Center Stage Preschool

It's a Spook-Tacular day to be at Preschool!🎃 Love my cute friends!💞

Duck or Rabbit? 🦆🐰

It was Decision Time 🧐 in Kindergarten. We read the book “Duck! Rabbit!”, then voted 🗳 for which we thought it was.

Read the story here, then vote in comments!
https://youtu.be/36AqMX5uua4

"Ms. Header, I fink I wuv quesadillas too much!!"
🙋‍♀️🤣❤️
"Me too buddy, Me too!"

Big plans for the weekend!🥳 I overheard something about a party with ice cream!🍧I hope I get an invite!!🦄

No training wheels?
NO PROBLEM! 🚴🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️

Puzzle putting together champs!! 🏆🥇🏆
Teamwork makes the Dream work!!👏

Learning to write is more than knowing the shapes of the letters. It is also knowing how to space letters into words, how words fit on a page, and the words to express your ideas:

Awesome Kindergartners 😁

Our kindergartners are working so hard! I snuck in to see how they were doing!🎉🎒👏

Subitizing is the ability to instantly recognize “how many” in a small set. A perfect example of subitizing is dice; when you roll a dice and you see two dots on top, you instantly recognize it as representing a quantity of two. You don't need to count each dot on the dice to figure it out, right?

Our kindergartens are learning subitizing
🎲Through play
🖐🏾🤚🏾Hands on
🤩While having fun.

Community Help's Day!!

Teacher: "Who can help if there is a fire or an emergency?"
Student: "FIREMAN!!"
Teacher: "That's right!Who can help if we aren't feeling very well?"
Student: Doctors
Teacher: "Very Good! Now, who delivers mail and packages to our house?"
Student: "AMAZON!!"
Teacher: "Yes, that's very true...Ummm?"
🤦🤣🤦🤣

There is ✨magic✨ in reading stories out loud!

Hands on science 🧬 means the students are observing, documenting, and doing the experiments. After all, the person who does the work is the person who does the learning!

Individual packets of personal kinetic sand for the win! So exciting to use different materials to create your own imaginary world. Let the children play!🦕🌴🦖

Science!! 🧬🔬 Which seeds will grow?

🌱 Dry seeds
🌱 Damp seeds
🌱 Seeds in an inch of water

👨🏿‍🔬👩🏽‍🔬🧑🏽‍🔬Our kindergartens will let you know!

The ⭐MAGIC⭐ of
Ms. Candace!! Our 2-3yr old class sitting and engaged at circle time!! We are witnessing connections and building blocks of future academic success. These brilliant little humans are paying attention and choosing to be engaged in conversations with their teacher. !!BE AMAZED!! This is where it all starts. Look at our future leaders⭐

Our students are the best! Whenever a teacher asks for help, they are quick to lend a hand. 😍

So important to know how to communicate what we're feeling. Today we're learning how to speak about our feelings. Slowly but surely we gain confidence to be our own advocate and communicate our needs. This is such an important development benchmark.

We are learning all about apples 🍎 🍏 in kindergarten this week. As part of our studies, we did a hands-on exploration of apples.

🍎Each student received an apple. We observed the size, shape, and color of their apple.

🔪🍎A teacher cut the apple in half so students could examine the core, the star pockets for seeds, and the flesh of the apple.

🍴Students were given a plastic knife to cut their apple into pieces and allowed to eat the apple.

Students learn and grow by doing, by seeing, and through experiences. Center Stage provides opportunities for students to explore their world.

Parents, there’s a secret you should know.

Some of the teachers who work at Center Stage…

They work with me in other capacities. They do other jobs in other companies we run.

They have been with me for a long time. They are basically family.

So when we are out of the Center Stage environment, and I ask them casually, “How are things at preschool? How is the energy? How is the team?”

I know I’m going to get a straight answer.

The other day, I asked Miss Faith those very questions. And this was her response:

“Working at Center Stage is the best part of my day. I love it. The teachers are always smiling. There’s always someone laughing. I absolutely love my job. It’s amazing there.”

And it completely melted my heart, because I have known her since she was 3, and she will only ever give me the truth.

Go see for yourself.

Center Stage is amazing. The team is amazing. The energy is amazing.

Heather and her team have created something so magical and so special...

I’m just really glad I get to be a part.

Call to schedule a time to come in, and I promise—you will be glad you did ❤️

There is not a “right” way to learn. Some students learn
👂 by listening,
✏️some by doing,
📚some by reading,
🕺💃🏽and some by moving.

Center Stage supports all learning styles, meeting students where they are and walking with them on their learning journey. We are all in this together. 🥰

Circle time is Magic!
Such a great way to start our day!
❤️🎒❤️

Small group work offers many benefits to our students:

✔️Individual attention from the teacher
✔️Development of interpersonal skills to work with others
✔️Students supporting each other as mentors
✔️Boost confidence!
✔️Give students space to collaborate and contribute
✔️Real-time corrections and, even better, real-time praise!

Our teachers work with small groups every day!

Always running circles around us! 🏃🏾‍♀️🏃🏽🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏿

Outdoor play is vital to our students. We have a soft-surface play area and a track for running and bikes. We also have a covered portico that allows us to be outside rain ☔️ or shine ☀️.

👋🏾 Come play with us!

A quick yoga 🧘🏽‍♂️ session during a 🚨fire drill!

We take student safety very seriously. When the fire alarm when off during routine maintenance, we treated just like an actual fire drill and evacuated the building. We do what we practice.

When we do Shared Reading, we...

⭕️ circle our sight words.
🎤 recite the poem together.
💪🏽 help each other grow as readers.
💡 learn in a supportive environment where our success is celebrated.
🌈 have fun!

When you know your rightful place is on the throne! 👑

🖍Drawing our families is the first step in learning to write about our families. We meet students where they are to help them develop skills and gain knowledge.

❤️Every student is loved and supported at Center Stage!

💡Through imaginative play, children easily work through feelings and ideas. They use these imaginary moments to explore and work out their own ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

👉🏼Children can become anything they want.👈🏼

They can even become COVID-fighting super heroes! 🦸🏾🦸🏼

As an adult, I need a plan and a schedule! I just feel like I can tackle my day with a positive outlook if I know what's coming my way!😁
For some of our students, the concept of time can be hard to grasp. It's difficult to fully engage and adjust when you miss your parents and have no idea when they are coming to pick you up.
Our new little friends can feel overwhelmed. The school is new, the teachers are different. I don't have any friends here. Who is this
"Ms. Heather" and why is she crazy?😉
At Center Stage Preschool we truly believe our students have a say and a sway! We empower our friends by giving them their own schedule. It so comforting to know what the day holds and how many activities we get to do before Mom and Dad pick us up!
🥳🎈🎉
We LOVE Preschool!
Ms.Heather

Center Stage now offers kindergarten with
👩🏻‍🏫In person learning
👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏽Peer socialization
🚨All the same standards as the State of Virginia and LCPS

[08/24/20]   Thank you everyone who called and helped we so appreciate it!! We got all the big stuff back in place and now we are ready to start decorating!!

[08/24/20]   Any strong dads out there who are working from home and want to help the preschool move some bookshelves...
It's a 30-minute job If you're interested please call the preschool! We are desperate to hear from you!!😁🙋‍♀️🙌

🗣️That's a summer camp wrap 🎬
I look back at March 19th, it was crazy! Here we all are on Aug 21...We made it through together. I'm very proud of my teachers for their dedication and care for our school, families and our students! They're such amazing people who make me look good! Not to mention make me laugh everyday and look forward to coming into work. I'm super thankful to our Preschool families who stuck by us so we had a preschool to come back to. We honestly couldn't do it without you. I am blessed beyond measure to work for a boss who cares so much for his community and for his staff. Don Alley makes dreams come true! To my husband Ryan Carboneau who stands by me and helps me believe I can do the impossible day in and day out... To my own daughters, Faith and Eden! You are amazing employees and phenomenal humans! I'm proud to have you on my team!!
This weekend our preschool floors are stripped and waxed. It seems appropriate somehow. All the old will be washed away with a fresh new start on
Aug 27th!
I'm excited to see what this school year holds! I'm choosing to be optimistic. There's a lot of moving parts but I know one thing for sure. I'm doing what I was meant to do, in a community that I love, for that I am beyond grateful.

Here's to a fantastic new school year, full of possibilities!
❤️🏫❤️2020-2021

Catered lunch from BIBIBOP Asian Grill!! Soooo yummy!! I highly recommend this restaurant! ❤️🎉❤️

Did you know that Center Stage Preschool used to be a bank? 🤯 True story. We gutted a bank and created the magical center we have now.

But did you ever stop and consider that means we had an actual VAULT in our school?!

DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO REMOVE A VAULT??? Ya know, the impenetrable storehouse for the cash that no one should be able to get into??

And to make matters worse, it wasn’t in the back or off to the side of our building.

Nope. It was smack dab in the middle of the main room. 😑

Our buildout was going nicely when I got the phone call.

“Don, we can’t move this thing and stay within the budget. It’s SO HEAVY!”

It was going to cost an exorbitant amount of money to remove the vault. I panicked. I was tense.

So we stopped and came up with some options:

➡️ Use it as a playroom.
➡️ Use it as a library.
➡️ Use it for the bad kids.
➡️ Use it for the bad parents.

Nothing stuck.

In the end, we opted to pay the extra money and keep the open room concept. We also decided we would just train our team to have the difficult conversations with the bad parents when the time arose… 🤪

If you’ve never toured our school before, schedule a time to see our wonderful preschool and ask Heather to show you where the vault was. She has a colorful way of describing that time in our lives haha.

And if you haven’t enrolled yet for the fall, chop chop! Spaces are filling up and due to COVID, we have WAY fewer spaces than normal.

Get yours before they’re gone! We’ll take good care of you!

Doing our best to keep your kids safe! ❤️