Kids College gives youngsters higher education in fun

CSM programs teach offbeat lessons

Friday, July 4, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by GARY SMITH Above, Bob Gretton, also known as Bunky the Clown, helps Amita McDonald into an oversized overcoat for a clown skit involving a mock tug of war at the College of Southern Maryland’s Kids College program last month at the La Plata campus of the college. Other Clown College students are from left, Jessica Green, Jeffrey Phelps, Michael Greer and Daveena Parker. At left, Alexander Weston III, left, and Carly Arnold rehearse a clowning skit, where Alexander steps on Carly’s toes. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo

If you closed your eyes and didn’t peek, you could have imagined yourself far away from the La Plata campus, maybe in a jungle or rainforest somewhere.

Kids College is offered to Southern Maryland children from 5 to 10. Devin Holland, 9, of Waldorf is typical of the children who attend the programs.

‘‘I am taking four classes this week,” Devin said. ‘‘After creepy creatures, I go to Lego robotics fun, then I have the dinos and pharaohs class and I wrap the day up with tennis from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.”

Delvin picked the creepy creatures class because he is interested in all animals.

‘‘My favorite thing to do so far was collect the worms,” Delvin said. The class started their mini-semester by meeting Mary, the worm lady, and collected worms right outside the classroom door.

After the worm collection, the students created a habitat for them, so they could be observed tunneling. The importance of worms to gardeners was discussed, and the children were able to display their individual worm habitats on their desks.

‘‘I think the children are becoming attached to them,” said Lamb. The worms were returned to the outdoors after the conclusion of class last month.

During a discussion on skunks, the children learned that there are four varieties of skunk. The different species are the striped, spotted, hooded, and hog-nose skunks.

The children also learned that skunks have poor vision, and are not affected by snake venom.

Lamb asked the children to write down all they remembered about skunks.

‘‘How do you spell ugly?” asked Michael Greer, 9, of Nanjemoy.

Michael doesn’t really think skunks are ugly. In fact, he likes them so much, that this is the fourth time he has taken the creepy creatures class.

Brooke Chernek, 8, of Hughesville is one of the few girls in the creepy creatures class.

‘‘I see a lot of spiders where I live,” Brooke said. ‘‘I like spiders, because they are cool and they have eight legs. They aren’t insects, you know, they are arachnids.”

Brooke was able to snack on her favorite arachnids when the class made spider snacks, using Oreos for the body, pretzel sticks for the eight legs, and raisins for the eyes.

Lamb has had 20 years teaching elementary school at the fifth-grade level, but this was her first time teaching at Kids College.

‘‘I enjoy the way we get to be more hands-on in this class,” Lamb said. ‘‘When we collected the worms, the kids got so excited; you would think that they had never seen a worm before.”

Lamb gamely teaches the kids about skunks, owls, bats, worms, spiders, snakes, frogs and toads. She covers the slimy, the creepy, crawly and the hairy. And everyone has fun doing it.

From July 7 through 11, the Kids College is offering gardening for kids, career engineer, owl puke investigation, science⁄technology: ‘‘bet you can’t” and bridge design and construction.

For more information, contact John Terleski, program manager, at 301-934-7634.

Classes are offered on all three College of Southern Maryland campuses.