Early Childhood Education at Minnesota North

12/15/2025

Say HELLO to this week’s
🎉 Student of the Week 🎉- Alexandra
She is one of our second year student! Here’s what she had to say👇🏻

"Hey everyone, I am Alexandra. I decided later in life to leave my career job and change to a polar opposite career path, one where I could be more of a mom and enjoy life again. I immediately fell in love with being able to work with children and their families! The wonderful teachers around me encouraged me to go back to school for teaching. So, here I am a second year student in the Minnesota North Itascas Early Childhood Program. I have a beautiful little family, our daughter keeps us busy with her schedule and we enjoy it fully. In our free time you can catch us traveling, hiking, boating, swimming. My daughter and I enjoying our horses! And all of our pets actually! I love spending time with family and friends! I enjoy concerts, theater, art. I dance with an amazing bunch of ladies, and with another awesome group of ladies play volleyball!I thrive on little joys like God's blessings, sunrises, sunsets, good books, and coffee.
My end goal is to further my education with an emphasis on SPED and open an inclusive daycare for 16months to kindergarten age. Thanks to Cody and this program I have recieved the skills to go out and successfully be a well-educated teacher!"

12/15/2025

Say HELLO to this week’s
🎉 Student of the Week 🎉-Maren Hill
She is one of our first year student! Here’s what she had to say👇🏻

“Hello my name is Maren Hill, I am 18 years old, and I’m from Grand Rapids MN. I am a first-year student as well as PSEO student at Minnesota North Itasca in their Early Childhood Program. I will graduate high school this year then graduate from Minnesota North next spring(2027). After I finish here I plan to transfer to Winona State University to get a Bachelors degree in Early Childhood education, then to obtain a Masters in Family and Parent education. Outside of school I enjoy spending time with my boyfriend, my family and friends, going on little adventures, fishing, hunting, four-wheeling, doing crafts, and baking and cooking. I have not fully decided on my exact career in early childhood but I want to work with parents and families to help guide them to be the parents they want to be and support them in their needs. I love the teachers in this program Cody Geisler and Erin Wirtz are so fun and I love chatting with them!! They have gave me so much opportunity already in this early childhood field! What I love about the early childhood path is that if you keep going it offers so much opportunity!”

12/07/2025

12/04/2025

Say HELLO to this week’s
🎉 Student of the Week 🎉-Bella Folkema
She is one of our first year student! Here’s what she had to say👇🏻

“My name is Bella Folkema. I am from North Branch MN. I have a dog name Bailey who is my everything. I came to Itasca for the small environment, not too big of classes, and I got to continue playing sports. My goals are to get my degree in early childhood and to build my own daycare business. I like that we are learning a lot in a little of time and that it isn’t just traditional learning, we have lots of people from our local community come in to show us and elaborate more on things we learn in class.

Some of my pictures are my family who I look up to every single day! I wouldn’t be here at Itasca without a little push.”

12/04/2025

Say HELLO to this week’s
🎉 Student of the Week 🎉-Aailyah Prince
She is one of our first year student! Here’s what she had to say👇🏻

“Hi I’m Aailyah Prince! I’m from Pemberton, Minnesota and I moved to Grand Rapids for college! I love spending time with my boyfriend, I love art, I like shopping lol, I love my family, and I love my pets! I want to hopefully one day open my own childcare center! I chose Minnesota North because of Cody and the program she teaches! When I was in high school I was having a hard time finding a college that had in person classes for early childhood education!”

12/03/2025

🌟 Spotlight on Early Learning! 🌟

We love celebrating the incredible educators who inspire our youngest learners every day. This featured story highlights our amazing lead teacher in our early childhood center right on campus!!

From building strong relationships to creating joyful, engaging learning environments, early childhood educators truly shape the foundation for lifelong success. ❤️📚✨

🎥 Check out this powerful story from the field:
“Stories from the Field: A School-Based Pre-K Teacher”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N96OXuRjpFc&list=PLn-vzFUyiqBcwMhlq5W9e65mDOoxl1_82&index=5er hep

Thinking about a career in early childhood education? Learn how Jessica Bunker became a school-based pre-K teacher and how she supports children’s learning t...

11/06/2025

👋 We are so excited to bring to you our new students of the week spotlights! 📚 Each week, we will highlight 2 of our amazing students who are working hard 💪, making a difference, and bringing their own unique energy to our amazing college community. 🙌

Say HELLO to this week’s
🎉 Student of the Week 🎉- Calleigh Fanfulik
Calleigh is a second year student and also one of our social media coordinators! Here’s what she had to say👇🏻

“Hello everyone, my name is Calleigh Fanfulik! I am 19 years old, and I am from Crookston, MN. I am a second-year student in the MN North Itasca early childhood program. After I finish my final spring semester here, I plan on attending MSUM in the fall in the accelerated early childhood special education program to eventually earn my masters degree. Outside of school I love spending time with my friends and family, I enjoy reading, shopping, lake/ocean swims, traveling, and exploring!! I have not fully decided what my dream early childhood career is but I do know that I am in the right program because I love working with children and their families to better the education for all. Fun facts about me: I am in a worldwide Hershey commercial, I worked in Sitka, Alaska for a few months this summer, and lastly, I love to dance!!”

11/05/2025

👋 We're just a few weeks into our second block of fall classes, and things are off to an amazing start! 🍂 ✨ Our first-year students are on a roll with hexagonal thinking 🧩, exploring how play supports every aspect of child development, and they even tried out the Harvard Brain Game! 🧠💡Meanwhile, our second-year students have jumped right into observation and assessment 👀 ✏️ They took a short trip to the daycare to talk with the teacher about their assessment practices and review the books they use with the children. 📚 👶🏻

11/03/2025

👋 We are so excited to bring to you our new students of the week spotlights! 📚 Each week, we will highlight 2 of our amazing students who are working hard 💪, making a difference, and bringing their own unique energy to our amazing college community. 🙌

Say HELLO to this week’s
🎉 Student of the Week 🎉- Deziree Clafton
Deziree is a second year student and also one of our social media coordinators! Here’s what she had to say👇🏻

“Hello my name is Deziree Clafton. I am 24 years old. I am married and have 3 kiddos and I am a second year student in the Minnesota North Itascas Early Childhood Program. In my free time I love finding good spots to go hiking, painting with family and friends, traveling with my family, and photography. Ive known since I was little that I wanted to grow up to work with children. This program has given me the skills to not only be a good well educated teacher but also a well educated mom. My ultimate goal for this degree was to someday open up my own home childcare. I have always wanted to stay home with my kiddos and this degree will give me an opportunity to do that, help support my family, and help other families!”

10/15/2025

10/14/2025

Our first and second year students have been having SO much fun this first block of classes!! First year students have been field tripping all around the area to learn about our wonderful local early child centers. Today they got to have “baby day” coming from a second year student- baby day was my FAVORITE! Who doesn’t love going to class and interacting with babies for the day?! The second year class has been busy learning about language and literacy in early childhood. They recently got to have class at the Grand Rapids area library to expand their knowledge on different types of genres in children’s books, as well as check out some interactive literacy bags. Want to see what other fun things we do here at ? Follow to see what our program has to offer!!

07/24/2025

Scholarships are still available – including our Workforce Development Scholarships. And it’s still not too late to apply to a Minnesota State college or university for the fall. With hundreds of scholarships available there’s never been a better time to go to college.

https://www.minnstate.edu/scholarships/