Celebrating #WOYC23!
We are currently celebrating #WOYC23 with an in-person event in Cincinnati and emails with activity ideas and community resources for each day of the week! We also received a mayoral proclamation!
Check out the pictures below and then take a look at the activity ideas and community resources for each day of the week!
April 3: Music Monday
Today is all about singing, dancing, and listening to music—all of which help children develop their language and early literacy skills while being actively engaged in movement.
Activity Idea: Shakers & Rhythm Sticks
Making shakers with different materials inside can prompt conversations with all age groups of children. Containers of all shapes and sizes can be used to make a shaker, such as old plastic bottles, and old paper towel tubes can be used for making rhythm sticks. If you put corks in one shaker or rhythm stick, and bells in another, you could comment to your infants and toddlers using different adjectives about the sound (quiet, loud, soft, hard) or play a game with older children to figure out what’s inside.
Community Resource
Growing Sound applies key findings from recent child development research into music and resources for teachers, parents, and children.
April 4: Tasty Tuesday
This fun, food-themed day is about more than just cheese and crackers. Cooking together connects math with literacy skills, science, and more. With the rise in childhood obesity, you can encourage healthy nutrition and fitness habits at home and in the classroom.
Activity Idea: What’s Your Favorite?
Toddlers, preschoolers, and school-agers alike can get into the important early mathematics skill of charting. Create a chart, ask children to choose their favorite food item, and track their answers on the chart! This chart can be combined with reading a book about food, making different foods, and tasting food! In addition, this practice gives children the opportunity to practice vital social-emotional skills like listening to others, sharing their preferences, being proud of themselves and their choices, and feeling part of a diverse community!
Community Resource
The Healthy Harvest Mobile Market is a grocery store on wheels! It travels around the Greater Cincinnati area and anyone can use it to buy fresh produce for their family—or their classroom!
April 5: Work Together Wednesday
When children build together they explore math and science concepts and develop their social and early literacy skills. Children can use any building material—from a fort of branches on the playground to a block city in the classroom, or a hideaway made from couch pillows at home.
Activity Idea: Bring-In & Build
Recyclable materials, such as empty boxes, plastic containers, cardboard tubes, and cardboard containers, are perfect for supporting children’s interest in building! Reuse these materials that your school or program may otherwise throw out. You can also ask families and local businesses and organizations to bring in their recyclable materials for children to build with. Add some masking tape and you will be amazed with what children can create!
Community Resource
Crayons to Computers knows that having to furnish one’s classroom out of pocket is becoming more of a reality for many teachers. They are here to help alleviate some of that stress. Visit their website to learn more!
April 6: Artsy Thursday
Think, problem solve, create! Children develop creativity, social skills and fine motor skills with open-ended art projects where they can make choices, use their imaginations, and create with their hands. On Artsy Thursday, celebrate the joy and learning children experience when engaged in creative art making.
Activity Idea: Make Your Mark!
Think, problem solve, create! Children develop creativity, social skills and fine motor skills with open-ended art projects where they can make choices, use their imaginations, and create with their hands. On Artsy Thursday, celebrate the joy and learning children experience when engaged in creative art making.
Community Resource
Indigo Hippo is a non-profit pay-what-you-can art supply thrift store, right in downtown Cincinnati! They have everything you might think of in art supplies and craft materials and also provide art education and resources to the community.
April 7: Family Friday
Engaging and celebrating families is at the heart of supporting our youngest learners. NAEYC applauds family members’ role as young children’s first and most important teachers.
Activity Idea: Say Cheese! Family Photo Time
One way to honor the families we serve is to bring their photos into the classroom. Family photos can be put onto construction paper and laminated to help them last for the entire school year. Consider putting family photos on magnets or velcro as a space-saving way to include family photos all around your classroom. Seeing their families help children of all ages feel safe at school, allowing them to focus on their learning!
Community Resource
Beech Acres Parent Center has many resources for families in Greater Cincinnati: a parent coaching program, a kinship connection network, resource blogs on their website, and behavioral health supports in many schools.