Family Connections Work Site
	Text Content (Revised 11/16/00)

3.0 Family Events

Family Connections sponsors four center wide family parties a year. The parties generally run from 4:30pm to 7:00pm and are usually scheduled on a Friday so the entire family can attend. We celebrate Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, Halloween and a Holiday party. Multi-cultural families in our community help to put on the event and the whole family is invited to attend.

We offer these parties as an opportunity for our community to participate in wholesome family fun. Children must be accompanied by an adult. All parties offer a snack, arts and crafts specific to the event, games, prizes and performances by children. Good fun is had by all that attend.

Field trips have been an activity Family Connections has provided for families and children since we began services in 1993. We have had a wide variety of outings to places like Half Moon Bay, Marine World in Vallejo, the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, Golden Gate Park, and the San Francisco Zoo.

3.1 Holiday Events
3.1.1 Chinese New Year

We celebrate Chinese New on the Friday nearest to the new year. This date changes annually. Chinese New Year is an opportunity to share cultural pride and traditional customs. Children from ER Taylor Elementary school perform the Lion Dance. Families bring a dish to share and our multi-cultural community comes together to share a special meal. We feature dragon crafts and games and a raffle with lots of great prizes.

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3.1.2 Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is held every year on the Friday nearest to May 5th. It has been a tradition at Family connections to hire a DJ so dancing is one of the featured events at this party. Families bring a dish to share. It is a wonderful opportunity for our Latino families to share their culture with other ethnicities. Children from E. R. Taylor Elementary School in native costumes, perform traditional Mexican/Indian dances. Crafts and games have a Mexican theme. The importance of this party is having fun building and participating in community. That day we are all honorary members of the Latino community regardless of ethnicity.

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3.1.3 Halloween

The Halloween party was set up so children had a safe and fun alternative to trick or treating or they could do our party and then trick or treat the same night. The Halloween party is always held on the eve of Halloween. The Junior League of San Francisco co-sponsors and produces our Halloween party. They plan for this event a month in advance. They secure small pumpkins for decoration, Halloween bags for trick or treat, and create a very scary haunted house. Each family that attends is asked to bring a bag of candy to share. The children come in costume and have the opportunity to compete for the best costume prize.

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3.1.4 Winter Holiday

Our holiday party gives us the opportunity to celebrate the year's end and enjoy a sampling of all the fun things that happen at the holidays. It is traditionally held the second Friday in December. The children get a chance to make ornaments, decorate the Family Connections holiday tree and become introduced to Santa Claus. Santa Claus listens to wishes and hands out little gifts to each child. Families get an opportunity to have a Polaroid picture with Santa in front of the Christmas tree. Everyone sings carols and share cookies that families are asked to bring (instead of an admission fee).

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3.2 Field Trips
3.2.1 General Information

In our all day summer program for elementary school age children, we go on one to two field trips a week. The field trips will vary on the themes the children are studying in the summer academic enrichment portion of the day. Last summer the kids studied the sea. They went to Marine World; they studied birds at Coyote Point on the bay and had a picnic at San Mateo Municipal Park. In the afternoon, our summer recreation component goes to the local park every afternoon. They have visited the main branch of the public library, Golden Gate Park, the Natural Science Museum, Chevy's Restaurant and Border's Books. Our staff and children take public transportation for all field trips.

Recently, in our morning parent-child drop in program we have been able to get an Old Navy bus to visit special places. The participants of this program are toddlers and seniors. Many of the grandparents in our community take care of the young children. A number of these grandparents are non-English speaking and have little opportunity to go outside of their neighborhood. These field trips have given them an opportunity to discover a new world. The trips have been wonderful adventures to places like Half Moon Bay's pumpkin patch, ride the ferry to Sausalito, and a visit to the zoo and the aquarium.

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3.2.2 Upcoming Field Trips

The San Francisco Symphony has invited the Pre-K class and their parents to attend the first annual "Deck the Hall Community Day." The children will enjoy a performance of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas, "followed by a holiday party. This event is geared towards younger children and should be enjoyable to them, as music is a part of their daily experience at Family Connection. Most of the parents have not before been to Davies Symphony Hall, so this day should prove to be enjoyable to them as well.

Pre-K and Child/Parent Drop In will be combining forces and traveling together as one group to the San Francisco Zoo. We have been fortunate to receive free transportation on the Old Navy Bus. There will be close to 50 children, parents, grandparents and staff being together for a morning of learning and relaxing. We have done this trip to the zoo together before in the beginning of this year. We imagine that this second trip will be even more worthwhile as the setting is familiar to the children. The petting zoo proved to be a bit scary to the little children, as most of them had never seen a live animal up close. We hope to try it again and let them discover for themselves the joy and wonder of seeing real living animals in "person", as opposed to the television version. We expect to have an enjoyable day again this time at the San Francisco Zoo.

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3.2.3 Previous Field Trips

Our Pre-K and Child/Parent Drop In programs decided to join together in a natural combination of children, parents, grandparents, and staff to head off for our first ever-joint field trip.

Our trip on the Old Navy bus to Half Moon Bay's famous pumpkin patch and site of Lemos farm was a fun, unique experience to share with our children and families. Only a handful of families had ever traveled the hour's drive over the hills to the ocean town of Half Moon Bay. Imagine the surprise and joy as we rounded the corner and came upon the sea of orange pumpkins that are available only during the Halloween season. There was clapping and squeals of joy and laughter at the site of the pumpkins lying in the field.

At the farm the children rode ponies, toured the farm, rode the train ride, and ran and played among the "scary" decorations and exhibits. After several hours we reluctantly boarded the bus to return back to Family Connections. Nearly every child's head slowly dropped as they fell fast asleep after such an exciting and stimulating morning. As we went around each corner away from Half Moon Bay, the only sound that could be heard on the bus was the gentle rolling around of the pumpkins we had purchased to take back home. A beautiful, cool fall day was had by all.

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