I love kids. So spending the afternoon at the YMCA pre-school and after school programs as a volunteer was a lot of fun for me. It would be difficult to find a staff of more understanding and kind-hearted people than those in the child care business.
My first stop was the preschool class headed by Christine Callea and teacher’s assistant Kim Martinson. YMCA Executive Director Jamey Mullen introduced me to the class as they were coloring rabbits pieced together by various basic shapes.
We went around the room and I greeted each child. The torturous anticipation of waiting to tell me their name was making some fiddle eagerly in their chairs, but when it was finally their turn, they’d look up, mind blank, then they’d just laugh and get embarrassed.
I sat for a while and admired the impulsive coloring of the pink, yellow and blue bunnies. Christine explained to me that the day was arranged so that much of the learning activities were held in the morning. These often included fun and educational lessons that help teach recognition of shapes, colors or letters, increase motor control along with several other rudimentary skills. The class is balanced between group projects and individual expression.
Most of the scholastic part of pre-school takes place in the a.m., so I got to play with the kids for most of the afternoon. Christine and I walked the class to the Kid’s Gym. This is an intricate system of tunnels, slides, bridges and padding. It’s the same idea as those gerbil cage attachments you can buy to create mazes and such, except on a larger scale designed for four-year-olds and Evening Sun reporters. What a wonderful place it was for a child’s imagination to explode.
I stared intently at Christine for a moment as the class scurried into the play area. “Uh, you can go play too, if you want,” she said, laughing at me. Without a second thought, I bolted to the entrance of fun and started to climb through the three-level, 25-foot high play area. I chased the kids around for about 10 minutes before we left.
If you ever get a chance to go into the kid’s gym, I recommend you try the red spiral slide. One slip through and you’re guaranteed to capture a lost childhood memory.
We came back from the gym and had a snack – vanilla pudding and gold fish crackers. After snack, Christine met with each child individually to talk about what they had done that day.
The next stop was the after school program, the second graders group, run by Jen and Tom. The entire program accommodates kindergartners through sixth graders, many of them from Norwich. The groups are then separated based on grade level.
The Y also has satellite programs set up in Oxford, Unadilla Valley, Smyrna and Bainbridge-Guilford. Youth and Family Director Bonnie Tiffany said everyone on staff is required to have child care training and background checks. The facility is state certified and regulated by specific guidelines, such as curriculum and staff-child ratio demands. Almost all of the staff I met had college backgrounds in education or were working on it.
So Jen, Tom and I marched the second graders to the big gym to play indoor soccer just after finishing their snack.
The entire time I’m talking to the staff, there is a constant barrage of interruptions and distractions from the kids. For example, on the way to the gym Tom explained the kids like to play the “blue game.” Some floor tiles in the Y’s halls are shaded blue and when the kids were walking down to the gym, they would attempt to leap from one blue tile to the next. As you might imagine, this can create havoc in maintaining line order and hall safety.
We got to the gym and played indoor soccer. “We usually play with them and help the side that needs it. Enter at your own risk though, they can be a little rough,” Jen warned me.
We watched the class run basically non-stop for about half an hour and at that mark it was time for me to go to my last class of the day, the after school kindergartner group in the fitness room. I thanked Tom and Jen and joined Erin and Kate.
The game in the fitness room was basically indoor playground with the three of us trying to survive the constant barrage of 5-year-old “play with me” demands. In this room I played ball, ran for my life, played tag and did just about every other thing one does when playing with children.
Both Erin and Kate were pros at child interaction and the kids loved them to death. They played and regulated the chaos like maestros conducting a concert.
I asked everyone I met why they worked at the YMCA and all of them pretty much said what Erin said the best:
“It’s pretty much goes for just about everyone working here – I just like kids. The program also works out well with my schedule and it is a lot of fun, but you wouldn’t last a day here if you didn’t love kids.”