75 and Still Growing!

Dear Families,

Greetings on this last day of September. We are all quite excited to say that we made it through our first full month of school at GCS after quite an unusual time in this world. Despite the many new challenges and changes that we all have had to face with a new school year, classrooms have settled in nicely, friendships are beginning to form, and new routines are being established. It is so wonderful to have our school full of fun and laughter again and to hear the sound of little feet going up and down the stairs. We definitely miss the presence of all of you, our families, inside the school and classrooms this year, and fully realize that relationships and communication will certainly look different. We are all working hard to adhere to strict health and safety guidelines, and we appreciate your cooperation and understanding to keep everyone safe and well. Thank you for your patience, for continuing to fill out the daily online health screening, and for being flexible. This year is all about reimagining, reinventing and redesigning. Everything will look different, and we are prepared for the challenges. One thing that will not be different is our commitment to families and fostering the development of and positive experiences for young children. Here’s to a fabulous year together of growing and learning!

75 YEARS AND GROWING

Who doesn’t love a birthday party? It was so much fun honoring the 75^th Anniversary of GCS!! It was exciting to see children coming into school, ready to play and celebrate a birthday. We sang, danced, shared ice cream together, and even did a little math with counting, creating ten frames, and learning place value. Every moment is always a teachable moment. One mom even shared the story that her daughter woke her up at 6am, holding her party dress, and telling her that she had to look fancy for the birthday celebration. We hope you saw the Balloon Banner that classes created collaboratively. Thank you to the Board of Directors for helping to make our celebration such a success! See a few photos of our celebration below…

CURRICULUM NIGHTS

It has been so nice to be a part of some of the classroom Curriculum nights this year. It seems that gathering on Zoom is certainly not our first choice, but it is always so helpful when you can make connections to the small bits of information that your child shares at home. We all wish for this year to be the best it can be, and we are all here for support, questions, concerns, or general discussions. Please reach out to any of us at the front desk if we can be of any help.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Board of Directors would like to invite you to a very brief informational meeting next Monday, October 5^th, at 8 pm. Once you are able to settle your young ones for the night, please join us on Zoom to meet our staff and board and learn more about our year together. We will be sharing information about our construction progress, impeding move, continued COVID practices, and some other fun events that we have in store for you.

BUCKET FILLING

I am sure that many of you have heard about the concept of “Bucket Filling” by now. If not, ask your child. Bucket filling is just one of the things we do to promote and teach young children about kindness, caring, and understanding. For our 75^th school year, we are encouraging GCS families to take on our GCS Bucket Filling Challenge! The challenge is to choose from 75 ideas to bring this school concept into your home and family lives. Please feel free to share your family experiences and photos with your classroom teachers, and create/share your own bucket filling ideas with us! Special thanks to Board President Cindi Lane-Hand for all of her thoughtful bucket filling ideas!

COMMUNITY TOUR

And finally, we are in the midst of planning for our annual Groton Community Tour. Since this is the year of “reimagining,” our tour looks much different than in the past. Instead of touring homes this time, we are hosting a fun family event to tour the community by taking part in a scavenger hunt. Please visit the school website at www.grotoncommunityschool.org/home-tour/ for information and tickets by the carload.

Please save the date of Saturday, October 17^th to take part in this exciting fundraiser that fully supports the teaching staff, children, and programming here at GCS. We will need your help to make this event successful. And we hope you will join your class in creating fun baskets to auction off, and buy your tickets.

PLEASE SAVE FOR US

We are always in the need for old sheets (crib and twin bed), towels/rags, and boxes of any size or shape (as we are beginning to save for our big move).

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to the following families with new additions to their family: The Begnoche family (Olivia is in the MWF PM Blue Room); the Black family (Jett is in the TTh PM Blue Room); the Rauker family (Ellie is in the Pre-K); and the Sinagra family (Winn is in the Aqua Room).

THANK YOU

We’d like to thank the following for their donations to the school: Alice Cary for staff resource books; the Casale family for hand sanitizer; the Laurano Family for Clorox wipes; the Pugh family for bedding, clothing, toys, shoes & wipes; and the Shah family for books.

Special thanks to Anchor-Seal, Inc. in Gloucester for their generous cost break and personal deliveries of our school’s hand sanitizer.