By ALEXANDER SIMONE

Staff writer

Excitement was in the air for preschooler Daylen Gibson as she attended Goessel Elementary for the second annual Old MacDonald preschool engagement event on Friday.

For the second year in a row, families from around Goessel flocked to Goessel Elementary to interact with teachers, animals, and other children.

The event is important because it shows the community how much effort the school invests, said Emily Gibson, Daylen’s mother, and Goessel’s Parent Teacher Organization president.

“It sets our district apart, and shows they always go the extra mile,” said.

The Goessel Elementary-sponsored event was open to families and children of many ages, but it was aimed at those 5years old and younger, kindergarten teacher Sheri Janzen said.

“We wanted to service a group we weren’t connected with – children in our district who weren’t in school yet,” she said.

It helps Janzen, because she said she gains experience with students before they reach her classroom.

“The more kids are familiar with who’s there, the better their response when we ask them to do things or try to interact with them,” she said.

Friday was important for parents as well because it allowed them to get to know organizations in the community that promote child development.

“The more family engagement activities a community puts together, the more information there is to help them be the best they can,” she said. “From birth on up, we have resources that talk about what parents should be doing with literacy activities. The more you can do those kinds of things, the better chance they have of success.”

One of those benefits was that it served as a recruiting asset for PTO, Gibson said.

“It helps us to draw in new members,” she said. “When parents come through the door later on, they’ve seen us and what we do.”

Other resources included information on Parents as Teachers, and the food pantry, Janzen said.

“Parents may have heard of Parents as Teachers, or our food pantry, or whatever, but they don’t have that familiarity with it,” she said. “That’s a way they can connect.”