With a new semester of Kids’ Corner, a new group of members has begun to plan activities for the preschoolers. According to Stevie Cupp, student teacher for Kids’ Corner and senior, this semester’s class for Kids’ Corner has about 18 students who will eventually be split into two groups with one group starting at the Kids’ Corner preschool at CHS and the other starting at preschool programs at various elementary schools. Kim Lenzo, director of Kids’ Corner, said Kids’ Corner members will also have a new opportunity this semester to work at a job placement at an actual daycare at Heartland Hall.

In order to prepare the new group of Kids’ Corner members for their work with the preschoolers, Kim Lenzo, director of Kids’ Corner, has been teaching the members how to work with young children and teach them the skills they need to learn.

According to Lenzo, the students have been working on the curriculum that they will teach to the preschoolers. Lenzo said the Indiana Early Learning Foundations will guide the students in their planning by providing information about the basic standards for how to teach young children.

With the preparations for the preschoolers, Lenzo said she plans to teach the Kids’ Corner members how to prepare lessons by taking about 20 minutes in class to teach members how to incorporate lessons about a specific subject area, such as math, into their plans and then allowing members to spend the rest of the time looking for ideas for lessons based upon the specific subject area that Lenzo discussed. Lenzo said she used to teach Kids’ Corner members by explaining how to create lessons for the different subject areas all at once and then giving students time to create lessons based upon everything Lenzo had discussed about all of the different subject areas. However, because of feedback from previous Kids’ Corner members, Lenzo has decided to instead teach the subjects in chunks this semester so that she teaches one subject and allows students to create lessons for that particular subject before she teaches another subject and allows students to create lessons for that new subject.

So far, Kids’ Corner members have begun to work on their lesson plans.

Stevie Cupp, student teacher for Kids’ Corner and senior, said, “Right now, we’ve been making lesson plans for the kids, so we are trying to get a basis for the class setup, so we’re pretty much just trying to figure out what themes we’re going to do for the different weeks and what activities we can do for the kids just to keep them busy and trying to create an educational environment. And then, we’re also learning some precautions like being able to be CPR certified just in case there are issues or anything like that.”

Lenzo said the students will make locker signs, conduct online searches for some activities for their lesson plans and brainstorm ideas for healthy snacks on Jan. 25. Students will give Lenzo a list of supplies they need for their lessons and work on their bulletin boards on Jan. 27. The students will then go to the Carmel Clay Public Library and learn how to use book props and how to read to young children on Jan. 29.

Cupp said, “(Planning lessons) is enjoyable, especially since it’s really cool to see what you can do with the kids. I had a realization ‘cause we had to do posters of children and their certain age developments, and I was doing six- to eight-year-olds, and (with) six- to eight-year-olds, they can’t even start to count up by twos and fives until they’re eight, so it’s been really fun learning what the kids can do in their age range because we are teaching preschool.”

Cupp said she looks forward to working with the preschoolers.

“I’m really excited because we’ve heard a lot about them since they were the same kids last semester, and each one has their own special personality and all that,” Cupp said. “So it’s going to be really fun to learn what they like to do and how they learn.”