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