GRAND JUNCTION — In the deep shade of a thicket of trees, a cluster of youngsters huddle around a pile of seeds — una pila de semillas — that they have scooped up and patted into a circle with tiny, dirty hands. They are leaving this offering as a snack for squirrels and rabbits.
The kids, who are part of a dual-language preschool program called AmiGOs, have already raced around the lines of gnarled trunks howling like wolves and showering each other with dried leaves they have crushed in their hands and tossed confetti-like into the thin shafts of sunlight that cut through the sycamores and maples.
They have chased grasshoppers and collected sticks.
This “forest” where they are experiencing the magic and interconnectedness of nature is actually a collection of curated trees grown and monitored by Colorado State University silviculturists at the Western Colorado Research Center on East Orchard Mesa, an extension of CSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
This tree experiment does double duty as a recess site for kids who have spilled out of a colorfully refurbished 2003 Ford van parked nearby. The AmiGOs van serves as a mobile classroom for 3- to 5-year-olds who attend prekindergarten sessions here two days a week.
For two years, kids have been coming here to practice “how to do school” in Spanish and English. While they learn how to form lines, follow directions, share, and get a handle on numbers and letters, farm vehicles roll past the van’s windows as scientists tend to the nearby vegetable plots, grape vines and fruit trees.
This blend of science and experiential learning was created to give youngsters a boost before they enter school. The heavy emphasis on parental involvement in AmiGOs is also designed to show parents how to better support the education of their kids.
Spanish Programs Coordinator Gilberto Ramirez, left, grins as he listens to 3-year-old Quinn Lawson of Clifton recite the letters of the alphabet as he points to each of them above the window inside of the mobile preschool. (Gretel Daugherty, Special to The Colorado Sun)The grant and donation funded AmiGOs program is the only activity its kind hosted by the dozen CSU extension research centers in Colorado, according to Amanda McQuade, the programs manager for the CSU Research Center.
But it’s not just the youngest learners in the midst of the Grand Valley’s prolific orchards and vineyards who get the benefit of exposure to what CSU describes as “agricultural literacy.”
More than 1,000 youths come here each year — from the little AmiGOs to high schoolers, church groups, home school students, and youth club members. The research center partners on programs with the Mesa County Valley School District, the Riverside Education Center and the Eureka! McConnell Science Museum.
The young people observe nature, see how food is grown, help to harvest that food, and even learn how to turn it into nutritional snacks and meals in the research center’s teaching kitchen.
Their learning sessions also draw in parents who say they form connections and feel secure in a place where they are accepted and valued.
“Our style of learning here is something safe but real — not too constructed,” McQuade said. “It has been a big change to have a research station where serious research is going on and to welcome kids and parents into our space.”
Kids learn while parents find out how to support them
Since AmiGOs has been operating at the research center, the little learners have come to be as much a part of the center landscape as the scientists going to and fro among the buildings and fields.
The bus is the kids’ base, but the whole research center has become part of their classroom.
On a recent day, the kids swarmed into the teaching kitchen with parents and grandparents to learn how to prepare an omelet-style dish called a Spanish tortilla made with onions and potatoes grown at or around the center.
“Con cuidado” — careful — one of their teachers, a Guatemalan woman, warned the kids as they each tackled a potato with a knife and the guiding hands of adults.
Assistant teacher Kathryn Antle, right, dishes up a slice of a breakfast tortilla made by the Eureka! AmiGOs children and their teachers while Allison Marquez, 3, climbs onto her stepstool to get her plate and Brianda Erives, left, helps her 3-year-old son Rhoel Ordaz onto his stool during a cooking class. (Gretel Daugherty, Special to The Colorado Sun)“This is not like babysitting here,” said Gilberto Ramirez, the AmiGOs program director as he oversaw the cooking exercise. “Parents have to be involved. This program gives them the chance to connect with others.”
It also gives them the chance to learn about other resources in the community.
On Spanish tortilla day, Michele Gilman, an early intervention specialist with STRiVE Colorado, talked to parents about programs like speech and occupational therapy provided or facilitated by the nonprofit organization.
Representatives from other community nonprofits regularly visit with mothers who gather in a farm classroom space while their kids are in the nearby bus. The mothers chat about their kids. And they share plans for the future of these young ones.
“Gilberto does a great job of connecting us with other families and with resources,” said Amanda, whose 3-year-old twins are in their second semester at AmiGOs.
On this day, her two little ones had pressed their noses against the glass doors of the bus in their eagerness to get to their lessons.
Another mother, Rosie, said AmiGOs has been a game-changer for her daughter who has speech and language delays.
“Since she has been coming here, her language has exploded,” she said as she crocheted a colorful sweater she said her daughter will wear on her first day of regular school.
Even though the research center has a multitude of opportunities for learning, the AmiGOs program also visits businesses, fire stations, the Colorado National Monument, the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens, and the Eureka! McConnell Science Museum that oversees the AmiGOs program. Learning about their community is an important part of AmiGOs.
“We try to connect everything,” Ramirez said.
Three-year-old Allison Marquez, in foreground, experiments with how water causes erosion during a Eureka! AmiGOs class at the Colorado National Monument’s Devils Kitchen Picnic Area south of Grand Junction. The field trip gave the children the chance to learn about the landscape, plants and animals of the area while their parents socialized with the teachers, park rangers and each other. (Gretel Daugherty, Special to The Colorado Sun)None of the experiences are stand-alone. If the kids and their parents go for a hike on the monument, they study desert landscapes when they are back in the bus. If they pick peaches, a teacher reads a book about peaches at story time. If they eat ethnic foods at a research center potluck, their activities in the bus might include looking at various countries’ flags and learning facts about each of the countries represented in the dishes.
“Every day is different,” said a mother named Melanie. “Every day is something new to learn.”
Parents also support the program
Mothers of AmiGOs students recently branched out of their supportive role with the kids to help plan, prepare and serve a fundraiser dinner for AmiGOs and the Eureka! McConnell Science Museum. It was held in the same forest their children enjoy so much.
The mothers expanded their cooking skills to create fancy charcuterie trays and healthy appetizer offerings, like a vegetable-loaded quinoa salad, they had learned through their children’s lessons at the center.
Under lights strung through the trees, the women took turns — sometimes tearful — at a microphone to tell attendees about how much AmiGOs and the research center has meant to their families. Speaking mostly in Spanish, they talked about what it has meant to be a part of a progressive center that has taught them new ways of eating and feeding their families and has given their children new learning opportunities.
Sitting in the mobile preschool van, Gilberto Ramirez, Spanish programs coordinator for the Eureka Amigos, describes how the program that offers 3- and 4-year-old children and their parents classes for two hours twice a week with an activity centered around a book. For the children, the main focus is colors, numbers and letters. For the parents, the focus is on community building. (Gretel Daugherty, Special to The Colorado Sun)Ramirez said he has brought these AmiGOs families together by initially doing a door-to-door survey in low-income neighborhoods to ask about the needs of families. Pre-K schooling was at the top of the list.
His goal throughout the program has been to have half English speakers and half Spanish speakers so all the children are learning new language skills.
At the end of each semester, the tiny learners have a graduation ceremony at the research center complete with caps and gowns. The mothers prepare food. It’s a big celebration.
Carla, a mother who has taken part in the graduations as a helper on the bus, said she and her husband were isolated when they moved to the Grand Valley three years ago, but now through their daughter’s participation in AmiGOs, she feels like she has a strong support network and so does her daughter.
“We have so much fun,” she said. “I appreciate this program so much. You can come here with these happy little kids smiling and playing and singing, and it makes you happy.”
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