Aurora's SciTech museum preschool encourages children to explore how and why

For all of nature's littlest scientists, a preschool that opened recently at SciTech Hands on Museum in Aurora may help satiate some of those endless why's and how's.

The SciTech Discovery Preschool opened Sept. 12, offering half- and full-day options for children ages 3, 4 and 5 with an age-appropriate focus on science.

“I have never met a preschool-age child who isn't fascinated by science,” said Cheryl Newman, the preschool's director. “They really love to touch and explore things. It's wonderful to be able to capitalize on that.”

It is only the second preschool in the country with a STEM-based curriculum — a focus on science, technology, engineering and math — Director of Education Susan Kendall said.

Introducing concepts at a young age instills an early love and interest in a subject, she said.

“They always say (to) learn a language when they're young,” Kendall said. “The same is true with all disciplines.”

At the SciTech Discovery Preschool, students will learn about dinosaurs from an actual paleontologist. They'll go out into the museum to learn the physics of pulleys and levers and observe chemistry experiments.

When students walk through the doors of a high school physics class, it's not going to be a foreign concept, Newman said.

“We're going to be using the real thing, and it's not going to be the first time they've heard of it,” Newman said. “They're not going to be afraid of it.”

Made possible through funding from a grant by the Dunham Foundation, the preschool is accepting 36 students with a ratio of six students per one adult in each classroom. It has a separate entrance from the museum and includes two classrooms and a bathroom. Lunch and snacks are locally grown and organic, catered by Gorilla Gourmet.

The museum setting lends itself to learning opportunities that couldn't be re-created easily in a traditional classroom, Newman said.

For example, students will learn about the human body and the five senses, one of them being smell. The museum already has an activity table with different scented candles such as vanilla, cinnamon and roses. Children get to wear a blindfold and guess the scent.

Creating such activities would be time consuming in a regular school setting, Newman said.

“You'd have to refresh constantly,” she said. “But we don't have to create it. It's already there.”

Each day will include an individualized reading and math lesson. Spanish, music and computer classes will be taught by specialists. And children will be able to utilize the Aurora Public Library next door.

As the world continues to advance technologically, people are having a harder time keeping up with that pace educationally, Kendall said.

“We're expanding their minds and make them able to go on and able to meet the new challenges that we're going to have in the world in the areas of engineering and environment and the oceans and making everything better,” Kendall said.

Applications are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. For information about the preschool program, call Newman at (630) 859-3434 or visit scitechmuseum.org.