Meet Our La Petite Academy Staff – Ms. Chrystal, Assistant Teacher in the 2 Year Old Class

Meet Chrystal, the Assistant Teacher in the Two Year Old class at our location in Greenwood Village, CO. She has worked at La Petite Academy for a little more than a year, has taken a wealth of college classes in human development and is currently working on her Child Development Associate’s credential. Read on to learn more about Chrystal!

Why did you decide on a career in early child education and care?

I’ve always loved working with kids but I never thought I wanted to be a teacher. That was until I spent more time with children and I saw them learning. I get excited when I see them learning and using what they’ve learned.

You must see that a lot with the two-year-olds. What’s so fun about that age group?

They’re learning to communicate, and you see so much growth in that age group. I love it. They go from being a baby to being a kid. There’s so much you can do with them. They’re so thirsty to learn and I just love it. It’s my favorite age group.

What does your typical day look like?

We have a pre-circle time where we go over what we’re learning in class. Then we eat breakfast. What we’re working on with breakfast is how to use utensils, our manners, how we eat together. After breakfast we go into our official circle time. I like to have little science experiments where we learn how things work and how they interact and how they go together. We have recess before lunchtime where we play outside. Right now we have a lot of birds and butterflies and planes that fly over, and we’re talking about the big birds and small birds and we’re talking about the distance of planes – when they’re close by they’re big, when they’re far away they’re small. Then we’ll have lunch time. After lunch we have nap time and then during snack time I like to use our counting exercises because we usually have dry food for snacks.

Sounds like you turn everything into a learning experience!

I feel like there’s no reason not to! You have to use every opportunity to teach them.

What happens after snack time?

We have naptime and after that we play outside again. Then after that we come back inside for another circle time.

Why are early education programs so important for young children?

The one main reason is social interaction. If you don’t get that early experience, it’s much harder to learn how to do it after everyone else has learned it. And they don’t know all the rules. Everyone else, they know how to play together, they know how to use certain toys and how to act.

If your students could describe you in one word, what do you think it would be?

I would probably say fun because I’m the most energetic person. I have the energy for two year olds, and I give it back to them. We’re always moving.