Dear Parents,
This week is Character Counts week at IPS. We have many activities planned to teach our students about positive character qualities. Trustworthiness respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship are the six pillars we will be focusing on this week and throughout the year. The preschoolers will be doing a "Coins for Cornerstone" activity. For those of you that are not aware of Cornerstone of Hope, it is an organization right here in Independence that is dedicated to providing support, education, and hope for the grieving. For more information, check out there website: www.cornerstoneofhope.org.
The goal of our project "Coins for Cornerstone" is to raise $75 to donate to the Cornerstone of Hope. The organization will use the money to purchase Christmas ornaments for the their Ornament Decoration event held in December. This is a great way to teach our children about caring, kindness, and helping others in need. It is also going to be a great learning activity as we will be working on identifying and sorting coins. Later in the month of December, when we are decorating our own ornaments in class, I will remind the children (and hopefully share pictures) of how they helped other children share the wonderful experience of making Christmas ornaments.
The project will begin this week so and continue until Thanksgiving. You can start sending in coins whenever you would like. The coin jar is in the classroom and ready to start collecting! You can send coins in with your child, they can do some chores around the house to earn coins, maybe they want to take some out of their piggy banks, or they can earn coins in the classroom. During the project time, our Treasure Box days will be Coin Days. Students who earn a trip to the treasure box will be given a coin. They may use the coin to purchase a gum ball or they can donate it to the "Coins for Cornerstone" jar. My goal is to help the children understand that sometimes they may have to give up something to help another person.
I appreciate you support and help with the project. If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns please contact me. Our project will begin this week and continue until Thanksgiving. Our donation will be sent to the Cornerstone of Hope on November 27, 2013. I will keep an update on our preschool website as to how our project is going.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Kieser
