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The Family Place delivers comprehensive programs designed to strengthen positive relationships, teach essential skills and promote enduring healthy growth for families with young children in the Upper Valley and surrounding communities.
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Posted on 23 Mar 2023 by Administrator and has 0 Comment
We invite our community to join The Family Place in our Celebration of the 2023 Week of the Young Child (WOYC), April 1-7!
An annual celebration by The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the week highlights the needs of young children and recognizes the early care providers, educators, and caregivers who meet those needs.
Did you know that a child’s brain grows more between the ages of birth and 3 years old than it does across their entire lifespan? Eighty percent of brain growth and development happens in those years!
The Family Place supports our community with vital programs and services for children and their families. We’re all working together to encourage the future success of our young children.
We will celebrate early learning by sharing family activities (both at home and in-person opportunities) on this webpage and @FamilyPlaceVT on our social media accounts.
As part of our Celebration of the 2023 Week of the Young Child, we have FREE activity bags filled with items for the daily activities! We are thankful for grant funding from The Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children (VTAEYC) and generous donations from the community for these bags.
LIMITED BAGS are available! Please reserve a bag by emailing Lisa Banks (LisaB@the-family-place.org). These activity bags contain:
• Rhythm egg shakers donated by Hanover Strings
• Buttermilk pancake mix – just add water! – donated by King Arthur Baking Company
• Seed packets with seed starting kits donated by Willing Hands
• Watercolor paint palette with a brush and templates to “make your own” bookmarks purchased through funding support from VTAEYC
• Bubble bottles with a wand purchased through funding support from VTAEYC
We are excited to partner with local businesses and organizations for the 2023 Week of the Young Child! We appreciate the generous donations from Hanover Strings, King Arthur Baking Company, Willing Hands, and grant funding from The Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children for the activity bags. We are also thankful for the support of local organizations that provided and hosted activities for families this week: Upper Valley Music Center, Montshire Museum of Science, and our WOYC library partnerships with the Hartland Public Library; Norwich Public Library; Quechee Library and Wilder Club & Library; and Thetford Libraries.
Daily Themes
4/3 Music Monday
Are you ready for #WOYC23? The week starts with Music Monday, a day dedicated to celebrating how children learn through song and dance! Let’s celebrate together with Erin Jenkins Smith from the Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon, NH! Erin teaches a Music Together class to the children of The Family Place’s Early Care and Education Center. We hope her video sparks some fun and interesting at-home activities for you and your family! Sing, dance, and shake your rhythm eggs to Erin’s video (click here to watch the video on YouTube!). Thank you, Upper Valley Music Center, for joining The Family Place in our celebration of Music Monday! Thank you, Hanover Strings, for the generous donation of rhythm egg shakers for our activity bags!
If you do not have a musical instrument on Music Monday, make your own rhythm shaker by following the directions in this instructional video from PBS Kids (click here to watch the video). “Make some music with these colorful maracas crafted from recycled toilet paper rolls! This project is a great sensory activity for young children.”
4/4 Tasty Tuesday
Celebrate #WOYC23 Tasty Tuesday, the second day of our Celebration of the 2023 Week of the Young Child! Childcare Food Specialist at The Family Place, Rhianna Hutchins, and her daughter, Freya, made buttermilk pancakes for the children in our Early Care and Education Program!
The Family Place partnered with the King Arthur Baking Company this year, and they generously donated 100 buttermilk pancake mixes for our WOYC activity bags for young children and their families! LIMITED FREE BAGS are available! Please reserve an activity bag by emailing Lisa Banks (LisaB@the-family-place.org). Preparation is easy – just add water and follow the short instructions! For different recipes using this pancake mix, visit King Arthur Baking Company’s website: http://bit.ly/410jxU0
The recipe for Sheet Pan Buttermilk Pancakes suggests a variety of healthy toppings, like fruit and nuts. It’s also an easy way to make pancakes for a big family! My favorite recipe is Protein Pancake Bites with added berries, bananas, nuts, and more! To read KABC’s article, “Pancake mix: A surprising kitchen MVP,” visit: http://bit.ly/3Uca4a2
4/5 Work Together Wednesday
For Work Together Wednesday, the second day of our Celebration of the 2023 Week of the Young Child, plant seeds with your little helpers! Learn how to plant through an instructional video (click here) created last year by our friends at Cedar Circle Farm! Enjoy your harvest in a few months by using a recipe on Willing Hands’ website (click here). Gardening, harvesting, and cooking together as a family are wonderful ways to introduce science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning to children!
Thank you, Willing Hands, for your generous donation of seeds and seed-starting kits for the WOYC activity bags for families!
Join us for our Woodstock Area Playgroup Connections at the Hartland Public Library in Hartland, VT, for crafts, puzzles, and stories! We will meet at 10-11:30 am at The Hartland Public Library (153 US-5, Hartland, VT, 05048). We will meet inside, so when you arrive let the staff know you are there for playgroup! We are excited about the new playgroup location at the Hartland Public Library on the first Wednesday of each month. For other playgroup opportunities, visit our playgroups webpage (https://www.familyplacevt.org/playgroups/).
4/6 Artsy Thursday
It’s Artsy Thursday! Join us and get creative by making your own bookmarks using the watercolor paint palettes and “create your own” bookmark templates in your activity bags! The children in The Family Place’s Early Care and Education Center did a great job making these colorful bookmarks for our activity bags and also our Little Libraries (with some help from their parents and friends in our Families Learning Together Program). Post a photo of your bookmark creation and tag #WOYC23
4/7 Family Friday
It’s #WOYC23 Family Friday! Engaging and celebrating families is at the heart of supporting our youngest learners. The Family Place and The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) applaud family members’ role as young children’s first and most important teachers.
For Family Friday, join us for The Family Place Playgroup at the Montshire Museum of Science at 10:00 am! When you arrive at the Montshire Museum of Science, let the front desk know you are there for our playgroup and you will receive free admission. We will meet in the Wonder Woods space, an exhibition specially designed to ignite curiosity and support the development of children ages 5 and under. If you can’t join us this week, please come for another playgroup later this month or in May! For more information, contact Tia Howard (tiah@the-family-place.org).
Join us on Friday, April 7, from 1:30-2:00 pm, for a celebratory launch of the Little Libraries on The Family Place’s campus! Families Learning Together Program Educator and High School Liaison, Hayley DeLugach, coordinated The Little Library Project. She shares, “The project came out of a desire to create something that integrated language arts learning with a practical application that would benefit The Family Place. By creating these Little Libraries, the participants were able to connect their learning with the mission of The Family Place. As many participants in our high school program are parents or prospective parents, talking about literacy is important for them as individuals and as parents. We decided to set up two libraries – one they built from scratch and one that was on-site but not accessible to the public. This way one will be for children, and one will be for adults. Participants reflected on the project and said, “I liked that I had input on this project, and everyone got to help work on it.” Another said, “These libraries were a group effort and took lots of preparation. The libraries offer different sizes for easy access for the kids to enjoy picking their own book.” On the completion, another said, “I’m very excited that it is done, and to see many children’s books in it, and also to see families getting books for their children.”
For our Celebration of the 2023 Week of the Young Child, we want to highlight a very important group of people: all our educators at The Family Place! The WOYC is not only about celebrating early learning and young children, but also about their teachers, educators, families, and communities. We thank these skilled and dedicated professionals for all they do to nurture and support the healthy development and well-being of our youngest community members! Educators across all programs at The Family Place bring creativity, curiosity, compassion, dedication, skill, and teamwork to their work every day. We appreciate our wonderful educators!
WOYC Library Partnerships
As part of the WOYC, we have partnered with our libraries for additional activities:
Norwich Public Library
Celebrate the wonder of young children this week at the Norwich Public Library with different take-home activities Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday to help the young child in your life engage in developmentally appropriate math, fine motor, social-emotional, and early literacy skills! Activities are based on “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, “Mix It Up” by Herve Tullet, and “The Family Book” by Todd Parr. Join us on Wednesday, April 5th for a special storytime with Erin Davison, Youth Services Librarian, for Work Together Wednesday at 10:15 am in the community room.
Thetford Libraries
Littles at the Library: a “Week of the Young Child” Event is geared toward young children and their families for Kick-off Saturday at the Thetford Libraries for the Week of the Young Child, a fun-filled week celebrating early learning, young children, their teachers, families, and communities. The library’s theme of the day is spring, gardens, and taking care of the Earth! Join the library for a spring and gardening storytime with Rachael Cook from 2:30-3:30. Help plant echinacea seeds for the new native pollinator garden at the Peabody Library, and bring home a potted seed to bring the bees and birds to your yard! There will also be a children’s book giveaway!
Quechee Library and Wilder Club & Library
Fly into Spring at the Quechee Library! Kids, grades K-4, are invited to be “art detectives” on Saturday, April 8, at 11 am creating their own pastel artworks on the concept of “homes.” A storytime for younger children will be held upstairs and at noon, all are invited to discuss their work with local artists and enjoy light refreshments. Pre-registration is requested for the April 15 (rescheduled date) children’s workshop by emailing info@quecheelibrary.org. Raffle tickets for the birdhouses painted by local artists are available at the Quechee Library and Wilder Club & Library for $1 or 6 for $5. All bird programs in April will be in celebration of the Week of the Young Child and to shine a light on The Family Place highlighting early literacy!
