NEW ULM – The Washington Learning Center (WLC) now offers education for early childhood students to adult community members.

The building now houses preschool, kindergarten, community education classes and Little Kids Connection. Early childhood learners now have greater integration in their entire educational experience.

“It allows collaboration with the pre-school and the kindergarten so those transitions are worked on more consciously and they can work together on those things,” Principal Dawn Brown said. “We look forward to having collaboration with the two grade levels as we get further into the school year.”

The most noticeable additions is the Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE). It sits behind the school and consists of traditional playground equipment, like slides and swings, along with some special activity areas.

“Traditional playground equipment is very nice and we have some of that, but not all children need that when they go outside,” Brown said. “Some children need to be doing something else, so the sandbox is there, the wood, the building, the stage to be creative and theatrical, making music, doing artistic type things out there as we continue to add features.”

Also outside are the pollinator and vegetable gardens. These sit in front of the school and can teach students about how pollinators such as bees are an important piece of the food chain as well as how plants grow and bloom.

There are two new rooms for different types of lessons. The first is the SMART (Stimulating Maturity Through Accelerated Readiness Training) room.

The SMART room consists of a few different stations, ranging from small trampolines to monkey bars and crawling mats, where students use movement to help cognitive development.

The other room is the Purposeful Play room, which looks like the perfect play place for a group of little kids. The room contains various zones where students can play and learn social skills, including building (with real tools), art, a store and a sandbox.

The play room is designed to teach students problem solving skills, cooperation and build their self-worth.

There is also now a sensory resource room. This is a room with a few different types of stimuli for students to use when they cannot focus in class.

Essentially, by giving students a break to experience different stimuli, like a swing, they can get refocused on learning.

“If their body is physically not ready for a learning environment, they do not succeed in the classroom,” Brown said.

Washington will also have a new elevator in the entrance, once back-ordered parts are delivered. The school is expecting to receive the parts to be installed by mid October. As for now that entrance is currently out of order.

“I think the bottom line is, is that we have had a very dedicated teacher group that have done a lot of research and work into putting all of this together and offering these opportunities for children and making this a very special place to come,” Brown said.