Dear Parents,

It’s been a busy start to the week!

Common Ground is participating in the Preschool Development Block Grant for the first time. This a federal grant that provides money directly to Early Childhood Educators that participate in quality improvement programs as part of the Unifying Framework for Early Childhood Education. In Virginia, we are using the CLASS tool developed by Teachstone for observations. Our CLASS observers are currently from the Fairfax County Office for Children, though we plan to have our admin team trained to become CLASS observers in 2022!

The CLASS tool focuses on observations of interactions between the teacher and the children. This evidence based tool that provides a shared lens and language between the teacher and observer, so that coaching can help the teacher improve and grow! It’s been really wonderful to get to be a part of this observation process, since this fall the observations are virtual! And I have to say, our teachers are pretty amazing!

We’d also like to share this episode of The Daily with you: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/podcasts/the-daily/is-child-care-a-public-responsibility.html

Laundry Sign Up

We need families to sign up for Laundry please: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f4faca723abff2-laundry

On Friday, October 15th, we had a DAY LONG PIZZA PARTY!

We are big fans of themes here at Common Ground, and if there is an opportunity to integrate FUN into eating, we are going to take it! All of our classes got to have Ledo’s cheese pizza, and they chowed down! We also had several families get in on the fun that evening.

To read more about how Pizza Parties can help Picky Eaters (And to see a whole bunch of adorable pictures) CLICK HERE.

To get the yummy Little Caesar’s goods for your own Pizza Party, CLICK HERE.

Spotlight on our Kindergarten and School Age Classes

Our School Age and Jellyfish programs exemplify everything we love about learning at Common Ground Childcare. Miss Janette and Ms. Victoria really get to know the students in their care, take account of what they need, and make sure they provide for them in a patient, structured way. In doing so, these kids feel confident in trying new things and exploring their curiosity.

CLICK HERE to see more about their science experiments, creative projects, and SUPER FUN ACTIVITIES!