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Community children ran through the ribbon to playfully open the Born Learning Trail at Peghorn Park in St. Cloud. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON
St. Cloud is home to Osceola County’s second Born Learning Trail, a cooperative effort of the Early Learning Coalition of Osceola, United Way and the City of St. Cloud to bring more opportunities to learn while playing.
The first of these opened last summer at Mark Durbin Park in Kissimmee, and St. Cloud’s opened Wednesday morning at Peghorn Park with a ribbon-cutting — or in Wednesday’s case, a ribbon bustin’, as dozens of local children ran through streamers to celebrate its opening.
The concept is simple: the trail features painted sidewalk blocks with letters, numbers and other phonetic learning tools. Each few hundred feet features a sign with learning tools and tips that children and adults can read together to broaden the learning opportunity for that block. Each sign is in both English and Spanish. Some 750 of these now exist worldwide.
It’s designed for the park’s youngest visitors — learning is critical in children up to five years old to be prepared for kindergarten and the rest of school. Early Learning Coalition of Osceola CEO Amanda Keltenberg said Wednesday that play is the building block of literacy, relationships and a strong sense of self.
“They are all things children need for the brightest future,” she said. “The most important thing in their play experience is a grownup to share it with. That’s what makes a Born Learning trail special, presenting opportunities for children to run and play with the most important adults to them, and that’s when learning magic happens.”
St. Cloud Deputy Mayor Kolby Urban is invested in the park in two ways — as a city official, and the father of a two-year old who was also excited to be at Born Learning Wednesday.
“The Born Learning Trail is going to be a great asset for young families in our community. I can see spending some quality time with my young family, and I’m looking forward to that. It gives a place for our youngest residents to develop their fine motor skills and have interactive fun. We’re excited to have it as an amenity in our city.”
United Way Senior Vice President Ray Larson noted the partnerships that came together to make the park happen, including the volunteers who did the painting and sign installation the previous Saturday.
