Celebrate Week of the Young Child with YWCA Minneapolis
Week of the Young Child (WOYC) is a national celebration hosted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) on April 16-20. It’s a special week to celebrate young children, their families and teachers. YWCA Minneapolis Child Care Centers will feature an event each day with fun activities for families. Below are the some of the ways from NAEYC that your family can join in at home!
Activities to Celebrate Week of the Young Child with Children at Home
Music Monday
Through music, children develop math, social-emotional and literacy skills – all while having fun! Here’s a few activities to try at home that will help grow these skills:
- When children listen to, repeat and create rhymes, they learn to match the sounds of language. Have your child pick a word like tree or cat, and find words that rhyme. Have them come up with their own rhyming verses!
- Make a simple musical shaker together! Put dried beans between two paper plates and staple the plates together.
- Find the beat to connect music, movement and math. Practice clapping, drumming, or stomping to the beat of the music while counting.
Tasty Tuesday
Cooking together can connect math, language, science skills and more. Plus, this encourages healthy eating and helps children learn about food. Here are a couple activities to try at home:
- Measure your ingredients while making your snacks together! Ask children if they’d like the same or different amounts of each ingredient.
- Plan a taste-testing event at home. Family members can taste and vote on new, healthy foods — veggie burgers, baby spinach, turkey hot dogs, whole wheat pasta, kiwis and the like. Then make the favorites part of your regular menu.
Work Together Wednesday
When children build together they explore math and science concepts and develop their social and early literacy skills. Here are a couple activities to try at home:
- Practice organizing blocks by size. Try building a block tower with large blocks on the bottom and little blocks on top!
- Encourage your child to make a hideaway fort made from couch pillows at home.
Artsy Thursday
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. Here are a couple activities to try at home:
- Bring art outdoors! Offer dark and light paper, chalk and pastels and suggest children create their own versions of the day and night sky!
- Make DIY playdough at home with baking soda, cornstarch and water. Your child can enjoy open-ended play as they mold it into different shapes and sizes.
Family Friday
Engaging and celebrating families is at the heart of supporting our youngest learners.
- To wrap up the week, take a photo of your family spending quality time together and post it to social media. Use the hashtag #woyc18 and tag us @YWCAMinneapolis.
Week of the Young Child is a special event at YWCA Minneapolis. We host a lot of creative things, from ice cream socials to bubble parties, and everyone (kids and parents included) love to get in on the fun.