Kids Club December 2018 Kids Club December 2018 Newsletter Happy Holidays KC Families! Winter Break is fast approaching, and Kids Club has some awesome activities and field trips for those kids planning to attend! The first week, 12/26-12/28, is Water Week with swimming at Medgar Evers Pool and Snohomish Aquatic Center! The second week, 1/2-1/4, is Mad Science week filled with experiments, engineering tasks, and playing with robots at the Living Computer Museum! Be sure to email director@kidsclubafterschool.org to sign up for any of the days. Kids Club now has a new ball check-out system! Over the years we have lost many balls to the Stevens roof, being left outside at the end of the day, and rolling down the stairs onto Galer. I m convinced there s a house on East Crescent Drive that has hundreds of balls stored up from over the years!! With this new system, kids will check out the balls in the KC office, and also be responsible for turning the ball back in before they leave. Please help remind your kiddos at pick up if you see them with a ball to return it to the office before going home. Thanks ahead of time for your help and patience while toys get put away! Holiday Bags for staff will line the entry hall starting on 12/10. Staff receive a holiday bonus from the Kids Club board, but if you or your children want to drop cards or something little in the bags please feel free to. Happy Holidays! SUMMER CAMP 2019 I can t believe we re already talking about summer, but summer camp paperwork will be available at the beginning of February. When you start figuring out your summer plans, save a few weeks for us! If you or your children have theme ideas, both new or ones to bring back, please let us know! Save the Date! Friday, December 7 th - 8 th Stevens Tree Sale, then Pancake Breakfast! Thursday, December 13 th KC Board Meeting December 21 st 1 hour early release December 24 th & 25 th - KC Closed December 26 th 28 th - KC Full Days December 31 st & January 1 st - KC Closed January 2 nd 4 th KC Full Days
Blue Room The Blue Room has had such a fun month!! We started off by celebrating and learning about Día de los Muertos. Iliany and I shared about the traditions we've practiced around the holiday. We talked about RULER, which is a program that the schools use to help the kids express their emotions. During circle time we always ask them how they're feeling that day. We also got to do superhero week, where we played some superhero games and decorated cupcakes. This week we've been focused on socks and gloves! We played a lot of hand and foot games like Twister and Hot Potato, had a crazy sock fashion show, and decorated gloves! We're also collecting socks and gloves to donate to the homeless, so there's still time to bring some in! We'll be collecting new socks and gloves for adults until December 7th. In December we look forward to talking about potatoes, celebrating Hanakkuh, and learning about lights. We love spending time with your kids and can't wait to celebrate the holiday season with them! Best, Susanna & Iliany 2
Green Room Hello Green Room families!! We are ending the year 2018 with fun filled activities, sweets, laughter and a great time! Over the last few weeks, our room has celebrated Halloween by having a monster dance party in our costumes, and Thanksgiving by writing about what we are thankful for. Last week we had an awesome science challenge week that involved an egg drop, magic milk experiment, and making tin foil boats to see which one could hold the most pennies! The children enjoyed using their creativity and engineering skills to complete the challenges. The group has also recently expressed their own ideas for new projects. We have been happy to support them in leading those activities, which have included theater acting/creating in the dress up and kitchen area, and book writing and illustrating! The green room is also looking forward to involving parents and families in leading any cool projects or activities with us during a parent involvement week. Coming Soon!! Feel free to stop in and check us out as we prepare to get into the holiday spirit and deck out the room in Holiday SWAG with the children s artwork! Happy Holidays, Kiki & Grace 3
Cafeteria The Cafeteria has been up to some mischief this last month. This last week was Kids in Charge Week, where the kiddos got to decide what they learned, who taught, and where we spent our free time. Sam taught chess, Amina taught cheer & gymnastics, River orchestrated a dance routine, and Jasper showed off some soccer moves to the rest of the group! The week before last we had our Giving week, where we made blankets for Children s Hospital & baked brownies for the kindergarteners. Yes, the cafeteria put up a little fuss about the brownies, but all said and done they really enjoyed baking them and were very caring/selfless during the delivery process. This week is our Animal week, suggested via Petra, where we are watching a wildlife documentary, looking inwards to analyze ourselves and discover our inner animal, and we will also be taking a trek through Interlaken in hopes to spot some wildlife in their natural habitat. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, the cafeteria earned themselves a party this Friday because of their good behavior during announcements. The party is a Device Day Party, where the kids can bring in a device of their choice, and we will provide soda and chips. Best wishes, Chris, Fune, & Erin 4
\ Room 203 203 203 Hello Fourth and Fifth grade parents! Room 203 is weathering the rain and the cold with good cheer and exuberance! We welcomed a teacher to room 203: Levell Turner, who has been with Kids Club since last spring, switched over from the Green Room team and brings incredible enthusiasm and talent to room 203. This month, we got our hands messy mixing up strange, springy concoctions during Slime Week. The kids, many of whom are already slime experts, got to contribute their own recipes and experiment with the exact proportions of ingredients that would make the stretchiest, stickiest, glitteriest slimes possible. We spent a week working on reintroducing the RULER selfknowledge tools that Seattle Public Schools have implemented to create more continuity between the school day and aftercare experiences. During the extreme rain of the last week of November, we stayed warm and dry by cozying up with the great rainy day classic: board games! Stratego, chess, Hive, and several others kept us occupied and out of the rain. In December, we look forward to experimenting with a new format for afterschool activities that will see pairs of kids teaming up with staff to produce lessons on their areas of interest and then lead the rest of the group in an activity. Yours in exploration, Michael Friedman Levell Turner Sarah Bixler 5
Director s Corner 2018 Wonderful KC Families! I would like to start off by extending a warm welcome to our new board members, Anna Reiss, Chris Rae, George Harker, Katie Stiff, and Kiki Rae! Our board has had many long-term members whose children are now in middle school, therefore 2018 was a rebuilding year! Thank you for helping us keep our board in working order! We are still seeking one new member to join us. Please let me know if you are interested or would like more information. Our current board members and their roles are as follows: George Harker President Katie Stiff Vice President Jen Cerasoli Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair Chris Rae Secretary Amber Oleson Board Member and Finance Committee member Brittany Dixon-Taylor Board Member and Finance Committee member Dave Pezzner Board Member Anna Reiss Board Member Kiki Rae Board Member Thank you to our long-standing former members Amy McRory, Brian Chin, JP Alvarez, Karen Foster-Schubert, Kathy Royer, & Missy Zumwalt for your hard work and dedication to the program! Last for this month, I met with our children s panel before break and want to share with you some of their great ideas we would like to pursue! Suggestions included hosting a Job Fair where parents can come talk about what they do; bring in special guests like fireman and women, the Reptile Guy, artists to teach painting, musicians to show and play different instruments; have a talent show, a Kids Club-wide castle building contest with cardboard boxes, more swimming field trips, and a field trip to the Family Fun Center; and build a giant bingo board or connect four game! There were also suggestions like pet polar bears while watching movies, and build a swimming pool in the undercover area that we unfortunately cannot make happen, but I m excited to get started on the ones we can!! Happy Holidays, Marissa