Welcome to our virtual tour of Snohomish Cooperative Preschool! We hope this virtual tour will give families a better idea of what the average day of class looks like for our students and what activities are available for them to learn, play, and grow.
Arrival
All SCP families arrive a few minutes early to wash hands and use the bathroom on the main floor before heading to the classroom downstairs. During the school day, both bathrooms on the main floor are available to everyone regardless of gender. If it is your family’s workday, you should expect to arrive at least 5 to 10 minutes early based on your assigned workstation for that day.
Check-in and Ratios
Each day, one family is in charge of signing in families during drop-off. Check-in duties are assigned to a specific workstation and may vary based on the class. Families dropping off their children for class must stay until all working families for that day have arrived. Unless it is their parent/legal guardian, children are never alone with only one adult in the classroom, outside, or in the bathroom. At least one CPR/First-aid certified adult must also be present in the classroom each day.
Minimum adult to child ratios are as follows:
Pre-K: 1 adult for every 5 children
3’s: 1 adult for every 3 children
2’s: 1 adult for every 3 children
Our Classroom
Our school features a large, bright, and open classroom where children are free to roam. The classroom is divided into different activity centers that are open during free-play time. The layout of the classroom changes each year although the activity centers stay generally the same. Each workday family is assigned to either an activity center or to the kitchen with assignments rotating weekly. There are usually around five workday family members in the classroom with the teacher at any given time. Workday family members act as teacher assistants and are there to engage and interact with the children, help solve conflicts, and help them clean up after free-play time.
An Edmonds College instructor also comes to the classroom and participates once a week. They are there to engage with the children and help out the workday family members as needed.
Activity Centers
Art
We do a lot of open-ended art projects that serve as an emotional outlet, build executive functioning skills, and develops fine motor skills. Teachers rotate art projects daily although some may occasionally stretch multiple days. There is also a dedicated easel large enough for multiple children to paint at once. We make a mess here at SCP! And don’t worry parents! All of our paints are washable and we also have aprons available for those children that prefer not to get messy.
Sensory
The sensory area features two sensory tables for the children to experience. One sensory table generally features a dry material that changes weekly, while the other sensory table is a water table. Both sensory tables are also filled with toys or other items that allow the children to creatively engage with the materials they contain.
Dramatic Play & Gross Motor
Here the children are free to use their imaginations and play pretend in themes that change monthly. Popular past themes have included a firehouse, mechanic shop, post office, and a bakery!
This area also contains toys to help build gross motor skills such as stepping stones and a balance beam.
Blocks, Math & Manipulatives
This is a very popular activity center full of blocks, cars, puzzles, and other great learning toys that help build fine motor and social skills. Children often use this area to learn how to collaborate and negotiate with each other as they build different structures with the materials and use other toys to interact with them.
Science & Library
The science and library activity center contains two areas for play-based learning and for quiet time if needed. The science area features various science projects decided by the teachers and are often themed. Past projects have included learning about the creatures around them, watching caterpillars and plants grow, and learning how pumpkins and other items decay in the dirt! Children can also spend time in this area exploring their creativity with playdough or other similar materials.
The library features a regular rotation of books both owned by the school and from our local Snohomish Library where children can spend time relaxing on some cushions and discovering their next favorite book.
Circle Time
Circle time is full of songs, games, and stories, and more! Children will sit and listen to a new story each day and occasionally there is an activity that accompanies the story as well! Teachers may even have SCP families and children bring their favorite book to class to read.
Outdoor Time
We love the outdoors and we go outside rain or shine! During outdoor time, the children have a chance to run around, blow bubbles, color with chalk, and play to their hearts’ content. Outdoor toys are rotated weekly so there is always something different to do and play with.
Group Snack
At Snohomish Cooperative Preschool, all of our classes participate in a group snack for snack time. This allows the children to explore new foods and give them something to talk about with their classmates as they eat. All snacks are chosen with allergies and any food restrictions in mind. Each family is assigned a day to bring snacks on a rotation. One or two families may also be assigned an emergency snack to bring in to be stored in the kitchen just in case something happens and there is no group snack available.
Check-Out
The working family member in charge of check-in is also generally in charge of checking children out. As is with check-in, to ensure the safety of our students, only approved adults may sign a child out of class. The list of approved adults is attached to the back of the sign-in sheet to be easily and quickly referenced if needed.
Field Trips
We do lots of fields trips here at SCP! Our field trips usually try to highlight local businesses or public services such as the fire station, post office, grocery store, or pumpkin patch. We try our best to ensure that all of our fields trips are either free or low cost so that all SCP families are able to attend.
Questions?
Still have questions? Please feel free to reach out to our registrar at registrar@snohomishcooppreschool.org.
Snohomish Cooperative Preschool - toddler - pre-k early childhood education 