Students in Woodson Kindergarten Center classes are picking up “bugs” and playing on scooters — and it’s all part of the learning experience.

Three teachers — Cori Shellum, Jason Denzer and Josh McRae — attended SMART (Stimulating Maturity through Accelerated Readiness Training) instruction over the summer in New Prague, Minn.

The multi-sensory approach to teaching merges the former “Boost-Up” activities, which include crawling mats, monkey bars and scooters in a gym-style setting, with fine motor skill development, like using tweezers to pick up small objects.

Essentially, SMART activities help students develop the skills needed to learn.

“A lot of it revolves around tweezers,” Shellum said with a laugh. She uses the “fine motor bucket,” filled with plastic spiders or beads, when students have a few minutes of spare time or need to re-focus their attention back to work and refine their cognitive skills.

“We try to tell the kids, it’s supposed to get their bodies ready to learn,” Denzer said. “We do a lot of eye training. You take for granted how important your eyes are.”

Denzer said he likes to use yoga in his classroom as a means of grabbing kids’ attention.

“I will say, ‘Show me squirrel,’” he said. “And now, I can get back to my lessons. It’s been pretty phenomenal.

“They’re 5 — their attentions are small,” Denzer explained.

Other motor skills activities, which Woodson has been using since it opened a few years ago, help kids build strength by running, jumping and playing in the gym.

“It’s like weight-training for 5-year-olds,” Denzer said with a laugh.

Shellum said in only three weeks of using SMART activities, the results can already be seen.

“We had several students who couldn’t even hold a pencil,” Shellum said. “Now, they are able to write their names.”

She believes the true results of SMART activities may not even be seen for several years.

“I hope even down the road, first- and second-grade teachers will start to see results,” Shellum said. “Some kids are not prepared to complete the simple tasks it takes to be a first-grader.”