By Chéye Roberson
Sentinel Correspondent
Little children from Christ Church Nursery school helped pick out grocery items with their families on Tuesday to fill breakfast bags as part of a drive to benefit Neighbor to Neighbor, which not only exercised their goodwill, but also their pre-reading and math skills.
All of the school’s six classes, with children from two to four years old, were involved in the drive, which began with a grocery list made out with their parents. The kids helped select the items from the grocery store shelves and place them into a bag to give to Neighbor to Neighbor.
“We’ve been collecting breakfast bags for several weeks. It’s fun to make a little bag with different ideas,” said Jennifer Purdy, the director of Christ Church Nursery School.
Purdy said the nursery school teachers had the children draw pictures on the bags to help others understand what was inside and also had them come up to read the lettering on the bag.
“The children are very young and not reading yet and we had them come up and read the label ‘breakfast bag.’ They surprised themselves when they were able to read it,” said Purdy.
According to Purdy, pre-writing and pre-reading skills are developed when the children see their parents writing words as they make shopping lists together.
“First of all, it’s easier for the child to learn literacy and social skills when there’s a vehicle for it. When it’s isolated, it’s not as good,” said Purdy. “It really is a rich place to be doing this sort of teaching. The more we teach in context, the easier it is to teach.”
Purdy said the children also develop math skills through making the shopping list because it requires one-to-one correspondence, or the ability to match one object to another—a precursor to learning to count.
The children brought the bags over to Neighbor to Neighbor from the nursery in a joyful mood. A couple of the girls started to shake and make music with the boxes of cereal they held in their hands while waiting to place items on the shelves.
Volunteers helped the kids find the right spot for each item, place them onto the shelves, being careful to put soap with soap and cereal with cereal. Neighbor to Neighbor also collected the paper bags to reuse for the shoppers.
“They have done a fantastic job,” said Duncan Lawson, the operations coordinator of Neighbor to Neighbor.
Purdy and Lawson bounced ideas off of each other as to what sort of drive the nursery school would be able to hold that would benefit Neighbor to Neighbor clients while being fun and educational for the children. Later, they decided putting together breakfast bags with their families yielded a wealth of benefits.
According to Lawson, one of those benefits is that Neighbor to Neighbor gets to stock a few items, like soap and toilet tissue, that are necessities but not purchased by the organization, since their focus is food and clothing.
“Toiletry and feminine products you can’t purchase on a food stamp card, but we see these things as necessities, and there is a demand for it as well,” said Lawson. “We’re lucky in many respects to have such wonderful partners.”
The nursery school tries to hold multiple collections for Neighbor to Neighbor throughout the year.
“We’ve gotten regular donations from the nursery school in the past. What we like to do is get the kids to come in and they can see what we’re doing,” said Lawson.
Last fall, the school held a blanket drive in which the children collected blankets for Neighbor to Neighbor.
Registration for Christ Church Nursery School is still open. To learn more, visit ccnsgreenwich.org, or call 203-869-5534.
