Happy New Year from East Andover Village Preschool (EAVP)!
We finished the 2015 year with a very busy December. On December 12, we had 34 grandparents attend our Grandparent Day event. With their grandchildren, they enjoyed songs and puppets with Margo Coolidge. She sang some favorites like Puff the Magic Dragon and Frosty the Snowman. Following the music, the children created a small, painted candle holder with their grandparents.
On December 18, we held our Family Open House entitled “Stories from the Classroom,” highlighting the themes and work of the children in the form of hands-on “loose parts” play, trail mix recipe writing, as well as video and documentation boards. All of these activities showed the children’s enthusiasm for our seed study, creative and collaborative play, and our log cabin installation and its evolution. Most importantly, the children and teachers had stories to tell about friends, lost shoes, learning, and things real and imagined in books, pictures, and drawings.
A little less than half of our 27 families joined us across the street at the Bachelder Library for an entertaining and educational performance by Michael Caduto. The teachers are grateful to the community and families for their strong support of our special events.
2016 promises to be equally engaging. On Thursday, February 4, there are a limited number of spots for anyone interested in becoming certified in CPR/First Aid. Please call the school if you are interested.
Heather Hill, a behaviorist and beloved former school nurse at AE/MS, will be speaking to interested families on the topic of “How to Handle Challenging Behaviors with Children.” The date is still being determined.
To cap off our month of February, we will be holding our fifth annual Spaghetti Dinner and Raffle at AE/MS on Saturday, February 20, from 5 to 7 PM. As a small, non-profit school, we rely on fundraising events such as the Spaghetti Dinner to cover costs to run our school, while striving to keep the tuition affordable. Proceeds from the Dinner also support our scholarship fund, which helps families with need send their children to EAVP.
All are welcome to attend. Be sure to see our ad in the Beacon, as the event is known for having some very desirable raffle items!
Big fundraising events such as the dinner and raffle, as well as the overseeing of the operation of the school, is handled by a dedicated Advisory Board, all of whom volunteer their time to support the teachers and families in making EAVP a quality program. The teachers would like to acknowledge and thank the following Board members for their dedication and work on behalf of the school so far this year: Jill Jones Grotnes, Abby Webster, EB Perry, Darlene Tilton, Sarah Gilman, Josh Watkins, Meredith Grover, and Jodi Nelson.
In the meantime, the Preschoolers are opening a post office, thinking about light, shadows, and colors, and making special squares for a one-of-a-kind quilt to be raffled off at our Spaghetti Dinner. They will be seeing the process of quilt-making from idea through to the end product. Along the way they will learn about shapes and patterns, stories about quilts, and much more.
For 2016, the teachers and children resolve to live and learn well together.