We Love Kindergartners!
Today we celebrate the smart and energetic 5- and 6-year olds who brighten our day! April 21st is National Kindergarten Recognition Day, which was enacted by the U.S. Senate in 2005 (view text from the Congressional Record here: http://bit.ly/cB6pmz). Kindergarten, or “children’s garden,” was coined by Friedrich Froebel in Germany in 1840. There are currently over four million kindergartners in the United States.
The Smithsonian Libraries has been in a partnership with the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center’s (SEEC) kindergarten class for almost two years. Libraries staff has joined the class for several of its discovery missions, both at our Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library for Natural History and at other locations around the National Mall. The kindergartners have received a hands-on experience via rare books and manuscripts, museum objects and imaginative stories from master teacher Josh Beasley and Libraries’ staff Elizabeth Periale, Mary Augusta Thomas and Daria Wingreen-Mason. Our staff greatly enjoys working with these intelligent children, who teach us more than we could ever teach them.
Kindergartners, we salute you!—Liz O'Brien
Masks + instruments = fun!: Daria Wingreen-Mason, Josh Beasley and two kindergartners enjoy looking a cello at the Cullman Library.
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