The WEEKDAY Times Newsletter of Weekday Ministries Child Care Center November 2011 A copy of this newsletter is available online at www.mlumc.org. Click on Weekday Ministries and select the newsletter!

WEEKDAY MINISTRIES CHILD CARE CENTER HOURS MONDAY - FRIDAY 6:30am to 6:00 pm

Mettelise Ziegler, MS - Director OFFICE HOURS 8:30am-4:30PM Happy Birthday! (Hours are subject to change.) Children: 412-531-5790 Fiona C. 11/14 Hannah B. 11/16 [email protected]

Teachers: Mrs. Brack 11/8 Miss Nancy 11/18 Happy !

Important Dates

11/8 CLOSED for Election Day 11/11 Donations due for food pantry 11/18 Sarris Candy sale orders are due 11/24-11/25 CLOSED for Thanksgiving 11/30 Recipes are due for our 30th Anniversary cookbook

Why are we closed for Election Day? Our building is the site of two polling places, so the doors will be wide open. For security reasons, we are closed.

WINTER WEATHER WARNING: It is not too early to make alternate child care plans in case we have a delay or cancellation due to weather! We will post on the three local TV stations by 5:30am. The state requires that we close if we lose water or power. Please refer to your parent handbook for more detailed information. We will be listed as Mt. Lebanon Weekday Ministries or MLUMC Weekday Ministries. We will always try to stay open, but please remember that many teachers do not live close by. We have to be able to get here in enough numbers to cover your children.

Join us is offering our best wishes to our Older Toddler teacher, Crystal Siler, as she marries Frank Ramaglia on Saturday, November 5th at St. Anne’s Church. CLASSROOM NEWS

INFANTS Our babies are growing and moving! We love to see the progress from rolling to crawling and finally walking. As Thanksgiving approaches, we are thankful they are all healthy. We will introduce them to Thanksgiving by reading small board books, singing songs, thanking God for our food and doing finger plays about fruits and vegetables. Jackie Perry

SUPERTOTS Our class is learning some science lessons about turkeys this month. Turkeys gobble. Turkeys strut and they have feathers! Our social studies include learning about families at Thanksgiving. We are so happy that God gives us food! Our theme words include , thanks, food, gobble and feather. Alissa Matson

TINY TOTS Tiny Tots are not too little to learn about turkey feathers, the various colors on leaves, sharing, or gathering with family. We learn that Jesus gives us food. We are even looking at snowflakes! There will be hats, teepees, scarecrows and finger painting to do. We will be counting objects up to 5. Erin Piatt OLDER TODDLERS We probably have too many plans to complete this month! Our themes include harvest, farm and Thanksgiving. We learn that God gives us food and that Jesus feeds hungry people. We have quite a few good books to help us out! We will be counting, sorting and singing. Have you ever played Duck, duck, turkey or been turkey ? Many art projects are planned including interesting textures like prickly pinecones, scratchy hay, wet paint and sticky glue. We even have a feast planned later in the month! We will tell you more about that later.

We are collecting nonperishable items for the food pantry the church operates downstairs! Would you like to help? Suggestions: any kind of canned fruit or vegetable, jello, peanut butter, tuna, powdered milk, cereal, baking mixes, , instant potatoes, paper goods like toilet paper or paper towels. Heather Buettner

PRESCHOOL PALS Because this is the month of Thanksgiving, we will include lessons on Native Americans, fruits and vegetables. We thank God for giving us food. In Science, we will look at types and uses for corn, whether something will bounce, sounds and light! Art projects will include loads of turkey, Indian, Pilgrim and vegetable crafts. Cathy Helbig

PRE-K CLASSES November’s themes are nutrition, fitness and being thankful. We will also focus upon manners. We will be learning about how Native Americans and Pilgrims came together to celebrate the first Thanksgiving. We will include lessons on letters Uu, Cc and Oo as well as numeral 3. PreK4 and T classes will be presenting a short pageant Wednesday, 11/23 at 10:30am in Sanner Chapel. We invite you to attend! Beth Brack & Carol Flaherty

The Director’s Page Mettelise Ziegler

I originally wrote about thankfulness and then deleted the entire article after re-reading the proclamation President Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1863 establishing our national Thanksgiving holiday. I print it below and hope it will be as humbling and as inspirational for you as it was for me! Happy Thanksgiving!

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever- watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the , and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union. (signed) A. Lincoln

DON”T FORGET YOUR RECIPES

Submitted by______Cookbooks will be sold for $10 each, available Spring of 2012. Extra recipe sheets available. Submissions are due by 11/30/11.

Recipes are needed for our 30th Anniversary Cookbook! Each family is asked to enter 3-5 recipes by November 30th. You can send them in handwritten or typed, or enter them through the www.typensave.com website. • To log onto the website, type your name as contributor. • The group is weekday30th. • The password is nexer. Do not worry about your writing style. All recipes will be edited before publication.

We have become very lax about hand washing! It is the NUMBER ONE way to prevent the colds, diarrhea, strep and flu we have already experienced this year!

PLEASE WASH YOUR CHILD’S HANDS BEFORE ENTERING THE CLASSROOM EACH DAY!