Newsletter: September 2024

Sep 27

Hello Common Ground Community!

Our website is back up and fully functional! Thank you so much for bearing with us while we worked through the difficulties with that. We have a lot of information to share with you, as we have just kicked off our 2024-2025 school year! In this newsletter, we will cover:

Upcoming Events and Bluey Days
communication - how to get in touch
Brightwheel check-in/check-out proceedures
Extended Hours and Late Pick Up Fees
Our Curriculum
Fundraisers
Saturday Hours

Upcoming Featured Events

Communication: How to reach us!

Here’s a breakdown of how to get in touch with us when you need to:

Teachers:

The best way to get in touch with teachers for general, non urgent questions is through the ‘Staff & admins’ message chain in Brightwheel. They may not answer in real time, as they are focused on working with the kids, but they will answer when they have time.

Admin:

If you have something that is urgent, would like to set up a time to speak with teachers in person, need to drop off early or pick up l or have questions for the admin team, you have options:

Brightwheel ‘Admins only’ message chain
Email: commongroundadmin@commongroundchildcare.org
Phone: 703-437-8226

Brightwheel Check-In/Check-Out

It’s important for our records that parents check their children in and out each day. If you do not have your device, you can memorize your 4 digit code and ask an admin to pull up the kiosk so that you can check out using just your code. If you plan to play with your kids on site, we still ask that you check your children out when they are no longer in the care of our teachers.

Check In:

Please check your child in to our school on your way to their classroom. This will ensure that they are checked in by you to our roster when you drop them off with their teacher

Check Out:

Please check your child out AFTER you have collected them from their classroom. This ensures that your child is on our roster until they are in your care.

We have added QR codes outside of the classrooms to help facilitate this process!

Extended Hours and Late Pick Up

Sign up:

Here is the link for extended hours. Please try to sign up in advance so that we can staff appropriately for both early drop off and late pick up. If you need a last minute early drop off or late pick up, please use the ‘Admin only’ message chain in Brightwheel.

Late fees:

Up until now, we have been very lenient with late fees, only charging them after the 3rd or 4th late pick up. However, beginning in October, we will begin charging late pick up fees per our policy.

If you are not signed up for late pick up and have not messaged prior to 4:30pm, you will be charged $3 per minute per child beginning at 5:31pm up to $15. Remember, this means that your children are in your possession and you have checked them out of Brightwheel.

If you are signed up for late pick up you will be charged $3 per minute per child beginning at 6:01pm with no limit.

We understand that sometimes a late pick up is unavoidable, please make sure to communicate with the center if you know that you will be late.

New Year, New Curriculum and Curriculum Updates

STREAMin3:

This year the center has moved from the Creative Curriculum to the STREAMin3! STREAMin3 was developed by the University of Virginia and in a partnership with the Virginia Department of Education, was made available to us a no cost. We piloted the STREAMin3 Curriculum in our Fireflies program last year and were so impressed by the approach that we decided to adopt in center wide because it aligns well with the Virginia Quality Program (VQB5) and the CLASS tool that is used for Observations done by the state.

Here’s more information about our new curriculum: https://streamin3.org

STMATH:

Our preschool programs, beginning with our 3 year olds (Bees and Bugs start in October!), will continue on their journey with JiJi the penguin in STMath. STMath was developed by the MIND institute as a Spacial-Temporal Approach to learning math concepts. The game has no words or instructions and encourages children to learn through trial and error. Our classes have the opportunity to do STMath for 10 minutes, at least 3 times a week. Once your child has completed their password journey, you can let them do JiJi at home by using this link: https://play.stmath.com/raft/id/2.2.26/#/picture-password However, it is recommended not to do more than 15 minutes at a time.

Social Emotional:

Mr. Josh is back with an additional Social Emotional lessons for our classes. He will send out a note each week outlining what they have been working on. His lessons are based on the Second Step SEL Curriculum. This supports the Social Emotional aspect of the STEAMin3 Curriculum.
Our center also practices Conscious Discipline. Last year we opened the 10 hour training to parents. We are happy to send the training to parents if you wish to take it! A great introduction to Conscious Discipline this episode from their podcast on Potty Mastery.

Fundraisers

Restaurant Nights: See our Calendar for details
Playground: we are still taking donations for our new playground that was installed in Ethan’s memory. As of September 27, 2024 we have raised $8388.36 of the over $52,000 it cost to put in our new playground. You can continue to make donations through our PayPal giving fund: https://paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/1778362
School Portraits: Order your school photos and we will get a portion of your purchase!