Eastside Co-op Preschool

It’s not too late to enroll for the 2024-2025 school year!
We have a few rare spots open in Blue Class for 4 & 5 year olds
(Must be 4 years old by August 31, 2024)
Class times: Monday/Wednesday/Friday
12:45PM to 3:15PM
Please email [email protected] to schedule a tour of the class.
Check out our website for additional information about our 3-tier tuition model
https://www.eastsidecooppreschool.org/

We currently have a wait list for Red class (2 & 3 year olds) and Yellow class (3 & 4 year olds).

Red class (2 and 3 year-olds) had an amazing time on the dentist field trip! The kiddos brushed pretend animal teeth, found out what makes sugar bugs, and used the water sprayer. Thank you so much, Dr. Kapust. ♥️

If you have preschool age kids, get tickets. Let's pack the house! Tickets start at FREE. And if you can't go but want to support our not-for-profit school, you can do that too. All funds go to our flexible tuition model.
https://givebutter.com/xLsFpW

https://www.eastsidecooppreschool.org/job-opening

ECP friends, families and alumni-

Our new fundraising campaign is live! Let's fill up that goal bar and help make our preschool community accessible to all who want to join!

Eastside Cooperative Preschool Tuition Support 2023-2024

As we wrap up a restful winter break, we want you to know that in January we have SPACE AVAILABLE in our YELLOW CLASS (3-4 year olds) and our amazing teachers, families, and kiddos are ready to welcome your family into the ECP community! This class is M/W/F from 9:15-11:45am.

Our RED CLASS (2-3 year olds) and BLUE CLASS (4-5 year olds) are currently fully enrolled, however we are accepting families into our waitlists for ALL classes.

Please email our Membership Chair Janine for more info! [email protected]

Blue Class has put their own twist on our fairytale unit! These kids absolutely LOVE hearing oral stories, but they enjoy acting them out even more. We started with “Raven and the Box of Daylight” in November to honor Native American culture before Thanksgiving. Then we moved onto reading multiple variations of “The Gingerbread Man” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” After both listening to and acting out these fairytales (complete with cast lists and props at circle time), Blue Class was excited and ready to start writing their own stories! And so the Blue Class puppet theater was born… complete with tickets and concessions. If you are in the neighborhood after the break, be sure to stop by. The feature show is always changing, but it never disappoints ;)

I can’t believe it’s already winter break! Time flies when you are having fun. We’ve been reading different versions of fairy tales in Yellow Class. A favorite this month has been “The Gingerbread Man.” We read several variations such as “The Gingerbread Girl” and “The Gingerbread Baby.” This story has inspired play all over the classroom, and we ended class Friday with a scavenger hunt for that rascally gingerbread baby… the kids were super excited to eventually find a sweet treat hidden on the playground. :)

Last week we celebrated Diwali at ECP with a few special books and activities. The kids had lots of fun creating “rangoli art” out of loose parts on cork rounds and they also made “diyas” out of salt dough and decorated them with beads and glitter. We had fun discussing how various customs observed during Diwali are similar or dissimilar to traditions associated with holidays celebrated by our own families. We discovered many commonalities!

What a beautiful day Yellow & Blue Class had for our pumpkin patch field trips to Ashley Creek Farm! We enjoyed a lovely wagon wide and explored the pumpkin fields. The children got to observe all the stages of a pumpkin’s life cycle while hunting for their favorite pumpkin to take home. We even learned about the role of the bees on the farm and got to touch some old honeycomb. Additional highlights were feeding pumpkin to the cows and observing the wooly bear caterpillars. Thank you Farmer Mark for your incredible hospitality and sharing your love for farming with our community. We’ll be back next year!!

September flew by with a flurry of activity! The two year olds were busy building airplanes, barns, huge train tracks, and ramps to roll apples down. In the quiet moments they told each other felt board stories. (Mr. Slinky Worm and Five Elephants in a Bathtub) I can't wait to see what October will bring! 💕 💗❤️

September flew by with a flurry of activity! The two year olds were busy building barns, airplanes, huge train tracks, and ramps to roll apples down. In the quiet moments they told each other felt board stories. (Mr. Slinky Worm and Five Elephants in a Bathtub) I can't wait to see what October will bring. 💕💗❤️

Today was one of those magic days when the ideas of the kids just snowballed until the classroom was completely transformed. Blue Class ended the free play period immersed in ramp play. Every inch of our outdoor patio was covered with ramps. These inquisitive minds were busy tinkering and building and adjusting until the ramps worked “just right.” So. Much. Fun.

If feels so good to welcome students back into both our indoor and outdoor spaces this year! A new student came up to me during Blue Class and said “Teacher Megan, you’ve got a pretty good school here.” 😂🥰 I have to say that I whole heartedly agree. The children’s play is already so rich and deep and varied. I can’t wait to see where this year takes us!

ECP is doing our second annual Trike-a-thon! Show your support for these awesome kids and our little non-profit school!

I know it’s getting close to the end of the school year when the play gets SO big it can hardly fit within the confines of the classroom. In Blue Class (4-5 year olds), the kids have been completely captivated by large construction projects. Houses, spaceships, bee hives… you name it, they will build it for you. We’ve been drafting architectural plans in our “play journals” and getting creative with our interior decorating skills as well. At times nearly the whole class has managed to fit into the finished project!! In Yellow Class (3-4 year olds) the play has grown as well. One day we had a royal banquet for the king and all his birds where every guest brought a dish to share. Most recently they have been completely captivated by ramp building … often time the ramps extend nearly the whole length of the classroom!

Time sure is flying! It’s already May and I haven’t even shared all the fun from April! Blue class (4-5 year olds) finished out our bird unit by dissecting barn owl pellets, which was a huge hit. I have so many budding scientists in that class! The kids were eager to try and reconstruct the skeletons from the bones they found. We also integrated our knowledge about birds into our dramatic play in all three classes. The kids built child sized nests and incubated their own eggs. We ended the unit with the most spectacular field trip to Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. We saw lots of birds as well as frogs, snakes, rabbits and several different insects. But the highlight for me was the spontaneous hand holding that occurred in both classes while we walked along the board walk. A sure sign that we’ve had a successful year 🥰

Bring on the birds! Our culminating activity for our month long bird study was a huge bird nest (kids swimming pool filled with palm fronds) and cardboard bird wings. Red Class (2 and 3 year olds) were very careful bird parents. Half the class climbed into the nest and gently patted and talked to their eggs. This was the best end to an amazing month. ❤🐣🐦

Despite the crazy weather, at ECP we’ve been operating under the assumption that spring is here! 😂 This month we’ve been studying birds. We’ve been investigating how real birds build their nests but also building our own. We’ve built small nests for baby chicks and big nests for children… Blue Class even extended the play to make a dinosaur nest with our new stepping stones! Davy from Nisqually Wildlife Refuge came earlier this month to show us different taxidermy birds and their nests/eggs. The kids asked so many great questions and were incredibly engaged by his awesome presentation. Thank you Davy!

The Eastside Co-op Preschool Garden is open for planting, digging, pretend eating, and planting again. All the kiddos in the preschool LOVED the new garden. Each class played in the garden in their own unique ways. Red Class (2 and 3 year olds) planted all the vegetables and hid worms in the planters. Then they drew specific vegetables on identification markers and planted those, too! Yellow Class (3 and 4 year olds) got really interested in worms and found a book about worms to read and learn more! Blue Class (4 and 5 year olds) were really interested in the worms, too. They investigated how long the worms would stretch before they broke. (No real worms were harmed. They were stretchy play worms.) ❤

Our Yellow (3-4yr old) and a Blue (4-5 yr old) classes visited the Eastside Olympia Fire Station earlier this month and the trip did not disappoint!! These kiddos truly received the VIP treatment. We climbed aboard their trucks and ambulances, touched their equipment, watched them work their ladders, and asked LOTS of questions. We even got to operate real fire extinguishers! Thank you to the incredible fire fighters who hosted our visit this month! We learned so much!

All aboard the fairy train!
Red Class (2 and 3 year olds) built and painted a "fairy" train for the fairies to ride on when we weren't at school. 😀 (2 and 3 year olds don't like the idea of little green men coming into their houses or school. We don't talk about Leprechauns instead we talk about fairies.) Today was a fun day filled with train rides, a treasure hunt, and GOLD taken from a treasure chest! Best day ever! 💓

Our color mixing unit in March makes my heart so happy!! The highlight is always the colored water pumps at the sensory table. The children never tire of watching the colors change before their very eyes! So many gorgeous colors have been discovered and we have extended the learning into several other areas of the classroom as well. We put out colored oil & water jars that change color when shaken at our science station. We also have transparent cups on the light table which can stack to create secondary colors. We’ve been having so much fun!

In red class (2-3 year olds) we have been focusing on the colors of us all year. The culmination of this unit was when the children mixed orange, yellow, red, brown, white, and black together in different amounts to create the color of their skin. This paint was bottled into a jar with their name and picture on it. Each child was super invested in the paint mixing and excited to use their paint! The children used their paint to create a class quilt for the preschool to keep. They painted a portrait of themselves using their special paint. The children were very thoughtful about using a mirror to look at themselves when they were adding hair and eyes to their portrait. The children will be able to use their paint throughout the year whenever they are creating portraits.

The Pizza Parlor is now open at ECP and both Yellow (3-4yr olds) and Blue classes (4-5 year olds) are fully engaged!! It’s been incredible to witness the growth in social skills since the fall. Yellow Class is now ready to role play with each other 🎉 And FYI- they make a pretty mean supreme pizza if you happen to be in the neighborhood 😉

Families please remember to join us on Saturday, March 5th from 10am-12pm for our virtual new family registration. Registration needs to be completed prior to March 5th. You can complete registration at: https://www.jovial.org/ecp/hello Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84567075825?pwd=TVRTazByMHFzTkNmZk43d1pIWXp3dz09
Meeting ID: 845 6707 5825
Passcode: 403298

Eastside Co-Op Preschool - Welcome Eastside Co-Op Preschool - Login

Welcome new families interested in joining ECP for the new upcoming school year. We will be hosting a Virtual New Family Registration Event on March 5th from 10am-12pm. The registration form is now available and will need to be completed prior to the event on March 5th. You can complete the registration form (https://www.jovial.org/ecp/hello) or email ([email protected]) if you have any questions. The event will be held over zoom, information is provided below. We look forward to seeing you and your family.

Zoom event link

Topic: 2022-2023 New Member Registration
Time: Mar 5, 2022 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84567075825?pwd=TVRTazByMHFzTkNmZk43d1pIWXp3dz09

Meeting ID: 845 6707 5825
Passcode: 403298

Eastside Co-Op Preschool - Welcome Eastside Co-Op Preschool - Login