“Will you push me on the swings?”
“Come play with me over here.”
“Do you want to play hide and seek?”
These are the type of questions asked of four members of the Miami University softball team while they were visiting the Mini Univerity - Miami Child Development Center on Western campus Thursday morning for National Campus Children's Center week.
Within minutes of stepping onto the playground, more than 20 four-year-olds started scrambling around the players’ legs, asking to play and running around. They obliged, and soon enough rounds of duck-duck-goose were in session, the six swings were in use and screams littered the air.
Lucy Flyn, a quiet 4 year old who can count to 40, said she liked the “big kids” being there because they pushed her on the swings.
“The teacher told us some friends were coming,” Lucy said while her classmates played around her.
Her fellow classmate Maleah Deeter, 4, said her favorite part of the softball players being there was “fun” and her favorite thing to do with them was “play” and when they showed up she felt “happy.”
Maleah then ran off in the middle of her sentence.
Softball player Ella Carter plays duck-duck-goose with a pack of roughly 10 kids at the Miami Child Development Center.
Throughout the week, the Miami Child Development Center chalked the campus sidewalk on Monday, hosted Renate Crawford for a reading time on Friday, brought the Miami softball team to play with the kids outside Thursday morning and later that day held a “read across Western campus.”
According to the National Coalition for Campus Children Centers, the week is meant to “emphasise the services and support we provide to communities, build an understanding for the importance of high-quality early childhood programs and engage centers to become more visible.”
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Jenny Miller, center director at the Mini University - Miami University Child Development Center, said Oxford’s campus has 108 children every week and over the summer there were 130 at the summer camp.
“Recognizing our campus Child Development Center is essential because it supports the success of student parents, faculty, and staff by providing high-quality early education and care,” Miller said. “Our center not only nurtures young children during critical developmental years, but also strengthens the university community as a whole by promoting inclusivity, supporting working families and offering valuable hands-on learning experiences for students pursuing careers in education and child development.”
Monty reaches for the sky in an attempt to get the attention of the plane flying above.
She added that the center is not free for Miami staff, students and faculty, who make up roughly 65% of the families, but they do get a discount and are prioritized when registration comes around.
The nursery is roughly $1,400 a month, toddlers are about $1,300 and preschool is $1,200 with no additional add-ons.
“As things stand right now, this will be our last year with the CCAMPIS [federal] grant, unless something changes,” Miller said.
Out of all the children at the center right now, four of them are children of students.
“I think that having the center on a university campus just offers such a unique environment to our students and families,” Miller said. “Not only is it a benefit for the families who work for Miami and the convenience, but the partnerships that we have with the students adds even more enrichment to our program.”
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