Limited visitor parking is available at 652 Cranbrook Road, with overflow parking in the Thornlea lot across Cranbrook Road.
All visitors must check in at the Vlasic Early Childhood Center Office. When parked in the 652 Cranbrook Road lot, enter the main doors to the Vlasic Early Childhood Center adjacent to the parking lot near the drop-off/pick-up circle.
When parked in the Thornlea lot, walk down the sidewalk next to Cranbrook Road, crossing the street to your left into the 652 Cranbrook Road lot. Enter the main doors to the Vlasic Early Childhood Center (the building in the back right corner of the lot adjacent to the drop-off/pick-up circle).
Completed in the late 1990s, the Vlasic Early Childhood Center (ECC) addition to Brookside provides a private, nurturing space for very young children and is somewhat removed from the areas older students use. Every aspect of the ECC is scaled to child size. Here, children can see out the windows at their own eye level, and counters, cubby-holes, reading nooks, and window seats are well within their reach. Child-size metal lockers - designed with unique cutouts to help the youngest students identify their lockers - and a wall of windows line the corridors, and the beams and supports of the classrooms are left exposed to allow children to glimpse just how a building is put together.
Classrooms in the ECC are self-contained with small kitchens, bathrooms, and cots for nap time, which means many different lessons can be taught in the comfort of one familiar room. Nevertheless, exciting trips to the library, multipurpose room, Pickle Island, and playground give students the opportunity to venture out into the building and surrounding areas with their teachers, aides, and classmates.
The ECC addition also includes two new science rooms and a music studio for all students to use. The science rooms are two-story classrooms with large walls of windows, glass ceilings to the sky, and double doors that open outside to the brook, connecting students to the natural environment. The open music studio, also two stories high, accommodates full ensemble groups and a smaller studio for string ensembles, study, and practice. The music room is lined with wooden panels, on one of which is inscribed the Hymn of Brookside.