Written by Gabriella Vigorito |
Pictures by Mrs. Nunan

Consumer Science Teacher Joanne Nunan has two Child Development classes this semester. Students in grades 9-12 learn about childrens’ behaviors before and after birth. About halfway through the quarter, the classes run a preschool that has 15 sessions. The kids are between the ages of 3 and 5, and there are usually 12-15 children.

Students’ grades are determined by how involved they are in helping the children.  Mrs. Nunan analyzes how well students work and interact with the children. Students are also graded on their lesson plans. All students pair up and are assigned a day to teach the little kids. They create a lesson plan of their own for the kids to follow. Lesson plans must include a craft, snack, story, circle time activity, and overall lesson for the children. This must be age appropriate for all the preschoolers, even if some children are more advanced than others. The students need to have an overall theme. This might depend on the date of the lesson. For example, if a lesson is on December 20th, the students might base their lesson on snowmen, reindeer, and all fun activities included in December.

Through this program, students learn how to care for a child. This prepares them for the real world and the future. Also students learn about some of the difficulties and challenges when it comes to raising a child. This concept has been going on at Morgan for over 30 years. It was already here when Mrs. Nunan took over the Child Development position, but she was free to decide how she wanted to run it. She came up with the idea of having students make a lesson plan because she thought it would benefit all the students, especially the ones who want to pursue a career in teaching.

There are lots of fun activities that the preschoolers love to do. Every year near Halloween the students plan trick-or-treating for the preschoolers. Most of the children are not familiar with the concept. Therefore, the children wear their Halloween costumes and trick-or-treat throughout the halls of Morgan. Each Child Development student takes the hand of a child, and together they go from classroom to classroom knocking and saying ‘trick-or-treat!’ Teachers give the children some candy. This is so much fun for the children and the students in the classes at Morgan. Since Halloween was on Saturday, October 31st, this year Morgan’s preschool trick or treat took place on Friday October 30th.

This Child Development preschool program prepares the children for kindergarten. They have the opportunity to interact and with other children their age. This semester there are  8-10 preschoolers.  There is still available space in the preschool. If you have a 3 to 5 year old or know someone who does, contact Consumer Science and Child Development Teacher Joanne Nunan ([email protected] ).