The Prouty Voice: October 2021

Healthy housing continuum needed, especially for families

By Chloe Learey, Executive Director

The Covid-19 pandemic magnified many challenges our community faces. These challenges include limited housing options, attracting and retaining workforce, food security, isolation, and access to health care and mental health.

The pandemic also provided the opportunity to creatively address some of those challenges. Programs like Everyone Eats and groups like Brattleboro Mutual Aid developed outside of traditional systems, harnessing the energy of people wanting to help one another in a time of deep need. And, for the first time, everyone in our community had a roof over their heads because the state invested resources into emergency housing through the motel program.

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Resources & Events for families

Everyone Eats dinners available at Prouty on Wednesdays

The Winston Prouty Center will be a weekly  distribution site for the Everyone Eats program, which provides nutritious meals to Vermonters in need of food assistance, as well as a stabilizing source of income for Vermont restaurants, farmers, and food producers. The program is funded by the Vermont Legislature to address COVID impacts and is administered by Southeastern Vermont Community Action, SEVCA. *Starts today, Wednesday, October 6 * Pick- up meals between 3:30 and 4:00 outside of Thomas Hall. 

The BASICS: five part class & parent support group

Learn about the 5 Basics principles and how they can help boost your young child’s brain development (ages 0-3). Get ideas on fun, easy activities that you can do with your child that follow the Basics principles. Be part of a group of parents who are learning together, sharing ideas and supporting each other. Starting Thursday, October 21st at 8:00-9:00pm on Zoom. 5 sessions and additional support if desired.  Contact Sandy Stark if you have questions or to sign up for this class! 802-254-3742 or at sstark@wsesdvt.org More information

Village Community Closet opens on Winston Prouty Campus

The Village Community Closet is a place where Brattleboro-area families can exchange children’s clothing (sizes preemie to 12), pregnancy clothing, baby gear, toys and supplies for FREE. Hours of operation will be on Saturdays from 10am -12pm and Wednesdays from 4pm-6pm at 60 Austine Drive (next to gymnasium). Donations will be accepted during these times, but we ask for them to be clean, stain free and in working order. More info


 

Early Learning Center News

Acorn Room

For the month of September, we focused mainly on developing and establishing relationships with one another: teacher to child and child to teacher as well as their classmates. It’s amazing how much they have all grown and are starting to adapt to the routines while at school! They are all enjoying the outdoors the most as they are noticing the leaves swaying in the wind! For the month of October, we hope to continue developing relationships with the group and getting to know them more. We also will be focusing on fall themes such as pumpkins and leaves!

Willow Room

In the month of September, the Willow Room did many exciting things. We did many art experiences and had materials out with the theme based on Eric Carle books. We were excited to be able to have our first visit to the bookmobile! The class has been enjoying our weekly walks and adventures with Alfred, he shows us ways to explore the nature around us. Looking into the month of October, the Willow class will be doing art, activities, and sensory play around the fall harvest season!

Elm Room

This month the Elm Room will continue to take advantage of our beautiful campus and the many opportunities it provides for learning and relationship building. On our most recent walks with Alfred we have been looking at the leaves as they change, and have started collecting natural materials to bring into our classroom. Several of the children have also been reflecting on our past experiences, including the mobile that we started for the infant classroom. At their request we will be revisiting the opportunity to do beading and decorate more branches. If your family has materials with holes (buttons, rocks, shells, etc.) that you think would look nice on a mobile please feel free to send them in. We are also continuing to talk about what we know about babies and families. We are looking forward to the fall and all the opportunities that it brings.

 

Birch Room

The month of September was very busy in Birch! Since this was the first full month of the new school year, we kicked things off with a Welcome Back/All About Me theme! Our room had many different centers to check out such as a house themed dramatic play center, a science center that focused on the human body with different body part cards as well as identifying different bones in our bodies on a skeleton. Also, our sensory table has been filled with feed corn, fall leaves and pails/shovels for digging and filling with. We also completed a “Self-Portrait” project one week with many different materials such as tissue paper and yarn. We continued with our weekly outdoor adventures as well. Alfred joins our group on Monday’s and takes us to places such as the pond, The Rock Garden, and the Salute to The Sun Bridge!

With the weather quickly changing, during the middle of the month of September and into then end of October, we will be discussing All Things Fall as our monthly theme! We will be transforming our science area shortly to reflect many things you can find during the Fall season as well as different crafts. The focus for learning objectives in the coming month will be identifying numbers 6-10, letter identification, and many others! We also look forward to Parent/Teacher conferences in October!


Farm to School calendar fundraiser

Would you be interested in buying a beautiful Harvest of the Month calendar featuring the watercolor illustrations of Vermonter Kathryn Hansis?

Our Farm to School Team has been thinking about how to bring more Farm, Food, and Nutrition Education to Winston Prouty children and families. It has become clear that an income stream could help see our dreams come true!

We want to gauge if there is enough interest in our community to make this calendar fundraiser worthwhile. If you are interested in buying a calendar for $10 to support our Farm to School Program, please let us know by emailing Sueño at sueno@winstonprouty.org with the number of calendars you would commit to if we did this.

HINT: They could make great holiday gifts for any foodies you may know AND a year later your young children could make a gorgeous food collage from all the images!

Your support could help to fund:

  • Seeds and seed starting materials in the spring
  • Fresh, local produce for our Harvest of the Month snacks
  • Professional development for staff around food and nutrition education
  • Cooking equipment and materials for the classrooms


Celebrations

  • Oct 2 – Jude is 2!
  • Oct 4 – Happy Birthday Jeanna, Child Care Financial Assistance Eligibility Specialist!
  • Oct 5 – Harriet is 3!
  • Oct 5 – Jane is 4!
  • Oct 8 – Happy Birthday Jean, CIS Nurse!
  • Oct 13 – Happy Birthday Willie, Human Resources Coordinator!
  • Oct 18 – Happy Birthday Allie, Acorn Room teacher!
  • Oct 23 – Cade is 3!
  • Oct 24 – Tuscan is 5!

Congrats to Birch Room teacher Alyssa and Facilities Assistant Alex on their October 2nd wedding!


Dates to Remember

  • Friday, October 8 – Center closes at 12:00 for all-staff in-service
  • Monday-Tuesday, October 11-12 – ELC closed for parent-teacher conferences
  • Tuesday, October 19 – School Picture Day
  • Friday, November 12 – Center closes at 12:00 for all-staff in-service

* Now Hiring *

We continue to try creative ways to recruit volunteers and teachers to join our Early Learning Center Team. On Thursday, October 14 at 9:00am we will hold a “Join our Team” event so that anyone who is interested can learn more about the Early Learning Center. Please help spread the word with anyone you think might like to attend!