Kids get a head start

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- More than 200 children in various colored smocks with

the words “Head Start” across the front and back flocked to the Lions

Park playground Thursday morning.

Music blasted from speakers as they played on the huge yellow

airplane, had their faces painted by clowns, made arts and crafts, and

enjoyed various other games.

And they were not alone.

Discernible only by their lack of a smock and the presence of a scarf

tied around their necks, were the preschoolers’ elders -- kindergarten

students from several Costa Mesa elementary schools.

To the children, this was just a day of fun. But there was an

important purpose behind bringing the children together.

“It is meshing the kindergarten and preschoolers together and kind of

a fun day for both, as well as a learning experience,” said Rose Alvarez,

the director of the Matt Kline Head Start in Costa Mesa. “It starts the

collaboration and the socializing.”

The purpose of the annual Head Start picnic is just an extension of

the program, which is to prepare students for kindergarten, Alvarez said.

Edgar Guerrero, 5, is in Head Start this year. Next year, he will be

enrolled at Wilson Elementary School, where his older sister attends.

His father, Edgar Guerrero Sr., said the program has definitely given

his son a jump-start that his daughter did not have going straight into

kindergarten.

“He is more outgoing, more open-minded to get stuff faster,” Guerrero

said. “I think he’s kind of more ready than when she started.”

Most of what they do in Head Start -- teaching students social and

listening skills, teaching shapes, colors and the alphabet -- are things

that used to be addressed in kindergarten.

“It helped my daughter tremendously,” said George Martinez, who still

volunteers with the program although his daughter is now in the

fourth-grade at Pomona Elementary School. “This is just a great, great

program. I wish other kids could use it.”

The program, which has a waiting list, serves only low-income families

or those with disabilities. But they do not just work with students.

The program involves the entire family, offering parents English,

literacy and parenting classes.

So, while the preschoolers played with the “big kids,” their parents

went from booth to booth learning about many community organizations,

from the library to health care providers, that their children have

access to.