Dear Families,
May is around the corner and we’ve got a lot of exciting and memory-making experiences in store for your family from now through the end of the school year! It is really an action packed time…don’t miss anything!
Here is a run down of upcoming events:
What came first, the chicken or the egg? Chick Hatching Event starting May 2nd!
On Monday, May 2nd, we will begin our Chick Hatching event right here on-site at Peppermint Tree. The farmer will be coming with adult chickens to show the children and to explain all about eggs, chicks and the hatching we will be witnessing over the next week and a half. The farmer leaves us with 12 eggs in an incubator…then the children will see the eggs hatch and the baby chicks entering the world right before their eyes! A most exciting experience! The farmer presentation and incubator will be in Miss Caren’s PreK classroom. We will run a Zoom for the other classrooms to watch the Farmer’s presentation and we will allow the children from other classrooms to come in, a few at a time, as the eggs start hatching.
“Kindergarten Readiness” Workshop being presented online via Zoom for Parents, Thursday, May 5th at 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Presented by our PreK teachers: Caren Meehan (who is also our Assistant Director) and Meredith Hamilton; and Valerie Frost-Lewis, MS Ed., Center Director.
Please join our Zoom presentation on Thursday, May 5th at 8:00 p.m. to discuss ways to help your child prepare for the transition to Kindergarten, and what to look for as indicators of readiness. We are emailing a flier and Zoom link so you can join us, and we’d appreciate an RSVP, so we know who plans to attend.
Come to our Family Gardening Party! All families are invited to help us launch our Spring Vegetable Gardens, Saturday, May 14th
Each classroom has it’s own raised garden bed, adjacent to the pool, where we will be planting vegetables. We invite our families to join us to get the planting started, at our “Family Gardening Party”, Saturday, May 14th, 9:00 a.m. for the Early Learners class, 10:00 a.m. for Miss Liz’s Preschool class, 11:00 am for Mrs. Hamilton’s PreK class, and 12:00 noon for Miss Caren’s PreK class. We will dig, plant, and celebrate together. (Rain date is TBD). Please RSVP to the office.
I wanted to also express a BIG THANK YOU to Janna and Chad Hockenjos, Peppermint Tree parents who donated all our seeds and seedlings for this year’s gardens!! They set up each classroom with a seed planter too! Thank you!!!
Mr. Scott the Music Man to visit each classroom on Thursday, May 19th and Friday, June 10th to finish out his monthly visits!
Mr. Scott the Music Man brings us so much joy! 🙂
“Breathe With Peppermint Tree” – a special opportunity to learn about Breathwork as self care and as a tool to teach children to calm
Peppermint Tree parent Janna Hockenjos is offering our community an opportunity for self care and a tool to “Share our Calm” with our children. As you may recall, we held a Parent Workshop, entitled, “Share Your Calm: Helping Children Work through Frustration and Big Emotions”, presented by Montclair University. This sparked Peppermint Tree parent, Janna Hockenjos to offer our community “Breathwork” classes that provide us an opportunity for self care, and tips for sharing calming breathing exercises with the children. She is providing weekly sessions for our staff, and is recording two sessions for our families. Links to the recordings will be emailed to families. Janna will also be visiting the classrooms to share the breathwork exercises with the children. Thank you, Janna!
Closed for Memorial Day, May 30th, 2022
The Peppermint Tree will be closed for all students and staff on Monday, May 30th, 2022 in observance of Memorial day.
Pre-K End of Year Ceremony-Save the date: Tuesday, June 14th at 10:00 a.m. outdoors at Peppermint Tree (Rain: Date June 15th)
Our Pre-K End of Year ceremony will be held on Tuesday, June 14th outdoors at Peppermint Tree at 10:00 a.m. More information will be sent home to Pre-K parents in the coming weeks. (NOTE to Pre-K parents: June’s school tuition payment must be made in advance of your child’s “end of year event”, in order for your child to participate. Your school tuition balance must be at zero in order for your child to participate in the event. )
End of the School Year – PLEASE NOTE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL DATE CHANGE
The last day of school will be Wednesday, June 22nd. (The Toms River Public Schools will end on Thursday June 23, as they had one more snow day than we did – so our school agers will still have Before and After School Care here on the 23rd.) If you have not registered for Summer Camp, then your child’s last day for the school year will be Wednesday, June 22 (or before if your child does not attend on a Wednesday). Full time tuition for the Toms River Schools calendar includes 180 school days, and for Peppermint Tree calendar includes 198 school days.
Thursday and Friday, June 23 and June 24 are now “Mini-Camp” days, and are available as an extra days, for those who need child care. These will be fun “pre-camp” days… the pools will not yet be open. 6/23 and 6/24 are not included in camp or school tuition, and must be signed up for and paid for separately. Please notify the office if you would like your child to attend on Thursday, June 23 and/or Friday June 24.
Our first day of Session #1 of Summer Camp is Monday, June 27th, 2022. That is when the pools will be open and the full Summer Camp activity schedule begins. Camp is just about booked full, so if you have not yet registered, and had hoped to attend camp, please call the office to see if there is room in your child’s age group for the schedule you need, or to get onto the waitlist.
Registrations are flowing in from the general public for the Fall 2022 school program, as well. There is limited room left also, for School, so please register quickly. And, remember that enrollment in summer camp does not automatically guarantee a space in the Fall program (or vice versa). You must register your child separately for each session to reserve your space in our program.
Parent Reminder about June Payment
As a reminder, our school year tuition is annual, broken up into ten equal monthly payments (September through June). So, please remember that on June 1st, you still pay a full school payment, even though school ends on June 22. You have benefited from this when there were five weeks in a month and your tuition did not go up. This allows both you and the school to budget an even amount each month for tuition. Any students not returning will have their security deposit subtracted from their their June bill. Quarter Day students were required to prepay the June payment, so there will be no payment due in June if you prepaid it.
Those continuing with us for camp have their Session 1 Camp payment and camp activities payment also due on June 1st. (Camp paperwork and activities packets were emailed this week.) As always, we allow a 15 day grace period for the camp tuition, so there are no late fees until after June 15th. If you have any questions, please call the office at 732-929-2500.
Some families choose to start making payments for camp ahead of time, so when June 1st comes there is not such a burden for them. Please take advantage of this if you foresee a problem with the extra payment due June 1st.
$25.00 Referral Tuition Credit – for each family you refer to Peppermint Tree (once they register)
Is your family enjoying all of The Peppermint Tree activities? Is your child benefiting from the loving care and enriching education we offer? If so, please spread the word about Peppermint Tree! We will reward you, if you do!
“Word of Mouth” is our best form of advertising! And, we truly appreciate your spreading the word about Peppermint Tree to your friends, family and neighbors. We offer all of our current families a tuition credit of $25.00 for each new family you refer to Peppermint Tree. Once they pay their registration fee, we credit your account $25.00. There is no limit to the number of credits you can earn!
Reminders
- Children should be wearing SNEAKERS ONLY. For safety reasons, if children wear sandals or other types of shoes they can not be allowed to climb on our equipment.
- Please check your child’s back pack each day for notices, their projects, and to clean out lunch items the children may have left behind.
- Please Label All spring jackets & lunch boxes. Children often do not recognize their own belongings.
- Send in new seasonal change of clothes for warmer weather.
- Please do not park at the end of the driveway when dropping off or picking up your child. Stay behind the front edge of the building, please. The opening of our driveway is not wide enough to accommodate parking as well as cars pulling in and out.
- Don’t forget to download the BoxTops for Education App, select Peppermint Tree, and scan your receipts in the App after shopping. There is no cost to you, and Peppermint Tree gets funds for children’s materials for the school from this easy fundraiser. Thank you to all those who have been doing this! We just received a check for $61.00 from BoxTops – this will help us get new playground materials (Think: balls, pails, shovels, sidewalk chalk!)
