Sounds of children fill the air. The excitement they give off fills the room with happiness. Toys and papers artfully cover the floor as the children ditch what they were doing in light of story time. This is what goes on in the Bulldog Preschool. Some people might not even notice it’s there, or maybe avoid it in fear of kids. However the high school students working and learning there find it a blast.

“I love working in the Pre-school because I just love seeing the kids everyday,” sophomore Jorden McBride said. “I love teaching them new things and it’s just exciting to see their faces, happy and excited.”

The program is taught by Family and Consumer Science teacher Jamie Cantrell. She enjoys seeing not only the kids having fun, but also the high school students teaching it as well.

“Instead of them learning about young children ages three through five in a textbook, they can learn about it here,” Cantrell said. “So you’ll notice the girls with notebooks are doing observing. They sit down and take notes over social, emotional, and physical development all semester over one kid, and then they write a case study over that kid’s developmental state to Missouri’s standards. So they are learning what the kids would do.”

One of the groups observing took detailed notes of the children’s behavior. Sophomore Jordan Mumma observed how the preschoolers reacted physically, intellectually, socially, and emotionally.

“We pick one of the kids and we just write down whatever they do in different situations. For intense I wrote down in the emotional category that they child was mad because people were talking during circle time. And in intellectual if he knows the answer to a question we write down that he was able to remember,” Mumma said.

The high school students teach the kids new things everyday.

“So usually we have a different subject each week so we don’t get the same subject each week,” Lindsey Moore said. “We teach them different terms, for instance in science we teach them words like density.”

However the pre-school kids are not the only ones learning. The high school students are learning a lot of life lessons.

“You learn responsibility because you have to have everything done by a certain date and it’s harder than you actually think it is.” Shelby French said. “And you have to be responsible for all the stuff that you have to bring in for the kids. When you teach them you are responsible for how they learn,” French said.

Being a good preschool teacher requires patience, flexibility, and a personality that allows a student to have fun with the students while giving them valuable social and academic skills.

“If you can’t let yourself go and be a goof ball, then it’s really not worth it. You’ll just be a stick in the mud and your grade won’t be good and the kids won’t enjoy their learning. They are fun kids and you have to be able to act out with them,” French said.