TECEC TIMES
Where the journey begins.......September 9, 2026
Dear TECEC families,
What a wonderful way to start the school year! Thank you to all the families who joined us for our annual Back to School Night last Wednesday.Your presence, warm smiles, and active support truly set the tone for a fantastic year of learning, playing, and growing together.
A huge thank you goes out to our incredible PTO and Father’s Club for setting up such welcoming tables, greeting our community, and coordinating our TECEC spirit wear sales. Their hard work makes a world of difference in helping our school feel like a second home.
Speaking of spirit wear, every Thursday is TECEC Spirit Wear Day. We love seeing our children and team proudly wear our TECEC gear. If you weren’t able to purchase a shirt during Back to School Night, don’t worry, look for information on how to order spirit wear here: https://tecec.ptboard.com/ If you don't have any TECEC spirit wear, feel free to wear our school color which is blue. Additional offerings will be available online soon.
It's hard to believe we are already three weeks into the school year and already bringing up Parent Conferences, but information and scheduling details will be coming home to you next week. While it feels early to be discussing fall conferences, this dedicated time allows us to collaborate on your child's initial transition and review progress for the months ahead.
Thank you again for your partnership and enthusiasm. We are off to an amazing start, and I look forward to everything this school year has in store for our TECEC family.
Kind regards,
Principal
As indicated in our welcome letter and last weeks newsletter, we conduct monthly safety exercises as required by state and local laws that includes fire, stay put/lockdown and extreme weather drills. Tomorrow we will hold our second emergency exercise. Before the drills, teachers thoroughly briefed the children on the procedures, which they actively engaged in. The staff and I are extremely proud of how well each child participated in today's drill.
If you have any questions about our district’s safety protocols, please feel free to reach out to Matthew Wheeler.
Welcome to TECEC! We're so happy to have your little ones join us for their first preschool experience. It's been a wonderful beginning to the 2026-2027 school year filled with smiles and laughter as we've started exploring school routines and getting to know each other. We have also introduced our listening rules song which is used school-wide to help our kids be safe and ready to learn. Here is the link if you would like to listen at home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AWnV_3OLk0
We also successfully practiced our first emergency drills.
Our first thematic unit is “All About Me", which includes body parts, I am Special, the 5 senses and family.
Thanks to all the parents who attended Back to School night. We enjoyed sharing our classrooms with you!
Just a quick note to mention that comfortable play clothes and sneakers are the best choice for our active school day. We kindly ask that you avoid sending your child in Crocs/ open toed sandals as they may not offer the same level of safety during playtime. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in keeping our little ones comfy and safe.
I hope it has been a wonderful start to the school year for everyone! For those of you that I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, my name is Gabrielle Ballatore, aka “Miss Gabby,” and I am the music teacher here at TECEC. I am very excited to share my special love of music with your children for what is starting my 22nd year.
My music program includes singing, sign language, creative movement and physical activities with music, playing and learning about different musical instruments, and playing musical games, and more. Most of my lessons correspond to the classroom themes, but not all the time. My goal is to help your children in their development of listening skills, oral language skills, auditory discrimination, problem solving, social skills, and self-esteem. In a nurturing environment, I motivate children to enjoy music and grow more confident in themselves, and their ability to express themselves creatively through music.
The start to the school year has included songs like Hickelty Picklelty Bumblebee and Bounce One Bounce Two, to help students and myself learn and retain new friends and teachers’ names. We have and will continue to engage in many new musical activities based on learning instruments, rhythm and movement. We have done some variations on freeze dance where they freeze on a square spot when the music stops, which has had the kids laughing and having fun as they are getting used to school for the first time, or for the second time for some of our kiddos.
Some other song activities we have been doing to ease our way in to the school year are: Count to 10 (10 backpack visuals); using our imagination to move our bodies to Slow and Fast; playing egg shakers and marching to an instrument and band song; signing to the Alligator in the Elevator; sitting and following directions with our hands and arms to Hands Up, Hands Down; and this week we are starting songs where we identify body parts, and move those body parts; we are singing about expressions that tell how we are feeling; and we will be singing about our five senses next week. We have also learned a song that says hello to music: Hello, My Friends, and a song that sings goodbye: Have A Good Day.
My repertoire includes songs for all different levels, which include songs about counting and I use a lot of visuals to reinforce lyrics.
This year I will also be sending out school wide announcements on Class Dojo, to help me communicate with parents and easily share music, pictures, and videos with everyone. This is an app you can download onto your cell phones. I am hoping most of the classes are already using this app, but if I find that there are some who are not, I will obtain those family’s email addresses to send things out by email to those families. This will give you all an opportunity to sing with your child at home, which will reinforce what they are learning here in music, and allow you to become familiar with what music is like for your children so you can start conversations and get your children excited and talking about music at home.
I believe music to be a universal language that breaks through every barrier, and I witness it every day. I see the joy that music brings to the hearts of your children, and it touches my heart in return. I look forward to meeting all of you, and hope you are all having a wonderful start to the school year!
Sincerely,
Miss Gabby 😊
Our arrival and dismissal procedures were developed to keep the children, you and our team safe. Please review the following guidelines that your adherence is critical to assure everyone arrives and leaves TECEC safely. One particular highlight is that vehicles must only enter the TECEC driveway by taking a right from Middlebrooks Ave. into the parking lot from 8:20-3:30. Attempting to access Middlebrooks Ave. via Church Hill Road and trying to take a left into TECEC creates an unsafe traffic pattern and should be avoided. Our arrival and dismissal procedures can be found here.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us.
One of the hallmarks of our program is parent and community involvement. Your child’s teacher will be reaching out to you with the best ways to engage with their education. We also encourage you to take the time to fill out the TPS volunteer form for the 2026-2027 school year. For most individuals, you will only need to complete part one (Tier one). This will permit you to volunteer in the school while in the presence of a staff member. Part two (Tier two) is for those who will be working with children not in the presence of a school employee. Since every volunteer will be in the presence of a TECEC staff member, there will not be a need to complete that section, unless you plan on volunteering in another school. This form has to be completed annually as mandated by the state guidelines for school volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, the form can be found here. and dropped off at TECEC so it can be processed. All submitted forms need to have an original signature, therefore a form with an e-signature will not be accepted.
Parents in PK-12 have the ability to report full day absences, late arrivals and early dismissals via their Infinite Campus Parent Portal using the mobile app or website in place of calling the school attendance line. For specific directions on how to report an absence via the Infinite Campus Portal click here.
Please join us on Wednesday, September 9 for our first PTO meeting. The meeting will be held in person at TECEC beginning at 7:00 PM. For those who would like to join virtually, the link is: PTO Meeting
The TECEC Father's Club is recruiting new members. Please note that you can join as a mom, aunt, uncle, grandparent or any family member that would like to support the children, teachers and each other. Their next meeting will take place Thursday, September 10 7:00 PM at a location to be determined.
