“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.”
Walt Streightiff
Walt Streightiff
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The Week of the Young Child® is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the world's largest early childhood education association. The purpose of the Week of the Young Child® is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families and to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs.
NAEYC first established the Week of the Young Child® in 1971, recognizing that the early childhood years (birth through age 8) lay the foundation for children's success in school and later life. The Week of the Young Child™ is a time to plan how we—as citizens of a community, of a state, and of a nation—will better meet the needs of all young children and their families. |
Music Monday
Making music is one of the most intense, multi-sensory, and physically involving activities in which young children engage (Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute).
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Music Therapist, Dawn Sandel, explains the benefits of music for children of all ages and abilities. Highlights of music therapy services at the RISE Center (UA) are also featured.
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When children sing, dance, play instruments, and listen to music, they develop their language and early literacy skills, motor skills, and cognition. Watch board-certified music therapist, Dawn Sandel sing “Hello” and address early developmental milestones, such as waving hello, responding to name, and body part identification. Instrument play with egg shakers is also presented as Dawn sings “I Know a Chicken” (Laurie Berkner) and encourages simple sign language and tummy time. These songs/concepts can be implemented at home or in the classroom.
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tasty Tuesday
Teaching children about nutrition and physical activity is important (USDA). Cooking together also connects math with literacy skills, science, and more.
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In this video for Tasty Tuesday, UA Child Development Specialist Leigh Pate and Nutritionist Julia Sosa discuss barriers that families in the Latino immigrant community face in having access to nutritious and affordable food, and existing services that help to offset the cost of food.
En este video para Martes Sabroso, Leigh Pate, especialista en desarrollo infantil de UA, y Julia Sosa, especialista en nutrición, discuten las barreras que enfrentan las familias de la comunidad inmigrante latina para tener acceso a alimentos nutritivos a precios razonables y servicios que existen para compensar los costos de los alimentos. Cooking can help young children learn and practice some basic math concepts and build language skills. The experience of creating meals with others can help build children’s self-confidence and lay the foundation for healthy eating habits. In this video, you can see how eager the toddler classroom at RISE Center is to assist in making bread. Children learn by touching, tasting, feeling, smelling, observing, reading and listening.
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Cooking together connects math with literacy skill, science, fine motor skills and more while encouraging healthy nutrition at home and in the classroom. The children in RISE Center’s preschool classroom are connecting literacy and healthy cooking following reading Eric Carle’s, “Pancakes, Pancakes!” Children work on making pancakes by measuring, mixing, and pouring ingredients. They are able to see the transformation of the pancake ingredients. There are many ways to make cooking with toddlers and preschoolers fun and enriching!
Sparking young children’s interest in healthy foods and snacks can be challenging. One way parents can encourage young children to get their daily intake of fruits and vegetables is by disguising it in recipes that they already love and continually talking to children about healthy nutrition. This smoothie activity is an example of how anyone can include young children in the kitchen and expand their knowledge on nutritious snacks.
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Work Together Wednesday
When children build and work together, they explore math and science concepts and develop their social and early literacy skills.
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Children often collect small items. One toddler class was frequently collecting sticks and making small piles with them while on the playground. Their teachers encouraged their interest and expanded on this project by taking the children on a nature walk around the school grounds to collect a variety of different types of sticks and leaves. With the items that they had collected the children and teachers worked together to create one very large pile of sticks and leaves that they layered together to make a nature collage.
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Working with other people takes practice and young toddlers can start practicing their social skills through play. Here are two examples of how young toddlers work together to see-saw and push one another in a wagon.
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Two preschool children work together to complete a puzzle using pattern blocks. This particular puzzle can be solved many different ways, and the children often try to find new ways to complete this puzzle. Though this is an activity that can be completed individually, the children seem to find much joy in completing this together!
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In this video, preschool children spontaneously lead an exercise class together. One child started this session, then the other children joined in and made it their own. The children in this video worked together as they followed each other’s lead and created new exercise routines.
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Artsy Thursday
Art experiences give children opportunities for creative expression, multi-sensory learning, and ways to represent their ideas, thoughts, and experiences in various forms.
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Children develop creativity, social skills, and fine muscles with open-ended art projects that let them make choices, use their imaginations, and create with their hands. Join Shana Milligan as she discusses some fun ideas for three-dimensional (3D) art activities to do with young children.
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There are two very different types of art experiences. In the first, a process art experience, the child has many opportunities to explore the materials, think, express him/herself, and create. The second is a product focused art experience where the child follows directions given to make a predetermined end product. These two types of art experiences don’t support children’s development in the same ways. It's important to know the difference in order to offer children art experiences that support their creativity, enjoyment of art, thinking skills, and healthy development. In this video, the children of RISE Center’s preschool classroom are able to be creative and explore different materials.
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“Pete the Cat” is a very well-known children’s book written by James Dean. The children in RISE Center’s toddler classroom were able to act out the familiar book by walking through paint and water. Walking with slippery, painted feet (with the guidance and assistance of trusted adults) helps children to develop their balance, coordination and core stability, and also encourages them to make connections between their movements and the marks they make.
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Messy play like finger painting is important to every child's development. It helps the body and brain integrate information, such as that needed for later spatial concepts, math and language. Painting is a way for children to do many important things: convey ideas, express emotion, use their senses, explore color, explore process and outcomes, and create aesthetically pleasing works and experiences.
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Art exploration is not only fun and entertaining – it’s also educational. The freedom to manipulate different materials in an organic and unstructured way allows for exploration and experimentation. The children in RISE Center’s preschool classroom work on fine motor development – building eye-hand coordination and gross motor skills by using large arm movements and the whole body to stretch and reach. They also work on language development, social development, and cognitive development through art.
Rainbow StudyInfants depend on their caregivers to provide interesting stimulus in their environment. One way caregivers can provide this stimulus is through a colorful mobile that hangs over an infant’s play mat or crib. Mobiles give infants something interesting to gaze at, and colors pique their limited – but developing – eye sight. Infant teachers at the Children’s Program involved the children in their classroom in the making their own mobile by using all the colors of the rainbow and mirrors.
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Young children learn about the world through their senses. Infant and toddler teachers provide experiences that allow children to learn through multiple senses in one activity. Painting activities with multisensory materials allow infants to learn through sight, touch, and hearing.
Pot PaintingTeachers frequently look for behaviors and interests of the child to build an activity around. Other times children are invited to experience an interest of the teacher in an engaging and age-appropriate way. In this way, teachers and children learn from one another. One of the teachers in The UA Children’s Program shared her interest of growing flowers with young toddlers. The featured documentation chronicles the growth of the project as the teacher and children learn alongside one another.
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Family Friday
Engaging and celebrating families is at the heart of teaching young children.
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The Chinese school in Tuscaloosa serves as a socialization agent and provides social support for local families and friends. Through learning language and culture, our children develop a sense of belonging, enhance their ethnic identity, and form positive characters.
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. Human faces are one of an infant's favorite and fascinating things to observe. By three months of age, most babies know the difference between familiar faces and strange ones.
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Reading and storytelling with infants and young children promotes brain development and imagination, develops language and emotions, and strengthens relationships. Even during a pandemic, schools and families can work together showing the importance of parent/child interactions by reading to your child’s class as seen in the video from the RISE Center. Reading stories with children has benefits for adults, too. The special time you spend reading together promotes bonding and helps to build your relationship with your child.
Positive relationships between adults and children are essential for the development of children’s sense of personal responsibility and for fostering their capacity for self-regulation, their constructive interactions with others, and their academic function and mastery.One waythat The UA Children’s Program includes families’ unique cultural backgroundsinto the program is througha specialfestival,called theannual Holiday Cultural Celebration. Families are also invitedto be active participants in eachclassroom, providing authentic cultural experiences for the children.
Check out these resources for families and caregivers!
Parenting Assistance Line Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education Zero to Three: Early Connections Last a Lifetime Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences: University of Washington Alabama Family Central Alabama Partnership for Children Center on the Developing Child: Harvard University |
About Our Contributors
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Dr. Shan Jiang is an adjunct professor at the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at The University of Alabama. She received her doctoral degree from Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Delaware in 2018. Currently, Dr. Jiang serves as the principal of the Chinese School Tuscaloosa. She is an active member of the local community in promoting diversity and cultural awareness. She is also actively involved in local schools by organizing various outreach events and summer camps.
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Shana Milligan has worked in Early Childhood Education for over 25years serving children, parents, student interns and childcare providers. The past 18 years, she has been a Child Development Specialist at Child Development Resources at The University of Alabama serving providers in a 12-county region. As a Child Development Specialist, she develops and implements training workshops for childcare providers to meet all areas of development required by DHR. She also provides parent trainings, and provides technical assistance and one on one consultations to childcare providers. Mrs. Milligan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Child Development from the University of Alabama.
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Leigh Pate has over 25 years working with young children and families, first as Interventionist, Service Coordinator and Interpreter/Translator for Community Service Programs of West Alabama Early Intervention and the RISE School, and now as Child Development Specialist in the Child Development Resources department at the University of Alabama. Ms. Pate has worked as an advocate for the Latino population in this field and in the community at large. She has a bachelor’s degree in International Studies and is a certified Infant Massage Instructor.
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Dawn Sandel is the board-certified music therapist at the University of Alabama’s RISE Center, an inclusion preschool which serves children 8 weeks-5 years. She holds a Bachelor of Music Therapy from the University of Dayton and a Master of Arts in Early Childhood Special Education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is a clinical supervisor for music therapy majors and is certified in POUND® fitness and 4-H Yoga.
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Julia Sosa is currently the Prenatal Outreach and Latino HIV Coordinator for Whatley Health Services, Inc. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Dietetics and Nutrition from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Prior to her current position, Mrs. Sosa was the Director of the Office of Minority Health for the Alabama Department of Public Health. In her tenure of 35 years, Mrs. Sosa has dedicated her professional service to advocate for health care issues affecting minority and underserved populations. One of her passions is to educate private and public organizations on how to provide culturally competent care services to the Latino Communities living in Alabama.
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With Special Thanks To Our Partners in Early Learning
The UA Children’s Program
The Children’s Program was established in 1931 as a laboratory school to provide quality care for children and educate future child development professionals about developmentally appropriate practices with young children. Ten classrooms provide high quality care and early education to children ages two months to five years. The purpose of The Children’s Program is to provide a safe, healthy, joyful environment where children can grow and learn at a rate that not only recognizes, but celebrates, each child’s individuality and diversity. The Children’s Program models practices found in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and is grounded in social constructivist theory. The curriculum is designed to encourage children to explore and experience the world around them through play-based activities. The Children’s Program addresses the needs of the whole child and fosters growth in social-emotional, cognitive, language, physical development and literacy skills.
The RISE Center
RISE was started in 1974 to enrich the lives of infants and preschoolers with and without special needs. Children at RISE receive music therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy in an inclusive classroom setting. The program includes seven classrooms with highly-qualified early childhood education teachers that embed individual therapy goals into daily developmentally appropriate activities. The RISE Center currently serves close to 100 children and their families.
Child Development Resources
Child Development Resources (CDR) is west, central Alabama′s resource for information about the well-being of young children. CDR’s mission is to help families succeed by providing information and resources to enhance the family′s ability to provide a safe, loving, and enriching life for young children. Child Development Resources provides training for professional child care providers, offers child care resource and referral information, and conducts parenting education and support programming.
Our Team of Early Childhood Professionals
The early childhood education faculty and staff in The Department of Human Development and Family Studies: Dr. Holland Banse, Dr. Kimberly Blitch, Dr. Sherwood-Burns-Nader, Dr. Maria Hernandez-Reif, Dr. April Kendrick, Dr. Cecile Komara, Mrs. Michelle Darabaris, Mrs. Andi Gillen, and Mrs. Sara Nance.
The Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at The University of Alabama
HDFS focuses on helping children, families, and relationships thrive. Students and faculty work from a lifespan ecological perspective on development and families, recognizing and supporting the many forms of diversity in individuals, families, developmental pathways, and contexts. HDFS focuses on discovering and applying new knowledge to strengthen individuals, families, relationships, and communities, and on preparing the next generation of professionals to serve and lead.
With Special Thanks to Our Colleagues
Tabby Brown, CHES Communications Specialist
Craig Graves, CHES Creative Media Manager
Rosemary Klein, CHES Social Media Manager
Steven Lockhart, CHES Web Developer and IT Technical Specialist
Dr. Rachel Thompson, Director of The Center for Instructional Technology
The Children’s Program was established in 1931 as a laboratory school to provide quality care for children and educate future child development professionals about developmentally appropriate practices with young children. Ten classrooms provide high quality care and early education to children ages two months to five years. The purpose of The Children’s Program is to provide a safe, healthy, joyful environment where children can grow and learn at a rate that not only recognizes, but celebrates, each child’s individuality and diversity. The Children’s Program models practices found in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and is grounded in social constructivist theory. The curriculum is designed to encourage children to explore and experience the world around them through play-based activities. The Children’s Program addresses the needs of the whole child and fosters growth in social-emotional, cognitive, language, physical development and literacy skills.
The RISE Center
RISE was started in 1974 to enrich the lives of infants and preschoolers with and without special needs. Children at RISE receive music therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy in an inclusive classroom setting. The program includes seven classrooms with highly-qualified early childhood education teachers that embed individual therapy goals into daily developmentally appropriate activities. The RISE Center currently serves close to 100 children and their families.
Child Development Resources
Child Development Resources (CDR) is west, central Alabama′s resource for information about the well-being of young children. CDR’s mission is to help families succeed by providing information and resources to enhance the family′s ability to provide a safe, loving, and enriching life for young children. Child Development Resources provides training for professional child care providers, offers child care resource and referral information, and conducts parenting education and support programming.
Our Team of Early Childhood Professionals
The early childhood education faculty and staff in The Department of Human Development and Family Studies: Dr. Holland Banse, Dr. Kimberly Blitch, Dr. Sherwood-Burns-Nader, Dr. Maria Hernandez-Reif, Dr. April Kendrick, Dr. Cecile Komara, Mrs. Michelle Darabaris, Mrs. Andi Gillen, and Mrs. Sara Nance.
The Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at The University of Alabama
HDFS focuses on helping children, families, and relationships thrive. Students and faculty work from a lifespan ecological perspective on development and families, recognizing and supporting the many forms of diversity in individuals, families, developmental pathways, and contexts. HDFS focuses on discovering and applying new knowledge to strengthen individuals, families, relationships, and communities, and on preparing the next generation of professionals to serve and lead.
With Special Thanks to Our Colleagues
Tabby Brown, CHES Communications Specialist
Craig Graves, CHES Creative Media Manager
Rosemary Klein, CHES Social Media Manager
Steven Lockhart, CHES Web Developer and IT Technical Specialist
Dr. Rachel Thompson, Director of The Center for Instructional Technology