Connecting with kids: Northwest Area pre-k teacher readies her students for success

At Northwest Area Primary School in Huntington Mills, everything in Beth Logsdon’s prekindergarten classroom is labeled, from the plastic kitchen and laundry play set to the windows that overlook the parking lot.

Helping her students identify and define the world around them is just one of the ways Logsdon has laid a foundation for them to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.

“I tell the parents all the time that … I do teach them letters and numbers, but my main goal is to get them socially and emotionally ready for school,” Logsdon, 46, explained when she sat down in her classroom with the Times Leader earlier this month.

That includes teaching students how to take direction, how to listen and to verbalize their feelings, in ways that are both educational and fun.

On that particular day, one of the ways Logsdon demonstrated this was by having her students sit in a circle on the floor as she unfolded a large, multi-colored parachute.

The goal was to work as a team to shake the parachute up and down while trying to keep a ball from jumping out and onto the floor.

The kids went wild and were laughing and squealing the entire time, something that came as no surprise to their teacher.

“The smallest things get them excited,” Logsdon smiled.

This year, the pre-K Counts teacher will celebrate 25 years as an educator. After graduating from Bloomsburg University in 1999, she took her first teaching job in Las Vegas, but returned to her home state a year later and has taught in the Northwest Area school district ever since.

“Thankfully, I have a lot of really great families in this district. I’ve always been pretty blessed to work in a small community where everybody knows each other,” she said.

Logsdon described early childhood education as her “niche” and said she was drawn to it because it allowed her to instill in young people a love and passion for learning as she watched them gain independence.

“Today I was on breakfast duty and this little kindergartner, she opened her milk for the first time today. I said, ‘You did it!’ and she just had this smile,” Logsdon said.

The first time Logsdon worked with children was at her church, where she said teaching was easy and came naturally to her.

Then in college, Logsdon worked with pre-K students at a summer program at Rainbow Hill School, which was also her first exposure to teaching an autistic child who was nonverbal.

That child was apparently fascinated by the water faucet and Logsdon explained how she showed him how to push the button so water would come out.

“He looked at me right in the eyes and said, ‘Wow,” she remembered. “I knew then I could do this because I made that connection.”

Now, having taught pre-K for nearly a decade, Logsdon said that her teaching philosophy continues to evolve depending on what her students respond to.

Current world events also play a part in her lesson plan. This year, she got to teach her students about space for the first time leading up to April’s solar eclipse.

What has stayed constant, though, is her dedication to teaching her students basic life skills like how to use scissors safely or how to zip up their jackets by themselves. The focus on vocabulary and socialization has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve really had to work on using appropriate language with friends and being able to verbalize what they want,” she said.

After over two decades in education, Logsdon has learned a lot, including how important it is to have qualified paraprofessionals to assist in the classroom, especially in early childhood education.

“So many kids need that extra hug, that extra reminder of a pencil — just somebody watching out for them. To have extra eyes is indispensable,” she said.

And her advice for aspiring teachers?

“You have to really know that you love kids and that you want what’s best for them and you want to see them succeed,” she said.

“This job is so much more than just babysitting. It’s important that we start to value it and that we as teachers are valued.”