Mayflower Elementary School Principal Candie Watts said most of the kindergarten classes are full, and the teachers don’t have aides to help.
What the teachers do have is the new Mentors and Mimis program.
Watts said grandmothers, members of Oasis Church in North Little Rock, have volunteered to tutor kindergartners each Tuesday and Thursday at Elois McCaghren elementary campus in Mayflower.
“Since the tornado, Oasis Church has been helping us,” Watts said. The church has held cookouts on campus, held a raffle to give away a bicycle, collected school supplies for students and more, she said.
“Oasis has continuously asked us, ‘What ways can we help?’ I said, ‘You know, we always have a need for tutors for kids,’” Watts said.
John Chapman of Maumelle, a member of Oasis Church, took the idea back to the church and asked for volunteers. His wife, Becky Chapman, is one of those. She said volunteering with the children goes along with the church’s mission.
“The whole point in our church is outreach — to touch other people for Christ,” she said.
Watts came up with the alliterative name.
“We wanted something cute that the kids could identify with,” she said.
On Tuesday, the Mentors and Mimis had their first session with students, two 30-minute segments with four students — two at a time.
“We asked each teacher to have pre-made baskets so the mentors don’t have to prepare anything; they don’t have to study anything,” Watts said. What the mentors work on “just depends on where the kids are and what they need.”
The goal, Watts said, “is to close the gap.”
Kindergarten teacher Kristin Allbritton said the program is a bonus for the school.
”When children enter kindergarten, they enter with a very wide range of skills. Some enter with preschool experience and an enriching home life; some enter with no preschool experience and no exposure,” Allbritton said.
“Just to be able to sit one on one, or two, with a kind, warmhearted lady provides them a bridge to that gap, oftentimes,” she said.
“And who doesn’t want to hang out with a Mimi?” Allbritton asked, laughing.
Four Mimis gathered at child-sized round tables in the corners of an empty classroom.
Suzanne Harrell of Mayflower had two boys at her table, Logan Price and Mar’Trell Jergins.
“We’re going to have a blast!” she told them.
Logan, 5, spied something immediately.
“That game under there is really fun,” he said, pointing to a box in Harrell’s stack.
“He’s wanting to do this rhyming game right now,” she said, laughing.
She held flash cards with letters on one side and pictures on the other.
She held up a card with the letter W, and on the back was a picture of a walrus.
“I saw a walrus before. We saw a show about it — and guess what? It did a flip,” Logan said.
Mar’Trell correctly identified a P and got a high-five from Harrell. “That’s a pig,” he said.
A card with a T stumped both boys. “It’s a cat,” Logan said. “I peeked at it when you were showing him,” he said, laughing impishly.
“It’s a big cat — a tiger,” Harrell said.
“What letter is this?” Harrell asked.
“S — that looks like a snake,” Logan said.
In another corner, Cindy Kuykendall of Maumelle worked with students Hope Alexander and Ravionna Austin.
“Did you know you can catch air in here?” Hope asked, holding the plastic baggie that supplies had come in.
The girls were correctly identifying alphabet letters, although they occasionally got distracted.
“I want to know, how’d you get those tattoos?” Ravionna said to Hope, pointing to Hope’s temporary tattoos.
“My mommy,” Hope said.
When Kuykendall pulled out pipe cleaners, Ravionna said, “Ooh, what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to make a C,” Kuykendall said.
“Look, I did it,” Hope said, and Ravionna bent hers into the correct shape, too.
Across the room, Chapman was playing picture bingo with two students, Charity Douglas and Kaleb Leak.
Charity said she wasn’t having fun. “I’m losing,” she said, looking at her bingo card.
Kaleb’s card had more of the matching spaces that Chapman drew from the stack.
“Do you have an airplane?” she asked. Neither child did.
“Do you have glasses?” Chapman asked.
The kids didn’t have that picture on their cards, but Kaleb said, “You do.”
“No, I don’t have one,” Chapman said, looking at her bingo sheet.
“You’ve got glasses,” he said, pointing to her face.
She laughed. “Oh, yes, I do have glasses.”
Renee Bridges of Mayflower was going over the alphabet with two boys. One sang the alphabet as he and the other student pointed to each letter on cards.
“Slow down, slow down,” she said.
One of the mentors told the women it was time to send those students back to class and work with two more.
“Is our time up already? It went by too fast!” Harrell said. “You all work hard so you’ll know your friends,” she said, referring to the characters and animals on the flash cards. “I had so much fun with you. Work at home, too, OK?”
Harrell said she decided to volunteer when her grandnephew, whom she was baby-sitting, went to a Mother’s Day Out program at a church, freeing her on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“It’s all about trying to make a difference in a child’s life — they’re so much fun!” she said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.