MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — When you think about early childhood education, an engineering program may not be the first thing that comes to mind.
The Learning Experience, an early education school with five locations in Wisconsin, is trying to change that.
Paige Lehr-Bogan is the executive director of the Menomonee Falls location. She said the school offers many special enrichment programs for its kids.
She said one of the programs the students work on is called “Little Engineers.”
Lehr-Bogan said the engineering curriculum encourages creativity and perseverance in its preschoolers.
“We are introducing them to the world of engineering because we know that that’s one of the biggest areas as they are getting older and choosing what occupations they would be interested in that they might get an opportunity and find that interest just from being here in our preschool class,” said Lehr-Bogan.
Dean Archer Grooms is a preschool student at The Learning Experience. He said he enjoys learning engineering concepts.
“If I get smarter and smarter, I might know how to build stuff like a construction worker,” said Grooms.
Grooms said the program is fun, but he has a special suggestion.
“If my school actually had dinosaur toys, I would have been more happier,” said Grooms.
Bertha Pena is Groom’s teacher. She said his suggestion is a good one. She said engineering fundamentals build confidence in kids.
“It builds their confidence because they get to build different things with the engineering kits, they get to explore different ways of putting things together and taking things apart and it helps their confidence because they build things they maybe thought they could never build,” said Pena.
For Grooms, that’s using the skills he’s learning in class to plan for his dinosaur exhibit.
“I wish that I could see them floating, some dinosaur models. The raptors are going to have to go over there, T. rex go over there on the white wall, and over there means there’s stegosaurus,” said Grooms.