Building Blocks Preschool
Karen Venegas

Building Blocks Preschool
Karen Venegas

Building Blocks Preschool
Karen Venegas

From our March issue

Building Block Preschool
Karen Venegas

March at Building Blocks heralds the beginning of spring. We are moving from bears and hibernating animals, to the birds that flock in the field behind our school. We will create nesting bags and feeders to support our feathered friends and entice them for our observation. We will have a nest in our school tree.

We have been very busy this month. We had a visit from a dentist, Dr. Wu-Fang, who brought gigantic teeth and a huge toothbrush so we could learn about keeping our teeth clean and healthy; we even got toothbrushes to take home.

We had a visit with Dr. Ian Stone from Wilson Veterinary Clinic and got to meet Slayer, the bearded dragon; two black cats; Nano, a small dog; and Sixer, a big dog. They delighted our Tuesday/Thursday class with many tricks. Thanks also to Katie who came with Dr. Stone and brought Sixer. We transformed our hospital into a veterinary clinic. We have been busy bandaging and carrying around our stuffed-animal pets.

Soon we will transform again into a fire house, as we visit a fire station and learn about stop, drop, and roll. We are practicing fire drills and getting used to the sound of the fire alarm. Our grown-up students are learning, too, getting us out safely and bringing our shoes, jackets, first-aid kit, and emergency packets.

As an adult-education program sponsored by Los Gatos-Saratoga Recreation, our parents work as teachers in the classroom, managing groups of children and learning in our seminars and evening meetings.

Last month, we heard Dr. Tonya Fleck speak about nutrition and how food choices support health, energy, and brain development. We brought that into the classroom with ongoing discussions of healthful food choices, and we’re graphing the results of apple tastings. So far the favorite is the cameo apple, but we will have a taste-off with a red delicious apple soon.

We are now accepting applications for fall 2008. Our classes run from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for four- and five-year olds, and Tuesday and Thursday for children 2 1/2 to 4 years old. Our Mommy and Me class has begun again on Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m. for children 18 to 30-months. If you are interested in a school community that is designed to support your child’s education and your own, call our new phone number— 408-353-2847. We will be happy to answer your questions and to arrange for a classroom visit to our wonderful school.

From our February issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Karen Venegas

February is the season of love and friendship. At Building Blocks we are talking about things we love─frogs, Strikey our pet snake, friendships, moms and dads, grandparents, siblings, other family members, and our school. Our school tree is festooned with hearts of many colors and things our students love. "Chocolate!" reads one heart, another reads "Spiderman." We have an alphabet of love and friendship for our circle time of people’s names and things that we love from A to Z. We are making Valentine’s cards for our classmates and families.

One thing we love is our doctor’s office/hospital curriculum in our fantasy play area. The visit from an ambulance last month was exciting and loud. We learned about the equipment used to help people who need it, and why the siren is so loud. We played medical personnel: doctor, nurse, ambulance driver, or patient. Giving shots is a favorite pastime─especially giving it to a favorite adult until he or she yells, "Owwww!"

With the support of Los Gatos/Saratoga Recreation through our Adult Education program, the adults in our parent cooperative school are implementing more of the curriculum and developing as better parents and teachers. At our seminars and monthly meetings, our discussions have included the joys of reading, conflict-resolution strategies, listening to children’s fears and concerns, supporting children in their toilet learning, understanding what lying is to a four- or five-year-old, and honing observation skills.

Our classes are held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for four- and five-year-olds, and Tuesdays and Thursdays for two-and-a-half to four-year-olds, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Our Mommy-and-Me class has begun again (Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m.) for children 18 to 30+ months. If you are interested in a school community that is designed for both your child’s education and your own, call 408-355-3907. We’d be happy to answer your questions and to arrange for a school classroom visit.

From our December issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Karen Venegas

There are so many things to be thankful for: friendships, digging up the buried pumpkins in the sandbox, how to form letters and how they join to make words, and the joy of a pile of leaves. Leaves are a regular part of our conversations at school—leaves changing colors and falling to the ground.

We are thankful for our community, the Mountain Network News for providing this forum; the Summit Store for the food we eat, ingredients for playdough, and showing us how a store works; the Los Gatos/Saratoga Recreation staff for their guidance and support of our Adult Education program, LPCF for their generous commitment to the continuation of our school; and Loma Prieta schools for a promising future.

We are learning about measurement of height, weight, and time. We are weighing and measuring ourselves in many ways─how many cardboard blocks tall are we? How many pumpkins equal my weight? We will continue to explore measuring with liquids as we make blue playdough. We will mix this with our orange dough to explore yet another facet of the colors of fall.

We are also continuing to learn about spiders. We even found a daddy-long-legs in our cupboard complete with eggs and many, many tiny spiderlings.

Our classes are held on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays for four- and five-year-olds, and Tuesdays and Thursdays for two-and-a-half to four-year-olds, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Our Mommy and Me class is going on hiatus but will return in January on Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m. for children 18 to 30 months. If you haven’t visited our school and are interested in a school community that is designed to support both a child’s education and your own, call 408-355-3907.

Here’s a perfect opportunity for everyone in the community to help Building Blocks while doing holiday shopping. We are now part of Amazon’s School Reward program. To participate, go to www.BuildingBlocksPreschool.org where you’ll find a link to Amazon.com. A portion of each purchase made on Amazon through this link will go to Building Blocks Preschool.

From our November issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Rebecca Lonergan

Fall is a favorite time at Building Blocks. We have created a place to play dress-up with jewelry, hats, and many different choices of

clothing. Our kids can pretend to be anything from a pilot to a princess.

 

We are learning about aspects of fall as we mix red and yellow play dough together, paint our faces, weigh pumpkins, and gather fallen

leaves for collages. The Monday, Wednesday, Friday class has been learning about spiders, bats, and skeletons. All the classes are tasting

apples while we graph our favorites.

 

We are also taking walks across the bridge to Loma Prieta Elementary, to the amphitheater behind our school, and through the forest

of trees across the street. One day when we watched the vehicles go under the bridge (and under us, too), we saw cars, trucks, a

huge moving van, and a motorcycle. A big thank-you to those who waved back.

 

The students in our adult education program (sponsored by LGS Recreation) are also learning how to move into a conflict, set up a project,

and work with a group of children who are painting, cutting, gluing, or being superheroes.

 

They are learning how to encourage and support individual children and each other. We learn as much from the children as we do from

each other. That’s the best part of a cooperative, community school.

 

If you haven’t seen our school and are interested in a school community that is designed to support both your child’s

education and your own, call us at 408-355-3907. We have two classes for pre-schoolers: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for

four- and five-year-olds, and Tuesdays and Thursdays for two-and-a-half to four-year-olds.

 

We also have a Mommy and Me class on Wednesdays from 3 to 4:30 p.m. for children 13 to 26 months. Our current classes are full,

but we welcome your visit and for considering classes for summer or fall 2008.

From our October issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Karen Venegas

We are off and running at Building Blocks this fall and busier than ever. We are learning the routines of our classes, making new friends, and meeting our class snake, Strikey. We are creating a paper friendship quilt on our school’s bulletin board that will have photographs, our names, and the things we love best—both out in the world and at school. It is starting to be really cool.

As for our curriculum, we are spending our first few weeks getting to know each other and creating the foundation for our year together. We are learning new ways to cover a sneeze, how to wash our hands, how to hold hands in a circle, and how to resolve a conflict with a classmate. We also explore paint, blocks of various kinds, writing tools, puzzles, trucks, sand, and water play. We expanded our curriculum to include tractors, farm animals, pastry making, and sewing after our visit to the Santa Cruz County Fair in September. As we move toward Halloween, we will add a costume/dress-up corner to explore ways we can change our appearance through clothing and accessories.

For our adult students, we have spent the summer creating the first draft of our new handbook so that each of our families will have a beginning resource for questions and a place to store monthly newsletters and articles. Janet Sumpter, our adult-education supervisor from Los Gatos-Saratoga Recreation, attended our September meeting and gave us some history and particulars of cooperative education for adults. Thank you, Janet, for sharing your time and answering our questions. In that spirit of cooperation, our families are developing partnerships for carpools, childcare, and play-dates.

Our programs are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two-and-a-half- to four-year-olds, and Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays for four- and five-year-olds. Classes meet from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. We currently have one spot open in the four- and five-year-old class. If you are interested in our school, and want to know more about our cooperative preschool program, call 408-355-3907.

From our September issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Janet Woodthorpe

Summer at Building Blocks has been so much fun. We have been to teacher Karen’s house to meet her iguana, Worf and then went to New Brighton beach where we saw seals, pelicans, and caught loads of sand crabs. We visited the Seymour Marine Discovery Center and saw the giant whale skeleton that’s even bigger than the baby gray whale we painted at school. We created an ocean habitat with finger painting, a tissue-paper kelp forest, and lots of fish, including rainbow fish. We added jellyfish that we made out of coffee filters, plastic cups, and white-tissue paper tentacles to float in front of it. Not only that, we did chemical-reaction experiments and then created volcanoes in our sandbox. We camped out in our yard and had a wonderful end-of-our-class barbecue, saying goodbye to our friends going to Loma kindergarten and getting ready for our first day of school on Tuesday, September 4.

Both of our fall programs are full and we will be spending our first few weeks getting to know each other and creating the foundation for our year together. We will explore who we are, who’s in our families, and what the schedule will be. All this will be alongside trains and trucks, baby dolls, cooking in our kitchen area, writing at our writing center, and getting to know Strikey, our pet snake.

For our adult students, we will be setting the ground rules of our cooperative and creating the structure of family responsibilities so that each of us, adults and children, experiences being a valued part of our school community. The support we receive from Los Gatos-Saratoga Recreation, which sponsors the Adult Education aspects of our program and helped us create our new class, is invaluable to us and we are grateful for their oversight.

We are also starting a new Mommy (or Daddy) and Me class on Wednesday, September 26, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. for 13- to 26-month-olds to offer a place for those with younger children to get connected with one another.

We have a waiting list for this year and are beginning to have one for fall 2008. Our programs are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two- and three-year-olds, and Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for four- and five-year-olds. Classes meet from 8:30 a,m, to 12:30 p,m. If you are interested in our school, call 408-355-3907.

From our June issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Janet Woodthorpe

Two important events occurred at our school. We held a successful Family Hoedown fundraiser and we received a generous gift from the Loma Prieta Community Foundation. Both events have added to our cash reserves.

These reserves enable us to now begin planning a renovation of our outside play yard, that includes drainage and tree-root challenges. This renovation is overdue for those of us who worked so hard to get back in our building. Thanks to all who helped us exceed our fundraising goals. Congratulations to our raffle winner, Bree Lacey.

In the classroom, we are busy with a post office/mail curriculum. We have already learned a song about stamps and mail, and moms and dads are mailing us letters at school. By the time you read this, the MWF class will have had a special delivery of packages that contained our lunches. We will deliver mail and packages to places in our yard, and we will take a field trip to a post office.

We are developing friendships and making preparations for school’s end. Our children are busy.

The MWF class recently cheered for last year’s class (now kindergarteners) as they ran in the Loma jogathon. We are a loving and supportive community, and we are blessed with your support. We have waiting lists for next year’s programs, but have some spaces for our summer program that begins on Monday, July 9. We are an adult education preschool program and are sponsored by LGS Recreation Department. If you’re interested in joining our program, call 408-355-3907.

From our May issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Karen Venegas

Spring is here and things are growing all around us. Our tree outside has green leaves, and red spider-like blossoms are falling all over our yard.

We are growing too. Our M/W/F class is full for next fall, and we have a waiting list. There are a few spaces left in our T/Th program for two- and three-year-olds. If you’re interested, call us soon at 408-355-3907.

An important activity for the adults at Building Blocks is our preparation for the Family Hoe Down that will be held on Saturday, May 5, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the gazebo and playfield near the preschool. We will have games for children, food, family portraits, fabulous entertainment, a raffle, and a silent auction. Please support your local preschool and join us for some community fun.

From our April issue

Building Blocks
Karen Venegas
Teacher

We wound the clocks forward and spring has arrived. We notice how much the children are growing. At school we are talking about the books we read, building elaborate structures from blocks, and developing skills in resolving conflicts with friends.

We found our first frog, a delightful asset to our class that has hopped out of hands and gone swimming in the water table. He joins our pet snake Strikey as a regular exhibit of the natural world. Watching Strikey hunt his food is a favorite pastime.

March is the month of leprechauns. Our classroom was changed by a tricky leprechaun. He changed our doctoring area into a grocery store and restaurant, then left jewels and treasure rocks buried in our sandbox.

An important activity for adults at Building Blocks is our preparation for the Family Hoedown and Silent Auction that will be held on Saturday, May 5 at the gazebo and field behind our school.

We will spend some of the donations to fix our drainage problem. When it rains we have what we call "Building Blocks’ Lake" in our play yard. If you’re a licensed contractor and can assist us with this problem, give us a call.

Classes for summer and next year are filling up fast. Our program generates community with kindness, working together, and exploring ourselves, our friends, and the world around us. If you are interested in a program that develops a lifelong love of learning as it goal, call 408-355-3907. We are a family education program sponsored by Los Gatos/Saratoga Adult Education.

From our March issue

Building Blocks
Karen Venegas

February is a time when we consider what and who we love, and at Building Blocks friendships are flourishing. Children are creating special friendships. They wait for their friends before sitting down to snacks (so they can be sure to sit together), or sit with an arm around a friend at circle time. When a family enters the classroom, they are often greeted with choruses of hellos and many hugs.

The greatest gift of a parent cooperative like Building Blocks is the community we create together. Right now we are supporting a child about to have surgery, a family with a new baby, and a family with an older sibling who is ill. We also have the gift of the many talents of the adults who work in our classroom.

Learning about our community is part of our curriculum. We had an exciting visit from an AMR ambulance and experienced the thrill of loud sirens. We had a wonderful visit to Wilson Veterinary Hospital and met Dr. Ian Stone and his great staff. Our dramatic play hospital has shifted to include veterinary services along with the doctoring of humans.

Valentine’s Day was great fun. We made Valentine cards for people we love and sewed and decorated our own pockets to hold Valentines from friends.

Kat Ray, a Loma kindergarten teacher, visited our adult meeting and shared her thoughts about kindergarten readiness and ways we can better prepare children for that momentous occasion. Building Blocks is sponsored by LGS Recreation and Adult Education. Each meeting is an opportunity for our adult students to learn about issues and concerns of parents and families.

If you are interested in our program, call us at 408-355-3907. Classes are filling fast for next year, but we have some spaces for two- and three-year-olds in the Tuesday/Thursday program.

From our February issue

Building Blocks
Karen Venegas

Building Blocks Parent Cooperative Pre-school is back in full swing after the holidays. Our classroom’s dramatic play area was transformed from dress-up and firehouse to include a new doctor’s office/hospital. The children have been very busy making diagnoses and learning about their bodies and the equipment medical personnel use to learn about our body’s health.

At Building Blocks we have some set curricula ideas and lots of emergent curricula (the ideas that come from things that are happening in the children’s lives or in which they are interested). We have two families dealing with medical issues, and this set up is a way for those children to play out their ideas and concerns.

Our fall tree of colored leaves is filled with stars and our wishes for the new year. We are also being artists, book-lovers, writers, actors, bird-feeders, builders, and problem-solvers. Learning about friendship, conflict, and power are important parts of our day, too.

If you are thinking about schooling for next September and are interested in Building Blocks as a place for your family and child, call us at 408-355-3907. We are beginning to schedule times to visit our classes, and we’d be happy to answer any questions you have. Our Tuesday/Thursday class is for two- and three-year-olds. Our Monday/Wednesday/Friday program is for four- and five-year-olds. We meet from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

From our January issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Janet Woodthorpe

As the year drew to a close, we were busy at Building Blocks. Our recent whirlwind of fundraisers allows us to pay toward our loan from the Community Foundation, lay a new floor in our art/kitchen area, and create a solution to our challenging drainage problem.

In the classroom we continue to explore aspects of the world around us, including fall, friendship, the power of language through telling stories, and our community. We adults learned about emergency preparedness from Sue Pierce and Vicky Powell. We had a delightful visit with Janet Sumpter, our adult education supervisor from Los Gatos/Saratoga High Recreation. Both the Tuesday/Thursday and Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes visited a local fire station in our ongoing curriculum about our community. We hope to meet many of you in the post office, the Summit Store, the veterinarian’s office, and many other important places in our community.

Our classes for next year are filling up fast, with few spaces left in the two- to three-year-old class. If you would like information about our program or would like to arrange a visit, call 408-355-3907.

From our December issue

Building Blocks Preschool
Janet Woodthorpe

This is the time of year when we give thanks for our children, our families, and for the community that surrounds and embraces us. At school we are thinking about all the things for which we are thankful, creating leaves of thanks for our Thankfulness Tree, and daily acknowledging the ways we give to each other.

We are thankful for the way our community supports us. The Loma Prieta Halloween Carnival was a great success. Our bake sale and photo booth brought sweets and the treasured capturing of memories to families in attendance. Our Jewelry Trunk Show was also a huge success. We are thankful to the folks at Radonich Ranch, those of you who came to see our lovely jewelry, and to our hard-working fundraising committee for making this happen so successfully.

In addition, Freudenberg Building Systems, Inc. made a donation through Brian Richards for new flooring for our art/kitchen area. It will be beautiful (and much quieter.)

Finally, we are thankful for the MNN’s ongoing support of our school through these articles. We continue to be a place where children and families are treasured and supported with love. We have a few places left for children four- to five-years-old.

For more information, visit www.buildingblockspreschool.org, or call 408-355-3907. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from Building Blocks.

Building Blocks Preschool
Paula Lacey

Fall at Building Blocks brings much fun—from frogs and our pet snake, Strikey, to painting and gluing with leaves. The children are exploring shapes and colors, and talking about babies, growing up, and families. They are full of ideas and are learning to play and work together, which doesn’t always come easily to young children.

The adults in our Adult Education program work as wonderful teams—providing education and nurturing as they too get to know the routine and each other.

The preschool has a few openings in the Monday, Wednesday, Friday class for four- and five-year-olds. The class for younger children held on Tuesday, Thursday is full, but call to be put on the waiting list. For information, call 408-355-3907, or visit our website--www.buildingblockspreschool.org