JANUARY 2014 NEWSLETTER FOR THE UNITED PARISH NURSERY SCHOOL
REGISTRATION FOR ALL FALL 2014 CLASSES WILL BEGIN ON JANUARY 27, 2014
for current students and their siblings. Beginning this date, you will be handed a
registration form with class options and tuition prices. Some classes fill up quickly,
so return your registration form in before we open up our slots to the public.
OPEN HOUSE/PUBLIC REGISTRATION: Saturday, February 1st, 2014, 10:00am to
12 noon.
Message from the Director: Welcome back and Happy New Year! I hope you all had a
joyous Christmas and enjoyed the time off from school to be with your family. January typically
tends to be a calmer month here at the preschool. We will be teaching your children all about
winter weather, artic animals; performing ice and snow experiments and relaxing with a “wear
your pajamas to school day”. We will try to go outside to play as much as possible during the
winter months. Please make sure you send in your child’s winter coats, snow pants, boots, hats
and mittens (no scarves) each day as long as there is snow on the ground. They will enjoy using
sleds and shovels out on our playground. Of course, the temperature must be above 25 degrees
with no wind chill for us to go outside. Please label everything as items often look alike and get
mixed up while your children are trying to dress themselves. We recommend that you put their
snow clothes in a different bag (reusable grocery bags are great for this) rather than their back
packs so they have plenty of room for everything and can still fit their art work into their back
packs at dismissal time. We are all about independent skills here at school. Please allow your
child to hang up their own belongings at drop off, check their own cubbies etc. We will begin
assessing these skills for their spring progress reports soon. As always, feel free to call, email or
stop by my office anytime with questions, concerns, comments or just to say hello. I enjoy
getting to know you all too!
Fondly, Sandy Leacu
Director
Thank You Notes:
1.We have a lot to be thankful for… We would like to thank all the families who
supported our annual Holiday Bazaar through your patronage, your donations
of food, paper products, handmade crafts, raffle or silent auction items etc.
The Bazaar was a very successful fundraiser for our school. We made over
$5000 dollars to support our school budget. The children’s zone and Santa
Claus was a lot of fun too. We hope you all enjoyed this event.
A huge “group hug” to the members of our preschool parent board who
coordinated this event and spent countless hours soliciting items, donations,
vendors, crafts etc. They are a hard working group and very dedicated to our
schools success! Their names are: Dawn Duplessis, Alanna Bodio, Jenn
Calabrese, Kate Carroll, Renee Drapeau, Christine McShane, Juliet Rodriguez,
Jacey Molle, Dana Babbin, Coreen Williamson, Pam Reilly, Jamie Ingram,
Justine Larter, Patty and Tom Kelly, Melissa Schuster and Alycia Braga.
Many other parents, staff and advisory board members volunteered their time
at this event; baked, bought or advertised for us too.
2. Holiday sing-a-long thank you notes: We would like to express our
appreciation to Chia-chi Chin, the church organist who donated her time to
accompany us on the piano for our MWF sing-a-long. We would also like to
thank Mr. Poland, the guitarist and Grandpa to Norah and Ayla (T/TH) who
accompanied us during our T/TH sing-a-long. Thank you also to everyone who
donated items or baked for these events. The food was delicious!
3. Thank you to our parent board bakers who also donated items to Upton’s
First Night celebration to raise money for our school.
4. Thank you for all the items donated from our classroom wish lists and for the
families who came in and shared a family tradition with our classes, read a story
or helped us do a holiday craft project. We love it when parents can spend a
little time volunteering in our classrooms!
ONE MORE THANK- YOU… We want to express our appreciation to UniBank
corporate offices for their donation of $1000 toward a music program. We can
now begin to offer each class session a 30 minute music program with a music
specialist from Apple Tree Arts out of Grafton, once a month. This is a
program that we offered for years, but had to cancel last year due to
budgetary constraints. We are thrilled to be able to offer this again. The
program will begin January 13th and 14th and run through mid-May. The Avon
fundraiser and flat donations to a music program all helped to make this
possible for the remainder of this school year! Thank you!
We follow the Mendon-Upton Regional School District
cancellations for snow days, early releases and delays. If they are closed we are
closed! For delays and early releases, see our snow policy posted on each
classroom parent bulletin board or on our website at
www.unitedparishschool.org (left hand column).
Illnesses: We are already experiencing a high level of illness in certain classes.
Please keep your child home from school if they are the least bit ill. This
includes runny noses, bad coughs etc. Children must be fever free, without
being on medication for at least 24 hours before they can return to school. I
will be strictly enforcing our health care policies; sending children home from
school is they are sick or appear to not be themselves. Please have a plan B in
place if you are a working parent. Thank you for your consideration in this
matter.
Sandy Leacu
Director
Classroom News:
Extended Day:
 1/13/14: Music specialist from Apple Tree Arts visits for the first time.
 1/15/14: Fire Fighter Bonnie visits
 1/17/14: Pajama Day: wear your pajamas, slippers, a bath robe or all three to
school. We will have hot cocoa and cinnamon toast too.
 1/20/14: NO SCHOOL: Martin Luther King Jr. day
 1/31/14: Show ‘n Tell and Rocket day. We will release our own balloon
rockets in school this day and estimate how far they will travel.
4Day class:
 1/9/14: Math and Science Day: wear your favorite number (Sports Jersey, or
you child can make a number out of paper and stick it to their shirts).
 1/13: Music specialist from Apple Tree Arts visits us for the first time.
 1/15: Fire Fighter Bonnie visits.
 1/16: Pajama day: wear your pajamas to school. We will not go outside on
this day.
 1/20: NO SCHOOL: Martin Luther King Jr. day
 1/21: Penguin day: wear black and white
 1/23: Our 68th day of school; Math day.
 1/28: Earth day lesson: wear green and blue
 1/30: Show ‘n Tell and Rocket Day.
Mixed age class:
 1/13/14: Penguin day: wear black and white. We will also have our first visit
with our music specialist from Apple Tree Arts this day.
 1/15: Visit from Fire fighter Bonnie
 1/17: Pajama day: wear your pajamas, slippers, bathrobe to school or all
three.
 1/20: NO SCHOOL: Martin Luther King Jr. day
 1/31: Show ‘n Tell and Rocket day!
T/TH Friends class:
 1/14/14: Penguin day: wear black and white. It is also our first day with our
music specialist from Apple Tree Arts.
 1/16: Pajama day: wear your pajamas to school. Fire Fighter Bonnie also
visits us this day.
T/TH Neighbors class:
 1/14/14: Music specialist visits us for the first time from Apple Tree Arts
 1/16: Pajama Day: wear your pajamas to school. Fire Fighter Bonnie also
visits.
 1/13: Penguin Day: wear black and white.
QUOTES OF THE MONTH:
When Mrs. McGrath asked her T/TH class “what is a feast?”
Dennehy replied “It’s like a parade!”
Mrs. McCormick was talking to her mixed age class about
Thanksgiving. She told them the Pilgrims were thankful for their
new country. She asked them if they knew the name of that
country and Clara said, “I know, it’s Upton!”
Jenna told Mrs. Murphy (substitute teacher): “We have frosting
at our house, but we don’t play with it. Jack Frost blows it.”
While the T/TH children were talking about putting up their
Christmas trees at their home, Cayden said “My Christmas tree is
still in the woods!”
Sam M. told his teacher that when gets older, he and his brother
and sister are going to be helpers for his Grandparents cause
they are getting old.
Overheard by a teacher, Chloe said to Evi “I know what a brain
looks like… hamburger meat before your mom cooks it.”
While the mixed age class was listening to different sounds
during their 5 senses lesson, Chloe said to Shea “I’m going to
cuddle up close to you in case the next sound is scary. That’s
what my Daddy says to do.”
While Mrs. Leacu was taking Aeva to the bathroom she said
“Mimi told me not to pick my nose cause the booger monster will
get my fingers!”
During T/TH’s lesson on the sense of smell, they were to guess
what they were smelling using their sense of smell. When smelling
Balsam, Gia Quinn said “It smells like Christmas!” For cinnamon,
Sam S. said “it smells like toast!” For vanilla, Tommy said “it smells
like pancakes” and for Coffee, Sam S. said “It smells like Daddy
when he drinks his coffee!”
Dylan W. had just finished making his "Imogene antlers" and
proudly placed them on his head when he heard some children by
the play fireplace say "Do you want to play Santa?" Dylan said, "I'll
play, I'll be the reindeer".