1983-04-08

              April 8, 1983/5

CSB's Rainbow Connection

Jonelle Schulte plays a trust game with Rainbow House children.

by Teresa Ryan

St. Joseph prides itself on its excellent academic traditions. But most people think only of the 18-to 22-year-olds attending the College of St. Benedict, not knowing that this academic tradition actually begins with 3- to 5-year-olds at the Children's Rainbow House.

Just a short walk from the CSB campus you can find the Rainbow House, a daycare center that also serves as a lab school for CSB early education majors. The house is run by Mary Ness and staffed by an average of six students doing their semester-long student teaching.

The emphasis of the house is on the maintenance and strengthening of the parent/child relationship. To help reach this goal the parents and the staff are in close communication. The Rainbow House also offers an average of three events per semester designed to help improve their parenting skills, such as workshops, sing-a-longs, picnics and mother/child, father/child nights. "We stress that children are an important function of the family," Ness said.

The house itself is cheerfully decorated with brightly colored carpeting and curtains. On the walls, pictures made by the children hang alongside posters of their favorite nursery-rhyme characters and a train made of letters of the alphabet. Most of the furniture is child-sized: low, plastic and every color of the rainbow.

All of the rooms in the house, which once was a single-family dwelling, have a name and a theme. Each of these rooms has specifically designed activities to develop certain functions.

The numbers room is primarily used for activities which develop

small motor skills. These activities also serve to increase attention span and language skills and develop patience and persistence, fine muscles in hands and fingers, eye/hand coordination, perceptual skills and creativity.

The story/Montessori room is used for creative games allowing kids to explore adult roles and to develop appreciation for others. Through these activities they are able to express their natural curiosity.

Recently the room was converted into a post office for a day. They set up a mail window and the children took turns being postmaster while the others sent mail to each other. "We were getting ready for a field trip to the post office to mail the valentines the kids made for their parents," said Susan Bohannon, senior family studies and early childhood development major. "We take one field trip a month. Before we go we prepare them for it, usually through imaginative play."

The large muscle room is used to develop the coordination of the large muscles and develop balancing skills. A jungle-gym for climbing, stairs for jumping up and down, all sizes of balls and other toys are available for the kids' use in this area. The activities help to develop eye/ hand coordination and creative expression of roles.

In the science and art rooms, the children's activities help to develop their curiosity and let them express their feelings and imaginations through drawings and other activities. The science room has an aquarium with large goldfish. By helping their instructors care for the fish the children learn about nature, growth and change.

The Rainbow House works

with the local school system in developing their teaching state-gics to help make the children's eventual entry into kindergarten easy.

"We deal with the total child, not just the pre-academic skills," Ness said. "We don't really stress reading and writing at this point; we're more concerned with giving the children enrichment experiences and developing positive feelings toward school. We really stress the social skills, such as saying 'please' and 'thank you' and learning to take turns. For example, during snacktime we wait until everyone is seated before we pour the juice."

CSB is one of only two colleges in Minnesota which offer an early education degree. The program, which began in 1975, is part of the home and community service department. Ness, who has been director of the house since 1977, said the house was started with a five-year grant in 1975. When the grant ended the college felt a commitment to continue providing the service to the community and the students and took over the financial support of the house.

There are two sessions at the Rainbow House each year following the college's semester schedule. The kids are divided into two groups of 20 and meet every other day from 9:30 to noon. Ness said that the popularity of the house has increased so much that there is already a waiting list for next year.

'The Rainbow House is a great asset for the early education program and the college," said Chrysees Lucking, senior early education major. "It's a good, thorough program. We take classes from all of the sections of the home and community service department: nutrition, health, early childhood development, family studies, and our student teaching. The student teaching is a great experience for both us and the kids since they're being exposed to the learning process at an early age and we're exposed to the teaching process."

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Lentz, from p. 1

crude facilities and the rest of the time they just went off into the trees. Here's the clincher: you can't use toilet paper! So what do you use? You make a snow cube! After she told me this, Deb smiled, shrugged, and said, "You get used to a lot of things up there."

The last five days were spent at a wilderness homestead finishing journals, repairing skis, stacking wood, learning to weave with reeds and work with clay, ski-jouring (person on skis pulled by a sled dog), and taking advantage of the sauna — followed by a dip in the lake, of course!!!

Deb expressed great admiration for their leaders. "They had so many stories to tell; they were just filled with knowl-

edge." She remembers Susan telling some of the students that the leaders wanted to try to get the students to take on as much of the leadership as they could. Discussions in the evenings and during the one blizzard are another aspect of the trip that Deb enjoyed. The topics included things such as the past day's trip and the four books that they were required to read. One dealt with weather, another with astronomy, and one called Paradise Below Zero, and one selection from a list of books.

This experience is one that Deb will carry with her for a long time to come. As she put it, " It was a challenge in the beginning to see if I could do it." The sense of personal satisfaction that becomes evident when Deb talks about her winter camping experience makes it obvious that she was able to meet this challenge.

Project, from p. 1

world. "I see things through a child's eyes when I'm with my 'sister'," said Radecki. Valeri Lehn, CSB sophomore, finds that time spent with her little friend restores that "homey feeling" she misses living away from her own younger sisters.

"Project Friends" allows the kaleidoscope of a child's world and a student's world to turn in unison, introducing the child to a world in their future and reminding the student of a phase now past. Students interested in the program are encouraged to attend the VISTO fair held in the fall. Further information regarding "Project Friends" can be directed to Linda Radecki.

SJU's Tom Mulvahill treats his "little brother" to a piggyback ride.

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