Ossining’s Park School Launches “Countdown to Pre-K” Series

The Ossining School District is launching a five-session “Countdown to Pre-K” program this month that will introduce parents to the “Ossining Basics” caregiving principles that promote school readiness.

Educators will teach parents and guardians strategies to stimulate language and cognitive development in young children. The five Ossining Basics principles are: maximize love and manage stress; talk, sing and point; count, group and compare; explore through movement and play; and read and discuss stories. The virtual workshops are offered in English for the first 45 minutes and Spanish for the second 45 minutes.

“Parents and guardians are our children's first teachers, so we need to work in collaboration and ensure that they have access to all our community resources, so together we can best support our children in their academic and their social and emotional life,” Park School Assistant Principal Melisa Stoller said.

The 2020-2021 Countdown to Pre-K parent workshop dates are:

• Friday, May 21, 6-7:30 p.m.
• Friday, June 18, 6-7:30 p.m.
• Thursday, July 15, 6-7:30 p.m.
• Thursday, July 29, 6-7:30 p.m.
• Thursday, August 12, 6-7:30 p.m.

The district has divided families of incoming pre-kindergarteners into five groups, each with its own rotation schedule among the five virtual sessions.

• Park School English as a new language teacher Nicole O’Brien will lead a workshop on the count, group and compare principle. She will teach the foundational skills of counting objects with one-to-one correspondence and sorting objects by shape, color, size and other features.
• Jessica Irons, Theater O artistic director, will show parents how to use their bodies, voices and imaginations to play with their children, and enhance their children’s love of storytelling. Ms. Irons facilitates the Park School “performing stories program,” which takes place several times a year with each pre-k class.
• Behaviorist Holly Freehill will teach strategies for parents and guardians to manage stress for themselves and their children. Participants will also learn to maximize love while shaping their children’s behavior.
• Ossining Public Library children’s librarian Ignayra Lopez will show parents where to find books their children will enjoy and how to talk about books to develop their children’s literacy skills.
• Music specialist Rose Coen will explore how talking, singing and pointing create clues for understanding language, and how singing makes learning language fun and builds family connections.

The workshops will provide families with a toolbox of readiness skills to help their children acquire the skills they need for pre-kindergarten.

“I am thankful to everyone who helped to organize these opportunities for our youngest scholars and their families,” Superintendent Raymond Sanchez said. “We want to make sure that we support them as they transition into Park School.”

All families will receive a set of tools -- such as books, crayons and a coloring book -- to help them put the Ossining Basics principles into practice. Megan Mastrogiacomo, the district’s community school leader, is preparing the bundles.