Working together: Students at SM East all come together and learn life skills working at the Village day care

Junior Ellen Lund attended the village day care when she was younger and knew she wanted to work there when she was older. She has always had a soft spot for kids. With this job, she gets to entertain and take care of babies for three hours. 

Lund previously worked at The Little Gym and wanted to try working with even younger kids. 

Lund gets ready to head over to the Village Day Care to start her 3-6 p.m. shift with the 3-to-6 -month-olds, immediately after a long day at school.

When Lund arrives at the day care at 3 p.m., the room is silent; the babies are sound asleep. She will then have to wake up all five babies to change their diapers. Now it's 3:30 and time for their bottles, setting them on a boppy pillow where they can usually hold the bottle and feed themselves. Around 4 p.m. it is time to play with them by cradling them, listening to music or laying with them on the bright colored mats. 

Wright started working at the day care after he learned that one of his friends, junior Mary Marsden, was also working there. 

Wright works with 3-to-4-year-olds and is currently one of the only boys working there regularly, him a favorite among all the little boys. 

Every day, Wright comes in around 3 p.m., and then he heads to whatever room he's assigned to watch over and play with the kids. 

To keep the kids entertained, Wright and his coworker will take them to the day care’s play areas. Another way he passes time with the kids is by reading them books like “Sofia the First, The Floating Palace”. He will also take them to stations that have small toys, colored magnet tiles and books. Depending on the day, the kids can play outside until it is time for pickup around 5:30 p.m.

Wright doesn’t have any plans to work with kids in the future, but still enjoys the job as it’s  preparing him for the future by teaching him how to work with kids.

“Right now it's good so I can learn how to take care of a child,” Wright said. “Later in life, when I have my own [child] it won't be such a crazy shock.” 

Wright also teaches a preschool class, cooking lessons in the bistro that's located at the daycare due to his passion for cooking. They have cooked “mummy dogs,” which are little sausages wrapped in dough that are then baked.

Bacon started working at Village Day Care at the end of December and has loved it so far as she gets to play with kids all day long. Her family grew up attending Village Day Care, so they have been able to make connections with some of the employees and the director, Sarah McKee. McKee had always offered the idea of Bacon working there, and she eventually applied.

Bacon normally works with the 4-year-olds at the day care, but has also worked with a variety of ages a few times each.

“It was definitely exhausting the first day, but I'm getting used to it,” Bacon said. “It’s always a fun ride being with all those [young] people because you literally never know what they're going to say, one time one of the kids was giving me a check-up, and I asked how long he’s been a doctor, and he goes ‘um like 1000 times.’” 

She started out working Monday through Thursday, but is now switching to every other day because it became overwhelming. 

Bacon arrives at the same time as her coworkers, where she then goes up to the front desk to get assigned an age group. Usually, when she arrives, they will be at snack time and if it's nice outside, they will go play games. 

Some of the kids have different birth defects, and when they first joined, they had to learn how to take care of them, including two kids with seizures disorders.

When they all first joined they were clueless about how to take care of them, but as they continued to work there, they learned the best ways to care for these specific kids by being patient and learning how to give them their medicine properly.

Additionally, Village Day Care will have specialists come in to help the employees train to take care of one kid who has trouble seeing and walking, according to Lund. 

“Another really fun part of the job that helped realize what I want to do for my job is they have some specialists come in and work,” Lund said. “We have learned how to administer medication if it [comes] down to it, but it's just super fascinating to learn about and watch.”