MURFREESBORO,
Tenn. — Please excuse the rambunctious youngsters of MTSU’s Ann Campbell Early
Learning Center on Monday. They may have a hard time remembering how to
take turns getting out the door to play.
They’ve been watching through the windows of the
North Baird Lane facility for nearly a year while designers, construction
crews, landscapers and their teachers turned their old playground into a
natural playscape accessible to each of the preschoolers.
The new inclusive playground, which now stretches
over into what was part of the center’s parking lot, will officially open today, Aug. 4, with a special 5:30 p.m.
ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome family, friends, donors and other guests to
join the fun.
“It's been so exciting to see their little faces
light up and to see the excitement on their faces,” says center director Christy Davis. “They’d be standing at
the window, leaning over and pointing, talking about what was going on.
“We also were fortunate enough to work with the Tennessee Agriculture in the Classroom
program, and we partnered with ‘Cowboy
Dan’ (Harrell), who showed us
how to plant in our new garden boxes while we were building. We're going to
have an opportunity to eat food that we grow right here at ACE. We’re growing
cherry tomatoes, okra, corn, pole beans, green peppers, chives, squash and basil.”
The fun will be year-round with those planting
boxes, grassy play areas, slides, a custom playhouse, a wooden “theater”
complete with child-sized stump seating, a corrugated tunnel under a hill with
willow-arbor entrances, musical instruments, places to paint, a water table,
chalkboard frames along the fence to decorate, and even a kid-sized vehicular
tribute to the traffic roundabouts — and parking spots — across campus.
“You’re so overwhelmed and impressed by it that you
hardly know where to look first,” parents Kyle
and Katie Mullicane say. Their
daughter, almost-4-year-old Harper,
has been a student at the ACE Center since she was about 18 months old.
“I think it’s safe to say that it’s exceeded
everyone’s expectations, greatly exceeded them,” Kyle Mullicane adds. “That
they were just given a blank canvas for their imagination and executed it like
that — it’s incredible. I don't know that I've ever seen a playground like it
anywhere, much less in a program for kids that age.”
MTSU’s
ACE Learning Center serves children from age 13 months to kindergarten,
allowing them to play together and learn from each other. Teachers
at the center plan activities that help each child, with and without developmental
delays, learn good communication, social, cognitive and motor skills.
Similarly inclusive preschools are scattered across
the state today, but MTSU’s was the first in 1983 — three years before federal
law required services for very young children with developmental delays —
thanks to founder and education professor Ann
Campbell.
She created what was then called “Project Help” to
provide a classroom environment for preschool children with special needs and a
training ground for students majoring in early childhood education.
There are a handful of publicly accessible and
inclusive playgrounds in Tennessee, but the closest are Clarksville’s Heritage
Park, Cookeville’s Heart of the City Playground and the Roll Around the Park
playground in White House. Davis and project manager/ACE parent Amanda Witt visited one for ideas and
came back with plenty to try, and modify, at the MTSU site.
“When I give parent tours, one of the most
frequently asked questions is ‘How long do they stay outside?’ And I say ‘Well,
it's going to be twofold. Right now, we don't stay outside as long. It’s really
up to the teachers because we've been sharing this one playground,’” Davis
says.
“However! When we are outside with this new
playscape, the sky’s the limit. And I want all my teachers to stay out there
and enjoy it. As long as all those babies are having fun, it's all about having fun. Enjoy. Live it up.
We know that they're learning and they're growing when they're having fun.”
Kyle Mullicane admits that the new playground
opening will be a bit bittersweet for Harper, since she’s moving up into the
“Yellow Room” for 4-year-olds at the center’s Fairview Building satellite
facility across campus and will only be able to visit on Fridays with her
friends.
“Just putting her in this environment (at the ACE
Center) and seeing her growth, the way she interacts with the world, it’s been
changing in leaps and bounds,” he says. “Even with very young children, where
you don't realize how much they understand and learn because they can't yet
tell you, even the 14-month-olds in there are going to benefit from all of it,
including the playground.
“That’s what’s so great about early childhood
education: they don't know they're
learning. They're just learning every moment of their existence.”
For more information about the Ann Campbell Early
Learning Center and its work, visit http://www.mtsu.edu/acelearningcenter
or check its Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/AnnCampbellEarlyLearningCenter.
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