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Tanesha Hutchinson’s pre-K classroom at Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary School was recently overrun by all manners of wild beasts — lethal lions, tenacious tortoises, rampaging rhinos and more.
Blame it on Terlene Terry-Todd, a master teaching artist from the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts. The woman better known as Ms. T took up residence at the school and had the children transform into exotic animals to engage their imaginations while cleverly teaching them about reading, counting and the environment.
Ms. T was one of three master teaching artists from Wolf Trap’s Vienna-based institute who made learning an adventure for preschoolers in all four of Winchester’s elementary schools.
One recent Thursday, the 16 kids in Hutchinson’s classroom transformed into turtles as Ms. T read to them from a book called “The Water Hole” by Australian author Graeme Base.
When an illustration in the children’s book showed tortoises that had retreated into the safety of their shells, Ms. T feigned confusion.
“Do they have a head?” she asked alarmingly.
A little girl put her mind at ease: “They push their head back and then, when they want to get out, they stick it back out.”
“That is the right answer!” Ms. T proclaimed, her face beaming. “The tortoise shell is like their house. They take their house everywhere they go. Could you take your house, put it on your back and bring it to school?”
“No!” the kids shouted.
A few minutes later, Ms. T told the children that tortoises are one of the few animals that live on land and in the water. With the help of teaching assistant Heather Servage, she held up a long piece of blue cloth, told the kids it was a watering hole and said that they, as turtles, could swim over or beneath it. Most slid across the floor on their bellies to pass beneath the water’s surface.
“What’s different?” Ms. T asked the kids about the watering hole.
“It’s smaller!” a little girl shouted.
Ms. T had previously set up the watering hole on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Each day, the blue cloth she used to represent the pond had gotten tinier.
“Why is it smaller?” she asked.
The answer was that the pond had been drained throughout the week by a bevy of thirsty critters. By Friday, the blue cloth would be completely gone and Ms. T planned on spritzing the kids with water to teach them how rain replenishes the watering hole.
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When Hutchinson’s students left the classroom to enjoy some time on the playground, Ms. T packed up her blue cloth, book and other instructional items and moved to the room next door, where she would engage with another group of preschoolers that were thrilled to welcome her back for another day of adventures.
While she was setting up for the next lesson, Ms. T talked about the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, which visits schools across the globe.
“It’s been around since 1981,” she said. “Our sole mission is to provide teachers with professional development experiences and workshops, and then we go into the classrooms and do teaching residencies.”
Ms. T and the two other master teaching artists from Wolf Trap spent about 30 minutes in each classroom, working in conjunction with Winchester’s elementary school teachers to augment and reinforce their instructional curriculum.
“Our disciplines range from puppetry to dance to drama,” Ms. T said. “We have musicians, we have songwriters — it runs a wide gamut. ... We also try to provide a literacy link so the kids can relate what’s in the book with the actions of the artist.”
Angie Cain, early childhood coordinator for Winchester Public Schools, said the weeklong visits from the three Wolf Trap artists were funded by a $15,000 state grant that covered all costs, including travel and lodging.
“Next year, we hope to expand into kindergarten,” Cain said, noting the state grant could fund those lessons as well. “Fingers crossed.”