It was almost like a tiny world was on display at Cooper Head Start Center on Friday as several small-scale structures made by the pre-K students were on display as part of the “Cooper building study.”
The projects were a culmination of six weeks of hard work by both the pre-K students and their parents.
“All of this stuff is to encourage parents to become a part of their children’s learning experiences,” Cooper Head Start lead teacher Gwendolyn Martin said. “What the kids and their parents did is they took part in making projects for display to show what they understood about buildings. It’s part of our creative curriculum teaching strategies.”
The buildings ranged from churches, hospitals, car garages, a Walmart, houses and more. Both children and their parents used their creativity to construct the structures out of cardboard, wooden sticks, construction paper and many other materials.
Three-year-old Lillian Davis was beaming with pride as she showed off her small-scale church modeled after Calvary Baptist Church in Dadeville. Her project included a model of the sanctuary, a parking lot with toy cars, shrubs and bushes at the entrance of the church and more.
Clarence-Aeddien Cotton, another Head Start student, built a small-scale garage called “CJ’s One Stop Tow & Shop” where he painted and glued buses and people and even attached a light that turned on and off inside the garage as an added touch.
“I like cars and trucks so that’s why I chose the garage,” Cotton said.
Another student eager to talk about his project was Daniel Flores, who constructed a church modeled after St. John the Apostle Catholic Church that was painted blue with a red brick roof. He also added crosses and bells and placed a swimming pool on the side of the church to complete the details.
This was the first time the Cooper Head Start Center implemented this type of study as Martin said the parent-child activity was a take-home project.
“We did this building study in preparation for life and their surroundings and the types of buildings they’ve been in,” Martin said. “It could be any type of building they wanted or their favorite building. They could be as creative as they wanted to be.”