April Crow, Curriculum Coach at the St. Joe's Child Development Center, has a treasure trove of fun ideas, including making homemade Play-Doh, creating a super cool volcano, or crafting a paper hat.
April Crow, Curriculum Coach at the St. Joe’s Child Development Center, has a treasure trove of fun ideas, including making homemade Play-Doh, creating a super cool volcano, or crafting a paper hat.
The self-described quick thinker and idea person says the art of working with children lies in tapping into your whimsical side. “I am very childlike but not childish. I don’t have any children of my own, but I’m still young at heart, still very playful, still want to play games, and do puppet shows with my friends.” It’s all part of the weird silliness April says is the basis for her fun and engaging activities with the kids.
Describe your job For the curriculum coaching, I coach people on what is age appropriate, and what materials we can use that we already have so that we don’t have to purchase something every time. I coach people on how to write lesson plans that are aligned with the Kentucky Early Childhood standards. For the enrichment piece, I’m like the gym and art teacher.
Tell us more about why weird silliness is needed in this job? You have to just have that kind of personality. There are people that want to work with kids, and they care about children and their well-being, but they won’t sing a song. I’ll play songs of all genres that have lyrics connected with what we’re doing. I play “Rolling on the River” by Tina Turner when we do rolling activities. I love collecting puppets and began bringing them to class for the kids to play with. We sing songs with the puppets…the 2-year-olds sometimes are afraid of the wolf I have. They think it’s real. They’ll listen to him, talk to him, grab his eyeballs…that’s getting them to laugh.
What would you say is the biggest highlight of being a teacher here? It’s the freedom in my work, because I can create the way I think it needs to be through my research and my knowledge and my experience. April Manning, CDC Director, has given me that freedom, and over time, she has trusted me enough to just do what needs to be done.
When do your best ideas come to you? They come through triggers. If a teacher comes to me and says, ‘I want to do this,’ then I’ve got the perfect thing for it. My brain is a file for almost anything.
What makes the Child Development Center stand out? We have so much diversity in staff, and I think that’s really important. The kids see people of color. We have people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. We have men, women, and people of all ages, and an employee who wears a mohawk.
What is the cutest moment you’ve shared with a child? I have a couple: I love when they call me mom. I tell them, ‘I’m not your mommy. I’m your school mommy.’ The other is when a child has thrown such a big fit and falls asleep on you. We have to remember that it’s not that they are giving us a hard time. They are having a hard time. These kids don’t have a frontal lobe yet. They can’t control their emotions, and when they’re throwing huge fits, we simply say: ‘I notice that you’re so angry, and I see you and I know it’s hard. I’m not mad at you. Would you like a hug? And when they do, they melt on you and they cry. Those are really sweet moments.
Interested in learning more about our Child Development Center? Contact April Manning, CDC Director at AprilM@sjkid.org.
This post was supported by funds made available by the Kentucky Department for Public Health’s Office of Health Equity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for STLT Public Health Infrastructure and Workforce, under RFA-OT21-2103. The content of this post are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of or endorsement by the Kentucky Department for Public Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.