NEWS

River Valley preschool classes offer fun with a purpose

James Miller
Reporter

CALEDONIA — When kids gather around a worktable with colorful markers to play “Coconut Tree” in Susan Barr’s preschool class, they seem to be having fun coloring and arranging letters to spell their names. They probably don’t realize they are learning.

“It is fun,” said Susan Barr, River Valley’s preschool teacher at Liberty Elementary School. The elementary school is offering preschool classes for the first time this fall.

“Yes, they are learning colors. They are learning their names. But they are also learning action words, and arranging them horizontally and vertically,” Barr said.

The Coconut Tree workbook game is just one of several centers, or work areas in a converted kindergarten room, that offer creative play.

Kids cluster in groups or migrate individually to a mound of building blocks or a toy kitchen stocked with plastic food. A pair of friends work at a table of play dough and molds while another group crowds into a tight reading cubby where an aid reads an interactive story.

The curriculum

The kids, ages 3 to 5, move from center to center, playing at their own pace, or moving on when their interest wanes. It’s play with a purpose, according to Barr, who taught mentally handicapped kids in the district for years before launching the district’s first preschool program.

The curriculum for early learning is established by the Ohio Department of Education; it includes learning to count to 20, spell one’s own name, understand shapes and hold a pencil correctly to be prepared for kindergarten.

But the structured play also is designed to teach social and emotional development skills, such as complex pretend play that includes planning, coordination of roles and cooperation and fairness.

Barr is helped in the morning session classroom by Shana Klaus, a teacher’s aide, and Jen Williams, who also coordinates the district’s school-aged child care program for families that need daylong child care. The three women instruct, encourage and actively participate in the activities of the 15 morning students. Thirteen children are enrolled in the afternoon session.

The teachers read aloud, help the kids negotiate sharing with others, wipe tables and sometimes dry tears. Eight of the children have learning disabilities and require more hands-on direction. But the kids seem to mix freely, sharing toys while engaging loudly or quietly in lively play.

“Liberty had an extra classroom, so we had the space,” Principal Sandy Richard said.

The district had once offered preschool service through a third party, but the availability of one of three kindergarten classrooms at Liberty Elementary School this fall allowed the administration to bring the service in-house for the 2,000-student district, one of the few school districts in the county that has experienced growth in recent years.

Parents pay $100 a month per child for the service. Children with learning disabilities attend for free.

Other schools’ offerings

Marion City Schools offers preschool services at all six of its elementary schools and will absorb early childhood education classes for high school students, including their preschool students, from Tri-Rivers Career Center next school year as part of the district’s plan to expand work training for high school students.

Ridgedale Local Schools and Pleasant Local School districts do not offer preschool. Elgin Local Schools considered adding preschool this year, according to elementary school Principal Kristin Dyer, but couldn’t find enough classroom space with 80 kindergarten students enrolled this fall.

“We have heard from our families, and there’s a huge need,” said Dyer, who said the district will revisit the idea soon.

“I think the advantages of preschool are proven, and the trend is that soon preschool will soon be considered mandatory, much like kindergarten,” Dyer said.

For Barr, the head start preschool provides is obvious.

“There’s a small window for intervention for kids that need help. The earlier they are exposed to words, to vocabulary, the better prepared they will be. But the best part is social skills and the readiness to follow routines,” said Barr, who is a strong supporter of learning environments where typical kids and special needs kids share the classroom experience.

“Plus, it’s fun. It’s a great opportunity to grow and learn. Everybody learns differently, and it’s good for the parents to see, good for the kids to see that they can be their selves and be accepted for who they are.”

jsmiller@gannett.com

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