P4K Post
February 2018
Serving children ages 6 weeks - 12 years old in the following programs:
Day Care
School Age Care
Nursery School
Pre-Kindergarten
Summer Camp
Quick Links
Tax Time! 
If you are in need of a year end tax statement for your 2018 child care payments we are happy to provide that for you. Tax statement request forms are beside each payment box and on the parent bulletin board by the school age mailboxes. Complete the form and deposit it in a payment box and a statement will be sent to you via the route you indicate on the request form. If you have any questions email Beth Antes or call the P4K Office.

*If requesting your statement by email, be sure to check your Spam for Beth's reply.
Linked with Love
Our P4K teacher training team is almost ready to board our plane and head to Rwanda soon! The team leaves a week from today, February 1, and returns on February 10. While there they will be training teachers in our partner school, teaching in the classrooms with the children and visiting our P4K sponsored child, Rosine. If you don't know who Rosine is, ask your child to show you her picture in their classroom! Our sponsorship of Rosine provides her with the funds to attend school and obtain the required school uniform as well as provide her with a small snack while at school. Some of the sponsorship funds also go to help provide a small salary for the teachers, which is imperative to aid in the retention of those teachers. Many preschools in Rwanda are not able to pay their teachers so we are privileged to help the Nzige teachers earn a small salary!

A BIG thanks to many of you who donated Amazon gift cards so that we could purchase supplies for the school in Nzige. Others of you brought in school supplies for us to take with us. Those supplies will go to good use!

The team will post pictures on the Pearce 4 Kids Facebook page as often possible along the way. You can also follow them by "liking" the  Linked with Love Facebook page.

The P4K team was asked, "What is one thing that made you say yes when you were asked to leave your family, the comforts of home and go 7000 miles into the unknown?" Here are their responses:

Becca Johnson: "I'll never forget the feeling I felt when I saw the picture of our Nursery School teacher, Sue Smout, with Rosine. For someone I work so closely with to be with the little girl we speak so much about overwhelmed me. I wished so badly that I could have been in that picture too. So, when I was asked if I would be interested in joining a team to go to Nzige I felt those emotions all over again and I knew I had to say yes!"

L eandra Cooke: "Saying yes to Nzige is like saying yes to experience a little piece of Heaven. Yes, it's a little bit out of my comfort zone, however, it's not about me but about being helping hands to those in need of God's love. At the end of the day, it's not about what we will do for them but how we have made them feel while being there."


Becky Watson: "I am thrilled for the opportunity to meet our sponsored child and the teachers that we have been praying for and supporting these last few years. I see this as an opportunity to make friends and learn from them. To be reminded that having the best supplies and equipment will not make me a better teacher, but the relationships are what will last and are the most important. There was not even a moment of hesitation before saying yes to this trip."

Lydia Monroe: "I have been to Nzige twice, once in 2015 and again in 2016. The 2015 trip was an exploratory visit to see what a partnership with the Nzige FM Church and Preschool would involve.  I was asked to go and put on my P4K Director lens and specifically think and pray about how P4K could partner with the preschool school in Nzige. As I listened to the Nzige pastor, who is also the Nzige School Director, describe their mission and vision for their preschool school I remember thinking -- ' wow, it's just like P4K'! I began praying right then that God would provide a perfect time and team to take from P4K so that they might experience what God is already at work doing in Nzige. While there, we want to provide the requested help with teaching strategies that we find work, but beyond that we want to offer friendship, encouragement and support to our brothers and sisters in Christ and help them as they strive to look, live and love like Jesus to their community. Our Nursery School teacher, Sue Smout, was able to go to Nzige in 2016 with one of the Pearce Church teams and I am thrilled that we now have 3 more teachers who will experience this trip. They already teach their P4K children about Nzige and our sponsored child but they will come back with a whole new perspective on God's world and a new ability to teach their P4K children about a little school in a far away village that will be forever close to their hearts. And I get to have a front row seat and watch them take it all in and have their world view and God view expanded beyond what they can imagine!"
Free Vision Screening
For the 3rd year, Day Care/Nursery School/Pre-K parents of 3-5 year olds have the opportunity to have their child's eyes screened with a SPOT vision screener, a free service offered by the Lions Club. Trained members from the Lions Club will be at P4K in March to administer the screening to those who are interested. P4K partnered with the Lions Club SEE program last year and several children who were tested were given a recommendation to have an eye exam with their optometrist and ended up getting glasses.

The Welch Allyn website describes the Spot Vision Screener that will be used to screen the children as "a handheld, portable device designed to help users quickly and easily detect vision issues on patients from 6 months of age through adult. Spot screens both eyes at once from a nonthreatening 3-foot distance. The touch-screen display allows for one-touch activation, simple management of patient data entry, and easy configuration for both vision screening and auto refraction applications." Your child will simply feel like they are having their picture taken!

If the SPOT Vision Screener detects an issue with your child's eyes and recommends an eye exam you will receive a "Vision Screening Summary" the day of the screening to take with you to your child's ophthalmologist or optometrist.
 
Spot accurately detects the potential indication of these common vision problems:
  • Myopia (nearsightedness)
  • Hyperopia (farsightedness)
  • Astigmatism (blurred vision)
  • Anisometropia (unequal refractive power)
  • Strabismus (eye misalignment)
  • Anisocoria (unequal pupil size) 
The Lions Club will be at P4K on the following dates:
  • Mon. 2/12 @ 10am and 1pm (3 & 4 year old day care classes)
  • Thu. 2/15  @ 10am and 1pm (Nursery School & Pre-K)
  • Fri. 2/16 @ 10am and 10m (Nursey School and make up's from previous days)
If you would like to have your child's eyes screened you will need to complete and turn in a consent form to your child's teacher by Friday, February 2, 2018. Screening Consent Forms will be sent home with your child - or you can obtain it by clicking on this link:  Vision Screening Consent Form
 
The Lions Club does not keep any information about your child on file. All consent information is kept at P4K, in the children's files.
Jump Start - Extended Nursery School
Jump Start is coming! Keep your preschooler active and learning while the big kids are still in school. Starting May 21, after our regular Nursery School & Pre-K classes end, Sue Smout will offer an extended preschool class which will include kindergarten readiness skills, games, art projects, camp activities, and lots of recreation time.  Below are some of the details about the program:
 
Class Days: Monday - Thursday
Dates: Monday, May 21  - Thursday, June 14
Time: 9:00am - 1:30pm
Place: Nursery School Classroom
Cost: $320 for 4 weeks (children will bring their lunches)
Registration: begins February 1 (no registration fee)
*Minimum of 8 children must be registered in order to run the class for the 4 weeks
 
For more information and/or registration forms contact the P4K Office or  Sue Smout.
Summer Is Coming! 
Believe it or not, Summer Camp will kick off in just over 5 months!! Warmth, sun, green trees, flowers, shorts, flip flops...all of it sounds marvelous right now doesn't it?
  
Beginning Thursday, March 1st, brochures and registration forms for school age Summer Camp and Fall Before/After School Care will be in the mailboxes of the children who are eligible for those programs. 
  
Summer Camp is an 8 week program, starting on Monday, July 2 and ending on Friday, August 24, for children who are entering Kindergarten in the fall through children who are 12 years old (or who turn 13 during the 2017/2018 school year). 

Stay in the Loop! 

Are you signed up for our text messaging system? If you haven't already done so, be sure to opt in to the service. Text messaging will be one of our primary means of communicating closings and emergency information with you. We suggest that you "opt in" to each program in which you have children involved. 

 

You will find instructions to opt in to our text messaging system in the "Quick Links" block above or by following this link: Text Message Opt In Instructions.

 

Besides our text messaging system, information about closings, start delays and emergencies will be posted on local television stations (13 WHAM, WROC 8, WHEC 10), WHAM 1180 and the P4K Facebook page. We will also send emails to our email contact groups so please keep the P4K office aware of any address changes.

 

All notifications about full day closings or start delays will be posted/texted/emailed no later than 5:45am.
Check Out the Web!     
Be sure to take advantage of the calendar on our P4K Website. To find it, go to our website, click on the Calendar  tab on the top toolbar and you will be into the P4K calendar. On the calendar you will find things like:
  • Day Care lunch menus (click on the tab for the full menu)
  • Holiday Dates
  • School Age full and half day schedules
  • Nursery School & Pre-K days off, field trips and other events
Each program is color coded so you can easily search for information that is pertinent to your family. When in the calendar, if you want more information about a particular event posted, click on the event box and we will have more detailed information listed in description.
  
Be sure to go check out  P4K Facebook Page! We use our FB page to post events happening in P4K and Pearce Church, communicate emergency information/closings and to share fun pictures or stories about something happening at P4K. "Like" us today!