Learning Through Play for 70 Years

Special Programs

Our philosophy is learning through play, and each class room teacher has a customized curriculum to share with the children. As proud as we are of our creative and educational classrooms, we know that it’s just as important our students learn about life and a world beyond our school. To facilitate that, we “import” some community volunteers and “transport” our kids to amazing places on field trips.

We love to enlist the help of our community in sharing their special skills or preschool-cool jobs (not that there is anything wrong with being an accountant!). Our classrooms have been visited by firefighters, police officers, dentists, veterinarians–some of whom were parents at the preschool. If you have a service you think would benefit the students and/or families at Annandale Co-op, please contact us!

We also love to feature “educational entertainment” by local artists and area companies who specialize in captivating students with competitive attention spans. Some of the programs we’ve featured in the past include:

  • Kay Dee Puppets: With 40 years of puppetry above their wrists, Kay Dee Puppets is legendary in the Northern Virginia preschool entertainment sector. Fun for the whole family!
  • Under the Sea: With live animal presentations, Under the Sea brings the ocean right to our classrooms with slippery, swimming creatures, real artifacts, cool costumes, and current information. Pun intended.

While community visitors come and go at the end of the school day, some special visitors get to hang out in the classroom for a while. Bugs, butterflies, and the occasional hamster, praying mantis, and worm all get an opportunity to be handled, and sometimes interviewed, by our students.

Every spring, each classroom cares for caterpillars and gets the opportunity to watch them perform one metamorphic feat after another. Our animal visitors offer so much to the Annandale Co-op children: an opportunity to see something new, to observe something different, to learn about the world around them and to learn about themselves.

When nature calls, Annandale Cooperative Preschool answers. Every year includes field trips to some of our region’s greatest resources. Not only does this expand the minds of our students, it also gives parents additional ideas of what our area can uniquely offer. Our teachers use their themed curriculum to their advantage to heighten the learning on each trip.For example our farm unit, musical instrument unit and gardening unit come to life with trips to Frying Pan Park, Woodson High School ‘s Orchestra Performance, and Hidden Pond Nature Center.

Annandale Co-op invites the Fairfax County Health Department to our school for vision screening, hearing screening and speech screening. This service is not so much a part of the curriculum as it is a service to help children get the most out of their preschool years.