We have had so much fun this month! We have been able to go outside and have some water fun, despite the poor air quality and the heat. We had a very special visitor, Angelyne the Deaf Cattle Dog, and her "dad" Eric. They came and showed us some really cool dog tricks, and we all got to do some with her.
July will be just as fun! We are hoping to have a lot more outside time than we did this month. We will be learning about nutrition, the solar system, sunshine, and the United States.
Just a couple of reminders:
There is NO school on Wednesday, July 4th! We are open the rest of that week.
There is NO hot lunch during the summer. We do have things available if you forget to bring something. This lunch will cost $2.
Our wonderful pre-K summer teacher, Mrs. Van Horn, will be leaving us as she prepares and trains for her new position as Kindergarten teacher at TPAAK! Some of our preschoolers can look forward to having her in the next couple of years. Our amazing sub, Mrs. Nancy Burns, will be taking over for Mrs. V. Most of you have met Mrs. Burns, as she is currently our sub for Mrs. Ashley. The kids really love her, and we look forward to her being our Pre-K teacher in July.
We at the preschool monitor the air quality and heat index daily. The air quality site we use is http://www.colorado.gov/airquality/colorado_summary.aspx. This site rates the air quality as good-hazardous. The guideline we use is this. If the air quality is rated good or moderate, we go outside. If it is moderate and we smell smoke, we stay in. If it is rated anything else, we do not go outside.
For the heat, we use the following chart: http://www.idph.state.ia.us/hcci/common/pdf/weatherwatch.pdf.
This chart guides most of our decision making, even though we are not dealing with much humidity. If the temperature is 100 or higher, we do not take the kids outside. Between 95-99, we will go out and make a judgement call. When we do go outside, we encourage the preschoolers to take their water bottles and drink regularly. We also put sunscreen on them in the morning and in the afternoon if we have permission to do so.
If you have any questions about any of these, please contact Shanda at sschagenhauf@tpaak.org
