Holiday Bird Drive (Braes

Interfaith Ministry Holiday

Meal Drive)

11/16 – Thanksgiving Lunch

11/ 21 -23 – NO SCHOOL

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Gabriel C. 11/1

Cristian G. 11/5

Luca F. 11/6

Alanna H. 11/7

Lila S. 11/7

Silas W. 11/8

Izela F. 11/10

Ms. Quiana 11/11

Rosalie H. 11/13

Elaine D. 11/14

Adalyn D. 11/17

Ms. Julia 11/23

Gaspard B. 11/24

Ms. Julie 11/25

Ms. Candice H. 11/27

Daniel H. 11/27

November is….

Child Safety Protection Month

Native American Heritage Month

National Sleep Comfort Month

National Dance Day 8

Veteran’s Day 11

Young Readers Day 13

National Adoption Day 17

Universal Children’s Day 20

UPCOMING BIRTHDAY’S

UPCOMING EVENTS

DID YOU KNOW…

Thank you to all our Grace families, church members, staff and friends who made our annual

Fall Fun Festival such a roaring success this year. The children had so much fun enjoying

our games, rides, the food was delicious and the bake sale had all kinds of scrumptious

goodies, the kiddos and a few parents were so adorable as they walked the red carpet for

the costume fashion show and everyone had a great time engaging in a bidding war for the

Silent Auction items. All proceeds will go towards the enhancements of the playground.

Our kiddos also had a fabulous time during the visit from the Houston Fire Department.

They brought two fire trucks with them this time…the kids sported their fire helmets and

the firefighters were incredibly patient and kind as they visited with our children and helped

them climb on the fire trucks! November is the start of the holiday season, so please have

a safe and lovely time with your families over the Thanksgiving holiday. Celebrate your

family and friends as you enjoy generous helpings of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pies,

or whatever fare you indulge in during this wonderful family holiday!

We invite parents and grandparents to join us for our Grace Thanksgiving Lunch on Friday, November 16th from 11:00 am – 12:30pm. Sign-up sheets will be posted in each classroom so our Kitchen Manager, Isabel, can have a good count for the lunch. Ms. Isabel will once again please our appetites with her delicious holiday cooking! Please come get your children and take them to Parish Hall for our lovely pre-holiday meal (and you will still have a week to recover before your actual Thanksgiving meal!) – after lunch you may take the children back to their classrooms or take them home with you!

Help Braes Interfaith Ministries (BIM) provide protein-rich food to our neighbors in need this holiday season with a financial gift to the Holiday Bird Drive. As a member congregation of BIM, Grace has a tradition of helping BIM provide special holiday food packages to its clients. Each food package contains poultry made possible in part by donations to the Holiday Bird Drive. Donations to the drive are requested beginning in November and ending December 15.

Honor a Loved One and Help Our Neighbors in Need! Support the Holiday Bird Drive!

Thank you!

Save the date and make sure to attend our fabulous Christmas Program and Supper with Santa on Friday, December 7th from 6:00 – 8:00 pm. Please be advised that our Grace Santa is the absolute best…who he is will remain our secret forever! All the children…including the infants, will be decked out in their holiday regalia. They will be performing a sweet, funny, and memorable performance. Some will laugh, some will cry, some are proverbial hams, and all will be beautiful! Sign-up sheets for the supper will be posted in each class.

November 2018

Mailing Address 4040 West Bellfort Houston, TX 77025

School/Office Entrance 9939 Woodwind Dr.

Phone 832-831-9086

edolia@graceinhouston.org candice@graceinhouston.org

Holiday Bird Drive

Our little kiddos loved the visit from the fire trucks and the fire department puppet show! Of course, the highlight

of October was our awesome Fall Festival! Our theme during the month of November will be Thanksgiving. We will

be talking about our families and what each of us are thankful for. Since November is the 11th month of the year,

we will be focusing many of our activities around the number 11. We have fun books to read, such as “Give

Thanks,” “Thanksgiving Rules,” and “Five Silly Turkeys.” We will have a special Thanksgiving sensory bag to explore

and we will be doing some very cool art projects. On November 20th, we will have our class Thanksgiving party, and

will have a sign up sheet in class for those of you who would like to contribute treats for the party. Lastly, we

would like to say farewell to Micah and Madelyn as they move up to Pre-Toddlers and at the same time, we

welcomed Myla and Julia who joins us from the Infant class.

Ms. Candice Ms. April

Booooo! What a great month October was! Our little ones are growing so fast! Grayson and Guy are learning how

to sit, and Larkin is saying “wait for me” so she can sit up by herself as well! Eden P. is quite a conversationalist, Eden

R. is napping less and interacting more with her friends, Katherine Grace is beginning to roll over, Aria is beginning to

crawl and Toby is happily beginning to eat cereal and veggies. The month of October was filled with lots of sensory

activities, but what we loved most about October was the visit from the firefighters and our babies having outside

time and having their pictures taken with the firefighters. For the month of November our babies are going to practice

our baby sign language for “Thank You”. We will be talking about Thanksgiving and all the delicious food we eat, and

we will also talk about the changing weather, and why the leaves change color and eventually fall. Our babies are

ready to put away their summer clothes and change into Fall and Winter attire, and some of them are even wearing

shoes! On November 16th, our babies will wear their Thanksgiving PJ’s and the kiddos and teachers will all have a fun

day!

Ms. Julia Ms. Kimberly Ms. Dina

It’s so hard to believe it’s actually November! In October we learned about fire safety and our art work focused on this theme. We also enjoyed the visit from the fire trucks and we loved posing for pictures with the firefighters. This month we will be learning about pumpkins and scarecrows, our own special families, and the place we call home. We will be reading books, doing art projects, and seeing pictures about families. We will also practice our baby sign language for “Thank You”. All the babies are growing so fast….Adam and Willem “talk” to each other (ba, ba, da, da), sometimes pass toys to each other, or move around the floor to get their own toys. Luke, Ryder, Rosalie, and Henry like to go around the room pulling to stand on anything that holds them! Parents, please update your child’s schedule, since our babies change so much from month to month so we may be up to date. We love your babies so much, they are all treasures. Please send two changes of clothes daily…one for warmer weather, and one for cooler, so we can adapt to the changes in weather!

Ms. Roxana Ms. Shawntee Ms. Jennifer

INFANT ‘A’ BUTTERFLIES

INFANT ‘B’ HONEYBEES

FIRST STEPS KITTENS

PRE-TODDLER PUPS

The month of October was a month full surprises for our children! We truly enjoyed the Fire Safety Week, starting

with the awesome puppet show put on by Houston firefighters, and ending with the Fire Department bringing eight

firefighters and two fire trucks to visit us…the kiddos absolutely loved it! We took pictures with the firefighters and

the children who wanted to, climbed on the fire trucks. To end the month, we had so much fun at the Fall

Festival…the games, the food, and the costumes! We want to extend a warm welcome to our new friend in class,

Charlotte. During the month of November we will continue to work on shapes, colors, numbers, and ABC’s. We will

also be talking about Thanksgiving and spending time with our families, and working on crafts such as turkey

handprints. We want to say a BIG thank you to all our Pre-Toddler parents for everything, and wish all our families a

very safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Ms. Demetrice Ms. La’Carmen

TODDLER DOVES

Fall is here…hurray!! The Toddler Doves are in quite a joyful mood as we express our gratitude to the Houston Fire

Department both for the wonderful puppet show and the visit to Grace with the fire trucks…the children loved

climbing on the fire trucks! We are now looking forward to a fabulous Fall season. We will be counting both leaves

and blessings for Thanksgiving. The Doves kiddos are learning about manners and learning about our family trees,

both a very important part of facilitating a family environment in the classroom. Some of our art activities include

making our own turkeys, paper plate masks, and holiday wreaths are just a few of the crafts we will be taking home.

Our lessons will continue to include the letter and the number of the week. We each love our names and are working

on name recognition through various activities, including “The Naming Game” and creating our names with different

materials like noodles, colored rocks and leaves. We welcome Eileen, Liam and Isabelle to our class, and look forward

to sharing happy time and great memories with all the children.

Ms. Quiana Ms. Krysten

BRIDGE ROOM TURTLES "

Our class had so much fun and learned so much during the month of October! We loved the puppet show put on

by the Houston Fire Department and had a blast when the Fire Department brought two fire trucks to visit us. It was

so cool climbing on the trucks and the firefighters were so friendly. We learned so much about fire safety. We

also learned about words that begin with the letter E and the letter F. We made an elephant out of the letter E and

then a fish from the letter F. We had our own Fall Harvest Festival and the children really enjoyed it. The Grace

Fall Fun Festival was terrific. We loved the games, the Trunk or Treat and the yummy pizza and baked goodies. In

November we will be learning the letters G and H. We will be making a giraffe from the letter G and a horse out of

the letter H. For sensory exploration we will be gluing grass on construction paper. We will have little hearts for

the letter H and the children will be searching in sand for the hearts. Our class is looking forward to two

Thanksgiving dinners, one at Grace Episcopal and one at home.

Ms. Eva Ms. Stephanie Ms. Chelsea

First of all, we would like to thank the parents in our class for donating the items for our edible fire truck project…the

children had so much fun making them and eating them! Second, a very special thank you to the Houston Fire

Department for their awesome puppet show one week, followed by a visit to our school by not one, but two Houston

firetrucks! The firefighters were so patient and kind to our children throughout their presentation. For the month

of November we will focus on our needs and our wants. The Pre-K Four class will also talk about our families and the

roles we play within our families. This month we will also focus on being thankful (character development). We will

continue to work on our letter recognition, letter sounds, and simple sight words. We are also learning our numbers

from 1 to 100 with vocabulary words, i.e., more than, less than, equal to. The Giraffes will continue to work on Fall

art projects and special activities.

Ms. Clementine Ms. Cynthia

PRE-K THANKFUL 3’S

Have you noticed? We are all aboard the alphabet train! We have begun learning the phonetic sounds and recognizing each letter of the alphabet. We learned a few poems about fire safety and Halloween. We are also enjoying the beautiful Fall weather. During the month of November we will focus on the letters F, G, H, and I. We will work on our handwriting skills. We are excited about the leaves falling and changing colors. We are going to have activities and art that will be all about nature and the colors brown, red, yellow and orange. The children will enjoy creating their own leaf vein art, leaf collage and observe what colors mixed together will make the color brown and the color orange. Thanksgiving is around the corner and we will share with the class what we are thankful for. We are looking forward to our Thanks giving lunch on November 16. We look forward to learning and having fun.

With grace and peace,

Ms. Julie Ms. Tania

Ms. Dina has been an early childhood teacher for about 20 years, and luckily for us, nine of

those years have been right here at Grace! Dina originally hails from El Salvador, and has five

sons, ranging in age from 22 to 36! Dina’s interests away from school include walking,

listening to music and helping other people. It was always her dream to be a teacher and

her mother encouraged her because she noticed that Dina always felt good when she taught

and helped other people. Dina feels that children learn best through visualization and

communication, but that each child learns differently. She feels that compassion,

understanding, patience and honesty are essential qualities every teacher should have, and

she puts her heart and soul into her teaching. It is abundantly evident when you enter the Infant room that Dina

loves each and every one of those babies! We are blessed to have Dina in our midst.

THANK YOU Ms. Dina for your dedication, love and compassion!!

PRE-K FOUR GIRAFFES