Celebrating the Week of the Young Child 2016
We had a fabulous Week of the Young Child (WOYC) at Groton Community School this year! Special thanks to Jenn Greenwood, Lisa Harmon, Shandren Harrington, Stacie Moeser, and Shagufta Rahman for taking photos of exciting events this week!
As a nationally accredited children’s center, we look forward to celebrating this week created by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) every year at GCS, with special events and activities to raise awareness about the importance of early childhood education.
We follow the philosophy of “bucket filling” at GCS, which fosters sharing kind words and actions with others. WOYC is the perfect time to reach out to our local community, and children decorated sand pails and planted them with flowers as gifts to “fill the buckets” of community members. We also select a charitable project each year for WOYC, and this year GCS children and families donated 315 books for a third grade classroom in need of support! At our school-wide “Peace Picnics”, we literally filled a big bucket with “Peace Mix” (stirring up a concoction of snack items from each classroom) to share together, along with songs of peace. We believe that teaching peace and kindness is one of our very most important curriculum goals at GCS!
Creativity was on display this week especially, as several classes held art shows. The Pre-K Classes had an Art Show for families after their study of famous artists, the “Aqua Room French Art Gallery” was featured at the Groton Post Office, and children’s artwork representing each program and age group at GCS was on display at North Middlesex Savings Bank’s “Arts in the Lobby” program. Creativity also blossomed in other classrooms, as they created mindfulness bottles, and artistic t-shirts, hats, pillowcases, or peace necklaces for each child to celebrate the week.
Finally on Friday, we were delighted to host concerts with children’s performer Philip Alexander. All GCS families were invited to join either our morning or afternoon events, and the children delighted in the music and fun that Philip shared with us! It was the perfect finale for our celebration week. Philip’s motto – “Sing, Play, Grow!” – summed up our Week of the Young Child at GCS perfectly!
