Poe Cooperative Nursery School

A very special day at Poe Co. is the Passing of the Apple. Each apple student receives a certificate indicating their promotion to Kinder and then they hand an apple to an Acorn student indicating their promotion to the Apple class! It’s a cherished tradition at Poe Co. and a special moment that captures the essence of our school. We want to say congratulations to all of the children on a very fun and successful year! Wishing all families, current and alumni, a summer of adventure, joy and friendship. ☀️

The students are soaking up their last few days of school exploring, creating, splashing and forging forever friendships! Summer is on the horizon and the kids are excited for family time, Poe Co camps, and lot of adventures!

Splash day this week was much needed! The weather is getting hot and the kids had a blast cooling off and playing with friends in the water!

At Poe Co the children are provided many opportunities for independent play with loose materials. This allows students to develop:

* Creativity & Imagination
* Problem-Solving & Critical Thinking
* Language & Storytelling
* Resilience & Frustration Tolerance
* Intrinsic Motivation & Autonomy

The key ingredient is unstructured time — adults stepping back so children can lead. The mess and apparent “doing nothing” is often where the deepest learning happens.

Poe Co’s curriculum is play-based and Reggio Emilia-inspired, designed to inspire creativity, confidence, and independence. We love watching the children explore, create and problem solve! Take a peek at this weeks happenings 🐞🌸📚🚙

We are so grateful to live in a city with so many amazing places to visit! The children had a great time exploring and learning at the and loved the inside information from our very own Apple family!

The Rice Literacy Project:

Our teachers have been trained in the Rice Literacy Project and use the program as an important touchstone for our students’ literacy development. This unique storytelling literacy curriculum, developed by the Rice University Center for Education, is based on the work of Vivian Paley, MacArthur Fellow and kindergarten teacher. The program aims to pave the way for high literacy standards with rigorous oral language and print-related activities.

On a student’s parent-helper day, they dictate a story of their own choosing to their teacher. The story is read by the teacher during closing circle and acted out by fellow students. At the end of the year, each student gets a compilation of their own stories, as well as the stories of their classmates. In addition, throughout each day, published stories and poems are read, discussed, and sometimes acted out.

The program enhances:

* Listening comprehension
* Speech production and discrimination
* Vocabulary
* Verbal expression
* Phonological awareness
* Functions and conventions of print
* Letter knowledge and early word recognition
* Motivation to read
* Development of knowledge of literacy forms
* Written expression

Poe Co families had a wonderful week celebrating NAEYC’s Week of the Young Child. This week is meant to celebrate early learning, children, teachers, and families. This annual event focuses on high-quality early childhood education through themed days. In 1991, Poe Co became the first parent cooperative preschool in the country to earn N.A.E.Y.C. accreditation. The school has renewed its accreditation successfully ever since.

The children enjoyed:

Music Monday:
• Musical performance: The Great Train Race

Tasty Tuesday:
•Baking a special treat for Thursday
• Making strawberry lemonade

Work Together Wednesday:
• “Construction site” with large boxes
• Paint large stick structure

Thankful for Fathers Thursday:
• Special snack with dads/ special friend
• Decorate stick structure

Day away Friday:
• Join us at the Houston Zoo

We had an incredible time at our school's trike-a-thon, marking the end of another fantastic week! The kids loved riding laps to raise money for our school, and the taco feast afterwards was a huge hit. Thanks to our wonderful community of parents who always come together to make these events and our school so special!

The kids have been enjoying this beautiful week outdoors, working in the garden. They kicked things off by harvesting our carrots - cleaning, washing, and of course, snacking on them! We then had a fantastic guest visit to teach about butterfly gardens and the lifecycle of monarch butterflies. She brought some amazing pollinator plants, and the kids got to help plant them. Now, they're eagerly waiting for the seeds they planted in the old carrot beds to sprout!