Hands-on learning

CFHS students learn about child care in HERO preschool

By K.J. HASCALL / Hungry Horse News

There's a classroom at Columbia Falls High School where the students play with blocks and crayons. The students eat grapes during snack time and look forward to the daily craft.

This is not an average high school classroom: The children are between the ages of three and five, and they are enrolled in the HERO Child Care program.

Lynne Thuesen, family consumer science teacher, helps 43 high school students — just two of them male — learn how to care for toddlers during the 24-day unit. In addition to formulating crafts and making snacks, the students watch the children play and facilitate social interaction.

"The preschool is teaching them different skills like letters, numbers, motor skills and sharing," Thuesen said.

For the high school students, the class is the culmination of what they've learned prior about child development.

"I'm hoping that they learn that they like or dislike working with little children," Thuesen said. "I hope they learn skills for working with little ones."

HERO stands for home economics related occupations, and the child care center was started by Agnes Cada and then-University of Montana student Shirle Fulton in 1968.

Current CFHS student Jessica Bancroft, a senior, said she is taking the class to learn how to work well with children beyond her baby-sitting experience.

"I love kids," she said. "I love to watch them. They're so fun to play with, so fun to watch."

As she surveyed the room awash with primary colors and happy, squealing children, Bancroft said she hopes to work at a day care one day.

Another student in the class, freshman Rebekah Nichols, said she likes to learn about kids though she doesn't plan to have any of her own. On Thursday, April 22, she worked in a director role. The students in the class take turns guiding the children as directors in making crafts and learning, while other students help the children play in the classroom, and still other students observe and take notes about the children at the day care.

"I love to learn," Rebekah said. "I've learned a lot about personalities and what to do if a kid doesn't want to do something. We work with kids who don't want to participate. I like it a lot. It's fun."

For some of the students, the HERO preschool is a family affair. Freshman Samantha Leib cares for her sister Amanda each day at day care.

"It's an opportunity to see how she acts around other little kids," Samantha said, while watching her little sister dart about the room with a floppy dress up hat on her head. "I really like little kids and watching their personalities come out."