Bethany

Besides learning about insects during the month of April, all the children, with the help of their parents, presented science experiments to the other children in the classroom.  It was an educational and fun experience for everyone!

Big thanks and much appreciation to our volunteers this month, including Jonathan Cohn and his friends from the Beta Alpha Phi fraternity who came to clean the center and Mrs. Elaine Johnson who also came to story time with the children.  Mrs. Johnson also generously donated a big camping tent and picnic table for our children.

To wrap up the month, Bethany celebrated by having a pajama day, career day, favorite jersey day, rock star day and a camping day.

Cockrell Hill

Cockrell Hill also kept things interesting in April, as children could be seen cheering on snails during friendly snail races and “catching shadows” in the playground, by drawing them.  Of course this all tied into the science projects every classroom presented, with help from parents.

During their weekly visit, Jesuit students introduced science experiments to the children, our parents staged a play based on the storybook Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly and acted out the parts and a site wide carnival, followed by a picnic, was enjoyed by all.

High fives to Margarita, Ms. Marquina and Ms. Fernandez who organized the carnival with parents. The event not only included face painting, duck pond games and musical chairs, but Bear Creek Dental group was also part of the event, educating our students on proper teeth care.

Crossover

Science galore!  At our Crossover site all the children and their parents were encouraged to present science projects to the class and the top 3 projects per classroom were chosen by the Admin Staff.

Other learning activities included dressing up as cowboys, clowns, blowing bubbles and assisting a magician (provided by St. Rita’s).  The month ended with a Hawaiian carnival decorated by volunteers, who also assisted with games, painting faces and passing out lunches.

St. Matthews

Just a few weeks left to the end of the school year and April was a busy month at our St. Matthew’s site.  We started off with Life Touch coming in to take graduation pictures and then had our Science Fair with all of our students and parents participating with great ideas and cool experiments.

St. Matthew’s would like to thank all the staff and parents for coming together to celebrate the children of our site; they definitely felt appreciated and will hopefully always remember that they are important!

Buckner

Packed with wonderful learning experiences, April was quite a month for the children at our Buckner site. The month started off with the final display of the March projects and the first annual Buckner ”Science Fair.”  The fair was a huge success thanks to our teachers, parents and children’s efforts in making wonderful science experiments.  During the “Week of the Young Child” was touching to see how the parents celebrated their children along with the teachers.  The hallways were filled with beautiful poems from parents telling their children how special and important they are.

As you can tell by the overview this year we introduced our first annual science fair led by the children with the help of their parents.  It was amazing to see the excitement and involvement not only from the children but from their parents as well!  We are blessed to have such an enthusiastic and committed staff who along with parents who provide awesome learning experiences for our little ones!

Until next time!

Prerna Richards

Program Director

ST. MATTHEWS

Dr. Seuss in a book, Dr. Seuss in every nook, Dr. Seuss fun in the air, Dr. Seuss celebration everywhere!  If you can’t already tell, a large part of March at our St. Matthew’s Site was dedicated to celebrating the works of Dr. Seuss.  The students learned various facts regarding Dr. Seuss’ life and books. Then came the parade, in which all the children participated by dressing up as different characters from Dr. Seuss books.

Also happening at St. Matthews was learning about what life would be like, working as a baker. The children in Class 1 learned how to make pastries and then created a pastry shop in which they were required to keep track of the amount of profits made.  Every opportunity to reinforce the importance of mathematics is always taken at Mi Escuelita, even when it seems like fun and game.  Mi Escuelita teacher Mrs. Silva also invited a baker from Tango Bakery to come and do a demonstration for the entire site.  The children had the opportunity to help the baker in mixing colors for his cake and also incorporated the St. Patrick’s theme into the cake by creating designs that related to the holiday.

Class 2 ventured into the world of pets. The topics covered were how to care for your pet and what types of pets exist.  Meanwhile, Class 4 has been learning about the world of Cowboys. The children learned about the types of clothes cowboys wear and why these clothes were important in the life of a cowboy in the old west.  The students then got into the clothing fun themselves,  drawing and designing different clothing items to wear in the classroom.  The students of Class 4  learned about the different types of animals that are cared for by cowboys, such as cows and sheep.  By learning how the cowboys cared for these animals, the children of St. Matthews also realized how important it is to have properly care for animals.

CROSSOVER

Teachers from Crossover returned from spring break to Mi Escuelita eager, energized and ready to begin their Project Approach with their
children. Project Approach is an innovative technique used often in the classroom where the Mi Escuelita children steer their course of education by choosing and leading towards the subjects that they want to learn about.  Observations throughout the year help teachers decide what interest their children have and then when presented with a variety of choices from these observations, the children are encouraged to vote on a project for the class.

Thus, the Project Approach was in full swing this March at Mi Escuelita’s Crossover site.   Teachers were seen busily doing research, acquiring speakers to come in and present to the class, and preparing fun quizzes for the students about their projects.  Projects that were chosen through this year’s Project Approach ranged from baking to monkeys to worms to the human body.  It’s been an exciting time at our Crossover site because of these projects and it was evident in each classroom this month!

The Crossover staff would like to give a big “HATS OFF” to all the Crossover teachers who are making this a very exciting learning experience for the children.

BUCKNER

Dr. Seuss arrived this month at Mi Escuelita’s Buckner site, too!  The students enjoyed a special week of learning about Dr. Seuss,  reading Dr. Seuss books and dressing up like Dr. Seuss characters in the school wide parade.

The month of March was filled with diligent work on classroom projects by both the students and teachers.  Projects at our Buckner site included safari, trees, music, the rain forest, pizza and butterflies.  All month long, students were seen enjoying the activities each project.  You see pictures of our students on our website.

In this photo, students learned about insects by partaking in a friendly caterpillar race:

Here children are making caterpillars by stuffing and painting socks:

You can almost smell the pizza in this photo of Mi Escuelita Buckner students cooking pizza:

To get the full Italian experience, one classroom constructed a pizza parlor in one of the dramatic play areas of the classroom:

The Mi Escuelita Buckner staff would also warmly welcomed our new Site Manager, Ms. Jessica Reich.  What a wonderful way to begin
Spring!

COCKRELL HILL

Classroom projects abound at Mi Escuelita’s Cockrell Hill Site as students are learning about different areas of interest such as flowers, felines, restaurant, penguins, the human body, and the jungle.  Each classroom has come up with their own KWL chart which illustrates what topics the children want to learn about in each project.  All of the classroom projects consisted of plenty of hands on activities such as planting, nature walks, sorting flowers, walking like penguins, cooking, reviewing x-rays, checking pulses, inhabitants of the jungle and how do these inhabitants survive.

To top off the month of March, Mi Escuelita Cockrell Hill had a visit from the Museum of Science and History who brought out an activity having to do with Engineer It.

BETHANY

Fun for both student and teacher alike is what a week celebrating Dr. Seuss should be all about!  We started off the week with Dr. Seuss books and activities,  discovering more about one of their favorite authors. The weeked ended nicely with Bethany site haveing a fun parade with the children to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday!!

March was a month for water as the site’s huge success was the class project that consisted of everything H2O.  Our Bethany students are really learning a lot and best of all they are enjoying it!  Volunteers from Prestonwood Christian Academy visited our Bethany site and did a lot of fun activities with the children, including assisting the children in starting a garden outside.

At Mi Escuelita our teachers realize that children are curious to learn and have an amazing capacity to absorb new information.  This belief is what drives our teaching everyday.

“Never underestimate young children, for, if you do, you are bound to be surprised”

-Selma Wasserman, Serious Players in the Primary Classroom

Dinosaurs, dinosaurs everywhere! Our classroom at Bethany were overtaken by dinosaurs in February. Children explored the world of dinosaurs by learning to pronounce some difficult species names, hunted for fossils outside, and made a giant footprint to see how many children would fit inside. The month of February became even more educational when the the Tooth Fairy visited the classroom to educate the children on care for their teeth, the right way to brush, and good and bad food for their teeth. The Dallas Museum of Nature and Science also visited our Bethany site and bought the “Magnetic Mania”, an exciting presentation that taught the children about the first magnet. The children had a unique opportunity to experiment with different kinds of magnets, thus allowing them to play as they learned.

Buckner:

Buckner was privileged to enjoy several exciting and educational presentations during the month of February. The Dallas Arboretum visited the classrooms with a special presentation about living and non-living things. Children’s Dental Care stopped by to show the children how to care for their teeth and Texas Winds provided a fun-filled presentation with percussion instruments. The New Song Community Choir and the Custer Road Choir came on separate occasions to serenade the children with their beautiful voices. The choir also visited our classrooms and helped the children create Valentine’s Day cards. Several parents, teachers, and children took scarves, hats, mittens, and house shoes to the residents of a local retirement home for Buckner’s annual “Give Love Project”.

Crossover:

The children of Crossover Mi Escuelita learned the true meaning of caring and giving on Valentine’s Day by collecting close to 100 stuffed bears and delivering them to Scottish Rite Hospital for Children on February 14. The smiles seen on the little patient’s faces at the hospitals as they received a stuffed animal gave us all a good feelings but the smiles seen on the children from Mi Escuelita was priceless as they gave from their heart!

Mi Escuelita would like to recognize and thank all our students, families, and staff who gave from their hearts and did not forget that there is always someone who needs a bear hug!

Cockrell Hill:

Our Cockrell Hill site started February off with a bang by celebrating the 100th day of school. Several presentations throughout the month gave the children of Cockrell Hill something new to learn and enjoy. Geary Laird, Mi Escuelita’s nutrition specialist, gave a presentation on the importance of eating healthy, South Texas Dental performed free dental screenings on all children, and Texas Winds presented the school with a percussion piece that accompanied the book “Little Engine That Could”. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Cockrell Hill families collected goodies for our annual “Give Love Project” benefiting the United Methodist Church of Cockrell Hill. Parents that participated in the Survival Skills training class, a six week wellness program that gives parents pratical advice on making healthy choices for their families, had a celebration to end the training; parents celebrated with food and received certificates.

St. Matthews:

February was a fun month at St. Matthew’s! It started off with a celebration for the 100^th day of school where all the children made cute shirts with a 100 symbol on them. On February 13^th the children went to Cathedral Gardens and delivered their “Give Love Project” donations of flowers, teddy bears and chocolates to the seniors citizens who reside there. The children had a blast knocking on doors and wishing everyone a ‘Happy Valentine’s Day!” On February 14^th St. Matthew’s held their first “Sweet Heart Dance” to celebrate Valentine’s Day with the children and their families. It was a huge success! The dance was a masquerade ball where parents and children dressed up wearing handmade Valentine’s Day themed masks. Everyone enjoyed getting their pictures taken, dancing, face painting, bean bag toss and musical chairs. Our Parent Policy Council did a wonderful job of decorating the event hall, finding a DJ and volunteering at the booths. We couldn’t have done it without them. Thank you parents for all your hard work!

Let’s start with the acronym NAEYC; it stands for National Association for the Education of Young Children. NAEYC is a professional organization that has promoted excellence in early childhood education for more than 80 years by accrediting child care programs that are committed to meeting national standards of quality. In turn, families can more easily identify high-quality programs where they can enroll their children. How does a child care organization receive this type of accreditation? A well rounded curriculum that includes technology, ensuring children’s health and nutritional well-being, maintaining a nurturing environment and the hiring of quality teachers are just a few of the standards that NAEYC measure in order to determine whether or not a child care organization receives an accreditation.

Mi Escuelita Preschool is proud to say that all five of our sites have received NAEYC Accreditation. In 2008, new standards for accreditation were rolled out by NAEYC and all five of our sites had to undergo reinstatement of the accreditation. This means that at that time Mi Escuelita Preschool met all required criteria to receive the NAEYC accreditation. It was validation for all of the hard work tour staff and teachers put into ensuring the children we serve receive the best education possible.

However, receiving an accreditation from NAEYC is just the first step. In order to keep this prestigious accreditation, Mi Escuelita Preschool has to maintain the level of standards set out by the NAEYC criteria at all of our sites, at all times. To ensure that accredited child care organizations maintain these standards, NAEYC routinely conducts unannounced visits to its accredited organizations, in order to guarantee first hand that the NAEYC criteria is being met. This past December 2011, NAEYC randomly selected one of Mi Escuelita’s sites, our Cockrell Hill school, to conduct an unannounced visit.

“We are proud to say that our Cockrell Hill location performed extremely well , receiving one of the highest rating levels seen by the accrediting agency” said Prerna Richards, Program Director for Mi Escuelita Preschool. “What makes this so special is that this unannounced visit illustrated that our incredible staff maintains and provides quality education on a consistent basis . T he excellent scores our classrooms received during this surprise visit proves that.”

Out of the hundreds of child care organizations in Dallas, only 27 of these centers are NAEYC accredited. Mi Escuelita Preschool sites account for 5 of those 27 child care centers in Dallas with accreditation. It’s a monumental achievement that any child care organization should be proud of, but at Mi Escuelita Preschool, that pride goes a bit deeper.

This accreditation speaks volumes about our ability to provide quality education to the children in the Dallas communities. It’s important because Mi Escuelita Preschool is one of the few NAEYC accredited child care organizations in Dallas that services low income and English as Second Language learners. As the population landscape of Dallas changes, we recognize we are filling a growing need .

Crossover Site

Bethany Site

Buckner Site

St. Matthew’s Site

Cockrell Hill Site

Buckner

The children celebrated and learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Chinese New Year.

•  Highlighted this month are Mrs. Arellano’s and Mrs. Garcia’s class. They have enhanced the learning experience for the two and three year olds!  After discussing MLK and what he represented, the children made a “Unity Quilt” using their handprints.  They also discussed the similarities between MLK and Barack Obama.  One child said, “They both want us to be friends.” Children get it!

•   All classes joined together for a Chinese New Year Parade and our foster grandparents especially enjoyed this because most of them are from China!  One grandparent dressed in traditional attire and performed a traditional Chinese dance for the children. They decorated the Morning News to reflect the Chinese New Year, measured a dragon with clips in the math area and made dragon puppets in the art area.

• Mrs. Arellano and Mrs. Garcia introduced a new transition song to the children. They turned “All the Single Ladies” into “I Need a Single Line”. Love it!   The children filed into line as they sang, “I need a single line…I need a single line.  Put your hands up oh, oh, oh …. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh”.  These teachers are making transitions fun!

At Bethany, the children kicked off their new year by celebrating Chinese New Year, enjoying several stories by famous children’s author Eric Carle and even experiencing different textures.

• To celebrate Chinese New Year- the year of the dragon they house center was transformed into a small Chinese house with traditional clothes, foods complete with chopsticks.  They made noodle’s out of yarn, learned to sing Happy New Year in Mandarin, a language in China and even used the chopsticks to taste traditional Chinese foods.

Today marks the first day of the Chinese New Year and the children at Mi Escuelita Crossover site celebrated with a parade, a dragon dance and some even donned homemade Chinese costumes.  Dragon dances are common during Chinese New Year. It is believed that the loud beats of the drum and the deafening sounds of the cymbals together with the face of the dragon dancing aggressively can evict bad or evil spirits. Each class had colorful, decorative dragons and the children played instruments loudly to get rid of the sadness and bad events from the past year.  Red is the predominant color used in New Year celebrations and some of our children wore homemade Chinese costumes and Chinese traditional hats.  All the kids were excited to walk in the parade, wearing their red clothing to bring good luck.  In the classroom, they are even learning how to eat with chop sticks and how to say numbers, letters, and words in Chinese.  Chinese New Year is known to be celebrated for fifteen days and is the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese calendar.  This is just the beginning of what is yet to come!

LOOKING FOR A COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP?

Mi Escuelita is giving away a $2,500 College Scholarship!

Eligibility Requirements

• All applicants must be former Mi Escuelita Preschool Students.

• All applicants must be high school seniors entering a 4-year accredited college or university.

Scholarship Sponsor

Please submit the following items with the Scholarship Application Form:

1. A current portrait of yourself AND a picture of you as a Mi Escuelita child
2. A copy of your high school transcript
3. A one-page essay discussing your educational objectives and goals while you attend the college or university of your choice.  Please discuss your plans for using your education to achieve your personal and professional goals and the impact that Mi Escuelita Preschool had on your educational success.

Download and mail your application.
or
Fill out your application online.

St. Matthews:

Our St. Matthews site can not believe that November has already come and gone!  Maybe it has to do with the fact that they had so many awesome activities keeping the children busy while still having fun and learning.  Sparky’s Pals came to do a puppet show for the children to teach them about fire safety.  The children and staff really enjoyed meeting “Sparky” the dog, as you can tell from the great pictures here!  The children also blasted off into learning about space where they tasted Astronaut ice cream and built their own NASA rockets.  The pictures of these space explorations are classic!  Then St. Matthew’s PTA, along with staff, created a beautiful “Daddy Luncheon” for Dads where any male family members was invited to come eat Thanksgiving lunch with their children.  It was a huge success and we are proud to say that almost every Dad made it to event!  Our St. Matthew’s site would also like to welcome Ms Valdez to their team.  She is acclimating nicely, the children have quickly adjusted to her and are thoroughly enjoying having her as their teacher!

Bethany:

At our Bethany site, November was spent learning about space!  It was amazing how the children really got excited about the space theme.  We transformed the classroom into outer space and the children helped paint the planets, as you can see in the pictures.  The children learned about earth and all the lifeforms on the planet, about the gases of the sun and the craters of the moon, and they learned about the stars and constellation.  It was an awesome month of learning!  Not to mention the week before the Thanksgiving break when we learned about the Thanksgiving holiday and what is was all about!

Cockrell Hill:  

October is a beautiful, fun filled and educational month at Mi Escuelita! Preschool!  Celebrating children’s literature is what this month has all about for our youngsters.  All month both children and staff have acted out traditional fairy tales so that the students can truly experience the literature rather than just listening to the stories. These staged readings take a lot of team work from many dedicated individuals but what becomes produced is pure magic. As you read this month’s overview you will see that we have an amazing program which is only enhanced by a wonderful group of volunteers, parents and the most dedicated staff; all trying their best to give the children in our care wonderful experiences and creating beautiful memories. We at Mi Escuelita are truly blessed!

St. Matthews:  This month was a very exciting one at our St. Matthew Site. In celebration of  literacy month, the site had many wonderful activities happening for the children and families. The staff, parents and volunteers from Jesuit Preparatory School of Dallas acted out a fairy tale for the children. The parents did an incredible job designing costumes and props. The children loved it and gave the production value a huge thumbs up! The Jesuit boys preformed a wonderful reenactment of “Little Red Ridding Hood” that was a huge hit with the children. In addition, children from each class acted out a fairy tale for their parents and family members. Needless to say, the children adorably brought the stories to life in fantastic fashion.  After the children acted out their fairy tales the parents, families and staff all came together to celebrate at the Fairy Tale Ball. It was filled with dancing, musical chairs, face painting and pumpkin bowling that everyone enjoyed!

Bethany; It was also “Bring a Book to Life” month at our Bethany Site. The class read Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and to further the story beyond the page, their room was transformed into a forest through some ingenious decorative work by Bethany’s staff!  This sparked the children’s imagination.  They wanted to learn all about bears so after some research, the Bethany teachers presented the students with some “bear facts”.  Here are just a few of the facts the class learned:

• Bears eat berries, flowers, insects
• They eat honey just like the bees
• They stand on their hind legs because they want to smell the air around them
• Bears are brown, white, black, and to our surprise bears are very quiet animals.

The children then acted out the story of Three Little Pigs for the parents.  The performance received a standing ovation.

Crossover: Like all the Mi Escuelita Preschool sites, October has been a busy month for the Crossover Site.  Children, staff and parents have been celebrating Literacy Month and everyone who walks into a Crossover classroom can see how literature has been brought to life. The Crossover staff would like to recognize our parents who are seen working in the resource room daily making props, costumes, cleaning and assisting the teachers. They have definitely helped in making literacy fun for everyone!

Spending a day at the Crossover site in October, one would be able to hear and see teachers reinforcing literacy activities throughout the day in class. Children are heard retelling the fairy tales, wearing their masks and bragging about what part they have in the literacy performance!! They began the month with teachers performing the traditional “Gingerbread Man”, followed two weeks later with parents performing not one…not two… but three traditional stories for all the children. The stories included “The Three Little Pigs”, Caps for Sale”, and “The Five Little Monkeys”. Parents worked diligently all month constructing props and costumes for the production. The big literacy month finale consisted of each class performing a story that they had read in their classroom.

Last but not least in honor of Literacy Month we have registered each classroom to receive bilingual books for each child on a monthly basis! This was accomplished through an online organization called “Read Conmigo”, a company that encourages parental involvement with their child’s literacy.   Perhaps what is most amazing about collaborating with this organization is that it was a Mi Escuelita parent who brought this idea to us!

Cockrell Hill: In keeping the theme of Literacy Month, our Cockrell Hill Site had literacy celebrations all month long with staff, parents and children bringing a book to life. Parents were involved in the classroom activities and helped children make the props for their presentation. This was also the first year that the parents got into the act and performed a story for the children. They performed “Little Red Riding Hood” and the teachers acted out “The Three Llittle Pigs”-both amazing performances!

Cockrell Hill Site also celebrated World Pasta day by doing activities with pasta on October 26th. Cockrell Hill also saw a new batch of new community volunteers started this month including The Ursuline Academy, Ernst &Young, and Texas Instruments. It goes without saying that everyone at the Cockrell Hill site is so happy that these volunteers will be visiting the site on a regular basis!

Buckner; It was a very busy, fun filled month here at Mi Escuelita’s Buckner Site in October!  The staff had their transportation training to assure our children’s safety whenever the children ride on a a bus for a field trip. The Dallas Fire Dept. brought a fire engine to school and explained how they gear up to put out fires. Buckner Site also celebrated Breast Cancer Awareness month by wearing pink and enjoyed a pot luck luncheon to build team spirit!  Celebrity Dental visited the classrooms to discuss dental health with the children and the teacher’s acted out nursery rhymes for the children to kick off the literacy adventure.   See what we mean by busy month!

Parents from Mrs.Cross’ class performed Jack and the Beanstalk for their class. Each class brought a book to life by acting out stories like Cinderella and The Three Little Pigs for their parents and peers.  Buckner parents also helped to create all of the props for the presentation, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all!

Fall day: We all enjoyed a great day at Buckner again this year for an all inclusive Mi Escuelita Fall Festival. There was face painitng, professional pictures, and games galore. We would like to thank Gayle Nave our Executive director for coordinating this wonderful event for our children and staff. This event was organized and sponsored by PepsiCo/Frito-Lay and we are extremely thankful to all of them for all that they did in providing this fun day for us.  Fritto Lay staff also went to three locations and painted classrooms, planted gardens and cleaned the sites. We appreciate all their help so much. Thank you for investing your time and energy to make the day special for our children and we are looking forward to the next year!!!

The administrative team would like to thank our friends at Texas Instruments for revamping our administrative offices and giving one of our wings a brand new look.  Not only does the office look much more professional but our team members now have a place to truly call their own. Thank you TI!

Prerna Richards

Program Director