Inspiring Young Children through Read for the Nation

Dozens of visitors flocked to the EVIT campus yesterday to participate in the national event, Read for the Nation. Pearson (a national media company) partnered with Mesa Head Start, along with other schools and libraries across the country, to set a new world record for the largest shared reading experience on a single day.


Students of Lisa Bradford's Early Childhood Education class, Chase Larson, Mountain View Senior and Skye Taylor, Skyline Senior were on hand to help these preschool students enjoy the children's classic, 'The Snowy Day.'

Read for the Nation was designed to help promote literacy among today's young learners.

Law students visit daycare

Once a year, the law enforcement class visits the daycare in the Early Childhood Education building.

On Wednesday, they went down to teach the kids about safety, introduce them to McGruff the Crime Dog, and set up stations for fingerprinting and temporary tattoos.


The kids even got to sit in a police car, which was a huge hit.


The balloons were pretty popular, too.


Law enforcement teacher Tony Garcia told me it's a positive way to introduce young kids to police officers (to five-year-olds, the high school students do look like real police officers).

When learning and pumpkins collide

Today was the annual Pumpkin Festival in Early Childhood Education!

Students set up a variety of "learning centers" for the kids, all of which focused on developmental skills -- but with a pumpkin twist.

The kids created pumpkin collages:


And played pumpkin Bingo:


I'll be honest -- I was tempted to paint my own picture of a pumpkin. But I knew mine wouldn't turn out as nicely as these: