My goodness, I need to better at updating our website with our newsletter.  It has been a very busy year.  This summer we have enjoyed our Author curriculum, where each week we feature a children’s author and center our lessons on their books.  It has been so enjoyable and the children love these books and activities.  We will wind up our summer’s themes with Minnesotan’s very own Nancy Carlson.  Her books are wonderful and the lessons that we can learn from her are so rewarding.  We will be closed the week of August 27-September 3 as we prepare for our upcoming school year.  The first day of school is Tuesday, September 4th.  We welcome 20 new students, many who are siblings and our teachers are excited and ready for the routine our school year brings us.

This summer we were blessed to be on the receiving end of some improvements to our classroom due to St. Patrick’s Capital campaign.  Five of our classrooms had the old carpet torn out and was replaced with a manufactured flooring resembling hard wood.  These floors will be much more “kid friendly” and have made our classrooms look bright, clean and even bigger.  We were able to add some fun area rugs as well. We have all our teachers back with the addition of Anne, who happens to be my daughter and has recently returned to the Twin Cities with her husband.  Anne will be teaching in the yellow group room with Molly and Jill. Combined these teachers have over 25 years of lead teaching experience. We are excited for this trio as they are so creative, loving and full of laughter.  Our pre-k teachers are the current ones; Sara, Sarah, Sammy and Kayla.  They bring over 35 years of combined teaching experience. They are all experienced, educated with elementary and early childhood degrees and are amazing in preparing your child for kindergarten.  Our nursery has the familiar faces of Nanette, Kim, Lisa, Anya and Kerry who are ready to give out hugs, praise, and experience each day with your child.  Together, they have over 60 years experience with young children.  You can learn more about our staff on the Teacher page on the website.

Another item of importance that we are benefiting from is a security system within the St. Patrick’s building.  It was to be up and running August 15th, but as many things technological, there are some issues that are not ready for operation.  We do expect it to be running come the first day of school.  Each family will get two key cards that will get you into the front and door from playground from 7:00 am-6:00 pm Monday through Friday.  You will be asked to put a deposit down for your key cards and that will be returned to you on your child’s last day when you turn in your key cards.  With the world the way it is now, we are grateful to St. Pat’s for this system.

Enjoy the last days of this beautiful summer.

Cathy