Thirty years have flown by while parents have watched their kids have fun in the Young Adventurers Club, or what is officially titled Seal Beach Extended Day Care, Inc.
Now the club is preparing for its swan song. Linda Wilson was the original director when the program began in 1980. She purchased the business a few years later. Now she is moving on. The program will officially end in August. She and her husband John Wilson are planning a final summer picnic and open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, July 10, on the campus of McGaugh Elementary School in Seal Beach.
Young Adventurers has been a before and after school center with a full-time summer program serving kindergarten through fifth-grade during the school year and kindergarten through eighth grade in the summer.
Linda Wilson and the school have been honored numerous times by the local PTA and the Seal Beach City Council. The University of California, Los Angeles has also cited them as an exemplary program.
Throughout its 30-year run, the Young Adventurers has woven events into the fabric of the seaside city that it has served. It established some annual traditions that helped local residents in the Southern California town to see patterns that helped mark the seasons of their lives, as clearly as the leaves changing in New England.
Events such as The Haunted House, the construction of over 200 ginger bread houses at Christmas, the ever-popular caroling on Main Street and at the Pier, dramatic and musical productions such as “Joe the Alien” and “We’re Off” (based on the Wizard of Oz), and the much talked about student-produced Talent Show. And finally, every June, a sock hop in the McGaugh gymnasium.
“We have also been lucky enough to have had many staff that have gone on to teach at local schools and universities,” John Wilson said. “Thanks to our longevity, we have the children of our former students now attending, and most gratifyingly, we have those former students dropping by to say hello and occasionally coming back to work with us and complete the circle.”
The Young Adventurers was started in the former Zoeter School site on 12th Street in Old Town Seal Beach and then moved to the McGaugh School campus.
Linda Wilson will continue to use her talents to give kids a good start in their life’s journey. She has accepted the position of executive director at Little Owl Preschool in Long Beach.
Little Owl is the culmination of several years of collaboration with Janet Watt in developing and constructing a state of the art, environmentally friendly, Reggio inspired educational facility that was developed through the Lowry Center.
The Lowry Center’s beliefs about young children are in line with the basic principles set forward by the Reggio Emilia Approach.
This approach originated in a municipally-sponsored early childhood school in Reggio Emilia, Italy. This highly developed approach has become a point of reference and a guide for many educators throughout the world.
The following principles guide the Reggio Emilia Approach and highlight how this approach is used at the Lowry Center.
All children have preparedness, potential, curiosity and interest in engaging in social interaction, establishing relationships, constructing their learning and negotiating with everything in their environment.
Teachers are deeply aware of children’s potentials and construct the environment accordingly.
More information on the Reggio Emilia Approach is available on numerous Web sites, including:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach.
“Over the last three decades we have been privileged to interact with thousands of children and their families, as well as hundreds of teachers here at McGaugh and previously at Zoeter Elementary schools,” Wilson said. “Linda and I would love to have the chance to say good-bye and to thank all the people who have made this experience so unforgettable. To this end we are inviting all of our friends and families (past and present) to join us. We will be providing drinks and dessert for all.”
Over the years, the Wilsons have collected thousands of pictures, slide shows, videos and memorabilia.
“We would like to share with everyone on that Saturday,” Wilson said.
For more information on the farewell event, call the Wilsons at (562) 301-5458 or send e-mail to j.lwilsygad@verizon.net.
