CCNS Twos Drop Off Program’s Unique Plan to Ease in to School

 

Dropping a child off to school for the first time can be a traumatic experience for both the child and the caregiver. At CCNS, Twos Head Teacher, Lini Ecker, has developed a unique system to ease children in to the program resulting in much less separation anxiety. Lini often provides the example of dropping a toddler off to school for the first time as if one was dropped in a foreign country with no money, no transportation and a lack of ability to speak the language and then told to “go have fun!” The first few days of school can be very daunting especially for our youngest ones who usually do not have the language to express their needs and feelings. They often need to rely on the intuition of their caregivers to decipher their needs.

At CCNS, all of the children visit the classrooms with a caregiver before school begins to see their classrooms, meet their teachers and walk around with the safety of their caregiver right beside them. Usually that is enough for many of our Threes and Fours, especially since most of them have been at CCNS for the Twos program and/or Threes program and know the school a bit.

For the twos, the goal is to earn their trust and to make school seem really fun before they feel anxious, so that they WANT to return. The first day for our twos is only an hour long. The caregiver stays with the child in the classroom and only half the class attends. During this time, the teachers may ask the caregiver to step out of the room for a few minutes and use this time to gauge the level of separation anxiety for that child. This is individualized for each child. The children enjoy free play and a short story before heading home.

 

 

The following week the regular class time is shortened a bit.  Caregivers are asked to arrive 30 minutes early and join the class in the outdoor classroom.  They can choose to stay together and play or take their child home if he/she seems ready.

 

 

The regular classroom schedule of a two-and-a-half-hour day begins the third week with almost all the children eager to enter the classroom and find his/her favorite activity. For those with remaining separation anxiety, the teachers work individually with families to find the best plan to make the child feel safe and happy at school. This can include comfort items from home, a special routine upon arrival, a home visit and other techniques that the Twos team is adept at implementing.

 

This is the case in all of our classrooms. We read stories about leaving home, entering school and how caregivers always return. We set up special routines for children that may need extra comfort upon arrival and also work closely with families to help ease all of our students into their new classroom environment. We always try to send a photo home of the child who was left initially crying at drop off happily engaged in an activity to ease the separation anxiety for the caregiver. At CCNS working with families as a team is one of our most important goals. From our youngest children to our big kids, we want to make them all feel safe, secure and understood, so they can concentrate on their work: PLAY!

CCNS Summer Camp 2021

 

           

 

 

Camp CCNS invites you to join us for 7 weeks of summer fun! Keeping in the spirit of our philosophy, where children learn through play, our camp will provide a range of experiences each week that cultivate the whole child.

Camp is open to children ages 2-5 (rising 3s through rising Kindergarteners) and will take place completely outside in our beautiful outdoor classroom & playground. Camp hours are from 9:30-1 pm Monday-Friday and costs $275 a week with the exception of Memorial Day week which costs $220. Children bring a snack and lunch with them. 

Each week of camp will provide a variety of play-based activities and creative projects with plenty of time to cook in the mud kitchen, conduct a concert in the music center and sail the seven seas from the top of our playground tower. Themes change each week but will most likely include Action Art, Kitchen Capers, Around the World, Gravitational Force, Clay, Dough & Slime, Up in the Air: Ball & Balloons and Sticks & Rocks-Nature Art! A typical day includes songs, stories, building, painting, potions, tie-dye, tinkering and of course lots of water play! 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                

We will be following all of our COVID 19 protocols from the school year as well as our camp from last summer. CCNS adheres to the guidelines set by the State, OEC, CDC, and the local health department, and will continue to meet the standards should they change. Additionally, our camp will be staffed with only current staff members to reduce the number of teachers/counselors to which the children will be exposed. Our maximum enrollment each week is 20 children per the current state guidelines. 

Please see below for our full camp schedule and pricing. Availability is limited. Please contact our Educational Director Dana Gorman at educ.dir@ccnsct.org for enrollment or additional questions. Hope to see you there! 

CCNS Camp Schedule: $275 a week, 9:30-1

  • Week 1: May 31-June 4(no camp on the 31st, $220 for this week only)
  • Week 2: June 7-11(currently full, waitlist open)
  • Week 3: June 14-18(currently full, waitlist open)
  • Week 4: June 21-25
  • Week 5: June 28-July 2
  • Week 6: July 5-9
  • Week 7: July 12-16

Join Dana for The Kindergarten Journey on December 8th

Is your child ready for Kindergarten?   Is Kindergarten ready for your child?

Please join Dana Gorman for The Kindergarten Journey, an informative, interactive workshop that explores a “typical” Kindergarten class. Discover and discuss class make-up, schedules and expectations plus gain helpful ideas of what you can do now and throughout the coming year to ease your child’s transition from Preschool to Kindergarten. Dana will share insights from her recent visits to private and public school Kindergarten programs, and there will be time for Q&A.

Dana Gorman, CCNS Educational Director and Fours teacher, taught Kindergarten in Greenwich, CT for 9 years before coming to CCNS, and all three of Dana’s children attended Kindergarten in the Norwalk Public School system.

The Kindergarten Journey via Zoom

December 8th from 7:30 to 9:00pm

Hosted by CCNS    4 Trolley Place    Rowayton

Please feel free to invite friends who may benefit from this workshop.  RSVP to educ.dir@ccnsct.org. The Zoom meeting link will be forwarded to you when the RSVP is received.

Be safe. Be kind. Be responsible.

As Miss Adele says, “Every day is an adventure in the Threes!” That’s true… in the Twos and in the Fours, too!

For young children, every day IS an adventure… filled with new experiences, new concepts, new challenges, new words and new emotions. With all the ‘new’ constantly coming at them… it’s no wonder children crave a stable environment marked by predictable schedules, consistent routines, and clear expectations.

Knowing what to expect and what’s expected of them gives children a sense of security and makes them more confident and willing to participate, ask questions, take risks and express their creativity.

At CCNS, we help children understand what’s expected of them by consistently using three core behavioral expectationsThey are:

Be safe – we take care of ourselves.

Be kind – we take care of others.

Be responsible – we take care of things, we follow directions.

These simple, easily understood expectations are introduced during the first days of school, are posted year-round in the classroom, and are shared with CCNS families to foster a universal language around encouraging and managing children’s behavior.

In school and on the playground, these core behavioral expectations are used by teachers and working parents as the basis of all acknowledgement, guidance and discipline. For example, you might hear:

The trucks need to stay on the ground. It’s not safe to take them up on the slide.

I noticed you took turns on the tire swing when others were waiting. That was very kind.

It’s clean up time. Please be responsible and tidy up the things you were using in the dramatic play area.

By referencing these core expectations every day, the children are more likely to behave in ways that meet those expectations and are quicker to correct when a teacher, parent or another student puts their actions in the context of being safe, kind and responsible.

Ultimately, and ideally, successful application of our core behavioral expectations results in being able to spend more time on active, engaged, thoughtful play – which is great… because as we know, these children have a lot of adventuring to do!

NAEYC Accreditation

2018-19 is our first full school year of operating with NAEYC Accreditation, an important stamp of approval earned by less than 10% of all child care centers, preschools and kindergartens nationally.

The process to earn Accreditation from NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) was rigorous, and our achievement has been celebrated by parents, staff and the community. In recognition of the significance of this commendation, Senator Bob Duff presented a Legislative Citation to the school, then joined the Fours Class on the carpet and read a book to them which was fun for everyone!

 

To achieve NAEYC Accreditation, our staff and board members worked diligently over three years to document and demonstrate what a high-level educational facility we’ve always known we are. Days, nights, weekdays and weekends were dedicated to updating and organizing all the systems, manuals, by-laws, job descriptions, staff review processes, training systems, and financial practices of our school to ensure they met NAEYC standards. During the review process, NAEYC Assessors visited CCNS to verify that our school met the ten program standards and hundreds of corresponding criteria. And going forward, our staff are always prepared for unannounced quality assurance visits which are an integral part of maintaining the NAEYC Accreditation.

At CCNS, we have always strived to exemplify best practices in early childhood education, and earning NAEYC Accreditation is validation that we are achieving our goal.

To learn more about NAEYC Accreditation, visit the NAEYC website.