Creative curriculum

Clatter fills the halls of the East Missouri Action Agency Head Start program as half the students eat lunch, but the halls are also filled with art projects.

The current focus is on weather, explained site manager Melia Neal. White crayon drawings of snowflakes and almost-snowflakes line one hall, while cotton balls dipped in blue paint to make rainclouds cover the other.

Neal said the projects illustrate the approach to learning that the staff members at Head Start take.

"We have creative curriculum," she said. "They learn by play."

The school has more than 70 kids currently, all between 3 and 5 years old. Rather than try and instruct them in a more conventional, sit-and-take-notes way, she said they find tangential ways of generating interest.

Zion Sampson, left, grabs a pineapple from the play fridge as Victoria McClanahan, center, and Bre'ne Walker get out cleaning supplies on Thursday. The students are enrolled in the East Missouri Action Agency's Head Start program in Cape Girardeau.Laura Simon

Rather than the pedantry of the water cycle, they make rainclouds and snowflakes. They stock the costume corners with winter clothes to encourage make-believe. And when the children start to ask questions, they teach them how the weather works through a window of genuine interest.

"They're learning, but they don't know they're learning," Neal said. "It's not just artsy-craftsy stuff. The kids have to be creative on their own. ... But you take something that grabs their attention and then elaborate on it."

At Head Start, she said, learning is more collaborative.

"You have to enjoy Head Start. You have to really believe in the program. When someone draws a picture, and it looks like a house, the teacher doesn't say, 'Oh, that's a good house,'" she said. "They say, 'Oh, what is that?' because to them, it might not be a house."

Rather than lose their focus by trying to shoehorn them into a lesson plan, they seek to find shared interests.

"It's more about hands-on experiences," Neal said. "Showing kids how to connect experiences to real life."

And the program, as part of the East Missouri Action Agency, has a broader aim of helping students' families as well. Neal said the staff includes two family advocates whose job it is to visit with parents, identify needs and help keep the students coming to school.

"I want everybody to succeed," Neal said. "So it's, you know, 'How can we help you get out of poverty?' If they're helping the families, they're helping the children."

She said many of the children they teach come from low-income households.

"A lot of parents do depend on this program," she said. "This program is like a safe haven for some of these children. But here we teach the whole child, and that includes the entire family."

She said she knows what it's like to be in a position like that, and she said it's given her a desire to give back.

"Being able to help people is my motivation," she said. "I love doing it, but that's just me."

Monday, she said the program is holding a recruitment meeting at 4:30 p.m. at 1111 Linden St. for the fall.

And while she's run the program since December 2015, she started working at Head Start in 2011. Since then, she said she's seen the effect the school has in the community. The proof often comes in hugs from former students, at the grocery store or around her neighborhood.

"They'll say 'Oh my goodness! You were at my school!'" she said. "To see those little kids later, we are making an impact. We are making a difference."

tgraef@semissourian.com

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