A preschool as sweet as a WildFlower
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By Taylor Wren
Submitted Photo
Kallie Flowers stands next to her welcome sign, thrilled to spread the word and welcome new students into her new in-home preschool.
Jersey County just keeps getting sweeter and sweeter. The community, rich with entrepreneurship, has the honor to become home to yet another small business. WildFlowers Preschool run by Kallie Flowers in Dow is now open for students.
With a decade of experience, Kallie has worked with various age groups but has found her passion with toddlers. She spent eight years with Sonshine Kids in Jerseyville before deciding to take the leap and open her own preschool. Her class will house ages three until the child’s fifth birthday. Classes will start at 8 a.m. and end at 3 p.m. Within that time she will have two, three-hour sessions allowing eight children in each session.
Her passion sparked when she was about 14, when she started volunteering in the kids’ church and fell completely in love with it. Even though she had her back and forth moments in high school with what she might want to do as her career, she always knew that her calling would always be teaching.
Knowing that at such a young age children are like little sponges, she knew that the way she wanted to teach would be from home and with her own curriculum.
“I wanted more one-on-one time with the kids and really to focus on their developmental milestones and what they were learning,” Flowers said. “I feel like, in a public school setting, when you have 30 plus kids in a classroom that’s really, really hard to do and it’s a lot more stress on a teacher. Especially now, I feel like it’s just craziness and insanity. I just really wanted a smaller group of kids.”
Flowers said that all of her experience, which she is incredibly grateful for, has helped her develop her own way of teaching and helped shape her curriculum. Her curriculum base is exploration and she has taken what she loves about several different curriculums to build her own.
“We really didn’t know if it was going to be possible or not until I really started calling around and I was like ‘Man, I really think we might be able to do this,’” Flowers said.
She will obtain her last license on Monday, Sept. 20, and could not be more excited. Her classroom is all set up and ready to go. A colorful and relaxing environment, she hopes to start her first class that same week. Flowers is still accepting applications for students and you can find that application on her website: wildflowerspreschool.org. Her other contact information can aslo on her website.
As a community, we have been so blessed to have so many people passionate about our children and their education. It’s great to see so many more inspirational teachers blooming from the garden of Jersey. We are lucky to have all of you.
