dock of the Bay” and The Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”. Please feel free to stop by to share a dance with our Infant 2 students and me any time.
TODDLER 2: We are starting the month with the book Going on a Leaf Hunt. We will explore changes occurring outside and talk about leaves changing colors. We will continue the month with Thanksgiving, corn and a turkey book.
BEGINNER 2: Gobble, Gobble, Gobble! Beginner 2 is excited to welcome you into November and excited to participate in this year’s food drive. We will be reading great books, such as, Peace at Last, Goodnight Moon, The Wolf’s Chicken Stew and Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks. The students will learn the importance of Thanksgiving as well as identifying the amazing food that comes with it (Yum!). We will learn how to draw a turkey by tracing our hands and then decorate that turkey. We are eager to learn and continue practicing our weekly skills here in Beginner 2!
BEGINNER 3: Fall is here and winter is close behind! This month we will talk about all different kinds of foods, our favorites and the special food we eat at Thanksgiving. We will read Pie in the Sky, Goodnight Moon, The Wolf’s Chicken Stew and Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks. We will continue to work on our manners, saying please and thank you at mealtimes. Please remember to bring a coat for your child, as we will still go outside twice a day.
INTERMEDIATE 1: This month is going by so fast, but it’s been so fun! We have talked about fall and all about how the weather is changing! We have done a lot of really fun activities this month so far, like making a moose puppet, and a fun painting with marbles! We can’t wait to see what next month brings.
INTERMEDIATE 2: We have been learning about fall. We have talked about how the leaves have changed and the weather is getting colder. Also, if we have noticed that it is getting dark earlier and how we need to get all of the fruits and vegetables from the ground, which is where Thanksgiving came from. We are reading The Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves and having fun playing in the leaves, pumpkins and gourds in our sensory table. The last week in November we will read The Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey and talk about Thanksgiving.
PRE-K 1: This month in Pre-k 1 we are going to do some fun activities. We are going to learn about different presidents, talk about supermarkets and talk all about Thanksgiving! We are going to be dressing up some of our centers with new handmade toys to play with. We can’t wait to have our Thanksgiving feast with our family and friends. Have a happy Thanksgiving and stay warm!
PRE-K 2: The class had a great Halloween and they are ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas. For November, the class will have literature to read that is based on helping in the community, emotions and celebrating heroes. The first week in November the class will read the book, Maya was Grump. They will draw portraits of themselves and use expressions of how they are feeling that day. Also, they will use inventive spelling to write reasons Maya was grumpy and try to read what they wrote. The second week in November the class will read the book, Hero Mom to celebrate Veteran’s Day. They will write thank you letters to soldiers that served in the wars. The third week in November the class will read the book, Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do. The class will explore in the dramatic play area and use a variety of props to dress up as community helpers, and in the sensory table, they will pretend to be chefs and create a cake. The last week in November the class will read the book, Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks. The class will write on turkey feathers what makes them happy or what they are thankful for and will then glue the feathers on turkeys. Also, the class will learn how Eric Carle paints and creates illustrations in his books. Have a great November and Happy Thanksgiving!!!
From the Education Department
Sensory play is a wonderful opportunity for children to explore textures, sights and scents of the fall season. Multi-sensory experiences help children retain information better, build new skills, and develop a lifelong love of learning. Below are three activities that you can try with your child this month. 1. Explore[.....]
Read More »
November Newsletter
From the Principal’s Office
It looks like fall is officially here; the days are definitely chillier and feel a lot shorter! The time change doesn’t seem to help the matter any, just confuses the internal time clock. We will be quite content to take the current weather over what we can expect in the coming weeks.
Thank you to everyone who helped with the Halloween parade and parties and were able to attend. It was definitely an interesting day with the snow! We hope everyone enjoyed themselves despite the weather. The children enjoyed their day and had lots of fun with their special guests.
We have had some early winter weather already so wanted to get the information out about how to learn about school closings. Weather related closings will be announced on radio stations WJBC 1230am, WBNQ 101.5fm and WBWN 104.5fm. We also have the option of sending a notification to parents by way of Links to Home, so if you don’t already have the phone app, now would be a good time to install it. The school’s voice mail will also be updated as well as the school website. The decision to close will be made by 6:00 am.
We are currently holding a food drive to benefit Center for Hope. Non-perishable food items will be collected until November 22nd. Pre-k 2 will deliver the collected food to Center for Hope on Monday, November 25th. We will host a class party for which ever classroom collects the most items, so be sure to support the outreach program and drop off your canned and boxed food in the decorated boxes outside the classrooms.
Chesterbrook Academy invites our parents and other special guests to join their children for Thanksgiving Lunch on Friday, November 22nd. Lunch will begin serving at 11:00 and will include turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, rolls and pumpkin pie. We will have a serving line set up at the front desk for parents to fix a plate and then join their child/children in the classrooms. The teachers will prepare plates for the children in the classrooms as they normally do. If you plan to join us for lunch that day, please let your child’s teacher know so we have an idea of how many to expect. We hope you are able to join us!
Administration is getting new email addresses to go into effect soon. Our new emails will be our firstname.lastname@chesterbrookacademy.com instead of @nlcinc.com. Emails sent to our old email address will be forwarded to our new inbox, so we will receive them, but we wanted to let you know so you can start using the new one. The switch to the new email addresses should be completed by Monday, November 18th.
The school will be closed November 28 and 29th for Thanksgiving and the day after. We wish all of our families a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Until next month, Shawna
Dates
November
November 1 – Parent survey closes
November 2 – Parents’ Day Out ~ 10:00-3:00
November 4 – Yankee Candle sales begin
November 4 – Food Drive begins
November 4-8 – Parent Reports distributed
November 5 – Links to Learning folders returned
November 11 – Professional Development Day ~ center closed
November 13-15 – Parent/Teacher Conferences
November 16 – Open House 10:00-1:00
November 22 – Food Drive ends
November 22 – Thanksgiving Feast
November 25 – Pre-k deliver food donations @ 11:00
November 27 – Links to Learning folders distributed
November 28 – Thanksgiving Day ~ center closed
November 29 – Day after Thanksgiving ~ center closed
Open House
November 16 ~ 10:00-1:00
For Parents and Teachers
Our fall Professional Development Day is scheduled for Monday, November 11th. The teachers will travel to Champaign to meet with the teachers from out Champaign schools to attend a variety of trainings. The teachers get a great deal of information that they bring back and put into action in their classrooms. We appreciate your support of our continuing education efforts with our staff.
The children will continue to go outside as long as the weather permits. Please be sure you are dressing the children for outside play. Hats and gloves/mittens are highly encouraged as the temperatures turn cooler.
We are asking that parents who drop their child off in a room other than their own to please take their child’s belongings to their assigned classroom. Drop off time can be very busy especially if breakfast is happening, and personal belongings can be misplaced despite the teachers’ best efforts. The children never seem to recognize their own belongings, and if a teacher doesn’t know who things belong to, it turns into a search to find the right owner. We appreciate your help with this.
For Parents
Our fall picture days went off without a hitch and the proof sheets have all been distributed and orders placed. The picture packages should deliver in a couple of weeks, so we will distribute them or let you know they are here as soon as we get them. The children did a great job and there were lots of great smiles!
Please be sure to let us know if you would like to use for vacation credit over the holidays. Each family earns one free week per year after six months of enrollment. We ask that you put your vacation week request in writing, either with a note dropped off at the front desk or by email.
Reminders
An Open House for prospective parents is scheduled for November 16th. Please be sure to share this information with family and friends looking for a preschool.
The school will be closed on Monday, November 11th for a staff Professional Development Day. Please make other arrangements for care for the day. We will reopen as normal on Tuesday, November 12th.
Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 28th. We will be closed for the day as well as the day after, Friday, November 29th.
Information for Consumer Product Safety Recalls: Website – http://www.cpsc.gov/en/recalls or Mobile app – RECALLS.GOV
Coming Up…
The classrooms will hold their holiday parties on Friday, December 20th. There will be signup sheets at the classrooms for parents to volunteer to help with the parties by acting as a room parent or bringing in treats, juice or paper products. You will need to check with the teachers to find out specifically what they need help with or brought it.
Chesterbrook will close at 12:00 on Christmas Eve, December 24th and will be closed December 25th for Christmas Day. We will close at 3:00 on New Year’s Eve, December 31st and will be closed for New Year’s Day, January 1st.
Open House
November 16 – 10:00-1:00
School Highlights
INFANTS 1: Happy November! Brrrrrr…has it gotten cold, but with cold comes the holidays, and we are counting down the days. This month, your little turkeys will be reading two awesome books that will have us learning about different shapes we can see throughout fall harvest and how different families spend Thanksgiving together. We have a lot of exciting new craft ideas, pictures and sensory bins to explore, so don’t forget to check out the boards in the room and the kids’ cubbies for take home projects! We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!
INFANT 2: Happy November! We have definitely entered into the Fall season! The leaves are changing color and falling to the ground, and the Infant 2 class has enjoyed watching and discussing the process through our classroom wall of windows. This month, our focus will be music in the classroom. Music is made accessible in our classroom via a variety of easy instruments, our CD collection, featuring several different genres of music, and our collection of books, containing many simple rhythmic chants. Just the other day, I had the pleasure of individually slow dancing with each child, to soul songs, such as Otis Redding’s “Sitting by the Dock of the Bay” and The Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”. Please feel free to stop by to share a dance with our Infant 2 students and me any time.
TODDLER 2: We are starting the month with the book Going on a Leaf Hunt. We will explore changes occurring outside and talk about leaves changing colors. We will continue the month with Thanksgiving, corn and a turkey book.
BEGINNER 2: Gobble, Gobble, Gobble! Beginner 2 is excited to welcome you into November and excited to participate in this year’s food drive. We will be reading great books, such as, Peace at Last, Goodnight Moon, The Wolf’s Chicken Stew and Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks. The students will learn the importance of Thanksgiving as well as identifying the amazing food that comes with it (Yum!). We will learn how to draw a turkey by tracing our hands and then decorate that turkey. We are eager to learn and continue practicing our weekly skills here in Beginner 2!
BEGINNER 3: Fall is here and winter is close behind! This month we will talk about all different kinds of foods, our favorites and the special food we eat at Thanksgiving. We will read Pie in the Sky, Goodnight Moon, The Wolf’s Chicken Stew and Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks. We will continue to work on our manners, saying please and thank you at mealtimes. Please remember to bring a coat for your child, as we will still go outside twice a day.
INTERMEDIATE 1: This month is going by so fast, but it’s been so fun! We have talked about fall and all about how the weather is changing! We have done a lot of really fun activities this month so far, like making a moose puppet, and a fun painting with marbles! We can’t wait to see what next month brings.
INTERMEDIATE 2: We have been learning about fall. We have talked about how the leaves have changed and the weather is getting colder. Also, if we have noticed that it is getting dark earlier and how we need to get all of the fruits and vegetables from the ground, which is where Thanksgiving came from. We are reading The Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves and having fun playing in the leaves, pumpkins and gourds in our sensory table. The last week in November we will read The Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey and talk about Thanksgiving.
PRE-K 1: This month in Pre-k 1 we are going to do some fun activities. We are going to learn about different presidents, talk about supermarkets and talk all about Thanksgiving! We are going to be dressing up some of our centers with new handmade toys to play with. We can’t wait to have our Thanksgiving feast with our family and friends. Have a happy Thanksgiving and stay warm!
PRE-K 2: The class had a great Halloween and they are ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas. For November, the class will have literature to read that is based on helping in the community, emotions and celebrating heroes. The first week in November the class will read the book, Maya was Grump. They will draw portraits of themselves and use expressions of how they are feeling that day. Also, they will use inventive spelling to write reasons Maya was grumpy and try to read what they wrote. The second week in November the class will read the book, Hero Mom to celebrate Veteran’s Day. They will write thank you letters to soldiers that served in the wars. The third week in November the class will read the book, Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do. The class will explore in the dramatic play area and use a variety of props to dress up as community helpers, and in the sensory table, they will pretend to be chefs and create a cake. The last week in November the class will read the book, Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks. The class will write on turkey feathers what makes them happy or what they are thankful for and will then glue the feathers on turkeys. Also, the class will learn how Eric Carle paints and creates illustrations in his books. Have a great November and Happy Thanksgiving!!!
From the Education Department
Fall Sensory Fun
Read More »