December

Happy Holidays to all our Families, we are very excited to celebrate the festivities that occur in the month of December with you. Please read the newsletter as there are many pieces of information for the month of December, January 2025 and Beyond.

Parents please be sure to send warm coats, gloves and hats with your children while coming to GEARS Kids Center. We go outside during the cold weather to breath in fresh air and to get our wiggles our with active play. It is also time to switch those warm weather extra clothes to warmer clothes to keep at the Community Center for our younger children.

As colder weather arrives, we want to let you know that any delays or school closings will be communicated by our Bright Wheels app and through WGAL News/Weather/Closings. If the School District would close we will communicate if GEARS will close too! If there is a 2 hour delay, GEARS follow the District's protocol. This means if the district delays for two hours, all of GEARS also delays. This means we would open at 8:30 am versus 6:30 am. This allow GEARS to have our parking lots plowed and salt areas for the safety of staff, families and bus drivers.

We hope to see many of our children and families at our Winter Wonderland Event on Friday, December 13th, 6 to 8 pm. Santa will be visiting, other activities to enjoy are Bingo with prizes, raffle, cookies and hot chocolate bar. Admission to the event is a canned good or toiletry items for the ECHOS Shelter.

Reminder to our families that GEARS Kids Center will be closed the week of December 23rd, 2024. Kids Center will reopen on Thursday, January 2nd, 2025. Since the school district is only open on January 2nd and 3rd, this will be a part time tuition week. Kelly and I will assure that you are charged accordingly.

Looking ahead into 2025, Martin Luther King Day is a Holiday for GEARS! We are not offering care on this day. Also, another reminder that our Gym Floor will be under construction starting the beginning of February through the end of March of 2025. This means we will not be able to offer Non-School Day Care for students in First grade to Fifth grade on February 14th and March 14th. Preschool and Kindergarten classes WILL BE open on those days. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Please take a peek at any sign-up links for the future; this includes Non-School Days and Early Dismissals,

From all of us at GEARS Kids Center, we want to wish all a very blessed Holiday!

Warmly, Wendy Musser, Kids Center Director

In November we advertised that we would be hosting a collection for ECHOS Shelter on November 8th. Due to circumstances and time we did not collect items on November 8th. Switching gears, we are asking for donations for the shelter at our Winter Wonderland Event on Friday, December 13th. There will be donation boxes in our Kids Center Office starting next week for donations as well. Thank you!

Dear Preschool and Kindergarten Parents,

This is the second time we have introduced "Discovery Dairy" with our Kids Center students. This program allows children to learn about agriculture, healthy eating, math, language, writing and cooperation. We hope you will embrace this program as your children bring home the "Cow Bag" and spends a weekend with Miss Marshmallow (Preschool) or Mr. Butters and Miss Lilly (AM and PM Kindergarten). We love to see the adventures that the cow experience!

Bring the Dairy Farm into Your Classroom!

Discover Dairy is an interactive cross-curricular, multi-leveled lesson series that meets Pennsylvania state education standards and anchors for science, math and reading. The program also incorporates social studies concepts to show students where milk comes from and how dairy farms contribute to our world. In 2014, lessons were revised to incorporate Common CORE and STEM standards, with more writing assessment opportunities. View educational standard matrix.

Five lesson plans, with video motivators, reading guides, and assessment-based worksheets, are available for upper elementary level classrooms. Four two-part lessons, with video motivators, reading guides, and lab resources, are available for middle school. Education standards and anchors are listed with each individual lesson plan.

All lessons and associated materials are available to download at no cost. Adopt A Cow, Farm Field Trip Grants, and other opportunities are also offered through the program.

This resource was made possible by the American Dairy Association Northeast and the Dairy Excellence Foundation of Pennsylvania, with assistance from the American Dairy Association Indiana, American Dairy Association Mideast, Dairy Alliance, Dairy Council of Florida, Dairy Farmers of Washington, Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, Dairy Management West, Dairy West, Maine Dairy Promotion Board, Midwest Dairy Association, New England Dairy, United Dairy Industry of Michigan, and the Center for Dairy Excellence.

For more information, contact:
Discover Dairy
Phone: 717-346-0849
Email: info@discoverdairy.com

Our 2024 November Teachers of The Month are Neena Thomas, Donalyn Barr and Seth Boell. Neena and Seth are Elizabethtown College Students in the Occupational Therapy program. These students have made a big impact on our GEARS students. Ms. Donalyn continues to work in our Kindergarten Classroom and consistently showing her dedication to the children, the families and to GEARS Kids Center.

• Connect with Us!
• Wendy Musser wendymusser@getintogears.org
• Kelly Flowers kellyflowers@getintogears.org
• Phone: 717-367-0119