The young children who were enrolled at the Kid’s Kollege Nursery School at the Estevan Alliance Church enjoyed the experience and had a good year together.
Twenty-four students ages three and four were registered this year. One class of 12 met in the morning every Tuesday and Thursday, and the other class of 12 met in the afternoon, also on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Owner and teacher Mandy Littlefield said the past year featured a pirate treasure hunt, a year-end teddy bear fancy tea party, gym activities and much more.
“We have lots of stories, and finger plays and songs. This year we weren’t able to sing, so we did more rhymes and action rhymes and things like that to get the kids involved and learning things,” said Littlefield.
They always go through the alphabet, colours, shapes and numbers, and they talk about seasons, months, holidays and days of the week.
COVID-19 restrictions kept them from have show and tell sessions, and it meant that it was a different year, but Littlefield said the kids still had fun while they learned.
Two weeks of online classes happened in April, she said. The parents picked up lesson packets and video lessons were posted. Parents and students watched the videos at home and completed crafts and worksheets together.
The four-year-olds will be ready to move into kindergarten next year.
“They are all ready to go and looking forward to going to big school,” said Littlefield.
A graduation ceremony was held last month. The pre-school tried to hold it outdoors, but it was a cold, windy and rainy day.
“Each family came one at a time and we have a little graduation bridge that they walk across, and then they could collect their little diplomas and have some picture opportunities. We were able to have some outside, but then we also had some opportunities inside for photos and stuff, because the weather was not co-operating with us that day,” she said.
In a normal year, Kid’s Kollege would have a little program for all of the parents, but they weren’t able to have that this year, so they went with the individual graduation times with the invited guests.
Littlefield is a second generation owner of Kid’s College. She took it over in 2005, but her aunt started it in the late 1980s. Kid’s College has two teachers with Littlefield and Judy Moroz.
In the fall they plan to be back to the regular class size of 16 students in each.
