University Plaza Nursery School

The UPNS teachers went out twice (!!) to celebrate another amazing school year ! Thank you to for hosting us and for your generosity ! It was a great school year and it is always hard to say goodbye to our students. 🥹Thank you UPNS parents for entrusting us with your children’s growth and learning. It’s been a joy to watch them discover, explore, and thrive. We are so proud of all they’ve accomplished! Wishing you a summer filled with laughter, adventure, and beautiful moments together. We 💙💛🧡 you all !

🌈 Celebrating Love and Diversity! 🌈 At UPNS, we believe in a world where everyone is celebrated for who they are. This Pride Month, we continue to teach our little ones about love, kindness, and acceptance. Let’s spread joy and embrace every color of the rainbow! 🏳️‍🌈💕 This image was made with upcycled assorted plastic bottle caps by a past Yellow Room. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤍🩷🩵🤎🖤

Here are some of our Orange Room families celebrating Family Day in the Side Yard on Wednesday. At UPNS, rather than an in school Mother’s or Father’s Day events, we celebrate “Family Day” to ensure inclusivity and acknowledge the diverse family structures and gender expressions that exist in our community. This approach helps every child feel included and appreciated, regardless of their specific family situation. ❤️

We ❤️ to have visits from UPNS alumni ! 🥰Vera and Sasha now both attend Oberlin College and remembered many details about their time at UPNS. Loyan and Ali both taught them many moons ago. Great to see you, Vera and Sasha !

The Spring Fling was a thrill: Face painting! Bounce houses! Games! Pizza! Bake sale! Students past, present, and future! What a lovely community event this past Saturday. 💛💙🧡

The Blue Room children took a stroll through the community flower garden guided by Agnes (an Orange Room parent). The children spotted beautiful flowers and bugs, and touched and smelled plants. 🌷🌸🪻🌼🐛🐜🦋

Today, the class that read the most books during the school wide Read-a-thon fundraiser won a pizza party! 🍕🍕🍕The competition was fierce between the three classes but the winner is…the Yellow Room! Thank you to everyone who participated and for the fundraising committee for another wonderful event! 📚

On Thursday, all three classes participated in a learning and gardening workshop at NYU’s Urban Farm Lab with Farm Director, Melissa. We spread compost on the soil of our farm plot to feed the soil nutrients before we plant in our plot during upcoming workshops. We also sprinkled compost around our strawberry plants already growing there and observed the flowers and young strawberries growing from the pollinated flowers. We are looking forward to more fun workshops during growing season. 🍓🌱

It finally snowed enough for the children to play in the snow! It was a little slushy and wet, but a good time was had by all!

Around Valentine’s Day we speak with the children about how to show love. Two ways to show love are to share with others and help others. On Tuesday, all three classes walked to the Hebrew Union College soup kitchen with donations from our school families in the spirit of showing love for people in our community. ♥️❤️♥️

The Orange Room (4-5’s) have been studying the human body. This list was generated as part of an investigation of the 5 senses. Please note: The Orange Room teachers have since updated the list because asbestos is more of a danger to inhale than a dangerous smell and it doesn’t have much of a smell! 👃🏻👃🏻👃🏻

Slime time! The Afterschool programming on Mondays this term is called, “Keep Calm and Let’s Make Slime (and more)”. Each week the group makes a different sensory recipe. This week the slime was made from shaving cream, glue, baking soda, food coloring, and contact lense solution. Ooey gooey!

Slime time! The afterschool program on Mondays this term is called, “Keep calm and let’s make slime and more”. Each week the group makes a different sensory recipe. This slime was made from shaving cream, glue, baking soda, food coloring, and contact lense solution. Ooey gooey!

Our Monday afterschool theme is called: “Keep calm and let’s make slime and more.” Each week the group makes a different sensory play recipe. This slime was made from shaving cream, glue, saline, baking soda, and food coloring. Ooey gooey!

Scenes from our new playground! It’s officially called Greene Street Playground but the children more often call it Banana Park or Fruits Playground. It is so nice to have a playground right outside our door again! 🫐 🍐 🍌 🐊

Our Thursday afterschool program is called “Cultura”- Puerto Rican and Hispanic Heritage Fun . In this picture, the children are holding their “passports” they made and are on an “airplane” to Cuba. Jorge and Delmy give them a stamp for each country they visit and the children learn songs, make crafts, and will cook local foods. A few weeks ago, the children REALLY LOVED learning about cocqui frogs in Puerto Rico. So fun!

One of the Yellow Room parents came in to make spin drums with us for Lunar New Year! Here are some of the children showing off their hard work. We will use these drums during our Lunar New Year parade on Wednesday. Wishing you all great happiness and prosperity for the New Year!🧧 🎆 🐇

The Yellow Room (3’s) cooked pretzels 🥨! We mixed the ingredients, kneaded the dough, rolled it into long snakes, and twisted it into different shapes. 10/10 children liked the pretzels and asked for seconds and thirds!

On Fridays, in the Afterschool Program, the children will be learning about a different famous artist each week! Can you guess which artist they were learning about? Answer: Jackson Po***ck! 🎨

Happy holidays from all of us at UPNS! Warmest wishes for a cozy and peaceful holiday season with a lot of laughter and happy memories! (Snowpeople in photos made by the Blue Room!)

How can we show love? One way is to help those in need. UPNS is collecting clothing for migrant people arriving in NYC that we will deliver on Monday, 12/15. Want to donate or help deliver? Contact us 💗💗💗

We are getting closer to reaching our fundraising goal of our Read-a-thon event! The Read-a-thon ends Decemeber 8th. Can we hit the goal in time? All proceeds support UPNS. Questions? Email [email protected]

Former UPNS parent Georgia taught all 3 classes about the genus . Oak trees are in the genus quercus so how perfect to learn in the Oak Grove!

We are grateful for our school community! Sending everyone love and warmth and cozy times together this Thanksgiving holiday.

We are grateful for our school community! Sending everyone love and warmth and cozy times together this Thanksgiving season.

Children learn through play! Here are some of our Blue Room (2’s) hard at work last week.

UPNS sent two of our teachers to the NAEYC conference (National Association for the Eduction of Young Children) conference in Washington, DC! This is the first in-person NAEYC conference since the pandemic began. UPNS values ongoing teacher education and learning opportunities.

The Yellow Room (3’s) laminated fall leaves this week. The first picture is the array of colorful leaves collected in two areas of Brooklyn over the weekend that greeted the children Monday morning. Many of the children in class can now confidently identify maple, sweet gum, ginko, oak, and tulip tree leaves! The second picture is of the leaves each child chose to laminate. Be sure to zoom in to get the full effect! They are quite beautiful.

Unseasonably warm weather has made for extra fun outdoor times all over the neighborhood! 🧡

Here’s a photo to brighten this first evening of daylight savings darkness: some of our Blue Room (2’s) children searching for mini pumpkins hidden in the NYU Urban farm right outside our classroom windows