Dear GCS Families,
April was an amazing month for GCS special events and some incredible natural occurrences, too! The April snow storm and the solar eclipse were both out of the norm. Thank you again to parent volunteers for enabling us to safely view the solar eclipse in small classroom groups! Most children had 2, if not 3, opportunities to see the incredible celestial show at school that afternoon. On the topic of snow, we are crossing fingers that we have moved beyond the likelihood, and are firmly into springtime weather and happenings!
NAEYC
A very exciting event for GCS in April was notification that we have been honored once again with national accreditation through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)! GCS has maintained accreditation since 1993, and we are extremely proud of this stamp of high quality. Every 5 years GCS voluntarily undergoes the re-accreditation process in full, documenting all the work we do, including: our relationships with children; our partnership with families; our curriculum and teaching strategies; our school environment; our health and safety standards; how we observe, assess and support the growth and development of young children; our connection with the community; and our leadership. Hats off to our dedicated, educated, experienced and talented GCS staff for all of their hard work toward this accomplishment!
WOYC
We certainly had beautiful weather to celebrate NAEYC’s Week of the Young Child at GCS the week before Spring Break! Classrooms enjoyed sharing songs and “Peace Mix” (community trail mix) for snack at our various Peace Picnic gatherings at the Peace Pole. Our finale for each picnic was singing our “Together We’re Stronger!” 2023-2024 theme song in honor of Linda as she recovers from her surgery. While recovery takes time, Linda is doing well and sends her best to all of our GCS Families! Each child had the opportunity to decorate a baseball cap as they are an important part of our GCS community, and we gave a cap to Linda, too! MWF and 5-day classes wore their hats during our Puppet Storytimes with Leigh Baltzer (www.throughmetoyou.com). Leigh brought many delightful puppet friends, each with their own personality and voice, to share songs and stories. Each of the books related to “teamwork” and “working together” in keeping with this year’s school-wide theme: Little Blue Truck, Swimmy, and The Enormous Watermelon. Staff were also treated to two luncheons during the week. Thank you to the following for contributing: Jenn Ali, Laura Babin, Beth Christoforo, Christine Costa, Sarah Daniels, Ashley Derba, Crystal Doherty, Meagan Doyle, Rhenise Lucot, Caera Monahan, Kim Montilli, Catherine West and Jill Wilson.
Groton Hill Music
Congratulations to Jennie Fitzkee and the entire Community Outreach Staff Committee on coordinating a fun event over Spring Break for GCS Families. Thank you to Pete Robbins and Kylie Elliott of Groton Hill Music for hosting GCS guests and introducing them to their beautiful facility, along with several instruments (the guitar, piccolo, flute) for marvelous musical fun! Please see the attached flier for information about children’s opportunities at Groton Hill Music.
Spring Spruce Up
Congratulations to our B&G Chairs, Jessica Barie and Laura Hankin, for coordinating a successful Spruce Up Day last Saturday! Projects included gardening tasks, adding sand to our sandbox, mulching play areas, and GCS Greenhouse maintenance and updates. We reinstalled our rain barrels again and added a hose system for watering the Greenhouse from one of the barrels. We also bid a fond farewell to our playground yellow slide, which has been a GCS fixture for MANY years. It served us well for decades, and despite repairs throughout the years, it was determined it could no longer be repaired. Having the manpower to dismantle it on the Spruce Up Day was very helpful! A “lookout tower” is now in its place. Look for playground updates later on this year, as we are always looking for ways to enhance our GCS Playscape! A round of applause goes to the following volunteers: Dan Barie, Erika Barnish, Scott Brokaw, Hao Cai, Jesi Clinton, Sara Ellison, Peter Gollands, Jason Lambert, Chris Mannix, Terri Martin, Ronald Moncoeur, Deb Penney, Bethany Reis, Brian Simakauskas, Lisa Stafford, Mai Tirella, and Jim Welch for a job well done! And to Erika Barnish for supplying compost for our bins. We’d also like to thank Erika Barnish, Samantha Buckley & Joseph Crowley for providing snacks for our workers.
Smile!
Springtime family photo sessions are happening on Sunday, May 4th. Thank you again to GCS parent Ryan Murphy for offering this opportunity to families and a portion of the proceeds to GCS. Please sign up here if you are interested! The Board of Directors will also coordinate classroom photos (and individual Kindergarten photos) as well on Tuesday, May 14th and Wednesday, May 15th! Thank you to GCS Board Member-at-Large Mai Tirella for again helping us to capture the sweet smiles and personalities of our GCS children. More details to come soon!
Congratulations!
Congratulations to the Annand family on the birth of their son (brother, Declan, is in the TTh AM Blue Room).
Thank You!
We are grateful for the time, effort and energy of past GCS Parent (and current GCS Spouse) Paul Meehan. Thank you to Paul and his company Ultragenyx for lending him on their Global Day of Service, and also to helper Terri Martin, for their work to enhance our GCS Playground Shed.
It was delightful to have a visit from Darcy Donald and Shelley Grove to GCS on behalf of the Groton Turtle Conservation organization to give our GCS Library the donation of an incredibly beautiful, author and illustrator autographed copy of “The Book of Turtles”!
A special shout out goes to our Yellow Room Families for their Fun Friday “Fiesta” for GCS Staff last week! The Staff Room was festively decorated and the food was absolutely delicious!
Thank you to our “Stock the Staff Room” volunteers for April: Jessica Clinton, Crystal Doherty, Meagan Doyle, Ashley Ozsecen, Bethany Reis, Susan Stella and Jill Wilson.
And last, but certainly not least… Thank you to the following families who made donations to the school this month: The Babin & Harris families for spare clothing, and to the Moncoeur family for Staff treats.
On behalf of the Director,
Lisa Stafford, GCS Assistant Director
Dates to Remember:
Saturday, May 4th
Family Photo Sessions
with Ryan Murphy
Monday, May 13th
Board Meeting
7:30 PM
May 14th & 15th
Class Photos
Details to Follow
Monday, May 27th
Memorial Day
No School
Friday, June 7th
GCS Family Picnic: 5-7 PM
More Details to Follow
Wednesday, June 12th
Last Day of School
Thursday, June 13th
GCS Book Club – 7 PM
Tuesday, June 18th
Full Day GCS Camp Begins