From the Director’s Desk…

Happy New Year! I hope that you all had a fun, relaxing holiday break. I enjoyed family, friends and food! It is hard to believe that we are heading into a new year, with all of the possibilities and promise that it entails. But, before I delve into that-I would just like to say that our Christmas Program and Luncheon was second to none! I am so proud of all the children for getting up in front of a large crowd and doing their very best! Thank you to Ms Karen for your hard work getting the children ready for such a wonderful performance. Thank you also to our fabulous Room Moms, who go above and beyond at every turn to make our school such a great community to be a part of! And, one more, BIG thank you to Adrian Tamez and the Tamez Family for feeding us so incredibly well after the children’s performance, it was certainly a day to remember!

Now, the rumor is that it is indeed Winter, so please make sure that your child has all the appropriate outdoor weather gear to enjoy a trip to the playground. This includes a winter coat, hats and gloves or mittens. The teachers prefer to take the students outside for fresh air, whenever the weather permits, so we appreciate your attention to this matter. Along the same lines, please check your child’s backpack to ensure each student has a complete change of clothes, down to socks and underwear, taking care that this change of clothes is weather appropriate. While perusing said backpack, please be sure to check your child’s backpack regularly for any completed projects, important hand outs and other pertinent information. We appreciate your support!

January will focus on getting back into our classroom routines and preparing for parent/

teacher conferences in mid-February. Sign up for conferences will be on the sign-in tables of each classroom in a few weeks.

In House Registration will begin on Tuesday, January 24th. Returning students will receive their registration packets in their backpacks by the end of this week and are due back to the office on the 24th. Open Registration will begin on Wednesday, February 1st. I would like to thank you all for your word of mouth referrals to AGC. It is your kind words that make our welcoming and warm environment thrive!

Last, thank you so much for all of your kind well wishes and gifts! I was overwhelmed by your thoughtfulness and generosity. I wish you all health and happiness in 2017!

The Lambs Class-Ms Jessie and Ms Dani

“God said, ‘Let there be light’” Genesis 1:3

Happy New Year and welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas holiday. Our Lambs were so amazing during the Christmas program and we are sure you heard their songs over the break. We couldn’t be prouder of the wonderful job they did up on the stage. We want to thank each and every one of you for your generosity and the love and support you provide to our classroom. We hope you enjoyed the presents made especially for you by your Lamb and know that they will be cherished for years to come.

As the weather turns colder we will be bundling up and going outside as much as possible, so please remember to send mittens and hats to school. We will be making snowmen, mittens, penguins and hopefully will see some real snow during this month. We will be talking about creation and how God is our creator and of course introducing more academics. We will be adding our last names to our place mats and learning the “days of the week”. In house registration begins this month, please let us know if you have any questions regarding next year. It is such a joy to watch your children growing and blossoming right in front of our eyes.

The Monkey Class-Ms Heera, Ms Laurence and Ms Karen

“God created humankind in his image” Genesis 1:27

Happy New Year to the Monkey Class. I am ready to be back from break and excited to see all my sweet little Monkeys. December was a great month for our class. The kids had so much fun working on and making Christmas crafts. We hope you enjoyed them all! The Christmas Program and luncheon was the perfect way to send us into the Christmas Break. I had such a feeling of Joy seeing our little Monkeys performing on stage in the chapel, they all worked so hard, learned all their signs and did a fabulous job. I had a huge smile on my face all day long, I am sure you did as well. Thank you to all the Monkey Parents for helping with the fabulous luncheon, it was a huge success.

I am in awe at how much these kids have grown since the beginning of the school year. They came into my classroom as such young three-year olds and are growing each day. At the beginning of the year we would take their lunches out of their lunch boxes and open each item before they sat down. We gradually began just taking their lunch items out and encouraged them to try to open the items and if they needed help they learned to ask politely for the help. In January, we will only be putting their lunch boxes on the table, they will now be responsible for opening their lunch box and the contents inside. We are always right there to help, but we want to encourage them to try it by themselves first. We are getting our Monkeys ready for their Pre-K year and by the end of May, they will become very independent little Monkeys.

This month we will begin working with scissors. They are beginning to recognize and spell their names out loud and are beginning to show interest in putting these letters onto paper. They will begin by tracing their names and we will encourage our Monkeys to write their names on their worksheets. This is a very exciting and fun time for all of us! Thank you for sharing your precious children with us. Happy 2017!!

Music-Ms Karen

Welcome back to AGC and Happy 2017! I hope you had a wonderful holiday. It was great to see all of you at the Christmas Program. I thought the children did a great job! I am so proud of them! This month, we’ll start learning songs for our Easter program in April.

In January, we’ll venture into our school theme of Winter Wonderland with songs about ice and snow. We’ll pretend to ice skate on paper plates to the “Skater’s Waltz” and Charlie Brown’s “Skating” song. We’ll have an indoor snowball fight with soft white balls. We’ll pretend to go sleigh riding to the songs “Sleigh Ride,” “Over the River,” and “Jingle Bells.” We’ll also pretend to be Polar Bears to “The Polar Bear Song.”

Next in January, we’ll celebrate AGC’s Pajama Day (January 19th, 2017) with three versions of “Shake Your Sillies Out” (by Raffi, Nancy Cassidy, and the Wiggles) followed by the Wiggles’ “Yawn, Yawn, Yawn” song. That will lead us right into Joe Scruggs’ “Late Last Night” song in which we pretend to go to sleep and then wake up to find different pairs of shoes on our feet, such as ballet shoes, football cleats, and flippers! We’ll round out the pajama party by moving with scarves to “Pajama Time.”

We will end January with songs about trains. We’ll move slowly like a freight train to “Clickety Clack” and move faster and faster like a steam engine to “I’ve Been Working on The Railroad.” We’ll play shakers and clappers to the “Wabash Cannonball” and dance to “Get on Board, Little Children.” We’ll play sticks to “Little Red Caboose” and “Down by The Station.” We’ll also act out the Wee Sing “Train” song. What a fun way to begin the New Year!

The Rainbow Class-Ms Sharon and Ms Suzanne

“God created humankind in his image” Genesis 1:27

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas break, and we wish you a very happy New Year! Those of us who enjoyed sleeping in during the past few weeks are slowly getting back into the Rainbow routine. Nevertheless, it is great to be back with our AGC family.

This month we will celebrate fun things about Winter as we make new placemats, make snow people for our bulletin board, and "finger skate" as we make a winter scene for little bears. We will also begin last name recognition and start to focus more on our writing skills. Our letters-of-the-week will be Nn, Oo, Pp and Qq. January is also the month we learn about the solar system.

Our biblical theme this month is the Creation. We will make books telling the Creation story, and our Bible verse is "In the beginning,God created the heavens and the earth,"Genesis1:1. We also plan to learn about Jesus as a boy and how He might have lived growing up.

This month we wish happy birthday to our dear Kristin, Graham, and Carley as they turn four this month. Have a happy and blessed January, and be sure to stay warm!

The Butterfly Class-Ms Michele and Ms Preeti

“In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." Genesis 1:1

Best wishes for a prosperous 2017!

We are so excited to welcome back our wonderful Butterflies. Ms. Preeti and I would like to thank you for our wonderful Christmas presents, your care and generosity meant a lot to us.

This month’s bible theme is “God is our Creator” and our bible verse is “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis: 1:1 The theme for this month is “Winter Wonderland”; we will explore snowflakes, snowmen, winter animals and what Heaven means to us. Just a bit of snow would make everything even more exciting…but just a tiny bit will be enough! What do you think?

The letters we will work on are H, I, J and K, if a snowstorm doesn’t come our way! The numbers will be 8, 9,10 and 11.

We are planning on assessing each child individually again, to check their progress and areas in need of more attention. We will have our Parent-Teacher Conference in February and talk all about it.

Miss Michele is the only Butterfly celebrating a birthday this month and she is turning the big 5 just like the others! J

The Fish Pond-Ms Bernadette and Ms Faith

“In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." Genesis 1:1

Happy New Year Fish Pond families and welcome back!!!

“Winter Wonderland” is our theme for January and "Black" is our color. We will be incorporating a winter and snow project in our studies each week this month. We will be studying the letters Jj, Kk, and Ll, and the numbers 10, 11, and 12. Our crafts will focus around our letter of the week and our winter wonderland theme. We are hoping to make and decorate snow globes and snowmen, make a llama, enjoy the story "The Mitten" and learn about what some animals do in winter. We hope to get a day of snow while we are in school, so that we can walk and play outside in it. Our focus will be on ordinal numbers, rhymes, opposites, and learning to write and spell our last names.

We hope you enjoyed your holidays and THANK YOU for all the Christmas goodies!!!

We want to wish a very happy January birthday to-

Kristin on the 2nd,

Graham on the 9th,

Carley on the 22nd,

and Buruk on the 31st!