October Newsletter - Beavercreek Preschool Center

Thank you to everyone who completed our Family Engagement Survey! Your feedback is helping us plan meaningful opportunities to support our preschool families throughout the school year.

One thing was clear from the results—families value a variety of ways to connect and learn! In-person family events were the most popular choice, with 67% of respondents selecting this option. Families also showed strong interest in take-home activities and helpful tips and resources shared through ParentSquare.

Based on your responses, we will be offering three evening family engagement opportunities centered around the topics families selected most often:

Explore what young children may be communicating through their behavior and learn positive, practical strategies for responding to challenging moments.

Learn practical strategies for supporting children through big emotions while helping both children and adults stay calm, connected, and regulated.

Discover simple ways to build communication and language skills through everyday routines, play, books, and interactions at home.

We also heard that families appreciate resources they can access and use on their own time. Throughout the year, we will share additional tips, activities, and resources focused on Healthy Routines for Preschoolers - starting with this newsletter!

Thank you for sharing your voice with us! Your feedback helps us make family engagement at BPC meaningful, practical, and responsive to what our families need. We are excited to learn alongside you this year!

Our preschoolers have completed their first two visits to the STEM Room, and they have been busy thinking, exploring, and experimenting like scientists!

Our first STEM unit focused on the three states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. Students learned that scientists ask questions, make observations, compare materials, measure, sort, and investigate the world around them. They even had the chance to dress like scientists while weighing, measuring, sorting, comparing, and observing materials throughout the STEM Room.

Of course, no STEM investigation would be complete without a little excitement! Students watched an amazing chemical reaction known as Elephant Toothpaste and explored Flubber, a fascinating substance that can behave a little like both a solid and a liquid. These hands-on experiences gave our preschool scientists plenty to observe, touch, talk about, and wonder about!

Want to continue the STEM fun at home? Families can make their own Flubber using the recipe below. Flubber is for exploring and should never be eaten. Adult supervision is recommended.

Flubber Recipe

You will need:

Directions:

Our STEM Room is off to a great start, and we can't wait to see what our little scientists investigate next!

Children love to sing, dance, and listen to music. Besides providing joy and creativity, these activities allow children to express their ideas and emotions. They also can help to develop social, emotional, cognitive, and language skills. 

Families can make music part of their daily routines in many ways. Here are a few ideas for getting started. 

Songs are a playful way to go through tasks and to practice new ideas. Think about playing music or singing with your child as they get dressed in the morning or prepare for bedtime. Listen to and sing songs that support what children are learning in school, like their body parts (“Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”) or their classmates’ names (“Willoughby Wallaby Woo”). Ask your child’s teacher about the songs they sing at school, so you can try them at home. Share the songs that your family likes too!

Is your child passionate about outer space? Sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” or “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon.” Do they love animals? Sing “Los Pollitos Dicen (The Little Chicks Say)” or “Going on a Bear Hunt.” You can find and learn new songs by accessing old CDs, records, and online sources. Be sure to teach your child the songs that you loved when you were little or that were important to your family. 

Pull out your pots and pans or some old scarves, and invite your child to try different ways to move or make sounds with these objects. Encourage them to sing and move faster or slower, with bigger or smaller movements, depending on their interests and needs. These activities are fun, and they help your child use their body to express themselves.

Music is a powerful tool for making connections to your own and others’ cultures. Using songs and chants in new languages and from other places will introduce your child to new ideas, experiences, and words. Check out “Frère Jacques (Brother John),” “Jambo (Hello),” “Zhao Pengyou (Looking for a Friend),” and “De Colores (All the Colors)” for dancing, call-and-response activities, and greetings. 

Your child will follow your lead, so sing and dance with them. Remember that you don’t need to be perfect in how you sound and move. It’s about connecting with your child through joyful, playful musical moments. 

Rebecca Anne Swartz, PhD, is an associate professor and program director of the Early Childhood Education Program at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. 

Kira Hamann, EdD, is an associate professor of early childhood education at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville in Illinois.

Copyright © 2026 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children

Music is a big part of our preschool day! Songs are not only fun—they help children learn routines, remember steps, build language, and know what is coming next. A familiar song can turn an everyday task into a predictable and positive experience.

This month, we are sharing two songs we use at preschool that you can try at home. Click the link under each one to hear the song! 

“Tops and Bottoms” – Our handwashing song helps children remember to scrub all parts of their hands while making sure they wash long enough to get them clean.

“Open Shut Them” – Before snack, we use this familiar song to help children transition from play, settle their bodies, and get ready to eat together.

Try adding a song to one of your routines at home—getting dressed, cleaning up, brushing teeth, or getting ready for bed. Sometimes a little music can make everyday routines a lot more fun!

Teaching preschoolers initiative and responsibility is an important part of their development. When children have opportunities to take care of themselves, contribute to their family, and make choices about their learning, they begin to see themselves as capable and important members of their family.

These little responsibilities help children build independence, practice problem-solving, and develop confidence in their own abilities.

Encourage your preschooler to complete three simple responsibilities each day—one from each category:

Take Care of Me

Help My Family

Grow My Brain

Create a simple chart with three spaces for each day. Your child can add a sticker, make a checkmark, color a box, or move a magnet after completing each responsibility.

Let your child help choose what goes on the chart! Giving preschoolers choices such as, “Would you like to help set the table or feed the dog?” gives them some control while still teaching responsibility.

And remember—the goal isn't for children to do everything perfectly. A bed made by a four-year-old probably won't look like a bed made by an adult, and that's okay! Praise the effort, not the perfection.

Three little things each day can help children develop a very big belief:

“I can take care of myself. I can help my family. I can learn and grow!”

Beavercreek City Schools is proud to announce its 2026–27 districtwide service learning project, One Creek: 4 Paws, bringing all 11 buildings together to support 4 Paws for Ability, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to placing service dogs with children and veterans with disabilities.

Founded in Xenia, Ohio, 4 Paws for Ability provides highly trained service dogs that help individuals with disabilities gain greater independence, safety, and quality of life. Through its work with families and communities around the world, the organization demonstrates the powerful difference that service, compassion, and partnership can make.

Each year, Beavercreek City Schools selects a districtwide service learning project that gives students and staff an opportunity to put learning into action while developing the character, skills, and attitudes reflected in the district's GO CREEK Portrait of a Learner. Service learning encourages students to look beyond themselves, identify needs in their community, collaborate with others, and make a meaningful contribution.

This year, that work will take on a truly districtwide focus.

Under the theme One Creek: 4 Paws, every Beavercreek City Schools building will participate in efforts to support 4 Paws for Ability. Students, staff, families, and community members will have opportunities to contribute through fundraising, volunteering, and advocacy projects. While each building may find its own unique ways to serve, the collective goal will be shared: to come together as one Beavercreek community in support of an organization making a life-changing impact.

Throughout the 2026–27 school year, Beavercreek City Schools will celebrate the many ways its buildings come together to serve. One Creek: 4 Paws will be a year of compassion, collaboration, and action—and a reminder that when we come together as one Creek, we can make a difference.

The Beavercreek community can also be part of One Creek: 4 Paws by purchasing an official project shirt. The shirt gives students, staff, families, alumni, and community members a way to show their support while helping advance service learning throughout the district.

Every shirt purchased will help support the district's service learning efforts and the 2026–27 One Creek: 4 Paws project. Wearing the shirt is more than showing school spirit—it is a visible reminder that service is a community effort and that each of us has a role to play in making a difference.

Visit the One Creek: 4 Paws online store (https://trophysportscenter.com/collections/one-creek-4-paws-project-shirts) and join the district in wearing their One Creek; 4 Paws apparel throughout the school year.

Everyone has something to say, but not everyone communicates in the same way.

October is AAC Awareness Month, a time to learn more about Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). AAC includes the many different ways people communicate in addition to, or instead of, spoken words. This might include gestures, signs, pictures, communication boards, or electronic speech-generating devices.

For some children, AAC may support their communication while their verbal language is developing. For others, AAC may be their primary way of communicating. No matter what it looks like, the goal is the same: giving every child a way to express their wants, needs, ideas, feelings, and personality.

Communication is about so much more than asking for something! Children use communication to make choices, ask questions, tell us “no,” share an idea, make a friend, participate in play, tell a joke, and let others know how they are feeling.

When children have access to a communication system that works for them, they have more opportunities to participate meaningfully in their classroom and community. AAC gives children another tool for making sure their voices are heard.

At preschool, our teachers, speech-language pathologists, therapists, and support staff work together to create communication-rich classrooms where there are many ways for children to participate.

You may see adults using pictures and visual supports, modeling words on communication boards or devices, pairing gestures with spoken language, offering choices, and—most importantly—giving children time to communicate.

We also teach children that their friends may communicate differently than they do. A friend might talk with their voice, use a picture, point, sign, gesture, or use a device. Different ways of communicating are all valuable ways of connecting with others.

And this year, we are starting things off in a BIG—and MESSY—way with our Messy Masterpiece Day! 🎨 Throughout the day, our preschoolers will enjoy books all about art, creativity, and using their imaginations and then have opportunities to create some masterpieces of their own! Students will explore different art experiences throughout the building as we celebrate creativity and kick off two weeks of reading fun. It might get a little messy—but that’s part of the masterpiece!

Our Read-A-Thon is a fun way to encourage our preschoolers to develop a love of books and reading while also supporting our school. During the two-week event, we encourage each student to read (or be read to!) for 30 minutes each day. Every minute counts—whether you are reading a bedtime story, enjoying a favorite book together, or squeezing in a few extra stories throughout the day!

Families will receive information about activating their child’s personal Read-A-Thon page. This page makes it easy to track reading minutes and allows family and friends to support and encourage your little reader.

Funds raised through our Read-A-Thon support our Principal’s Account, which helps us bring special experiences and opportunities to our preschoolers throughout the year. This year, funds will help support art activities and creative experiences throughout the building, including the materials that make events like our Messy Masterpiece Day possible!

Read-A-Thon funds also help provide classroom resources, special projects, materials for schoolwide events, treats for Community Helper and Farm Days, author visits, and other special opportunities that enhance the preschool experience for our students.

While fundraising helps us do some pretty amazing things, our biggest goal is simple: get our preschoolers excited about books! Reading together builds language, strengthens early literacy skills, and creates wonderful opportunities for families to connect.

So get ready to create, read, and have some fun! We can't wait to kick off our Read-A-Thon with our preschoolers!