Little Learning Lab for pre-K children in full swing

November 27, 2024 by Ben Pounds

With Little Learning Lab up and running, pre-kindergarten children are staying and playing there.

“We’ve come so far and all the children are happy to be here, happy to learn,” said Brittany Webb, the Little Learning Lab’s director.

The Little Learning Lab describes its focus as working with The Creative Curriculum teaching strategies as well as the Conscious Discipline strategy to help children learn “the social-emotional and communication skills necessary to manage themselves, resolve conflict, prevent bullying and develop pro-social behaviors,” the Little Learning Lab’s website states.

The pre-kindergarten daycare program has eight classrooms and two outdoor play areas at 1009 Commerce Park Drive.

“We really designed this building to function for our needs,” said Webb, pointing to distinct features like 22 sinks due to the need for children to wash their hands often.

First are two infant rooms function as nurseries with cribs.

Next is the are the rooms for children who’ve lived 12 to 24 months. These children begin to start a schedule and to learn the conscious discipline and creative curriculum. On the day of the interview children were cutting paper with scissors. Every classroom above the infant level has a sensory table, Webb said, with some kind of item with which to play, such as in the case of the interview day, sand.

Two year old children play with things like costumes and magnets. The rooms for them have a display focusing in on the school’s Conscious Discipline program centered around helping children learn about their emotions and techniques for calming themselves. Webb said children ages two and up have specific chores to perform to help their class.

The conscious discipline system advances for the three and four-year-olds as those children also learn how to express how they feel. She said at that grade children got stuffed bears to take home with them.

Finally, pre-Kindergarten students, age three and four make crafts with paper, glue and googly eyes and play with toy cars among other activities.

The program is a partnership between Emory Valley Center and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and works with children of laboratory employees. However, it is open for all children from a few weeks old to those about to start kindergarten. The lab prioritizes children with developmental disabilities.

There are two playgrounds. One for children over two features tricycles and an area to ride them a slide, a sandbox with toy fossils, hula hoops, jump ropes and sidewalk chalk. The younger kids’ playground is more focused on swings but also has “balls and blocks and books and bubbles,” Webb said.

The majority of children at the facility have parents who work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory while others’ parents work at Y-12 National Security Complex, other Commerce Park Drive businesses or other area employers. ORNL’s Women’s Alliance Council donated books for the Little Learning Lab, including many on the subject of science.

Due in part to the diversity of people who work at the ORNL, children at Little Learning Lab speak 11 different languages, Webb said.

Webb said there was a huge need for childcare in Oak Ridge after Oak Ridge Nursery School on Robertsville Road closed. Public HeadStart preschool programs exist in Oak Ridge and Anderson County. However, Webb said it’s difficult to get into those programs if they don’t fit the income or special needs requirements. She also said home daycare programs weren’t licensed like the Little Learning Lab is.

She said her favorite activity was one in which children took pictures with an iPad to illustrate their own story.

To learn more or to apply children for the program go to littlelearninglab.org.