The Holidays at Mi Escuelita!

Wow! It's hard to believe that the holidays have already come and gone and here we are in a new year! The three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were, per usual, packed with activity at Mi Escuelita. We had sixteen volunteer groups come to our different centers to make the holidays special for our children and we want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of them for their hard work to make those volunteer events successful, as well as share a deep appreciation for the time and effort they spent to share with our children.

You can see all the pictures from the different groups here on our Picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/miescuelitapreschool

The Highlight Reel:
December kicked off with an extremely well-organized event put on by Deloitte at our Cockrell Hill campus. They shared lessons about diversity and multicultural holiday celebrations which was a great lesson enjoyed by all. The kids had a particularly fun time playing bingo with the volunteers and making wreaths out of their hand prints!

Next up was Capital One at our St. Matthew's campus. They made reindeer by tracing shoes, read books about Frosty the Snowman, and even danced around to get all the wiggles out. Our children made fast friends with the 15 Capital One volunteers that came to visit!

 

Estrada Hinojosa brought 6 volunteers to our Buckner campus to share Christmas stories, decorate ornaments and eat holiday snacks. The put out quite a spread for our children! The classes all got together and sang Feliz Navidad to thank the volunteers for coming to spend time with them. 

  Hein & Associates also came to visit, bringing about 15 volunteers to our Cockrell Hill campus. They decorated cups for the children to take home and got to interact in the classroom doing holiday activities. This was the second year that they have come to visit in December.

 The next week, we had a visit from St. John's Episcopal School's 5th graders. Their fifth grade classes have been coming to visit our St. Matthew's campus all semester but this time all the classes came at once. It was a crazy, fun-packed morning filled with activities and calisthenic dancing to get our energy out! They played Dreidel; Elf, Elf, Santa; made snowman, and read books together.

The next day, Crow Holdings and Monticello West came to visit our Crossover campus. Crow Holdings brought coloring books and crayons for the children to take home, and each of our classes performed for the volunteers. The parents also brought hot chocolate, arroz con leche and empanadas for the volunteers to try. Monticello West is a retirement home that comes to visit every Christmas. The children enjoyed singing to them!

Our next visit was from McGladrey at our Bethany campus. The volunteers helped them make stockings and Santa--the children really enjoyed using the glitter and the cotton for the arts and crafts! Then they played musical chairs and brought presents for the children. It was a very fun day!

Later that afternoon, the DFW HOLA chapter of Bank of America visited our Crossover campus and brought Santa! Santa delivered toys to all the children while the volunteers shared snacks and read books with the children. The children were amazed that HOLA went all the way to the North Pole to bring Santa to visit!

On the Thursday before school let out for the holidays, the Texas Instruments Christmas Angels came to both our Bethany and Buckner location to deliver presents they had brought for the children. The TI readers have been volunteering at Mi Escuelita for more years than we can count and every Christmas they come to visit with presents in hand. We appreciate their continued support!

Capital One's Hispanic Associates Network came to our Crossover campus to read to the children. This group visits the children quarterly, so it was fun to share one of our last days before the break with them. They brought donations as well as lunch for the staff, which was greatly appreciated! Our teachers work so hard they deserve to celebrate as well. Thank you Capital One!

On the last day of school before the holidays, we had our annual holiday visit from Elaine Johnson at our Bethany campus, Hein & Associates sent another group of volunteers to our Wesley Rankin campus, and Comerica came to our parent program at Buckner and managed to bring Santa with them! The kids and parents had a blast seeing Santa!

 We enjoyed having so many people come visit our children in December. We really appreciate the time that it took for you to come, and we hope that it gave you a sense of how important these children and their education are. There are so many ways that you can help make a difference in these children's lives throughout the year, from coming to work with the children, to prep-work for the teachers, to attending or helping organize events, to simply being an advocate for Mi Escuelita and early childhood education.

THANK YOU! 
Bank of America HOLA
BOMA
Capital One and the Hispanic Associates Network
Comerica
Crow Holdings
Deloitte
Dieste
Elaine Johnson
Estrada Hinojosa
Hein & Associates
Monticello West
Meadowbrook School
McGladrey
St. John's Episcopal School
Texas Instruments Christmas Angels

The One Day in a Hundred Years

Today is January 11th, 2011.  Abbreviated, that's 1-11-11, a nice series of ones that happens once every hundred years.  A day like today that translates into 1s, begs for a consideration of all things that are equal to one.  We at Mi Escuelita Preschool are taking a moment to consider how important the number 1 is to us and to the mission our organization undertakes everyday in our classrooms.

Being that 1 is the first number in mathematics, it’s no surprise that it’s the first number that most children learn in life and at Mi Escuelita it’s a starting point for early math proficiency in our students.  The number 1 also signifies singularity, which is a concept that children learn quickly in early development as the “self” becomes the first significant aspect of communicating with the world.  At Mi Escuelita we strive to make sure each child has a unique learning experience in our classrooms and that their individual needs are met, whether those needs are academic or otherwise.  Still, Mi Escuelita takes this a step further.  Each child that walks through our doors is an individual, however, an important component of a quality preschool experience is providing healthy examples of a sense of community and proper social behavior.  Youngsters at the preschool age are impressionable, and at Mi Escuelita we teach them early on that there is room in their small worlds for both a sense of individuality and being a part of a family.  

The number 1 is often thought of as being a ranking; everyone wants to be number 1.  Mi Escuelita Preschool is no different in that naturally we want to be considered among the top choices a parent has when they are choosing proven, quality preschool education.  What sets Mi Escuelita apart from any other non-profit organization who strives for first place, is our serious, research driven approach to finding out what works best in childhood development, focusing first and foremost on language intervention.  Being number 1 means being ahead of the pack and Mi Escuelita is proud of the facts that define us as a contender for that role, such as the fact that out of 2500+ day cares and preschools in Dallas, only 32 are nationally accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and 6 of those 32 are Mi Escuelita campuses.

Everything starts with 1, such as the one single idea to teach English to one classroom of non-English speaking children that blossomed into an award winning non-profit organization serving hundreds of children city wide.  Despite the ever growing need for more programs like ours here in Dallas, Mi Escuelita finds that on days such as today, focusing on the most basic element of our mission is crucial;  Teaching English…one child at a time.  Even just one child’s educational success is a testament to the possibilities that Mi Escuelita’s classrooms offer.  One child.

Today, in the spirit of celebrating our mission of teaching English, one child at a time, Mi Escuelita would like you to be among the first to know about “Alex’s Journey”, a web series of videos that will begin appearing on our website this month.  These video shorts will focus on a current, first year Mi Escuelita student, Alex, who is learning English and becoming a part of the Mi Escuelita Family.  Starting from the very first day of school, this documentary-style web series will give you have a unique opportunity to follow Alex on his educational journey and find out for yourself why Mi Escuelita is the number one preschool for Dallas children to excel in.  Through real classroom footage, interviews with parents and teachers and monthly updates to the series, we hope to tell a compassionate and honest story of what modern preschool education looks like at Dallas’s best kept secret, Mi Escuelita Preschool.

On this day of 1s, Mi Escuelita invites you to frequently check out our website, bookmark our Youtube and Vimeo channels and sign up for our mailing list so that you will be the first to know when the premiere video in the “Alex’s Journey” series is on the web.  This online experience is a first for Mi Escuelita Preschool and it’s a chance for us to share the precious, everyday moments of classroom life that continuously fuel our passion for our work.  Watching a child grasp a concept for the first time in class, or encouraging them to make their first friend outside of the family home, or being there to experience their first educational success…these are firsts that should not be missed.