Originally, I was nervous and excited for the Early ON location at St. Thomas as it was my first time at an Early ON. I didn’t know what to expect, but I can confidently say that my experience at this site was phenomenal. The Educators I worked with were really engaged with the activities and the kids, as well as their caretakers. Seeing all the different faces come and go to create art was such a touching experience for me as an artist educator. Since the kids are so young, it is nice to see how the programming can be helpful for them to be exposed to the arts and thinking conceptually.

One of my favourite moments at this Early ON was hearing how one of the kids would be drawing something they did during programming for the rest of the week. The activity was the sound activity, and the kid heard trains and clocks, and the final week I was there, the mom told me how her son would not stop drawing the trains and clocks all week. Seeing how it was taken outside of programming felt very impactful to hear.

Another student during the week of smelling, smelt the cinnamon scent prepared in the scent library and called that scent ‘Sugar Fountain’. He drew an image to represent this scent and it was a mix of many colours, mostly blue, in a jar.

Another moment that stuck with me was the sight week, I brought in a magnifying glass which this one kid became really fond of using. He would go around the classroom looking for random small dirt marks and point them out. He then would grab the broom and try to sweep it.

All these moments made me think how all these kids who are so young, are still interacting and engaging with the arts and conceptual topics not only during programming, but using information from the world around them that they can recollect.