KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A new learning trail in the urban core has been designed to provide hands-on discovery for kids in Kansas City Public Schools.
The Woodland Early Learning School has the first of five new trails designed to help young children develop important skills while they are outside. Teaching kids at an early age is crucial to helping them become successful adults. That’s why the United Way is partnering with the school district to create the learning trails.
Woodland Early Learning Center serves many Asian and Latino families who don’t speak English very well. So it’s important that this trail is designed to boost language and literacy skills. It gives parents an opportunity to do some interactive teaching with their children. There are age appropriate simple activities at each stop. Most of them are focused on early learning: Identifying shapes, letters and fun discoveries in the outdoor world.
The trail is designed to show young kids and their parents that learning doesn’t just take place in a school classroom.
“They’ll learn ABCs,” said Jo Ann Gann, United Way vice president of community education. “They’ll learn how to identify colors. They’ll learn how to play some hopscotch, how to pick out the flowers and what those flowers are once they get in bloom and get grown up here on the trail. They are also planning on planting some trees and shaded areas, so you know that little one who is just beginning to walk can enjoy the trail too with their folks.”
A donation from BMO Harris Bank is helping set up the learning trails at locations across Kansas City. In conjunction with the trail, there’s a new resource center inside the school, where parents and caregivers can receive training and use a lending library that has educational toys and books for young kids.
Until recently the location of this trail had been neglected: An old track and field site from when the school served older children. But now the green space has been transformed. And organizers hope that as trees and plants mature over time, a lot more learning also will take root.
