When Jeni Hoover meets someone and says she works with children at Kendal at Oberlin she often hears this reply – “what are you doing with kids at Kendal?”
“I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard that,” says Jeni, who has been director of the Kendal Early Learning Center (KELC) for 15 years.Yes, even though the Early Learning Center has been up and running at the life plan community for more than 30 years , the preschool is still a best-kept secret in and around Lorain County. KELC is located in Kendal’s main building, in one large room that can serve up to 30 children and has a 10:1 student/staff ratio (compared to the state’s 12:1).
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KELC preschoolers do not keep track of their good deeds by putting stickers on a “sticker chart.” Instead, they maintain a “celebration board” in which they can list their achievements, such as “I learned to ride a bike without trainer wheels,” or those of classmates, friends, staff, parents, or grandfriends (typically Kendal residents) when they are helpful to others in the classroom.
For instance, when the preschoolers looked out the window recently and saw resident Nick Long watering the garden, one of them exclaimed “Let’s put him on the celebration board.”
The center also does not have a spot for time outs. Instead, the center has a “safe place,” where a child can voluntarily go when he or she needs time to calm down or process big feelings. They teach the staff and children the steps to work through their big feelings and they practice these skills when they are in the safe place.
And when a classmate calls someone a name or says something mean-spirited, the injured child is empowered to express his or her feelings, such as “I don’t like you calling me..., My name is…” rather than the teacher stepping in to solve the problem for the child
Sometime residents come into the classroom to read a book or work on a project and the preschoolers visit the Stephens Care Center for cooking and other activities. Children and their families often participate in special events, such as Kendal’s upcoming Fourth of July parade.
Kendal at Oberlin offers an active lifestyle with opportunities for lifelong learning, art and culture.
About Kendal at Oberlin: Kendal is a nonprofit life plan community serving older adults in northeast Ohio. Located about one mile from Oberlin College and Conservatory, and about a 40 minute drive from downtown Cleveland, Kendal offers a vibrant resident-led lifestyle with access to music, art and lifelong learning.