The SPOT Children's Museum

This summer we had the pleasure of experiencing the SPOT Children's Museum Field Trips with both Preschoolers and our young Summer Campers. The SPOT is a new museum for exploration and experimentation with art for our young Prescottonians. The YMCA kids had a blast making collages and playing with all of the magical manipulatives at the SPOT! Located at the Gateway Mall in Prescott, this is a convenient and economical way to spend the afternoon with your kids too.

Quality First Funding at Work in our Preschool

Did you know that the Prescott YMCA Early Childhood Center (Preschool) is participating in Quality First?

Quality First is a statewide system created by the Arizona Early Childhood Development & Health Board, knows as First Things First. Quality First is designed to increase access for Arizona families to quality early childhood developmental and educational programs. Through financial grants, academic scholarships for Child Care Staff and individualized coaching, our Preschool is receiving wonderful support…and it shows!

In the upcoming weeks you will notice new material (rubberized mulch in addition to sand) on the Preschool Playground area to improve the safety for the little ones playing. We are excited to be receiving the funding from Quality First to enable us to execute this project. Later in the year new furnishings, dramatic play items and learning tools will also be purchased using our grant monies. In addition to these visible changes in our Early Childhood Center, there are “invisible” improvements too in the way of additional training for our staff in the areas of allergies and sun safety, courtesy of our Child Care Health Consultant as well as topics such as supervision, maximizing classroom arrangements and incorporating Arizona’s Early Learning Standards.

Our Preschool is AZ State Licensed and DES Approved and currently accepting children ages 2-5, that are non-diapered, to join our active, dynamic program.

Volcano Project

In May of 2010 the After School group worked on a special Volcano Project. They designed, constructed and engineered a functional volcano made of pvc pipe, paper mache and a wooden base. Candy and soda were the secret ingredients for the eruption, but the mechanism had to allow for distance between the volcano and the person(s) releasing the candy / soda mixture. The video is attached of the eruption and below are the credits for those responsible for this project, which we hope to duplicate again in the 2010-2011 school year. The kids (and parents, leaders, etc.) talked about it for weeks following. It was a blast! (pun intended).


Lead by: Mr. Josh
Eruption Crew: Max F. Dalila G.Caleb M. Brianna B.
Eruption Design: Max F.
Eruption Assembly Crew: Max F. Olivia B. Brianna B. Chris S.
Volcano Crew: Shelby D. Max F. Dakotah L. Zeke A. Skylar A. Madison L. Jewell A. Ashley V. Taylor H. Caleb M. Brianna B. Dalila G.

Summer at the YMCA = busy days for Child Care!

So, if you are a follower of this relatively new blog, you may have noticed a lack of recent postings for the last several months. My explanation boils down to one word: SUMMER. Summer is a busy time around the YMCA. With the kids being out of school, we are the place to be for young and old. This year, with the addition of several new programs such as Adventure C.O.R.P., Snack Shack, and Enrichment Camps the summer was busier than usual. We are happy to provide exciting opportunities for the kids here in the Quad-City area. Field trips were another point of success for our Child Care Programs. We are extremely grateful to the community agencies and businesses that contributed to our summer programs.

I will attempt to highlight many of our summer happenings at the YMCA. Better late than never, as they say. The pictures alone are worth a thousand words. I am sure you will agree.

Dramatic Play, Painting and Show and Tell

Dramatic Play (i.e. dressing up, pretending and acting out real life situations) is very important for the development of children. At the YMCA we try to offer various levels of dramatic play opportunities that are age appropriate and long enough in duration to satiate these needs for the kids. Boys and girls alike enjoy dressing up and playing "house" or "teacher" and sometimes more unique fantastical situations are created by their imaginations as well.

Painting is an obvious choice of activities for children and adults alike. For our preschoolers it allows them to practice fine motor skills, express creativity and experiment with color combining (blue and red make purple!), etc.

Show and Tell, which is done at the Preschool on Fridays, is a wonderful way for children to develop verbal skills and confidence speaking in front of a group. Are you fearful to address large crowds? Perhaps you did not have enough opportunities for success when speaking to groups as a child. Practice, practice, practice in a safe environment makes for a less stressful experience as an adult.

Look at our Garden Grow

In an effort to give kids the chance to learn about how our food grows, we have started incorporating a children's garden in to our ongoing curriculum and experiences here in our YMCA Child Care Programs.

One of their first steps was to release some worms in the ground. Ms. Sara explained how the worms would help by making "air tunnels" in the dirt and also that their droppings would fertilize our young plants. The kids sure found that last bit entertaining...and talked about it at length for the rest of the day. The children had made pinecone bird feeders made of pinecones rolled in peanut butter and dipped in bird seed the week prior. They hung them with care to attract the birds to our garden area also. The finches flocked there for a couple of weeks until the bird seed was all eaten up. They were fun to watch from the playground.

These photos show of some of our Pre-K classes planting seedlings that they started indoors in the early spring. They were planted in early May and now surely look different! Stay tuned for photos upcoming of the current state of our wonderful Children's Garden.

Preschool Graduation and Open House

Once a year we like to take the opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of even our littlest scholars. The Prescott YMCA Preschool holds an annual "Graduation" where parents and family members come and celebrate the growth in the children over the last academic year. This year, our School Age Director, Alicia and Group Leader, Josh learned to play Pomp and Circumstance to add some special bits of ceremony to our event. It was wonderful.

Following the Graduation event, we held and Open House for all of the soon-to-be Kindergarteners and their families in the School Age Building. All of the School Age kids and their families were also invited. Jessica, a group leader barbequed, we had a celebratory cake, and other snacks contributed by parents as well. The School Age children were awarded merit badges based on their improvements throughout the school year. The group leaders also provided fun with water baloon toss and other games to keep the kids smiling.

Although the Open House was an inaguaral event, we will surely include it in the future. The families seemed to really enjoy the festivities. Stay tuned for the date next year, in early May.