[name_u]East[/name_u] [name_u]Marsh[/name_u] Elementary Preschool Class (15 students: 3.5-5 years old)
Teacher: Mr. [name_m]Peter[/name_m] " [name_m]Pete[/name_m] / Mr. [name_m]Pete[/name_m] " [name_u]Christian[/name_u] Denninger-Foxton
Class pet: [name_m]Gilbert[/name_m] (turtle)
- [name_f]Maja[/name_f] [name_f]Friederike[/name_f] Fansler
This next student, at three and a half, is adamant that he’s going to be an astronaut someday, and a deep-sea diver and a mountain climber and a pilot, and he recently heard, from his ten-year-old brother [name_m]Javion[/name_m], about the scientists on the research stations in [name_f]Antarctica[/name_f], so now he wants to do that too. His curiosity and enthusiasm are boundless, and so is his energy, and he just wants to be everywhere, all over the place, all the time. This makes him a handful to have in class (gotta keep an eye on him to make sure he’s not scaling the bookcase or finding a way into the storage closet) but it also makes him an absolute delight, as he loves learning and greets every circle time, story or subject the class learns about with interesting questions and excited ideas that get everyone excited about what they’re discussing. A natural leader, during free choice time and out on the playground he’s usually roping a flock of classmates into elaborate pretend games about sailing a pirate ship on the open seas or exploring a cave deep underground or whatever other adventure he can think of.
Despite his own extraversion and chaotic energy, he seems to gravitate towards the quieter, more reserved members of his class, always making a point to seek them out to play together and include them in his games. This might be because they remind him of his middle brother, seven-year-old [name_m]Kymani[/name_m], a shy and bookish second grader who he is very close to despite their different personalities. Their favorite thing to do together is enjoy books, with [name_m]Kymani[/name_m] reading his own to this student, especially their shared favorite series, The [name_u]Magic[/name_u] Treehouse. This student relates hard to the magic words being “I wish we could go there!” He’s also close to his oldest brother, the aforementioned [name_m]Javion[/name_m], and the three boys form a tight-knit group, with these strong sibling relationships possibly being the reason for this students social skills being so advanced for his age.
This student is [name_m]Black[/name_m], with big brown eyes and short, tight curls. His parents have the foresight to always dress him in things in things he can freely run around in, and he tends to run cold because of his skinny build, so he wears a lot of long-sleeved t-shirts and pullover sweatshirts, especially with multicolored stripes (his favorite color is orange, you see, but yesterday it was green and tomorrow it will be pink and so on, so he’s got to have plenty of different colors to cover everything.) His glasses have strap around the back of his head to hold them on, because if not they would fall off and be lost somewhere in the classroom by morning circle time.
Given his social nature, his favorite part about being in high school lab preschool is getting to know all of the different students who come in from Ms. Hallie’s classes to work with him and his friends. (He also enjoys getting to tell other kids at the park that he goes to high school, “no, really, I do!”) He gets very excited on the days where it’s [name_u]Sam[/name_u] Leonard’s turn to be with his class, because he loves her support for his love of active, messy outdoor play, and also always wants to hear about her own outdoor adventures. He also has lots of questions for [name_u]Eden[/name_u] Tavernier about outer space, and although she’s tried to explain to him that she hasn’t actually been to space, he doesn’t seem like he quite believes her about that.
[name_u]Sam[/name_u] [name_m]Leonard[/name_m] is credited to @moonwriteen
Summary
The next student is a 10th grader and cannot wait to turn 16 to have a driver’s license and a car. She is a member of a big family. She is the second oldest of eight children. Her mother and [name_f]Virginia[/name_f] [name_m]Newman[/name_m] , the mom of the [name_m]Newman[/name_m] family , often argue whose kids are the craziest and most difficult to take care of - albeit in an incredibly friendly manner.
This student loves music , which helped her build a sense of personal identity and avoid being recognised only as “one of the girls from the big family”. She plays bass guitar as well as acoustic guitar. She joined High [name_u]Velocity[/name_u] after bumping into an Instagram post where the members were looking for a bassist and became friends with [name_f]Savannah[/name_f] Bonham right away. She also became quite close with [name_m]Thorn[/name_m] [name_m]Newman[/name_m] because of the warm friendship between their moms.
Her favourite hobby in the whole entire world is camping. There is nothing more exciting for her than spending a week or two in the woods, sleeping in a tent and sitting with all of her family around a campfire - especially because she gets to tell horror stories every evening with a torch in hand , eat warm marshmallows or grab her guitar and sing!
Not surprisignly, her favourite aesthetics is forestpunk - dark greens, browns and sometimes light blues dominate her wardrobe. You’ll almost always see her in baggy clothes with her auburn, wavy hair hidden behind a beanie. Her sister , who is younger than her by just 18 months and practically treats her like a twin, has a passion for jewelry, so she also wears different pendants made by her that hold a whole lot of sentimental value.
She is a firm believer that a dirty kid is a happy kid and never shies away from playing outside with the little ones on the playground, while also keeping an eye on them so that they do not get hurt. She encourages kids to be close to nature and is always happy to anwser their questions concerning animal or plant species, as her love of camping caused her to gain significant theoretical and practical knowledge about the natural world. Ms. Daskal very much appreciates her experience with lots of younger siblings, as well as patience that she has for the kids.
[name_u]Eden[/name_u] Tavernier is one of the ones I made!
Summary
This next student is fifteen years old and took the prerequisite child development course last year, but that wasn’t the first time she was a student of Ms. Daskal’s – as a preschooler, she was a member of the last class she taught as “Ms. Hallie” before taking this job with [name_u]East[/name_u] [name_u]Marsh[/name_u]. She still sometimes nostalgically calls her Ms. [name_f]Hallie[/name_f]. At that point in Ms. Daskal’s career, she was already dealing with the disabling health issues that made it difficult to teach preschool to the point where she stopped the following year, but that also brought her closer to this student, because they had some shared experiences. This student was born with amyloplasia as a result of an illness her mother contracted while pregnant. She’s had years of physical and occupational therapy and many orthopedic surgeries throughout her life, and even as a three-year-old, she realized that she was different from the other kids, who could freely run and jump and climb. Many of the adults in her life tried to convince her that she was just like everyone else, but Ms. [name_f]Hallie[/name_f] was the first disabled adult she met and the first one to instead teach her that it’s okay to be different and help her find things to celebrate about who she was as an individual instead of unintentionally teaching her to hide her experiences to meet an implied ideal of being “just like everyone else”. With this teacher having had such an impact on her life, of course she jumped at the chance to take her classes again once she got to high school, even though it doesn’t have that much to do with her future career (she wants to be an aerospace engineer). Besides that, the way she sees it, learning about working with children can be relevant to everyone, because most people will have kids in their lives at some point, whether they’re their own kids or not.
This student is super interested in space. She enjoys stargazing and amateur astronomy, as well as learning anything she can about our universe, and she gets very excited whenever there are new [name_m]Hubble[/name_m] pictures or information from one of the rovers or space probes. She’s also really interested in all kinds of vehicles, how they’re made and how they work and how to operate them – she can’t wait until she’s old enough to get her driver’s license! She’d love to even get a pilot’s license someday. Between these two main interests, plus her talent for math and logical thinking, aerospace engineering seems like the ideal career. She also loves to get the preschoolers excited about STEM topics. Her favorite activity she’s done with them was when they taped together assorted recycled materials to try to build boats that would float.
As a space fan, she has a galaxy aesthetic, especially focused on her favorite color, which is teal. She favors cozy clothes like sweatshirts in galaxy and nebula prints or t-shirts with scientific slogans. She has her leg braces and forearm crutches wrapped in glittery teal tape to match, and she likes silvery-colored jewelry from her favorite nerdy Etsy stores. She’s 5’1" with curly, dark brown hair and a pale complexion brought on in part by the fact that she mostly only goes outside at night.
She goes to the same physical therapy center as [name_m]Erik[/name_m] Viklund’s mom, and as they both have spent a lot of time there throughout their lives, including doing group programs together, they have a pretty friendly, positive relationship. This student was four at the time of Mrs. Viklund’s accident and had already been dealing with things like PT and mobility aids and so on for her whole life, so she revelled in being the expert in something while talking to an adult. In retrospect, she suspects that Mrs. Viklund was going out of her way to give her chances to explain things in order to encourage her enthusiasm, and almost certainly was not actually taking medical advice from a preschooler, but still. As great as this has been for this student, she worries about how [name_m]Erik[/name_m] might feel about the fact that at a time in his life when his family had so much to deal with, his mom was hanging out with some other kid, so she’s a little hesitant around him.
This student, despite not being all that outdoorsy in general, is surprisingly close with [name_u]Sam[/name_u] [name_m]Leonard[/name_m], as they understand and appreciate each other’s passion for various aspects of the natural world, even though Sam’s favorite parts thereof are bit closer to home than this student’s, and they enjoy listening to each other talk passionately about wild birds and quasars and interesting mushrooms and nebulae. They also like to make excited plans together about what they’ll do when they get their licenses and first cars. They hope to take a road trip together next summer out to a particular state park which is known for its clear skies and lack of light pollution, to camp out together under the milky way and watch the Perseid meteor shower. Secretly, this student daydreams about holding hands with [name_u]Sam[/name_u] under the meteors, maybe sharing a kiss, but she’s not sure what [name_u]Sam[/name_u] would think of the idea, especially since for all she knows she might be straight, so she doesn’t mention it.
She is also close with [name_f]Aya[/name_f] Kobal, as they share their love of learning and using their brains. They both love puzzles, and sometimes compete to see who can solve a hard one first.
