Happy Holidays!

The holidays at Holly Tree;

Filled with festive moments for all to see

Enjoy the fun (we think you will!)

The children! The love! 

Our hearts are filled!

                             

Our teachers are really Santa's elves!

Ms. Vela's Pre-K Class Wrote Letters to Santa!

Ms. Bernetta's Class Decorated Gingerbread Boys and Girls!

  

Infant 3 drew pictures!

Some went traditional with "Snowmen"!

Holly Tree Wishes You a Very Merry Christmas 

with many blessings and lots of love!!!

Our Fabulous School Age Program!!!

Welcome to before and after care the faith, family, and fun way!!! 

We nicknamed our school age room the "Tree House" because that's where all the action is!

Ms. Carmen, also our Children's Minister, takes pride and pleasure in caring for our oldest children and helping them develop important skills that these young students need.

They explore through Art and Science:

They build! Building is play that also builds mathematical principles:

They make friends! That encourages the development social skills:

And they smile!

So does Ms. Carmen!

Our school age program focuses on the needs of children 5 through 12. 

We provide activities that will help your child succeed! 

We also provide transportation to and from Lakeview Elementary and are a drop-off/pick-up location for students attending Thomas Edison Elementary.

Come experience Faith, Family, and Fun with us!

Thanksgiving Lunch!

Over the past week, we have such good times sharing a delightful meal cooked by our cook, Ms. Gina and also Ms. Vela. On the menu, we had carved turkey and gravy, cornbread stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, rolls and pumpkin pie!! 

It was absolutely delicious! We had several families join their children for a special time. It is such a great thing to witness the connections between home and school being made. 

We also had our three year old class visiting all the other classrooms telling about the pilgrims and Indians. 

All in all, it was a wonderful day. Many new families got to spend time getting to know other families. 

We even gave away many door prizes, including a Starbucks gift card!! 

For more information about all the activities we have going on at our center, please visit our website at www.hollytreechildcare.com 

More Fall Fun!

We know how much everyone loves pictures of happy babies, so we thought we'd spotlight a few! Not only are our babies happy, they're learning! We take a "play based learning" approach here at Holly Tree; we, along with many experts in the Early Childhood field, think it's one of the best ways for children to learn. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC.org) asserts that through a combination of play, teacher directed activities, and daily routines, children develop physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively. We agree! 

                       Our toddlers learn beginning literacy when Ms. Andrea shares a book!

                                     

                                                                               

Our two year olds develop emotionally, socially, physically, and cognitively with creative art!

Our 3 and 4 year olds learn about nature, science, and math while making pine cone bird feeders!

And everyone loves and learns about God's word in Chapel with Ms. Carmen! We love that we are a Christian Preschool and part of our weekly lessons include Bible Focuses and Bible themes.

Our November focus is "Thankfulness" and we certainly have many things to be thankful for! 

Many blessings to each of you this day, 

and every day!

Faith, Family, Fun, Fall!

Faith, Family, Fun, Fall!!!

We are having a fabulous fall at Holly Tree! We are well into our High Reach Curriculum throughout the center, the Pre-K class is progressing fantastically through Handwriting Without Tears (http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/parents) our Thanksgiving Feast is planned for November 22nd, and our Annual Christmas Program is in the works! We also had some very cute trick or treaters as you can see:

                          

While we're on the topic of babies, we'd like to spotlight one of our infant teachers and one of our infant curriculum programs! We use (and love!) Baby Signs. We post our sign of the week outside all of our Infant and Toddler rooms so you can keep up to date with what we're working on. It's great to reinforce the signs at home, too! Check out the website at Babysigns.com. We think you'll enjoy it as much as we do!

We love our happy Infant 1 classroom and part of the happiness comes from Ms. Diane!

She's been with us since August and we're so proud to have her.

  

Ms. Diane has two children of her own, one a two year old who attends our Preschool, and has a genuine love and knack for working with infants. 

 

      

                                                                       

Visit Our Infant 1 Classroom To Meet Ms. Diane and Her Wonderful Class!

Faith, Family, Fun!

We're loving fall at Holly Tree! We're well in to our High Reach Curriculum throughout the center, our Pre-K is making great progress with Hand-Writing Without Tears. Check out this great approach at  http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/parents.

We are happily moving toward the winter season with lots of fun and interesting activities. We'll be having our Thanksgiving Feast on November 22nd (all families welcomed so mark your calendars!), and are in the planning stage of our Annual Christmas Program!

What do we do at Holly Tree??

This past week at Holly Tree was jam packed with all kinds of things going on! Some of feb children in the infant classroom got to get outside and go for a little stroll along our beautiful campus. 

I went outside with them and walked also! It was such a beautiful day and beautiful weather! We discovered things like leaves, wind blowing and even watched a squirrel on the roof top! 

The preschool class went on a healthy food scavenger hunt! While I was in the kitchen cooking, I gave them some clues about where they might find some items on their list. Here they are pictured holding up some of the things they found: 

Although our theme this week involved healthy eating and food, on Friday we had a cookie decorating station in our front lobby. There was delicious oatmeal cookies, white icing and a variety of sprinkles that the children and parents could decorate a cookie to go! This was a big hit with everyone (and one of my favorited too!) 

These are just a few of the fun things that happen each week here at Holly Tree! To find out more information on our unique program, visit our website at:

www.hollytreechildcare.com 

Outside chalk art

This afternoon was a center-wide outside chalk art day of fun! We blocked off an area of the parking lot. The children came out and decorated our parking lot! 

Many children drew shapes and lots of hearts! That tells me we have happy kiddos! 

This kids set boundaries marked by chalk lines. "This is my personal space" I heard one child say. I love the conversations you hear when your just listening! 

Here we have one child laid out to have his body traced! We discussed crime scenes and safety procedures. The children told me that this is what detectives do. I even heard someone say that they might become a detective one day! 

Other children were over the chalk drawing but luckily we had other activities available for them. From hula hoops, ball and jump ropes to some kids just picking up nature items, like leaves, the day turned out to just be a day of fun outdoor learning and perfect weather! 

To view all the fun activities we have scheduled, please feel free to visit our website at: 

www.hollytreechildcare.com

Teacher spotlight- Ms. Vela!!

I have to take a few minutes to recognize a truly valued employee, Ms. Vela Battle! 

Vela has been an employee of Holly Tree Christian Preschool for fourteen years. She has been a teacher in many classrooms over the years. The first week in September, she moved to the pre-k classroom. I've always known that Vela was a one-of-a-kind teacher but WOW! She has blown me away since making a switch to this classroom. 

Vela has spent many hours of her own personal time at home making math and literacy learning games. To the children it seems like just a fun game, but hidden is also an activity that is teaching the children necessary skills. 

Here is a child using chopsticks to place the correct number of Pom poms into each container of a muffin tin. This activity helps children developing counting skills, sorting and small motor. 

This is a self-portrait bulletin board. Once a month the children will document on paper their interpretation of their self image. Each month it will be added to the board so that the progression stages will be easily identified. 

Here is a project the kids were asked to do. The class is learning about the letter "C" so they had to bring a bag full of things that start with C. It was so neat to see all the items. One child brought a car shaped cookie cutter tin!! What a fun and engaging activity! 

Here the children are in a small group working on "extra" work. They were not asked to do this but they wanted to do big kid homework!! 

This class and Ms. Vela are just amazing! I love going into this classroom. It is just fun and inviting! If your child is lucky enough to have Ms. Vela as a teacher then you will not be disappointed! 

Be sure to check out more information about what all our pre-k has to offer at our website: 

www. Hollytreechildcare.com