Three Little Ships International Preschool
November 2012
Newsletter
Dear parents,
I would like to start with a poem about the month November. Although the days are grey,
cold and wet, when you look at the children of Lighthouse and Three Little Ships, you will
find light, warmth and loveliness! Every single new day!
We should never forget to have a good look and be aware of that!
Sincerely yours,
Carla Loozen
by John Updike
The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves.
The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
The birds are flown.
And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness…
School Holidays for December
Christmas Holidays: 24th of December to 4th of January
School starts again on Monday 7th of January.
Sinterklaas activities
If you enter our school at the moment, you will see that we like Sinterklaas a lot.
Children will put out shoes in every class to see if Zwarte Piet fills their shoes with sweets
and fruits. We will also meet him on Wednesday morning 5 December when he pays a
visit to KSS. We will join the children at KSS to welcome him at 8.40 and afterwards we will
stay at KSS until 9.30 (class 1 and 2) or 10.00 (class 3) and hope that Sinterklaas will bring
a present for every child.
So, make sure that your child is in school on time, because otherwise he/she will miss the
arrival of Sinterklaas!
Christmas activities
There will be a Christmas concert on Wednesday 19 December. Parents are very welcome
at 11.20. The concert will start at 11.30 and will end at 11.50. After the concert we would like
to have a Christmas lunch with parents, children and staff. We ask parents to bring in food
and school will provide drinks. You will also receive a separate letter / e-mail.
Santa will bring a nice present for every class.
For our pupils integrated for music there will also be a concert at KSS on Tuesday 18
December and a Christmas dinner Thursday 20 December. Parents will receive an
invitation from KSS.
Project Christmas cards
Our children succeeded in designing beautiful Christmas cards and they sold 64 sets of
them! Congratulations! That means they have collected 128 euros in benefit of the school.
Thanks to our great artists and also thanks to Charmaine for monitoring this project.
Parents evening
We enjoyed the large number of parents. It was nice to meet and have a talk, drink a cup of
coffee or tea, buy a book, share information about PBS and working methods in class.
Hot lunch meals:
Did you already fill out the form with your wish to have a hot lunch meal for your child: yes or
no? Thanks in advance for your cooperation!
MR / GMR:
Mrs. Alison Zegers will be the new staff member of the MR. We are still looking for a new
parent to join the GMR.
Parental survey:
Many of you have participated in the parental survey last school year. The results are very
good in comparison to all schools in the Netherlands. However, every organization has
strengths and weaknesses. The opinion of parents is very important to us, because a good
partnership between parents and school is the basis for a successful educational
environment, all for the benefit of the children. In future we will focus on issues, which
have to be improved. To inform you in detail about the results of the parental survey, you will
be invited for a special Parents Evening presented by Mr Willy Grijze (executive director
HSV) and Mr Frans de Jong (director Nassaulaan) on Tuesday 22nd of January at 7 pm.
News from Class 1
This month we have had many birthday celebrations. Daria turned 4 and she made delicious
muffins for all her friends and teachers! We will also celebrate Raphael’s 4th birthday on the
29th of November. We are looking forward to his party as well!
We welcomed a new boy into our class this month, his name is Martin. We also have some
sad news, at the end of November Sofiya and her family are moving away, we will miss her
very much. We wish Sofiya and her family all the best in their future.
The children are really excited about Sinterklaas. We are going to see him on Wednesday
5th December; we hope he will have some presents for us!!! We are practicing Dutch songs
that we want to sing for him. As soon as Sinterklaas departs Holland on his steam boat
back to Spain (lucky him ), we will get ready for the arrival of Christmas. We have already
started practicing some seasonal songs for the upcoming Winter concert. November and
December are lovely but VERY busy months.
News from Class 2
Our topic at the moment in Class 2 is Clothes. We have been looking at clothes that we
wear at different times of the year, including our lovely warm, winter coats. The children
looked carefully at their coats and made drawings of them. Right now, we are looking at
shoes. We are going to set up a Shoe Shop in the role-play area of the classroom. It is
almost time for Sinterklaas and, as part of both our work on shoes and our Sinterklaas
celebrations; we will be setting our shoes. We hope that Sint and his Zwarte Pietjes will
pay us a visit and leave us something good to eat!
News from Class 3
Class 3 are saying goodbye to Andrés on 30 November. Andrés has been at Lighthouse
since the beginning of 2008. Next to Andrés we are also saying goodbye to Tess, who has
been a bus driver for three of the Class 3 students these past few years. We are sad to see
our friends leaving but are very happy for them as they are going to do many new and
exciting things. Good luck (suerte!) to Andrés and Tess!
We have started our new topic Treasures in which we will talk about the past, countries and
what treasures mean to us and to others. For our Entry Point, we dug up many golden coins
from our sand pit, which was hard work! Unfortunately for others, we have found them all so
no need to dig anymore 
News from I-pad group
Thanks to Aramco’s generous donation, we are now actively using the I-Pads at Lighthouse
and Three Little Ships. Betsy Kelly has shown us some useful apps and staff is exploring
new apps which are suitable and support the teaching in school. The children respond very
well to the I-Pads and often consider working on them as ‘play’!
If there are any apps you use at home which you would like to recommend, please do not
hesitate to let staff know about them. Also, if you are interested in downloading some of the
apps we use in school, please do get in touch.
Study day for staff
On the 21st of November children had a day off because a study dag for staff was
scheduled. We started the study day with an all-staff meeting, followed by a workshop on Art
Therapy with a theory part and team building activities directed by Charmaine Glover. After
lunch we did a follow-up workshop on PBS, directed by Lia Bekking.(HCO). It was a very
productive day due to the great involvement and participation of all staff members. Even if
you are a teacher, you will never be too old to learn!!!
Visitor from Washington D.C.
On November the 6th we welcomed Dr. David Cramer, the American Regional Education
Officer out of Washington DC, accompanied by Ms. Sherry Marlowe, Overseas Schools
Liaison for the American Embassy here in The Hague. Dr. Cramer was very interested in
Lighthouse education and we tried to inform him as well as possible. When people in the US
are considering a job at the Embassy in The Hague, they often want information about
(special) education possibilities in The Hague. Dr. Cramer gives advice to these parents and
therefore it is important that he knows what Lighthouse is about!
We want to thank Mr. Cramer and Ms. Marlowe for scheduling a visit and their interest in
Lighthouse.
Congratulations
27 December: Miss Lisa