Island Preschool Co-op as been around since 1962 but is making changes to adapt to today’s society. A co-op is a wonderful opportunity for parents to be involved in their child’s education and preschool experience. Parents play an important role as helpers in the classroom and by making decisions collectively for the preschool. The Island Preschool Co-op board has realized though that due to today’s economy there are many families that have both parents in the workforce and need all day care for their child or just can not take much time off of work to volunteer in the classroom but would still like an affordable preschool program. That is why the co-op is now offering new programs with less required participation.

General Membership meetings have been cut down to every other month and fundraising has been limited to $100 for the school year. The co-op does some fun and different fundraising as well.

The co-op has hired an aide to assist the teacher in the 4 yr old class time, with Stay For Lunch and in the Enrichment Program. Parents will assist in the 3 yr old class on Tuesday and Thursday and are welcome to participate in the 4 yr old class but are not required to assist. Stay For Lunch and Afternoon Enrichment have been added on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Therefore a child can come at 8:45 am and be in school until 2:30 pm. Parents will never have to stay for lunch or the enrichment as the aide will assist for both of these programs. The board of directors also felt that the Monday, Wednesday and Friday all day programs would be tremendous in preparing the students for all day kindergarten.

Island Co-op has a certified teacher hired through the YWCA. The current teacher is Jennifer Rosiak. Mrs. Rosiak is a graduate from the University of Michigan Dearborn, where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Elementary Education. Included in her degree, is a major in Early Childhood, and a minor in Social Studies and Language Arts. In addition, she completed her Master’s Degree from Marygrove college in December of 2005. Her teaching career, until last year when she joined the Co-op was with the Taylor School District. During her six years with Taylor, she taught pre-school, first, and second grade.  Mrs. Rosiak is entering her 3rd year teaching at Island Preschool Co-Op.

The 3 and 4 year old classes have a curriculum which includes phonics soup, calendar, number and letter recognition, 1-1 correspondence, patterning, shapes, beginning writing concepts, rhyming, story comprehension, gross and fine motor skills as well as social skills. The children also participate in large and small group activities, field trips and many special days such as Harvest Day, Grandparents Day and Mother’s Day Tea. The co-op has its own library and two classrooms which are not shared with any other groups. The classrooms are in the administration building for Grosse Ile schools which allows them to benefit from the school district’s emergency plans. The Grosse Ile kindergarten teachers come every year to a general membership meeting and discuss with the parents what to expect for their children entering kindergarten. The kindergarten teachers also express how the co-op students are very prepared for kindergarten since they have already worked on phonics soup and the parents are a great asset as they have come from an environment of helping in the classroom.

The Afternoon Enrichment program will offer a different unit each month. Students ages 3-5 are welcome in the Enrichment program and you do not have to be a member of the co-op. Units offered include Science, Art Exploration, Health and Nutrition/Exercise, Insects and Polar Animals to name a few.

We are always accepting new students throughout the school year.