Growing up in a Preschool

        

This month marks a bittersweet end for our family, as our daughter Katie will be graduating from Coastal Day School, and is going on to join her big brothers at the local charter school!  Not long after I became pregnant with Katie, I transitioned from the Mommy’s Morning Out teacher to the Financial Director and then a few years later, became the Program Director.  Ashley and I shared what is now a supply closet, as our office, with barely enough room for two people to work, but we have a lot of great memories of that time.  Ashley loves to share the story of, when I was 9 months pregnant, and I leaned down to pick something up off the office floor, and I fell on my back and couldn’t get up.  We couldn’t stop laughing! (I was okay by the way 😊).  I consider working at Coastal Day School to be one of the biggest blessings my family has experienced.  Not only do I get to come to a job I love each day, but my children have been able to come with me, and have the most amazing preschool experience, with the BEST teachers! 

        

Katie has been coming to work with me since she was three weeks old (we started with one day a week and slowly worked up to five days).  Coastal Day School has been her home away from home.  The office Ashley and I shared soon became too small for all the baby gear and we moved into what is now our teachers’ lounge.  It was complete with a pack-n-play, bouncy seat, swing, etc.  You might be surprised what I am able to accomplish with a baby in my arms!  While it was challenging at times I would not have traded that time for anything!

When Katie turned one, she started in our Mommy’s Morning Out program and soon had her teachers wrapped around her little finger!  She was very ready for all the fun that they have in that room, especially the art projects, specifically painting.  She did not miss being in the office with her Mommy.  She was also the messiest child in that class and was often covered in paint or dirt.  I soon learned that she could only go to school in clothes that I did not care about. 

In the two-year-old class, Katie was so excited to learn her name, and her letters and numbers.  My husband and I were excited that she learned to use the potty!  Katie’s teachers took such good care of her always giving her plenty of cuddles.  It’s really exciting to walk into your two-year old’s classroom and watch her fully engaged in learning as she plays.

We had the pleasure of having Miss Kalyn and Ms. Pam in the three-year-old class.  Ms. Pam and Miss Kalyn were such a great team.  Ms. Pam spoke Katie’s language, always singing and dancing and using her imagination!  Miss Kalyn is such a gifted teacher as well.  She excels at teaching three-year olds to do things independently.  She taught Katie to put on her own jacket and backpack, how to open her lunch containers and packages, how to clean up after herself, how to use the bathroom independently, and how to ask for help when she needs it.  As a mom, this was so helpful to me as I watched my daughter become more independent!

After the three-year-old class, Katie should have moved into the four-year-old class, however, because she had already started reading, we felt that she was ready for the challenge of our kindergarten class.  This was one of the best decisions that we made, as Katie took off with her reading and writing. Katie has absolutely loved being in Ms. Natalie’s class.  She has made some wonderful friends and has grown so much!  She has received the perfect preparation to go on to elementary school!

Not only has Katie enjoyed an amazing education but she has become a part of the Coastal Day School family with a building full of “aunts” who spoil her rotten at the end of each school day with candy and cuddles. (Ms. Veronnica is the usual suspect for handing out candy to staff kids.  You will hear several little voices saying, “Where’s Ms. Ronnica?”).  Katie, who only has brothers, has also had a taste of what it’s like to have sisters with the other staff girls.  And that is thankfully something that will never change, because once you are a part of the Coastal Day School family, you are a member for life!!!

     

-Caroline

Kindergarten Fun!

Kindergarten holds a special place in my heart and always will. This is the grade I completed my student teaching in and the grade where I started my teaching career.  Kids of all ages are sponges and will learn anything that a teacher is willing to teach them, but in Kindergarten, their sponges are in full force and absorbing any and everything! Kindergarten is where kids learn what school is all about, essentially this is the beginning of their “school career” and where teachers get to show kids how much fun school can be while learning!  Although I was sad for my friend and co-worker, Mrs. Tammy, to leave last year, I was excited to get a chance to be back in kindergarten teaching and we have had a blast learning this year! 

Here are a few highlights of some practices that were implemented this year and will continue to be implemented at CDS in kindergarten and other elementary grades in the future…

Coastal Day School has plans to expand in the very near future and a goal that we have at CDS is to implement the practice of “looping.”  This is the idea that teachers will teach their same group of students two years in a row.  So if your child is in kindergarten with me one year then the following year they would also be in first grade with me and then move onto a new teacher for 2^nd and 3^rd grade.  You might ask, what are the benefits of looping?  Well, I actually got to do this with 3 of my students this year because I had them last year in pre-k and they stayed at CDS for kindergarten!  I got to pick up where I left off with them and I already knew their strengths and areas they needed to improve.   The growth I have seen in each one of them is tremendous.  All of us have really grown to understand each other.  They knew what I expected and came in from day one ready to learn!  For example, last year one of my students absolutely hated school and would not hesitate to tell me this and told me multiple times that what we were doing was not fun.  After working very hard for their approval and having things turn around towards the end of last year, I was excited to be able to see this child continue to flourish in kindergarten. I didn’t give up and neither did the child.  Now, after two years of hard work, this child comes in with a smile on their face, eager to learn, has fun every day, and doesn’t hesitate to give me a hug in the morning!  I would consider this a huge success and the growth that all teachers want to see!  And I would also say that if that child started completely over with a new teacher that knew nothing about them then the child probably would not have grown by leaps and bounds like they did! How awesome would it be to implement this successful practice at CDS in the future that forms strong bonds between a child, their teacher and the parents!

Have you ever heard of S.T.E.M.?   Well S.T.E.M. stands for science, technology, engineering and math.  Often times these areas can get overlooked in education especially in early education because there is such a big emphasis on literacy.  Now don’t get me wrong, literacy is extremely important!  However, we can integrate all of the subjects and still be very successful when teaching.  I have had the opportunity to implement many S.T.E.M. activities and teaching methods this year in kindergarten and the kids have really enjoyed this.  S.T.E.M. activities and teaching methods are hands-on and many are inquiry based.  These activities challenge the kids to think in ways that worksheets or sitting at the carpet, listening to me teach, do not. Often times S.T.E.M. activities keep the kids engaged longer and allow them to have more in depth discussions with each other of what is going on in front of them.  Currently, I am in a master’s program at UNCW and conducted an action research project on the effects of S.T.E.M. teaching methods and activities in the classroom versus the traditional ways of teaching and the results were astounding and showed that kids were more successful and less likely to get off task when presented with activities that were hands-on and S.T.E.M based.   I have really enjoyed watching how the kids interact with these activities this year and look forward to continuing to implement S.T.E.M. based learning at Coastal Day School in the future!  I will include some pictures below on some of the S.T.E.M. activities throughout the year!

Overall, I would say we have had a very successful year in kindergarten.  I sure did have a smart, sweet, and caring class that kept me laughing every day and I am going miss all of them!  Next year, Mrs. Caitlin will be taking over teaching kindergarten because my child will be in that class and I will be going back to pre-k; however, I am very excited for Finley to have Mrs. Caitlin again and be able to “loop” with her!  And I am very excited to teach the upcoming 4-year-old class! I know Mrs. Kalyn and Mrs. Stephanie have them well prepared for pre-k!  I hope everybody has a great rest of the school year and a FUN and relaxing summer!

~Mrs. Natalie

 

 Building shapes with toothpicks and marshmallows!  The toothpicks represented the sides and the march mellows represented the vertices!

 Learning to work together and make shapes by using one piece of yarn! Team building was in full effect!

  We had some LEGO lovers in class so for the 100^th day of school they had a challenge to build anything of their choice with 100 LEGOS!

  How many cups does it take to make a tower from the floor to the ceiling of the classroom?

 Each group had 100 cups and had to design a tower!  We had lots of variety!

  What happens if we take and drop colored water on ice?  Will the colors mix when the ice melts?

 How does it rain?  Well we decide to experiment and make our own cloud and rain! The class saw that once the clouds can’t hold any more moisture they burst and the rain starts to fall!

 

 Examining glitter tornadoes during our weather unit!

  What can you do with a bunch of empty Easter eggs?  Their imaginations were at work here!

  Painting with marbles and learning how to make different lines (horizontal, vertical and diagonal) to get the result that they wanted! 

Our Little Learners

We are so excited about the upcoming changes in our Mommy's Morning Out Program for the 2017-2018 school year! For starters, we will be changing the name of our program to Little Learners :) Miss Stephanie and Miss Abby (our LL teachers) came up with the name and we love it! While the primary focus is not academics, our sweet kiddos do learn so much and it has evolved into much more than just a play group. 

Little Learners will be structured more like our preschool programs. Our littlest students will be working on colors and numbers as well as learning to become more independent. They will enjoy craft projects and fun activities each day! It is a wonderful starting point for kiddos that will be joining us in our preschool programs!!

One thing that won't be changing are our amazing teachers!! Miss Abby and Miss Stephanie are ready to take Little Learners to the next level and have spent so much of their free time planning and preparing for the change! They have already started lesson planning and setting goals for each month which will include some amazing activities!! I've included some pictures below of some of the already awesome things they do each day and their happy students!!

Parents will now need to enroll children in our Little Learners Program during our enrollment time each January (for the following school year starting in September.) Parents will be able to choose a one-day per week option, choosing Tuesday enrollment for every Tuesday during the school year or choosing Thursday enrollment for every Thursday during the school year. These days cannot be changed once you enroll. Parents will also be able to enroll their child in our two-day options for every Tuesday and Thursday during the school year.This is now a year commitment like our preschool programs, not a month-to-month commitment. It will make it so much easier for our students to adjust since it will be the same group of kiddos each day!!

If you would like more information about our Little Learners Program, please contact us via email or give us a call! We have a few spaces left for the 2017-2018 school year and would love to have your child join us!! 

Some things take time

If you are a close friend of mine, you know that I am SUPER impatient. You would also know that when I get an idea in my head, I go full speed towards it and do everything in my power to make it happen. I don't take my time, I don't take no for an answer, I certainly don't wait around for things to happen, and I work my tush off until I achieve it. This is something that has served me well in life. Also something that I'm sure annoys many people in my life ;) So now that you know this about me, you can understand how unbelievably devastated I am that we are holding enrollment for the 2017-2018 school year without advertising new classes in a new building...

This wasn't supposed to take this long. And it definitely wasn't supposed to be this hard. Almost a year ago I posted a blog (here) about my desire to find a new location that could give us all the things we so desperately need. I sat down and made a plan of how this would be achieved and then started the process of making it happen. Then...then life happened. A year of unexpected expenses, health issues, growing pains, and just plain hard stuff. The excitement quickly wore off when the price tags started adding up. Y'all, did you know parking lots can cost over $100K?!!!! What on earth!? And you can go ahead and double that if we want a nice playground. It's so discouraging. So because of this revelation, I've been in self-pity mode, whining that we have to spend another year at our current location. And to be completely honest, I'm pretty annoyed with myself. I have so much to be thankful for in regards to our current location and the future plans for a new location.

For starters, we just raised $2,158.00 from our online auction! That is so amazing!!! A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who helped make that happen!! We had many local businesses donate items and services that were so awesome and then wonderful families bid on those items making this fundraiser a big success! Combined with our new building fundraiser last year (LulaRoe and Thirty-One sale) we now have a total of $2,736.00 in our building fund. That's pretty incredible! While we still have a long way to go to get a paved parking lot, it's a great start and I am so grateful for everyone's support in this!

Another thing I'm thankful for is that I get another year of sharing an office with my best friend. I'm sure we will each complete more work every day when we have our own offices, but we sure do have a lot fun sitting three feet from each other :)  I often think about how everything will work when we are separated and then I think, maybe we should just always share an office. It's so nice to bounce ideas off of each other, talk each other through issues, help each other, complain about Abby's loud singing with each other (sorry Abby!), and laugh together. I'm so lucky to have Caroline in my life and even luckier to spend 4+ hours a day in a 10'x10' room with her ;)

When we move to a new building, we will be leaving great neighbors. The guys at Eagle Trucking are awesome and have helped up so many times. When you work in a building full of women, it's nice to know there are guys next door that can pull your car out of the mud for you (that really happened--more than once!!!)

And mostly, I'm thankful that I am surrounded by the most supportive staff and families that I could ever ask for. You all encourage me, dream with me, help our school raise money, and most importantly, believe in us and the future of our school. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for your endless kindness, smiles, and support. It is more appreciated than you know.

So where does this leave us? We are going to continue to work on raising funds towards a new location while we continue to do our thing each day. My hope is that when we are enrolling this time next year, we will be sharing details about a new building, but, if that's not the case, I will continue to be content and grateful for the amazing community we have!

-Ashley

Preparing for Another School Year!

I'm always surprised how quickly this time comes each year. It feels like we just start to get into the groove of our new school year and then it's time to start thinking about the next one. Each year we come up with the *perfect* plan and then when enrollment is over, we take notes of everything we need to change for the following year. It never fails and our plan has yet to be perfect after all of these years. So, with that being said, here's how we are doing it this year:

We will be holding an Open House for new families to come tour our facility, meet our teachers, and ask any questions you may have on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 from 6:30 to 7:30pm. We will have information packets available that evening and our administrative team will be available to answer questions. Children are welcome to attend. After the Open House, if you decide you would like to enroll your child, you will receive a card with instructions on what to do next. I've included a picture of the card below in case you misplace yours or want to knock the first step out now :)

We will email out a link on January 23, 2017. This link will be to a form that we need you to complete with your name and contact info, along with your child's name and preferred class. You can list up to three children per form. All forms that are submitted will be time stamped. We will begin processing the forms in the order they come in and place children in any spaces we have available. If your child receives a space, you will receive an email on January 25, 2017 with instructions on how to pay the $125.00 new student fee and when we will need your child's paperwork. If your child does not receive a space, they will be placed on our waiting list and you will receive an email by January 27, 2017.

We are excited to meet new families and it's our hope that all of you can join us for another amazing school year!!! We are currently fundraising with hopes of expanding our school in the near future so we can fit more sweet students into our awesome programs! Please let us know if you have any questions! We look forward to seeing you on January 18th :)

Midnight ramblings by a crazy preschool owner!

I have a problem. Every night I go to bed at what I would consider a decent hour. I get nice and comfy, tell my husband goodnight, and then I spend the next four hours trying to turn my brain off so I can actually sleep. And tonight, well tonight is one of those nights. I just spent the last hour reading all of our previous blog posts and then convinced myself that I needed to stay up even later to write a new post since it's been so long. So, here goes...

A lot has happened and changed since my last post in April. It was a blog I wrote about saying goodbye to some of our wonderful teachers. As I'm sure you can imagine, we have hired new teachers that are doing an exceptional job!

Miss Caitlin joined our team this year as one of our four year old teachers. She is so wonderful! Each day when I walk by her classroom, I can't help but to stop and listen. She manages her class so well. She has done an excellent job at setting her class up for success and I'm amazed at all the things they are already learning. Each student is happy and engaged every time I see them. Caitlin brings so much experience with her and I am so very grateful that she decided to join our family!

We also hired a new two year old teacher this year. Miss Laura has been a wonderful addition to the CDS family. She is so kind and sweet and has quickly made friends with all of our staff. She came into this position with so much excitement and we couldn't be happier with the way it has turned out. While most of her teaching experience is with older children, she is knocking it out of the park with our littles. I love walking into her classroom and seeing our smallest students learning just like our big ones do!!

Here is a photo of Laura and Caitlin :)

In addition to hiring new staff since my last post, we also spent the summer with some of the coolest campers around! Summer Camp and Summer Preschool were a blast this year! Can I just tell you, Miss Veronnica is a rock star! She planned a summer that was fun for all and was so organized and smooth. Our days were filled with field trips, art projects, games, messy activities, and sweet friendships. We enjoyed beach days, pool trips, movies, water parks, farm days, working out, boat rides, and so much more! Here's some pictures from our summer:

As summer came to an end, I was of course excited for my favorite time of the whole year--the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!! We have a wonderful group of new families and of course all of our faves from last year! We had an amazing morning at the park, getting to see all of our little friends we missed over the summer and meeting new friends as well. Our staff worked hard preparing classrooms and lesson plans to help our little students have the best year possible! They really are the best group of teachers around and I am so honored that I get to be their friend and leader. Here we are goofing off at the Family Picnic:

Another thing that has happened since my last blog post is Coastal Day School turned ten years old. It's not something I celebrated this year and spent most of the day feeling down. I had visions of spending our tenth birthday in our new location or at the very least breaking ground on a new building. As you can see, that didn't happen. I had a hard time even feeling happy about what we have accomplished over the last ten years and spent the whole day beating myself up for not being where I thought we should be. But the truth is, we have done a lot in the last ten years. I forgot about a lot of those things until tonight (well, it's morning now) when I reread all of our blog posts. What a crazy ride this has been. Some of the best times of my life and most rewarding parts of my days are because of our little school and the sweet faces that walk through those doors each morning. The encouragement and love we receive on a daily basis from our wonderful parents brings so much joy to my life. Watching my staff joke with each other, dance together when the day gets rough, and laugh their butts off makes me so thankful that I get to do this everyday. Not many people get to love their job but I DO! And just because we didn't spend out tenth birthday in a new school doesn't mean that we won't for our 11th! We are still working on finding a perfect location to grow in and also working on finding a way to afford it :)

The last few weeks around CDS have been wonderful! Our school year has started out great and all of our sweet students are adjusting to their new classrooms and teachers. Like always, our families are super supportive and kind and make our jobs easy. Coastal Day School is such a fun place to be. Thank you for your continued support in this journey!

-Ashley :)