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Written by Kandy Wise Kandy Wise

Well, we are ramping up to get back in the saddle here at Open Arms for a brand new year. Once again, here I go asking where the summer went. My summer had planned events that kept me busy, but also some not-so-planned that definitely threw a wrench in things, but such is life. I do hope summer has been good to all of you!

Every summer we give the classroom a deep cleaning, so that’s part of what I’ve been working on along with administrative things to get ready for the fall. The toys get a deep clean and everything that can be laundered goes home with me for a good washing. I even pulled out screens and scrubbed those down this year! Washing, scrubbing, laundry and paint touch ups—that’s what summer brings for the classroom. Tom scrubbed the carpet, and as I write this, the tile floor is getting polished. I love a fresh new classroom to greet our families for Orientation night, which was on August 18. It’s always a fun time to meet the new families and reconnect with those who are returning from last year. We really enjoy seeing students from years past at Orientation with their little sibling who’s about to start preschool. Those kiddos tell me they want to return to preschool! That warms my heart so much.

We are starting the year with two completely full morning classes, for a total of thirty students. Even without an afternoon class, we have three more students than we had last year. We are still bouncing back from the COVID days, but I fully expect a leap in numbers next year due to the free PreK that will be kicking in fall of 2023. I guess this is the time to use those afternoons to get ready for next year!

We welcome Lani Long back on staff this year in the three-year-old class with me. After her family’s plans to move out of state took a different turn, she just took last year off and is back with us this year! Jennifer Cole will be with me in the PreK class. We are looking forward to a great year with our families, both familiar and new.

We’ve met with a couple of playground consultants as we are starting to look ahead to updating the playground. We keep managing to get approval on the playground with state licensing, but the wooden structure is getting very tired and I’m afraid our “squeaking by” time is going to be up here very soon. We will continue to work through that exciting project and keep you all updated.

Our first day of Preschool is September 6 for our three-year-olds, and PreK starts on September 7. The families are so excited to get their kids started, but we always have just as many tears from moms as we do the kid—or, in most cases, moms cry more than the kids! We will spend that first month getting to know the children and assess where they are with their learning skills so we have a good baseline and know what to focus on.

Say a little prayer that our first weeks of school will be smooth, with calm little people, very few or zero tears, and that the children will see God’s light and love through our nurturing, positive classroom environment. Pray that the children make new friends, and their parents make new friends as well. I love to see the families become good friends through this program right alongside their children. I believe so strongly that these young families need good community, and if we can foster that in their lives, I am so grateful!

Thank you all for your continued support of Open Arms. I wish you could see firsthand all of the little lives that are touched here. When I get inquiries from families who tell me that Open Arms keeps popping up in conversation when they ask friends or acquaintances about preschools, it’s confirmation that we are doing something right here. Onward we go into a new year!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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Written by Kandy Wise Kandy Wise

Happy summer everyone! That sure happened fast! We have been so busy these last few weeks that it has been a real whirlwind!

I left off at parent/teacher conferences in my last newsletter. Those went very well. It is always nice to have that one-on-one time with parents to show them their child’s portfolio and discuss their growth during the year. The first days of preschool, some of the thee-year-old children make confetti when they attempt to use scissors, but by the end of the year, they can cut with more precision. The older children leave equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to head into kindergarten with confidence. Conferences are the benchmark that we know we are on the fast road to the end of the year.

After conferences, the focus switched to our year-end activities, although we did still have some time learning about habitats, farm and gardens sprinkled in there. We tied the farm unit into our field trip to the Morning Fresh Dairy Farm. If you have never been on one of their tours, we highly recommend it. It is beautiful there and quite interesting. Of course, a favorite highlight is the sampling of their milks and the Noosa yogurt! The Howling Café is adorable too.

We also had our Friendship/Kindness party for all classes. We have “Kindness Jars” in the classroom. Children get to put a bead in the jar when they exhibit an extra act of kindness that we see or another child reports. Of course, kindness is expected all the time and is acknowledged, but when those “extra” acts of kindness happen, we take a moment to point it out and tell others about it. It is a great positive reinforcement tool that works well for us. Once the jar is full, we have a party to celebrate.

Next up was the Mother’s Day tea. We were thrilled to be back to normal this year. The children presented their moms with a gift package they made that included an adorable photo frame complete with a handprint and special photo, a flower they planted in a pot they decorated and a super cute card. One of our moms has her own small business of making skin care products, so we used a small amount of our grant money so she could make a special item for each of the mothers. It had its own special name and label just for our Mother’s Day Tea. Thank you so much to the ladies of Saint John’s who made and donated food items, flowers and other items for the event! It is so much more appreciated than you know! We also enlisted the moms from the younger class to bring food items and help on the day of the event which was a huge help. We cannot do this event without all the extra hands that are there to help. Please know how much I appreciate all of you! We released our butterflies as usual on this beautiful spring day, which is always so much fun for everyone.

The following week brought the Spring Program, which was adorable, as always. You never know what you are going to get when you put a bunch of preschoolers on a big stage! The kids did a wonderful job and had a blast of fun in the process. It is good to let them have this opportunity to be on a stage early in their life. Thank you, Sharlene Haas, for organizing the refreshments for the program, and cleaning up after it was over! On that note, thank you again, Sharlene, for organizing and supervising our bake sale fund raiser back in April!

The following week was our summer birthday party. We celebrate birthdays throughout the year, but we do not want the summer kiddos left out, so we have a special day for them. The very next day was our Pre-K graduation and picnic. We were thrilled to have this back to normal too! The children gave a brief demonstration of what our morning circle time routine looks like by performing our daily welcome song and the Pledge of Allegiance. They chose a couple of their favorite songs/dances to do, as well, before I handed out certificates and their books. We give each of them a copy of Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr Seuss. We, the teachers, write a personal note in the book to each child with instructions to parents to have every teacher throughout the child’s life sign the book so they have a sweet keepsake when they graduate high school. I make a memory slideshow each year for the students, so I was happy that we could watch it alt together once again at the graduation ceremony.

These events really do take a village to be successful and I am so grateful for our Open Arms village. I want to say a special thank you to Cindy Starck and Whitney Starck for providing the food and decorations for the graduation. They worked so hard setting up and decorating the fellowship hall, making the lunch for everyone and sticking around to clean it all up! I am so incredibly grateful for your help and could not have done it without you. My own daughter graduated from high school two days later, so I was a crazy person with family coming in and planning my daughter’s graduation events. I truly do not know what I would have done without these ladies stepping in to oversee this! Pre-Kindergarten graduation is always bittersweet for me, just as it is for parents. The hardest part is saying goodbye to the families who are on their last child to attend Open Arms. I do tell them to visit anytime, and I expect a high school graduation invitation in thirteen years!

Our very last day with our three-year-old class was on the 19^th, complete with a picnic. This is a less-difficult goodbye since they will all be back in the fall. A few of them were not happy knowing it was their last day until fall—that is a good problem to have!

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped and supported the preschool program this year. I love the community we have here and cannot thank everyone enough! You all are a blessing to me! Have a safe and fun summer!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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Happy April, everyone! I hope you are enjoying spring so far, even with the wind that doesn’t seem to want to go away.

Once again, I find myself asking the same question I do every year at this time: how are we already so close to the end of the school year? Like my mom always told me, the older you get, the faster the years pass. She was very right!

We wrapped up March with dinosaurs and insects. We welcomed twenty caterpillars into the classroom so we can watch them grow into butterflies. If all goes as planned, we will release them at the Mother’s Day Tea on May 6. As always, I made dinosaur fizz eggs for the kids to “hatch”. They always love this science experiment activity that requires patience skills as it takes some time to reveal the surprise inside the “egg”. They also enjoyed our special dinosaur cave in the classroom.

We ended March with a field trip to the Garbage Garage and recycling center, where we always discover new things. Even the adults learn on this fascinating field trip!

April brought Ocean Week. We transformed our reading corner into an “under the sea” space, which is such a calming and soothing place to curl up with books and stuffed animals for some quiet time. The kiddos didn’t want to take it down! This was followed by followed by Easter fun. Easter week brought all the stories of Jesus as well as the fun of an egg hunt, coloring eggs and making our own Easter Baskets. Our parents are amazing and brought so many stuffed eggs for the hunt. We had an added bonus of fun for the Easter Party day since the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program came for a visit and brought a screech owl to the classroom!

As I write this, we are upon parent teacher conferences already, and then we will launch head first into planning for the Spring Program, Mother’s Day Tea and graduation! The last week of April will end with our Friendship/Kindness Parties complete with pizza and ice cream! The kids spend all year filling our Kindness Jars with beads, and once it’s full, we celebrate friendship and kindness with a party.

We also took a field trip to the Gardens on Spring Creek and Butterfly House. We had a great time and were blessed with a gorgeous day without wind! The kids really enjoyed exploring, learning, seeing so many butterflies, and planting a seed to take home. This is another favorite field trip. Our next field trip will be to Morning Fresh Dairy Farm! Needless to say, we will be super busy until school is out on May 19!

I hope you all have a wonderful May and happy Mother’s Day. I’ll be back with the final words of our last month of school before we know it!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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Written by Kandy Wise Kandy Wise

Happy (almost) spring! It’s soooooo close! We’ve got the itch for the spring weather to get here so we can be outside more. I know it will be here fast since time is flying as it always does this time of year.

The last week of February was special as we welcomed a classroom guest. The Northern Colorado Herpetological Society came to visit, and they brought an iguana named Green Bean, a bearded dragon named Monte, a turtle named Ducky and a Boa whose name … I can’t remember. This was a great educational experience for the kids. Most of them were excited to touch these animals, though there were some who declined! Parents were able to get a sneak peek at the animals when they picked their kiddos up. It was funny to watch everyone’s different reactions. We all learned many fun things about these creatures and their stories. We will be inviting them back next year!

March started off with Dr. Seuss week, where we read the fun classics and did plenty of art projects to go along with it. For the younger kids, we made a “foot book” of all the students in the class. They get to paint their feet, which they think is hysterical, and then the footprints are all bound together in a book of their very own feet. The older kids design their own hot air balloons when we read “Oh the Places You’ll Go” and then we put a photo of them in the balloon basket. They were adorable and we will use them for graduation decorations in May. March themes also include fairy tales, nursery rhymes and dinosaurs. Dinosaur week is always a favorite for kids and staff alike. We made our own dinosaur cave, and the kids love it!

April will, of course, bring the craziness of all the year-end classroom activities that keep us all hopping into and through the Easter season. We also have parent-teacher conferences in April, so that keeps us busy getting assessments complete for each child. Then we blink, and it will be May, which is super full of events and busy days! Our Mother’s Day Tea will be on May 6 at noon. In past years, ladies from the church have come to help serve food and drinks, and/or made some lovely food for the day. If you would like to help in any of these ways, just let me or Tom know, and we would love to have you all join us for the day. It’s always guaranteed to warm your heart as we serve and bless these young moms in the simplest way. Our spring program will be on May 12 at 6:30 PM. All congregation members are welcome and invited to attend! Finally, our graduation will be on May 18 instead of the originally planned May 20 due to a schedule conflict.

I hope you all have joy and blessings as spring brings a sense of rejuvenation and energy to us all. I am quite sure we are all more than ready for that!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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Written by Kandy Wise Kandy Wise

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and happy New Year! The year is flying by once again and here we are already fast approaching spring break!

January at preschool brought fun learning all about wintery things like snowmen, the Arctic and Antarctica, hibernation and migration, as well as Martin Luther King, and our five senses. We also incorporated our Children Around the World into the month. The kiddos were happy to be back in preschool, and now we are enrolling new students for the fall. If you know of anyone looking for a preschool, send them our way!

As of writing this, we are in February talking about Community Helpers, outer space, Valentine’s Day, colors and shapes, President’s Day, and opposites. During the second half of the month, we will read and talk about Eric Carle’s terrific books and create art inspired by his style, followed by Dr. Seuss week as we enter the first week of March. These are always such fun weeks talking about Authors and their specific style of book illustrations. The finale of February will be a classroom visit from the Northern Colorado Herpetological Society. We have never had them here before, so we are super excited to meet the live critters they are bringing for us to learn about!

We continue to be blessed with Colorado Shines funding for improvements in the classroom, so the latest big upgrade will be replacing the chairs that were most likely purchased when the program began back in the 90s. They have gotten brittle, and some have broken, leaving sharp edges, so we thought this was the perfect time to update. We continue to find useful ways to improve the classroom with those funds and visitors always give compliments when they see it. The bonus for me is when they need to leave, and they cannot pry their child out to go home! That is one way for a parent to know their child is comfortable here.

This is always a “quiet season” before the crazy busy “storm” that the spring months bring to preschool, so there isn’t a whole lot to report on right now. We will be making up for lost time from these last couple of years when we could not take field trips and such. We have several outings and classroom visitors scheduled to keep us hopping in April and May. I will give you the stories about those as they happen. We are really excited about the adventures we will be having soon as we creep into the spring!

I hope you all have a wonderful month, and we can all look forward to the spring fast approaching, even if the weather doesn’t say so!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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Written by Kandy Wise Kandy Wise

Happy New Year everyone! It seems a little crazy to think we are in 2022. I can remember when I was in high school and college, it seemed like 2022 was some crazy sci-fi year and we’d all be flying around like the Jetsons. Well, not yet.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year celebration. As always, the Christmas season did not disappoint us here at Open Arms. We stayed very busy with many fun crafts, talking about the birth of Jesus and preparing for the program—which was in-person this year! The parents were so excited to be able to come to the church to see the program rather than watch it by stream like last year. However, now that we have streaming available to us, we were able to also share the program to family and friends far away to enjoy as well. Thank you to Tom for that!

The kids did a great job with the program and were adorable and funny, of course. We had a great turnout that filled the sanctuary, which always warms my heart. Thank you to June Donaldson for leading a Thrivent Action Team to update costumes and props for the Nativity portion of the program. She also got to help us with building the stable on stage before the program. Thank you, June! We appreciate the help of our families so much too as it saves us so much time and just makes it more fun overall.

The last day before Christmas break was our Polar Express Party. As usual, it was a blast for not only the kids, but the staff and parents. We had several moms who stayed to help with the party, which we love. Everyone arrived in their pajamas to start the day. After our busy night with the program, this was a welcome opportunity to be so comfortable at school. We started out the morning by making a fun craft provided by parents. Then, as he does every year, the Gingerbread man got out of the classroom, so we had to go all over the church to find him. This year he made his way to my car and managed to get himself stuck in my window. We decided he was trying to go to my house since he knew I had baked a lot of cookies and he thought he could sneak a ride to my house to eat them. After we solved that problem, it was time to have snacks and watch a Christmas Movie. The choice was “The Star” this year. If you haven’t seen it, put it on your list next year. The kiddos got comfortable in their train cars they decorated, got their golden ticket and waited for the conductors to come punch it for admission onto the Polar Express train. Once that was done, we served them popcorn and hot cocoa while they enjoyed the movie. Halfway through the movie, we had an intermission where the kids decorated a Christmas cookie to eat while finishing the movie. Once we finished with everything, everyone packed up their train car full of goodies and gifts from the teachers, said their goodbyes and headed home for the break.

Now here we are in January, already looking ahead to the fall enrollment process. Boy did that go fast! We have started registration for current families and church members, and open registration to the public January 29. If you know of anyone looking for preschool, please send them our way! I am already getting calls and emails, so people are starting to think about it already. Feel free to call or email me if you have any questions! I’m happy to answer them.

January is all about snowmen, hibernation, migration, penguins, the five senses, and children around the world, to mention a few. Even though January can be a dreary month following the hubbub of Christmas fun, we manage to keep it fun with winter activities and learning.

Open Arms is full of new babies coming this year. We have six expecting moms, two of whom just had their babies. One arrived the day after Christmas, and the other one arrived on January 8. Both boys, healthy and doing well. Now we must wait for the other four to join us. Maybe they will all be at preschool at the same time in three years!

I hope and pray the best for you all in this new year and hope it’s one of the best yet! I will be back next month with some more fun stuff to tell you about!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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I cannot believe I am writing the last newsletter for 2021 already! I hope this finds all of you healthy and doing well as we enter the great season of Christmas.

November was all about family, tall-tales fun, Native Americans and Pilgrims, and everything else about Thanksgiving and how we should be thankful! Of course, the Thanksgiving Family Feast is always the highlight of the month. The kiddos enjoyed their activity of baking the pumpkin bread themselves just like they do every year. Our Bible stories were all about Moses, from being in the basket to the Ten Commandments.

After Thanksgiving break, we will jump right in with Christmas activities and preparing for our Christmas program on December 16 at 6:30 PM. If you would like to come watch, we welcome you to do so! We are happy to have this back this year as well, and our parents are beyond thrilled they get to watch it in person this year. It is always so beautiful in the sanctuary with the decorations and festive atmosphere. As it goes every year, I tell parents “You get what you get” when you have a group of 3–5-year-old children on stage, so we are really looking forward to what kind of show the kiddos will present this year! The time is short to practice for it so we will be super busy preparing!

December is all about the birth story of Jesus along with the other stuff kids like, such as Rudolf and Santa. We will also read the story of the Elves and the Shoemaker and talk about Christmas in other countries and how they celebrate in their culture. Our last two days before Christmas break will be party fun. As always, we will end our year with the Polar Express party by wearing our PJs to school, searching all over for the runaway Gingerbread man and watching a Christmas movie while sitting in our Polar Express “Train Cars” eating popcorn and hot chocolate. Of course, we must get our golden ticket punched before we can get on board the train!

Following Christmas break will be preparation for 2022–23 registration. As always, we open it to current families and church members first in early January. We open it to the public near the end of the month in coordination to the Preschool Fair which is back on for this year as well. Pass the word about our program if you know anyone looking! We have our Level 4 quality rating (out of 5) in Colorado Shines that is an accomplishment of which we are proud. Not only that, but our families always talk about the special environment here where it truly feels like a second family. That is the one thing I am most proud of about this program. Having families feel welcome and happy here is always most important to us.

There is so much to be grateful for this season, and we will be talking to the children about that as we go through these next few weeks. I encourage all of us to think about the things we have to be thankful for as we enter this season that inspires generosity and kindness, and that we would all carry that through the rest of 2022 to everyone we know.

The staff here at Open Arms wishes you and your families a healthy, blessed and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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Wow, has time flown by or what? We’ve certainly been busy bees here in preschool!

September was spent getting to know the kiddos and families while enjoying the good weather while it lasted. We had a successful Bike Rodeo fundraiser, which was great after not being able to have it last year. We had a great turnout of parents volunteering their time to help out. This event cannot be done without our parents, and we are so grateful. The kids had a great time, got a lot of sunshine and exercise, and earned some money for preschool. We had a couple of “collisions” this year, but these tough kiddos kept going after they dusted themselves off.

After we talked all about school rules, keeping ourselves healthy, apples, and wrapped up the Bike Rodeo, we found ourselves in October!

October is a fun month filled with fire safety, anything autumn, pumpkins and Halloween fun. We were happy to be back at field trips this year. We took our walking field trip to the fire station, enjoying the fall colors and crunch of leaves under our feet all along the way. The weather was perfect on the day we went. Talking about autumn and the changing leaves, we learned about how chlorophyll gives leaves their green color, and how they use photosynthesis to make their own food.

Then we jumped into pumpkin week, which is always a favorite. We have a “pumpkin stand” in the classroom where kiddos can weigh, sell and buy pumpkins. They love it! We took our trip to the pumpkin patch where we enjoyed a hayride, the petting zoo, corn maze walks and, of course, hunting for the perfect pumpkin. Again, the day couldn’t have been more perfect for this event.

We finish off the month with Halloween fun. Our home room moms are amazing at putting on parties! The kids loved wearing their costumes and seeing their teachers dressed up. As one of the girls said, “This is the best and most fun day ever!” That was true until she was just about to go home and she let go of her balloon outside—the only orange one left. I’m guessing a nap was in order when she got home, if she stayed awake until then.

November will of course be a month of thankfulness, turkeys and family, just to name a few things. We look forward to our Thanksgiving family feast this year! Once Thanksgiving is over it will be crazy busy as we enjoy the Christmas festivities leading up to our Christmas Program (December 16 at 6:30 PM in the Sanctuary—you are all invited!) and Polar Express Party day.

We hope you all are enjoying a healthy, fun autumn season and the beautiful colors we’ve had this year. It will be replaced with snow before we know it!

God Bless!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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Happy Autumn, everyone! We’re officially back in the rhythm of preschool here at Open Arms! We’ve had a great start to the year with some great kiddos and families. We are happy to see familiar faces of families returning with little siblings, along with all the new faces. We are looking forward to a new year!

The first couple of weeks are all about getting to know the children and learning the ropes of preschool. We spent week one with the books The Kissing Hand ¹ and Llama Llama Misses Mama ² as these are good ones to put any fears or worries of missing mom and dad at ease. Luckily, we had very minimal tears that only lasted for ten minutes from two kiddos on the first day and that was it! The three-year-old class is where that tends to happen, and to only have a few tears is amazing!

We also spend a lot of time talking about hand washing and germs. Germs are not allowed here! Once again, those kid-sized sinks in the classroom are a huge blessing for us! We are so grateful for them and the ability to send children over to wash their hands every time we see the need! The kiddos are fascinated with the science experiment we do with the “germ lotion” we put on our hands. It’s a substance invisible to the naked eye but visible under black light. They can see the “germs” on their hands and how they transfer to toys and all the other things we touch. We look at their hands again after they’ve washed them to see how many germs are still left behind—then they go back and wash again to get all of them off! It really is a great visual for them to see and better understand how important it is to wash their hands well!

We also had a week talking about friends and emotions. This is a great way to set expectations and boundaries while talking about how we must treat each other at preschool. We are very fortunate to have children and families who talk about this subject at home, but it’s always good to keep talking about it in the classroom. After the craziness of the last several months, we are prepared to talk a lot about emotions and feelings. If you think about it, these little people have spent roughly half of their lives in these crazy times we’ve been in since March 2020. This is a crucial time for that social and emotional development, so we do not lose sight of the importance of it.

I must admit, it’s been a little strange getting “back in the saddle” of having our normal activities and events once again after not being allowed to do any of it last year. We will have “Apple Week” where we will have an “apple orchard” in the classroom for the entire week. We learn about the life cycle of an apple, do more fun science experiments and make fun art projects. We are also happy to say that we can have our Bike Rodeo Fundraiser again this year!

Mrs. Walsh and Mrs. Cole are getting in their new groove as the new staff members at Open Arms. After being here with their children for several years and volunteering in class, they are great additions to our program and I’m happy to have them on board. We know how to laugh and have fun every day with the kiddos, even when most people would run instead of laugh.

Now that we’ve gotten a great start to the year, we will do all we can to keep the good times rolling! I do hope everyone at Saint John’s is healthy and doing well! Have a blessed and beautiful autumn season!

1. Audrey Penn, The Kissing Hand (Tanglewood Press, 1993).
2. Anna Dewdney, Llama Llama Misses Mama (Viking Books for Young Readers, 2009).

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.

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We are about to jump back into the saddle for another year of preschool here at Open Arms. Another summer has flown by!

As of this writing, we have thirteen students in the morning Pre-K class, three in the afternoon Pre-K class, and eleven in the preschool three-year-old class. Our first day will be September 7. September will consist of getting to know the children and getting into the rhythm of routine once again. We are happy to say that we will be able to have our Bike Rodeo this year! That is our best fundraiser and it allows everyone to be involved in a fun and positive way while having fun. We had Orientation on August 17 with a good turnout of families attending. It was great to see all the familiar faces from last year, and meet the new families joining us for the first time. We look forward to another great year, and will continue the hard work we did last year to keep everyone healthy again!

We want to welcome our new teacher aides! Mrs. Long is planning to move to Florida, so two of our moms were eager to jump in to fill her spot. We welcome Brittanie Walsh to our three-year-old class and Jennifer Cole to the Pre-K morning class. They have both had children in our program and are excited to join me.

We will have more fun things to report once we get rolling with school, but until then, I wish everyone a happy end to summer and great beginning of autumn!

Kandy Wise is the Director of Open Arms Preschool, a ministry of Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You may reach her at 482-1357 or OpenArms@StJohnsFC.org with any questions about the Preschool.