United Cerebral Palsy of Northwest Missouri has expanded its preschool classroom to better facilitate students attending its Children’s Program.

Children’s program director Heather Weddle said the space was not big enough to accommodate the needs that UCP had.

“We saw a need for more space in our preschool classroom for our 3-year-olds and our 4-year-olds, the space was not allowing us to move around and offer all sorts of activities for children in our classroom and all the children that we serve.”
UCP lead Preschool teacher, Kimberly Cordonnier said she enjoys the bigger space.

“Before we shared a classroom with another classroom and we did not have, it was about half this size so we didn’t have room for all the kids to sit in a circle, and we didn’t have the space for cubbys and we added an extra center.”

UCP serves more than 400 families with adults or children with disabilities each year. Families come to UCP from Buchnanan, Andrew, DeKalb counties and the surrounding areas. Cordonnier says the lessons children learn at UCP have a huge impact on their future, and the extra space is needed to help facilitate that growth.

“If you don’t have the space you have people touching each other, bumping into each other and they don’t have the space to really move around and get the entire experience of the entire classroom,” said Cordonnier.

Children and adults with disabilities who are served by UCP or Northwest Missouri have a range of abilities and diagnoses including autism, down syndrome, hearing and visual impairments, physical or communication delays and intellectual or speech delays.