Kickstart mitosis: We're back again and better than ever!

It's official. Not only is Kindergarten Kickstart returning for a second summer of imaginative, explorative, dynamic playing and learning, but we've expanded to TWO sites in Middletown!

Our Macdonough site continues to operate under the supervision of Principal Jon Romeo, serving rising Macdonough kindergarten students, and we are proud to introduce our brand-new site serving rising Farm Hill kindergarteners at Green Street Arts Center, Wesleyan's community arts and education center in the North End. Several staff members have returned - Anna as our fearless leader and seasoned expert, Taylor as a Macdonough teacher, Sydney as a teacher now at Green Street, and Andy (last summer's vital jack-of-all-trades from the Cognitive Development Lab) as a full-time teacher now at Macdonough. We are also thrilled to announce that Felicia, our grown-up-in-residence (technically our certified-teacher-in-residence) will return for a three-week stint as a teacher at Green Street.



The Kickstart family has grown: this summer, we have four new staff members! Maddy Oswald, Olivia Horton and Gigi Breland are all rising Wesleyan seniors, and Crissy Ripley is a recent graduate of the Elementary Education program at Central Connecticut State University.

Maddy and Crissy will teach at Macdonough with Taylor and Andy.

Olivia and Gigi will join Sydney and Felicia at Green Street.

From left: Maddy, Olivia and Gigi 
(Crissy's "I-can't-wait-for-Kickstart!" photo forthcoming)

Today marks our fifth and final day of planning for Kickstart. Here's what we've accomplished this week: 

• Taylor and Sydney provided an overview of Kickstart's history, philosophy and approach.
• Anna, cognitive development guru and lecturer extraordinaire, gave a comprehensive review of essential developmental psychology research.
• The whole team worked together to plan our daily schedule, weekly themes, special afternoon activities, and field trips for the entire five-week session.
• Plans for field trips to KidCity, Russell Library, and the Middletown fire station were finalized.
• Several team members embarked on a grueling, impassioned shopping spree with stops at Dollar Tree, IKEA, and Walmart (note: there is more than enough glitter to go around). 
• Taylor made personal phone calls to all of our families to confirm their enrollment.
• Sydney made a visit to the North End Action Team offices to enlist Bobbye's help in completing recruitment.
• We visited Russell Library to check out books for our first week.
• Julie Kastenbaum, a familiar face from last year and a brilliant school psychologist, gave us a talk about socio-emotional development, resolving issues in the classroom, and creating a warm, loving, nurturing environment for our students.
• We unpacked, decorated, organized, colored, cut, laminated, inventoried, re-arranged, repaired, consolidated, and labeled to get our classrooms ready for day one on Monday.

On the agenda for today: summer lunch training, meetings with Macdonough and Farm Hill kindergarten teachers, and final preparations for our first week!