For the past 40 years, McGregor Presbyterian’s Preschool has served the Irmo community and will celebrate that milestone March 22 from l – 3 pm.
The celebration will be in an open house where all rooms and projects will be open for public tours.
McGregor’s Preschool has long enjoyed widespread respect in the area and regularly sells out its 125 enrollment openings.
The Church’s fellowship facility, named Glenn Hall has been partially reconfigured to house a second room for one year-olds. That enrollment expansion filled with applicants very quickly.
“We use a creative play curriculum in which play is for developmental purposes,” Director Christine Manley said.
It features a hands-on play experience.
The school has a faculty of 16 teachers, many of whom have served there for multiple years. The longest-serving teacher, Jenny Gantt, is in her 39th year, having started a year after the school opened. Supplementing the faculty’s efforts are four ladies from the McGregor congregation who call themselves reading grannies. The grannies visit every two weeks and read to individual classes.
Other occasional outside visitors may be firemen, physical education experts, gymnastics instructors, local library representatives, and specialists in different fields of interest that help expand the students’ experiences.
A typical day in the life of the preschool might include crafts, coloring, music, reading by a teacher, physical activity on the playground, and working in a pollinator garden.
The spiritual foundation that weaves its way through classroom activity is augmented by a Chapel program every other week, led by McGregor’s Pastor, Dr. Sam Codington. That Chapel program has been a mainstay of the Preschool since its beginning.
The Preschool has been around long enough and is respected well enough that it is perfectly normal for the parent of a current student to have attended there years ago as a student; i.e., there are often second-generation students. Alumni of McGregor’s preschool are scattered all over the Irmo area.
As long as there are parents who want a Christian foundation in their children’s lives, McGregor’s Preschool will be equipped and motivated to provide that experience. Enrollment for the Fall term opens to the public March 1.
Feature photo: One of the “reading grannies” with her classroom audience.
