Back in March the world as we knew it changed, and in turn, we were all given a push to change with it.

2020 has certainly proved to be a year filled with challenges and obstacles and it has tested our ability to adapt and be flexible.

Many of us moved to a work from home scenario, and students have had to adapt to learning in a variety of ways too.

Like so many parents heading into this school year, local resident and teacher Amanda Lodhar had her own reservations. After exploring options for her family as well as her work, she decided to make a change.

"I was looking at the situation with COVID in schools and whether we'd be going back to online learning. What if my own children are learning online because their school has happened to close, but then the school I work at maybe they're still open?" 

Lodhar says that with so many conflicting unknowns, she dug a little deeper and put a call out to the community to assess their needs.

"We came up with this idea of reaching out to the community and seeing what needs are out there. What are people looking for? We had a great response and lots of families were looking for something similar to what we went with."

The shift that Lodhar decided to make was to open an at-home preschool with kindergarten care also available. She says that a lot of families were uncomfortable with sending their kids back to a traditional school with larger class sizes.

"In a larger scale preschool, you're going to get 15 to 20 students with more staff members to keep their ratios and numbers at a certain point," says Lodhar. "For us, being that we can only offer smaller groups of six at a max. we do cater to the families that are looking for something a little more small group and safer."

With many students making the shift to learning from home this year, Lodhar also saw a growing need for student online learning support.

"Going back to last spring when everything closed down. Schools were moving right into online learning and parents were struggling with  - I don't know what to do, I don't know how to help my child," Says Lodhar. "So I thought let's look at how can we support parents? How can we support students? Because I am an elementary school teacher I knew that was something I could lend a hand toward."

Lodhar says that her students and their families are grateful to have these options in this time of uncertainty.

Little Learners in Harmony is still accepting students for in-person preschool, kindergarten care as well as online learning support. To get in touch with 'Miss Amanda' you can click here.