ZooMobile visits Lansing PreKindergarten students on February 27 thanks to grant from Lansing Educational Foundation
Lansing Early Childhood students were able to experience nature indoors on Thursday, February 28, thanks to a grant from Lansing Educational Foundation. The Kansas City Zoomobile visited the school that morning and taught the children about how different animals are able to keep warm and stay fed in the cold winter months. Zoomobile educators started the presentation by reading The Mitten by Jan Brett, which is a cute story about how animals find a mitten in the woods and use it to stay warm. The students were then able to visit various stations set up around the room that allowed them to have hands-experiences with building different habitats, feeling animal pelts, making tracks in the snow, and collecting food. Zoomobile also brought a few animal friends with them and allowed the students to get an up close view of them.
The visit was made possible through a grant by the Lansing Educational Foundation written by Early Childhood Special Education teacher Cindy Willis and Early Childhood Speech Language Pathologist Robin Siemsen. The grant, titled "Bringing Big Day Pre-K Alive" was approved for over $1,000 and focuses on "big experiences" for the early childhood children. These experiences include several "in house" field trips from the following:
- KC Zoomobile - Zoo educators and animal ambassadors will come give the students a hands on experience of how our five senses compare to different animals.
- Mad Science of Greater Kansas City - The Bugs, Habitats, and Hives, OH MY! presentation teaches students what makes a bug an insect, where they live, and how they protect themselves from predators.
- Kansas City Young Audiences - This workshop introduces preschool students to listening and pre-writing skills, while sparking their imagination as they create and recite their own nursery rhymes.
- Stone Lion Puppet Theatre - Puppet show for preschoolers with an environmental twist