Jaime Escalante Early Education Center
Jaime Escalante Early Education Center is located in a dense, highly populated city in LA county. Our Nature Explore classroom provides our students with an opportunity to connect with nature in a safe,
nurturing, educational environment.
What follows are dictations, stories of staff and students as they are in our Nature Explore classroom.
Room 2: students were in the mud area pretending to be at a restaurant. One of the students, Alejandro used a shovel to scoop mud to fill the cup.
Alejandro said, “I will make coffee”
On his first scoop he says, “first milk”
Alejandro continued to scoop mud into his cup and said, “sugar and then coffee, all done. My mommy
drinks the coffee like this”.
Alejandro poured the last scoop into the cup and said, “then syrup”
The students next to him were pretending to make a cake.
Vayda used her hands to spread the ingredients. She said, “first, we put sprinkles. Then some sugar”.
Vayda then pats the mud on the pan and says, “then we roll it”. Vayda then said, “we will put it in the oven
and wait. This is how I made cakes with my mom”.
Room 3 Teacher: “The reason I take care for the garden is because getting outdoors helps me with my physical and mental health, as it relaxes me, and it helps me get my vitamin D. I also enjoy walking outside and observing the beautiful flowers and trees we have planted. Having a beautiful nature explore for our students is very important as they receive the same or more benefits from it.
Room 1: students were observing a cracked pumpkin on the garden beds when a teacher asked, “what is happening over here?”
Khali, “the pumpkin is broken. The pumpkin for Halloween”
Teacher asked, “what did you find inside?”
Khali, “too much seeds”
Teacher, “how many seeds do you count?”
Khali, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20”
Teacher asked, “what can we do with the seeds?
Delilah said, “eat them”
Khali said, “not plant them”
The students continued to observe and move the seeds around with sticks.
