Lee's Summit West Partners with Great Beginnings Early Childhood Center

Starting in November, once a week for six weeks six groups of 10 students from Ms. Black’s Early Child Development Class (ECDC), at Lee’s Summit West High School (LSW), have been teaching P.E. and art classes to roughly 50 students from Great Beginnings Early Education Center (GB).

Last spring, Ms. Campbell and Ms. Jones (both teachers at GB) brainstormed the possibility  of the ECDC students  and students from GB working together . The idea soon went to Ms. Black, Mr. Sessler (Career Navigator of Special Education), Ms. Cook (Principal at GB), and Ms. Mitchell (Assistant Principal at GB). The idea was met with great enthusiasm and passion. After some meetings on logistics the plan was put into action. 

The result has been a beautiful symbiotic relationship between the two schools. The students from LSW would normally be working with toddlers, “Titan Tots”, to gain experience working with younger people. In addition to working with Titan Tots, each week groups of 10 students would plan lessons, guided by Ms. Black,  to promote learning directed at the skill level of the GB students. The group of 10 would then take a bus to GB, facilitate the lessons for 2 hours, and then take the bus back to LSW. On multiple occasions the students from LSW reflected on the bus ride home saying how great it was to be able to work with students from GB. They would also comment on how much they learned, how much fun they had,  and their new appreciation for the teachers at GB. The students from GB got to be taught by new people, draw pictures, play with Playdoh, get stories read to them, play games, and make new friends. 

There was a lot of work that went into making these experiences happen for all the students who participated. A thank you goes out to all the people who helped plan it and get it going. A huge thank you goes out to the teachers, Ms. Black and all the teachers at GB, who continuously went above and beyond, through the trial and error of the process, to provide a one of a kind learning opportunity for the students at LSR7.