Gobble, Gobble, Gobble... 

With Thanksgiving only a few days away, turkeys seem to take over the day care at times. All the classes are busy crafting their own little turkeys and Thanksgiving stories have been the focus of Morning Meeting. During Morning Meeting the children have also been talking about what they are thankful for and all the answers are posted on our Thankful Tree. Take a look!

Important - Thanksgiving Week Attendance

Next week is usually a week when children's schedules are different because families are travelling or have off from week. In order to schedule the appropriate number of teachers we would like to know from all of you what your child's schedule will be like next week. Please take a moment right now to let us know. Thanks!

We need your opinion!

After the holidays, many parents start to search the Internet for child care centers for their children for the coming school year. Oak Lane is listed on many different sites along with a long list of other providers. What will set us apart from other day cares are reviews. So, please help us stand out and write a short review on one, two or all of the following websites:

www.yellowpages.com, www.merchantcircle.com, www.childcareratingz.com, www.yahoo.com, www.local.com, www.superpages.com,

Thank you!!!

Fundraising Update 

Our fundraising efforts are off to a good start this year. A number of good ideas were mentioned and we already have the Giant Gift Card and the Goodshop.com fundraisers up and running. The fundraising dinner night at Ruby's Diner last night seemed to have been well attended. We will know in a few days how much money we raised.

We also have two other fundraising ideas on our list and we would love to know from you what you think of them. The first one is a 5K Run/Walk and the other one is a community yard sale. Both events could be combined with a bake sale and entertainment for children such as Makin' Music. We feel that both events could attract not only people from within the Oak Lane community but also from the greater West Chester area, which would essentially mean more money. If you possess a skill that could be helpful in organizing one or both events, please let us know. 

Ask your family and friends to Goodshop for us! - More Info

All About Snow Days

It is only November but the snow may not wait until the official start of winter. So, here is everything you need to know about Snow Days.

• Oak Lane Day Care closes in the event of extreme weather conditions such as snow or ice.
• Closing or delayed opening information will be available at NBC10, 6ABC and www.cancellations.com. If you do not see Oak Lane listed, please check another source. Last year, we had problems with timely postings of Oak Lane's closings apparently due to a high volume of schools calling in closings.
• If the day care needs to close early, parents will be notified via e-mail and phone.

We try to keep closings and delays to a minimum but sometimes it is necessary to close to keep everybody safe. Now is the time to make arrangements for child care for when we do close. An information sheet is also available on Oak Lane's website at www.oaklanedaycare.org 

Monday, November 23 - Scholastic Order Due
Wednesday, November 25 - NO Pizza
Thu. + Fri., Nov. 26 & 27 - OLDC closed
Tuesday, December 1 - Jitterbugs
Wednesday, December 16 - Holiday Show @ 9:00 Thursday, December 24 - OLDC closed until Jan. 1

Fruit for Snack: Stephanie Walkup
Washing Blankets:Karen Sidorsky
Fall Clean-up Day:Karen Sidorsky, Dee Lentz, Colleen Perrin
Raking leaves:Lynette Oh, Erik Gasiewski

We would also like to thank Lucca for donating a book to Oak Lane for his 4th birthday to share with his friends.

Greetings from the Infant and Young Toddler Room. All is well here, especially in light of some major growth spurts going on. The usual topic of conversation on Monday morning is "Oh my, look how much you've grown over the weekend!" Smiling shyly, they look around for familiar faces to greet.

Here's more baby "scoop" - Brooke, Pearl, William and Jocelyn are all getting better at sleeping through all the daycare sights and sounds, and are enjoying a return to more outdoor time after the Nor'easter passed by.

Ainsley, Eric, Charlotte and Scarlet have been working on their singing, reading, sharing and listening skills, along with making some fabulous Thanksgiving turkeys, complete with feathers!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

T. Sheila and T. Savannah

In late October we were busy getting ready for Halloween. We enjoyed carving our pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns and had a good time watching the Lower School Halloween Parade. The Halloween party was a blast with lots of goodies for everyone.

In November we have been learning about farms and harvest. We made a barnyard and glued animals to it. Another day, we crumbled brown tissue paper with our hands to make pumpkin pie slices. What a great sensory experience! We used Q-tips to apply glue to a triangle and the tissue paper became the crust. We finished them off by sprinkling on some real nutmeg. Mmm pie!

Our sensory table is filled with corn at the moment and the children love playing in it. They scoop and pour and stir. Another wonderful sensory experience for their busy hands and it also fosters their hand-eye coordination.

This week we made thankful turkeys. We glued feathers to a turkey shape and the children told us what they were thankful for and wrote it on the feathers. We had some great responses! We will also make toilet paper roll turkeys and pilgrim hats for our Thanksgiving snack/feast.

As part of our daily routine we continue to work on flipping our coats on and staying in our chairs at meal times. Thanks for all your help and support.

T. Margaret and T. Christy 

Preschoolers

The last two weeks in October were all about Halloween. The children made jack-o-lanterns out of paper plates, carved a real pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern, made yummy pop corn for snack. The sensory table was filled with corn and the children were very excited about this addition to their classroom. We also made crayon melt trees, which are displayed in the windows. The children enjoyed sprinkling the crayon shavings all over their tree and then watch how the iron melted it between the wax paper. Another fun activity was making orange playdough.

During the letter F week, we glued feathers on the letter F and made french toast for our cooking project on Friday. The children especially enjoyed getting their feet painted with fingerpaint and then walk all over a long piece of paper. For the letter F we made dotted giraffes, read "Go Dog Go" and of course "Green Eggs and Ham". Cooking was fun that week as we made yummy green guacamole. The children took turns mashing the avocados and we talked about how the big seeds grow into avocado trees. With chips in hand the children dug in and enjoyed their snack.

In celebration of Thanksgiving, we decided to make turkey handprint placemats for home and very feathery turkeys that are decorating our classroom. On Wednesday, we went to watch the African Dance Performance in the theatre and the children watched in awe. They did a great job sitting and listening for the entire performance. Now, we are looking forward to our little Thanksgiving feast next week.

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

T. Rachel

NOTE:Due to technical difficulties (aka frozen computer) there are no pictures of the children this month. But they will be back next month!