WE SING AGAIN
On Thursday, February 7, 2008, the preschool presented a program for the Women's Fellowship at University Congregational Church. Children plus many parents joined in for the singing led by teachers Edie Cloud, Robin Abeshaus and Jean Woessner and for sharing of our classroom books with the Women's Fellowship members.
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Doing the Tootie-tah!
The Generations Together!
University Congregational Children’s Center Preschool
Mission Statement
Nurturing the gift and the promise of young children is the mission of the University Congregational Children’s Center Preschool. We honor the value and dignity of each individual, while educating the whole child through developmentally appropriate practice. We encourage children to become contributing members of their classroom community, strengthening values of cooperation, responsibility and creativity. As a parent-cooperative, the preschool offers an environment where ideas about learning and positive parenting can be shared by all. Reflective of University Congregational Church’s statement of “Open and Affirming”, we celebrate present-day family diversity and welcome children of all races, abilities and backgrounds. As one of the church's ‘outward’ faces, we seek to be not only a home for discovery and learning, but also a place of hospitality and love.
Our Hopes for 2009
We aspire to continue to:
Support, socio-economic diversity by offering need-based scholarships, increasing those scholarships if financially possible.
Promote clear communication and peaceful conflict resolution by teaching and modeling those skills within the classroom. Offer, and expand, curriculum materials which reflect the diversity of humanity.
Encourage and support emergent literacy with special emphasis on class-made books specific to individual children or individual classes of children.
Encourage and support children’s growing understanding and use of writing through developmentally appropriate handwriting curriculum (using Handwriting without Tears as a guide). Support parents’ understanding of developmentally appropriate handwriting expectations.
Guide children, as developmentally appropriate, into an understanding of community, and of our responsibility to all of creation, especially through hands-on learning and service projects. Here, students prepare goody bags for children at the Poverello Transitional Family Housing. See also the "Birthday Box" page.
Strengthen the relationship between the church community and the preschool, through encouragement of registration by church members, through presentations at the Women's Fellowship meeting and in joint projects with groups within the church or that support some of the church's efforts in social justice.
Arranging and counting cans of food we collected for the "Pov" 
Singing and drumming!for The Women's Fellowship in 2007
Additionally we aspire to
Promote, as developmentally appropriate, an understanding of the food chain, issues of sustainability and our responsibility to all of creation, through concrete experiences of growing and harvesting our own food, careful use of resources, and recycling.
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Faculty
Robin Abeshaus is the teacher of the Tuesday-Thursday 4-5 class. Robin began with UCCC in November 2005. Her background includes a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education and over 10 years of teaching experience, including 1st/2nd grade at the Bank Street School in New York City and preschool at Clark Fork School here in Missoula. Robin is a former UCCC parent (she has two school-aged children) and is married to Stephen Kalm, former UCC choir director. As with all preschool teachers, Robin is adept at many disciplines; however, she especially enjoys art processes with young children, literature, and song. In her spare time, she loves to walk, ice skate, read, and volunteer at Lewis and Clark School and the Missoula Food Bank. Robin's originally from Pennsylvania, grew up there and in Arizona, and moved to Missoula from New York City in 1994.
Edie Cloud, shown here with former classroom pet Barry, the Guinea Pig, teaches all the classes for Three and Four-Year olds at UCCC and administers the "Lunch Bunch" and Summer programs. She taught at the school from 1993 to 1994, and then after a hiatus, returned in 2001 and has been here since! Edie has worked in the field of early childhood education for 20 years, teaching at Seattle's Virginia Mason Hospital Child Center, and as Child care inspector in the area of program licensing and compliance for the Montana State Department of Public Health and Human services. She holds a Bachelor's degree from Montana State University's Department of Early Children Education. In her classroom, Edie especially likes encouraging children's individuality, singing funny songs and just enjoying the "best job" in the world! Edie has two school-aged children and is married to Mike. A native of Helena, MT, Edie has lived in Missoula since 1993 and loves to read, go to movies and follow her kids around in their various extra-curricular activities.
Jean Woessner teaches the MWF 4-5 class. She loves teaching at UCCC and has been with the school since 1981, first as a parent, then as a Board Member, and finally as a teacher (since 1986)! Her 30 years of educational experience include teaching kindergarten in Florida, Wisconsin and Montana, and many hours spent volunteering in Missoula's public schools as her two (now grown) children progressed through the system. She received her BA from The College of Wooster and holds an M.Ed. (Child Development) from Tufts University. Jean enjoys encouraging children to explore science processes, play with language, develop their innate musician and become effective communicators. She's an active member of the University Congregational UCC, a weekly volunteer at the Poverello Center Food Pantry, and maintains the UCC and UCCC websites. A native Virginian, she's married to Bill, and has lived in the USA from the Southwest to the Northeast, and in Canada, as well. She loves to travel, sing, hike, kayak, garden, and read.
