Realtor Sybil Kuhn, right, shows Head Start students flooring samples with husband and part owner of Hub City Supply John Kuhn, left, Wednesday morning in Centralia.
Realtor Sybil Kuhn shows Centralia Head Start students a picture of a treehouse during her presentation on houses Wednesday morning in Centralia.
With her mother’s old doll house in tow and a few carpet samples, local realtor Sybil Kuhn asked Centralia Head Start students what their favorite part of their house is. Many kids answered that it’s their pet.
“You guys make your house a home,” she told the class.
Kuhn is a a real estate broker with Coldwell Banker Kline & Associates. She said she regularly speaks to classes about housing. Wednesday morning, husband and part owner of Hub City Supply John Kuhn also spoke to students. He brought carpet samples and spoke to them about the types of floors that could go in their house.
“I wanted to get in front of the kids and talk to them about housing,” Sybil Kuhn said. “It all starts somewhere. I figure with this age group, they know their house, they know things about their house, but I just kind of wanted to show them some of the things they (might) like about their home when they grow up.”
Erica Engle, teacher/family educator with Head Start, said the teachers try to bring in different people in the community to talk about their professions.
“We like to have members of the community come in and talk about what they do and how they help the community,” Engle said. “Because of Head Start and funding and stuff, we don’t get to go to a lot of field trips, so we try to bring interesting people to us. … We had Miss Lewis County, we had one of the fish hatcheries from down on the Lewis River come in, we had Wolf Haven.”
Engle said her husband, who is a nurse, also came to speak to the class. In her experience, the students are happiest when the presenter brings in props for them to play with.
“As you can see it’s pretty squirrely,” Engle said. “The attention span is really short, whereas older kids would talk and ask questions for a long time. If we get five minutes it’s good. … This was great that they had all the things (students) could touch, and explore and check out because kids this age are very hands-on (learners). So they need the touch, they need the sensory for learning.”
After the Kuhns’ short presentation, Sybil Kuhn placed the dollhouse she brought on one of the classroom tables. Students eagerly flocked to the house and explored the rooms and furniture inside.
“My grandfather made this doll house for my mom when she was a little girl,” Sybil Kuhn said. “So I just said I wanted to bring it so they could visually see something to interact with and talk about different things on the house … just anything and everything that goes into a home.”
One of the students pointed to the top of the house and asked Sybil Kuhn what the feature was.
She began to say it was a chimney for having fires, but another student chimed in that it was for Santa.
“Oh it is for Santa, too,” Sybil Kuhn said. “But it’s for burning. You burn wood and then the smoke comes out.”
Sybil Kuhn said she is willing to speak to any age, but her favorite place to start is with Pre-K students.
“I just know that at this age — for sure at this age — anything you have to say they are going to listen to you,” Sybil Kuhn said. “They are going to hear you.”
