Welcome to Bridge School Beginners!
Addison County’s only preschool program attached to
an independent elementary school!

Our Phone Number: (802) 388-3498

Bridge School Beginners is a high-quality, full-day, year-round preschool program for children ages three to five years. Our preschool program runs from 8am-3:30 pm twelve months of the year with an aftercare option until 4:30 starting in Fall 2023.

We have two preschool classrooms open, one classroom for 12 children aged 4-5 years old, and our second classroom for 8 children aged 3-4 years old. Each classroom has two co-teachers and a teaching assistant for support in both classrooms. We ensure low child to teacher ratios for the best individualized learning experience.

Mission Statement

Bridge School Beginner’s mission is to provide a warm, welcoming, and safe space for children and teachers alike to be true to themselves, take risks, propose questions, and learn about the world around them side by side. Bridge School Beginners believe that young children learn best when they feel emotionally supported and have ownership of their learning. Bridge School Beginners mission is to support each child’s individuality by curating a curriculum based on emerging interests. Bridge School Beginners program embraces the beauty of having diversity that is inclusive of all human beings recognizing the importance of building a community of unique individuals.

Our goals and values for our program are to celebrate and support unique individuality within a cohesive community built on close interpersonal relationships. The Bridge School and the Bridge School preschool are considered a “laboratory in freedom and responsibility for both children and adults.” As a result our curriculum is focused on social and emotional learning to help children feel confident to develop a love for themselves, a love for others, and a love for their surrounding natural environment. We are play-based and nature-based with an emergent curriculum. The teachers as protagonists act as companions on a learning journey alongside the children. We provide a great deal of time in nature that will propel the children’s creativity, curiosity, questioning, and exploration within the natural world that gives light to all other aspects of learning.

If you are interested in Bridge’s preschool, please contact our Beginners Director, Emily Lambert: emilylambert@bridgeschoolvermont.org

Enrollment

We are currently at full capacity for the 2023-2024 school year but are happy to set up a visit and receive applications if any spots open up!

Please fill out the waitlist form and send in the application below to put your name on the waitlist to be considered for future enrollment.

If you are interested in enrolling your child as a “Beginner,” either imminently or in the future, please fill out the below Google form and fill out the Preschool Application to put your child’s name on our waiting list and fill out our application. You may also email our Beginners Director, Emily Lambert, emilylambert@bridgeschoolvermont.org to set up a tour.

We also seek to have a balanced classroom, so we may take into consideration ages and genders of children on the waiting list.

Click here to fill out the waitlist form

Bridge Beginners Preschool Application

We are committed to providing educational opportunities that meet the needs of our local families. If you are interested in Bridge’s preschool, please contact emilylambert@bridgeschoolvermont.org.

Philosophy

Bridge School’s preschool is child-centered and play-based, and follows social constructivist educational theory. Our emphasis is on the natural world, the community around us, and respectful interactions with each other. Bridge Beginners is rated 4 out of 5 STARS, and is qualified for Universal Pre-K funding.

You may read our family handbook, access our calendar by clicking the following links:

Beginners Family Handbook 2023-2024

Bridge Preschool 2023-2024 Calendar

Daily Schedule

8:00-8:45 am Arrival and Morning Responsibilities
Weather permitting we have morning drop off outside. Children arrive, put their things away, and wash hands with the adult dropping them off for the day. Children can then join the teachers and classmates playing outside in our play yard to get fresh air at the start of their day. In the winter months there will be table activities and play choices offered inside the classroom.

9:00-9:30 am Snack
Clean up and get ready for snack. During this time, there are lots of conversations about the day, children’s favorite things to do and how to negotiate social interactions.

9:30-10:30 am Curriculum Opportunities & Provocations and Free Play

While children finish up snack at their own pace, after they are cleaned up they can make a play choice in the classroom. Teachers will begin to offer curriculum activities for small groups as some children participate in free play.

10:30-11am Morning Meeting
Morning Meeting is a time to come together as a community, and start our day intentionally together. This is a time to check in on how children’s days are going, and to introduce any activities or ideas for the day. At morning meeting we sing silly songs, play fun games, and come together to support forming a cohesive community together.

11-12pm Explorations and Outside Time
Weather permitting we head outside to enjoy our play yard and expansive natural space in the fields behind our school. We enjoy the mowed paths through the grass, pine forest, willow forest, and the hills. Much of our emergent curriculum is nature based and provocations are offered outdoors as well. During this time of day we focus on our curriculum activities and small group explorations whether inside or outside the classroom.

12:00-12:30 Lunch

12:30 -1:00 Quiet Choices
Children may choose books, puzzles, or art. Books can be with a friend, on their own, or during a story time read aloud with a teacher.

1:00-1:45 Beginners Rest Time
All Beginners rest in the classroom. Children who do not sleep may read quietly on their mats and will be offered quiet choices after a short rest period.

2:00-3:00 Afternoon Choice
Weather permitting the children have another chance to enjoy outside time. During the colder months we offer various activities or even participate in gross motor play in the gym.

3:00-3:30 Whole Group Free Play

During pick up all children in both groups will be combined either to play outside or in the gym for gross motor play in the final part of their day.

3:30 Dismissal
Children get picked up or after care begins.

3:30-4pm Afternoon Snack

Aftercare students eat snack.

4pm-3:30 Afternoon Free Play

Children participate in calming activities or outdoor exploration. Children have the opportunity to help teachers with end of the day tasks.

Weekly Options & Tuition

We offer both a two, three, four, and five-day program, and an aftercare option until 4:30pm starting again for fall 2023. The preschool program runs from 8:00am-3:30 pm everyday, all-year. We follow the Bridge School calendar for in-service days and holidays.

Monthly Rates:

**With monthly school scholarships available!**

2 DAY	$682.33
3 DAY	$805.00
4 DAY	$996.67
5 DAY	$1,245.83

Aftercare: 245.34 a month for 4 days, 184 a month for 3 days

Pre-K Funding: Children who turn 3 by September 1, 2023 are eligible for pre-K funding if they live in a district that has agreed to partner with us. If children qualify for the Universal Pre-K funding, this is deducted from the tuition cost for 35 weeks of the year. For the 2023-2024 school year, this is $107.54 per week. VT Act 166 Information and Public PreK (vtpublicprek.info)

Bridge Beginners also accepts subsidy for those who qualify. For more information on subsidy or to apply, visit the following website:

Child Care Cost, Middlebury, Vermont VT – Mary Johnson Children’s Center (mjccvt.org)

Teachers

Emily Lambert, Beginners’ Director & Teacher

Emily originally used her creativity in the fashion industry after graduating with a B.S from University of Delaware, but quickly found her true calling to use her creativity to become an early childhood educator. Emily has been teaching in various early childhood settings for over ten years. Emily moved to Vermont from her birth state of New York and attended Saint Michael’s Graduate School program for elementary education. Emily has a teaching license in both Early Childhood and Elementary Education. In New York Emily taught in both kindergarten and preschool classrooms in a private school setting. She has been a teacher at Charlotte Children’s Center and The Children’s School in Vermont. She began as a substitute teacher at the Bridge School Preschool while her son was a student there. Besides substitute teaching, Emily has spent the past couple of years as a stay at home parent of her three young children, where she basically has been running her own preschool with her inquisitive and active children. Emily lives in Middlebury with these three loving children, her dependable husband, and their loud dog.

Emily believes that supporting a child’s social and emotional development is the key foundation for lifelong learning and happiness. If a child feels loved, accepted, and capable of facing all that arises in their day with calm and confidence, then they will be able to develop into kind, compassionate, intuitive, creative, and innovative community members. Emily has been exploring mindfulness and meditation as one of the primary tools that can guide children and adults alike on this journey.

Emily is an avid reader and has always had a passion for literacy starting at a very young age. She incorporates this passion into supporting children’s exploration of literature that will fuel their own early literacy learning. Emily absolutely loves to spend time outdoors in our beloved and beautiful state of Vermont hiking with her family. She feels that being outside and allowing children to explore all the natural world has to offer is the best way to focus on helping the whole child to thrive and grow.

Arianne Wilson, Lead 3’s Classroom Teacher

Ari grew up here in Vermont, but moved away for a few years to North Carolina where
she went to college. Her original interest was in musical theatre and theatrical
performance, but after taking a job at a preschool as a floater, she realized her true
passions were in the education field. She has been working for close to 6 years now in
the early education field with a range of students from 12 years old, all the way to
newborn infants. She has been in a number of roles, beginning as a floater and
progressing up to a lead teacher. She obtained her degree from UNC Wilmington in
2022 in Early Childhood Education and Child Development and promptly moved back to
her lovely home state of Vermont. She joined the Bridge School Beginners team in
January of 2023 and is hoping to cultivate close relationships with other educators and
families within our close knit community.

Ari’s philosophy for education centers around that every child is diverse and different
and comes to the classroom with their own individual strengths, areas for growth,
needs, and interests. She strives for children to be independent, curious, and brave
learners and believes that every child deserves a nurturing environment to learn and
grow in. She strives to focus on the benefits of nature-based learning along with real
world experiences. She believes that children learn through actively engaging in the
world around them, so emphasizing the value of exploring the natural world and what it
has to offer for educational experiences should be the central focus for curriculum. She
ensures that every child has a safe, nurturing, encouraging environment to come into
that is focused on fostering their creativity and emphasizes their ability to learn through
play outdoors. She believes the teacher’s role in the classroom is to be a guiding,
encouraging, and nurturing voice for the children. By creating curriculum based around
exploring children’s interests as they naturally occur, she hopes to create a classroom
environment that will appropriately and excitingly challenge children.

In addition to being a teacher, Ari is also a certified labor and postpartum doula. She
spends most evenings with her cat, Oliver and greatly enjoys her hobbies of gardening,
yoga, reading, and knitting.

Lynn Shute, 3’s Teaching Assistant

Lynn was born and grew up in Vermont. She had worked in the health care for many years, along with working in the homecare settings taking care of adults and children, who were disabled and required special needs.

Lynn is a mother of twin boys, which then led her to make a career change to be more involved with her kids as a cub scout leader. Then later was substitute teacher for Burlington School District working with kids from pre-k thru elementary school.

Lynn later lived in Washington State, where she worked at Head Start for five years. She was always willing to complete further training to improve her knowledge and safety working with young children which is very important to her. Because of this, children feel more comfortable with her in a trusting environment setting as a teacher. She enjoys watching children trying to learn a new task and feeling proud for accomplishing it.

Lynn acquired her Child Development Associate Certificate at Penn Foster College.