Here at Morris Hills, one of the electives that is offered is an Exploring Childhood class. The class is great to take during your Sophomore year. Not only that, but within the class you get to do fun projects, bring home an imitation baby to experience what it is like to take care of a real baby, and, yes, work with real little children who come in every Thursday and Friday.

The children start out by playing in the beginning of the class with some of the students and then sit down with them for circle time, while the other students observe. While in circle time, the students sitting with the children during the circle time pass around a bear and gently ask the kids to share their names and a random activity they like to do when holding the bear. After circle time, all the kids turn around to the board and watch a video, this time it was about groundhog day and exactly what it was. Once the video was finished, the students and the children all sing a song about the ABC’s. Once finished on the carpet, the students and kids split up into groups and go into different stations, those stations being STEM, arts and crafts, gross motor (with the students who run circle time), and letters and numbers. The children rotate stations after about ten minutes at each one. After stations, the children get to have snack and that is when all the stations are cleaned up. At the end of the block the kids get free play and it is like this during the transition of blocks 1 and 2 or 5 and 6. That is usually what a block looks like when the kids come in.

Even though the children have rules to follow, so do the students within the class. “Some basic procedures that we are given are at the very beginning of the year, we learn about what to do in certain scenarios and what not to do. So if a kid throws a fit, some good ways to deal with that and bad ways to deal with it, we learn about all different types of scenarios that could possibly happen and how to deal with the issue effectively” says sophomore Madelyn Aspelund, who also takes exploring childhood. “When we’re not working with the kids, we are doing projects to learn more about babies and toddlers and just children, or we are planning for the kids. Because, every single week you have a different group activity you have to do with the kids. Whether it’s STEM, art, circle time, gross motor, letters and numbers, regardless what it is, you get a set group and you plan for that” Madelyn mentions. “In Exploring Childhood, everybody is so friendly, the class is great. Working with the kids is so fun because you get hands-on experience with the children. All the kids have different personalities. It’s actually really fun to get to know every single kid throughout the year since they came in October and now it’s February. Having gone through all this time and seeing how they’ve changed and grown as kids and as people, honestly, even though it’s only been a little bit of time, the kids progress quickly. So seeing how much different things are then to now and how much more they show their true personality and actually being themselves around us, it’s really cool to see that”, Madelyn finishes off with.

If interested in the class as a freshman, make sure to contact your guidance counselor when the time for scheduling comes, and email Mrs. Godleski who is the teacher, for more information about the class and any questions or concerns!