Happy Holidays!

Everyone at Little Wonders wishes all of our friends and family Happy Holidays!

Thank you to all of the parents and friends of our parents for making our Winter Festival a huge success!

We should have a slide show of the pictures soon!

Just as a reminder, Little Wonders will be closed Friday, December 24th, Monday the 27th, and Friday the 31st.  We are looking forward to a wonderful new year!

Little Wonders International Festival

"A snowflake from the North Pole"
by Kaelynn

Our International Festival will begin at 3:00 p.m.,

Friday, December 17th! 

All family and friends are welcome to join the festivities!

To kick off the Festival, the children of Little Wonders will perform holiday songs! 
Toddler 1 through PreK classes will all be part of the performance!  This is a show you do not want to miss!  Please dress your child in the colors red, white, green or black. 

10,000 pounds of snow have been ordered from the North Pole! 

Please bring gloves, snow boots, extra pants, socks, a shirt, and shoes for your child.  For more information on the snow party and their rules click on the following link.......

http://www.iceexpress.com/snow_parties.html

Our snow fund raiser is going on every morning in the hallway.  Breakfast and ornaments have been provided by the children and parents to help raise money to cover the cost of the snow.

Our goal is to raise $700, and we have raised $186 so far.

Thank you to all of the parents who have donated money and breakfast goodies!

The International Festival is a great way for us to try new foods, and learn about tastes from around the world. 

Please sign up to bring a dish that represents the nationality of your family!

Sign-ups are available by your classrooms to bring in your favorite international holiday dish!

YUM!

Little Wonders in 002 Houston Magazine

We are so excited about our school being covered in the latest issue of Houston's 002 Magazine!
Here is the link to see the article on line.......

http://002mag.com/wordpress/2010/12/02/little-wonders-learning-center-december-2010/

Parents, find your copies of the magazine around town and make it a keep sake for when our little ones get older! ;0)

LITTLE WONDERS LEARNING CENTER December 2010

Art Exhibit

Parents!

Please make time to view the amazing art exhibit in the entry way of the building!  The exhibit will be on display from December 6th through the 15th. 

The opening reception is tonight beginning at 4:00 p.m.  All friends and family are welcome! 

 There will also be open registration tonight for the next series of classes.  Marjon is now offering an additional class on clay!  All the information on classes will be provided at the show!

See you there!

Art

With the few minutes we have left after homework, we have some beautiful artwork to look at......by Justin

by Cassandra

Happy Thanksgiving!

We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, see you back on Monday!

Sam & Target

Yes!  The children of Little Wonders officially have pets!  We have adopted "Sam" and "Target"!!!  How can you not LOVE the names of our new little turtles????  Isn't it funny that these are the names the children came up with?  We absolutely LOVE it! 

Sam is the small one, and Target is the bigger turtle.  They were donated by Ms. Fauzia!  Dimi and Ereeni's family donated the tank, and Hendrix brought in some big rocks for them.

The children, according to licensing, are not allowed to hold them, so they will be cared for by the teachers and any parent who volunteers over holidays.

  The children will be able to observe them and learn about the responsibilities of caring for animals.

Aren't they so super cute??

The children helped clean and wash the new tank for them......

When the tank was clean, we put rocks and gravel in it.......

And then we put Sam and Target in......

The children LOVE them!  They are located by the art studio.  The children can say good morning and good evening to them when they come in and leave!

None of the staff have any real experience with turtles, so we welcome any advice, materials, or anything else that might make our turtles happy!

Hopefully Little Wonders will keep Sam and Target happy for many years to come!!!!

fort bend lifestyles & homes

 little wonders learning center is so excited to be featured in the november issue of fort bend lifestyles & homes, we're very proud of our inspiring children. so be on the lookout for it in your mailbox, if you don't recieve it here's the link if you want to read all about fort bend & sugar land schools, sports, and students : november 2010... http://fortbendlifestylesandhomes.com/?p=7221 or here's the article about us down below...

Children from Little Wonders Learning Center plant trees.

LITTLE WONDERS SHARES THE MESSAGE TO GO GREEN – Children from Little Wonders Learning Center are going green in a big way by planting trees for “Trees Across Sugar Land,” making compost piles, picking up trash for”Texas trash off” and visiting the recycling center to drop off collected items. These inspiring 3- to 5-year-olds have even won art contests using recyclable materials and trash. After taking a class field trip to see the movie Earth, the children were so inspired they raised enough money to adopt a polar bear family. Their latest project involves helping with the water crisis. They have raised enough money to send one of their own parents to Guatemala to build a well with Living Water International.

Fall Festival

We are so excited about the booths that the older children are setting up for the festival!

Set up will begin on Thursday! We are looking forward to Friday!

the well

the last day at the village the team assembled the pump for the well. the village will be celebrating their new well for weeks to come & they started the huge celebration right after the pump was installed for all the team's hard work. the people of the village were so thankful that they planned a wonderful celebration with music, gifts & families from the village made speech's about how wonderful the team was & everything they accomplished for their people. the village built a palm alter around the well before the team got their that morning to surprise them & thank goodness they didn't have to tear it down to build the pump because as you can see it is beautiful. all the children were trying to peek through the palms as the team was finishing the well to see what it looked like, everyone was very excited. after the ribbon cutting one of the older women of the village couldn't wait to be the first to taste the clean water. what an amazing experience to be a part of, something that i know paul will never forget & he's so thankful that he got to be a part of it!!!

final & hardest step of building the pump for the well

finishing the pump/well

the AMAZING team

the palm alter that was built around the well by the people of the village

trying to sneek a peak at the well

the ribbon cutting ceramony

young pumping water for the elder

the first taste of clean water

drilling a well for water

the type of well they built in guatemala was an unconsolidated or sand wells they are drilled into a formation consisting of soil, sand, gravel or clay material that collapses upon itself. a well is composed of many components; the following is a list of the most important materials used:

casing is used to maintain an open access in the earth while not allowing any entrance or leakage into the well from the surrounding formations. The most popular materials used for casing are black steel, galvanized steel, PVC pipe and concrete pipe.

screen keeps sand and gravel out of the well while allowing groundwater and water from formations to enter into the well. Screen is available in many materials, the most popular being stainless steel and slotted PVC pipe. Screen is used when wells are drilled into unconsolidated materials.

gravel pack is placed around the outside of the screen to prevent sand from entering the well or clogging the screen and to stabilize the well assembly.

here's some pictures of the drilling process through 4 days, we have over 1,500 pictures...we thought that might be to many to look at so here's a few. again if you'd like to help with the water crisis please visit http://www.water.cc/

learning how to work the drill



preparing mud pits



making mud



paul working the drill...look out



now that's a wrench

adding steel pipe as we dig deeper and deeper

lowering the PVC pipe into hole, that's not an easy task

as you add more pipe, the task gets even harder

now that we reach the bottom, we must saw the remaining pipe

emptying the mud pits

standing in the mud pits

WE HAVE WATER!!!

ahhh...refreshing clean water



jaime & manolo (team leaders) proud of the work that was accomplished



here is the well topped off. they drilled 145 feet deep. they're getting ready to pour the cement base.



finishing base

testing the water



water specimens



all the different layers of the earth they went through in 5 ft increments per bag

the community of el triufno

 the community of el triunfo is absolutely incredible.  there is no stores around, no grocery, clothing, home stores...nothing. these people live off their land, they eat the eggs the chickens lay, drink the milk from goats, make all there own clothes, whatever they can use... they do! the people there worked so hard with daddy & the team, whatever they could do to help, they did. They are so loving, thankful & appreciative, mr.lopez can't wait to go back to do this again.



their school



the school teachers





mayan women




their clinic under construction



the serving area where they put together the team's meal everyday



the house where daddy & the team ate lunch every day




women & children carry everything on their head




washing clothes & themselves in the river




a look through a doorway




a shower area outside, they fill a barrel with water, dip the bowl in the water & pour over themselves. they have the plastic wrapped around for privacy.




a typical child riding on the gas tank without a helmet, hanging onto the bars by himself.




taking the cows to the fields to eat



a women making clothes



a home in the village



women in traditional mayan dress



a bus that takes the people to the nearest town (45 mins away) for shopping






the kitchen where they cooked the team's lunch everyday



a "nice" typical potty, 20 ft hole in the ground with a seat made of cement