![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/tos-l-rollins-hume0971.jpg\")
View from one of the observation rooms at the Hume House Child Development & Research Center, a preschool housed inside Rollins College’s phycology department, on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\nThere\u2019s a science lab at Rollins College where instead of Bunsen burners and microscopes researchers use crayons, papier mache and Play-Doh.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a place where psychology students sit in pint-size furniture and study child development in the most hands-on way \u2014 because their lab is also a working preschool.<\/p>\n
Hume House Child Development and Student Research Center was set up 50 years ago so Rollins students could learn about child development and early childhood education.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they\u2019re reading about in their textbook is really coming to life through their lab experience,\u201d said Alice Davidson, a psychology professor and executive director of the facility.<\/p>\n
The preschool, located on Rollins\u2019 Winter Park campus, serves up to 36 children at a time and always has a waitlist.<\/p>\n
Part of Hume\u2019s mission is to showcase effective ways to teach young children. The Rollins school offers training to teachers from other preschools, inviting them to observe Hume classes. And the college may soon reach even more early childhood teachers through a proposed partnership with the Early Learning Coalition of Orange County, which administers public funding to 641 preschools.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tremendous resource that we have in our community,\u201d said Scott Fritz, CEO of the Coalition, who recently toured Hume. \u201cWhen I was there, I saw engaged children. I saw teachers that were meeting children where they were and helping them develop and flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside, the facility looks in many ways like a typical preschool, but each of its three classrooms are fitted with one-way mirrors. On the other side, college students and professors observe the children, ages 2 to 5, and their teachers.<\/p>\n
Hume\u2019s appeal to parents includes college-educated teachers \u2014 far from common in Florida preschools \u2014 and a creative curriculum that builds lessons around the young students\u2019 interests. Parents must consent to have their children take part in the research, but many are Rollins employees and few object.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trust my colleagues implicitly that they are going to do what\u2019s best for everybody involved and that they are not going to be like lab rats,\u201d said MacKenzie Moon Ryan, an art history professor whose 3-year-old daughter, Ophelia, attends the preschool.<\/p>\n
View from one of the observation rooms at the Hume House Child Development & Research Center, a preschool housed inside Rollins College’s phycology department, on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
All the children at Hume are paired with a Rollins student \u2014 their \u201cbig friend,\u201d who is enrolled in a psychology class and visits once a week. The Rollins student studies the child\u2019s development over the course of a semester recording, for example, how many words they say in a set period of time and tracking progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very challenging course because we have to be interacting with them, playing with them, building a relationship with our target child while also taking a lot of notes on them,\u201d said Ruth Boucher, a junior majoring in psychology.<\/p>\n
Parents are kept up to date on the research through newsletters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe showcase different students who are doing research projects so that the parents really have an understanding of what\u2019s going on,\u201d Davidson said.<\/p>\n
One newsletter last year, for example, informed parents that a psychology major interested in a career in art therapy was at Hume to study artistic expression and appreciation in early childhood. The newsletter featured a photo of the Rollins student painting a primary color wheel for the children.<\/p>\n
The school\u2019s curriculum is based on the Reggio Emilia approach developed in Italy. There are no set lesson plans. Instead, teachers tap into the children\u2019s interests and use those to build educational activities.<\/p>\n
In a recent class, the children were interested in the Disney movie Frozen, so their teacher had them build a castle out of a cardboard refrigerator box.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey painted it all day. When it was dry, they set it in the classroom,\u201d said Diane Doyle, director of Hume. \u201cAnd then, of course, they started reading stories, fairy tales, nursery rhymes or things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fairy tales led to them building a papier mache Rapunzel with orange yarn for hair.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about all that they had to learn to create that,\u201d Doyle said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had to figure out, where\u2019s the body, where\u2019s the legs? How do we get it to stick to the paper? How long is the hair going to be?\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s math, there\u2019s science, there\u2019s problem solving, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, socio-emotional stuff like, \u2018maybe my idea doesn\u2019t win out\u2019. Or, \u2018I have to wait my turn to hear everyone\u2019s ideas about what color we should make Rapunzel\u2019s dress\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
All those skills will help children excel when they get to kindergarten, she said.<\/p>\n
The cardboard castle continued to prompt lessons, as children brought toy dragons to live inside it, then discussed taking pets to a veterinarian and then pivoted to dinosaurs. That classroom is now filled with dinosaur books, plastic dinosaurs and habitats for those creatures made out of arts and crafts supplies.<\/p>\n
![\"Left](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/tos-l-rollins-hume0157.jpg\")
Left to Right, James, assistant teacher Angele O’Callahan and Louis at the Hume House Child Development & Research Center, a preschool housed inside Rollins College’s phycology department, on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
Fritz, with the Early Learning Coalition, said watching how Hume\u2019s preschool teachers create and supervise those lessons would be useful to others, particularly those without a college education.<\/p>\n
Many of the region\u2019s preschools operate on shoe-string budgets, serving largely low-income families who cannot afford the tuition hikes that would cover higher-skilled teachers or extra training.<\/p>\n
Hume teachers\u2019 pay aligns more with public school teachers, and they get insurance and other benefits, too.<\/p>\n
Fritz hopes a partnership with Hume could mean college-level training for preschool teachers at no cost to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would be good for master teachers but also for teachers that are new to the profession that maybe don\u2019t have a formal education,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cThis will be a great way to build their toolbox.\u201d<\/p>\n
Home visits before a child starts at Hume are a key part of the lab school\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe children can show them their bedroom, their favorite stuff, their pets,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cAnd that is a connection point so that when they come to school, then it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, you\u2019ve been to my house\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
During those visits, teachers take pictures of the children with their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a child\u2019s missing mom and needs to just take a few minutes to kind of calm down, they might take the picture of their family and go sit in the cozy corner,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cAnd they can kind of self-regulate till they\u2019re ready to come back and join the rest of the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The home visits also give teachers better insight into children\u2019s development as young kids often act differently where they feel more comfortable.<\/p>\n
Moon Ryan, the professor, said her child is a \u201cmotor mouth\u201d at home. But when she got to Hume, she barely spoke.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was taking it all in. She was observing. She was really shy,\u201d Moon Ryan said.<\/p>\n
Without the home visit, her teacher might have suspected the child had a speech or social delay. But that visit allowed for a more complete picture of a 3-year-old who just needed time to get comfortable in a new environment.<\/p>\n
![\"Nico](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/tos-l-rollins-hume0080.jpg\")
Nico and Gianna paint at Hume House Child Development & Research Center, a preschool housed inside Rollins College’s phycology department, on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
In most preschools, children are separated by age. But classes at Hume mix children ages two to five, encouraging them to learn from one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two-year-olds have more mature models. So they get to observe more sophisticated play,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cAnd the older children, they\u2019re nurturing the younger ones. So it gives them good leadership skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shannen Victor, a Rollins junior who did research at Hume her sophomore year, plans to go to law school after graduation, but said her time at the preschool was a key college experience.<\/p>\n
She still keeps in touch with the family whose child she observed, sending the little girl a happy-birthday message recently, and now volunteers at Hume.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am interested in service,\u201d she said. \u201cI see a lot of engagement with the children and how I\u2019m able to help enrich their learning but also give back to the community as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
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