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"WEEK OF THE YOUNG CHILD" SPECIAL EVENTS
TEACHER APPRECIATION LUNCHEON
We would like to honor our fantastic teachers with a special luncheon on Wednesday, April 11. There will be sign-up sheets located at the Front desk if you would like to contribute food for this event. Feel free to drop off your food item in the morning. The teachers look forward to this yearly event and greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness!
 
PARENT APPRECIATION
We want to thank our amazing parents with breakfast to go on Thursday, April 12 . Make sure you allow yourself a little extra time to grab yours. Thank you for allowing us the honor to watch your children grow and learn with us!!
 
CHILD APPRECIATION
Bruce the Bug guy will stop for a visit on Monday, April 16 and he will be bringing in some creepy crawly friends. Have you ever touched a giant coach roach? Or a tarantula? Bravely we are going to try!! (Ok maybe not all our teachers)


UPCOMING EVENTS
EFC MAIL
During Week of the Young Child we will have a mailbox on the front counter where you can write your child a special note. It will be delivered to the classrooms via EFC mail and read to your child that day.

SPECIAL DAYS IN APRIL
Wednesday April 12  - Beach Day
Monday April 16  - Jersey Day
Tuesday April 17 - Hat Day
Wednesday April 18 - Wacky Day
Thursday April 19 - Tie-dye Day
Friday April 20 - Pajama Day
Tuesday April 24 - Wear Green

PARENT REMINDERS
LOOKING AHEAD
  • Spring Conferences dates will be posted on classroom doors at the end of the month.
  • Spring Pictures will be May 8.
  • Bears Graduation will be on May 31 at 4:30.
  • EFC will be closed on May 25 for professional development day and May 28 for Memorial Day.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

NAEYC WEEK OF THE YOUNG CHILD 2018: CELEBRATING OUR YOUNGEST LEARNERS
April 16-20 is Week of the Young Child. This is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the nation's largest organization of early childhood professionals with more than 80,000 members and a network of 300 local, state and regional affiliates.
 
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/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.
 
Check out  https://www.naeyc.org/events/woyc/resources for family resources and ways to celebrate Week of the Young Child with your family including:
ESPECIALLY FOR PARENTS
The 7 QI Skills
The following is an excerpt from the article Ready for Success: Quality Care, School-Readiness, and the Skills Young Children Need to Succeed published by Community Playthings. It discusses important school readiness skills that are a complement to the IQ skills traditionally used to measure school readiness.  You can read the full article here.
 
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When intentionally cultivated in the early childhood setting, the following seven skills define quality care and need to be added to our school-readiness checklists:
 
ME Skills: The first of the QI Skills are ME Skills, which are defined by self-awareness, self-control, and impulse control, along with focus and attention. One of the most important things to understand about ME Skills is that the ability to be in control of one's thoughts, feelings, and actions takes time to develop. While ME Skills such as impulse control can and should be encouraged during toddlerhood and can be practiced through such simple activities as playing games, taking turns, and reading aloud (all which require quite a bit of attention and self-control), keep in mind that young children don't typically start to show significant signs of progress until between the ages of 3 and 5 years.
 
WE Skills: WE Skills are the skills needed to play well with others. They include communication, collaboration, and teamwork, along with empathy and active listening. These skills are best learned through social interactions, both with adults and with other children. Everyday activities such as making a point to name and discuss the emotions of characters in books helps children develop an emotional vocabulary and learn the valuable skill of learning to read not just books, but other people.
 
WHY Skills: Curiosity and questioning serve to define the WHY Skills. While encouraging young children to ask lots of questions-not just why, but all sorts of questions-can admittedly be a bit challenging when you're busy or at the end of a long day, it helps to remember that WHY Skills are what help children figure out and understand how the world works.
 
WILL Skills: WILL Skills are those skills that involve self-motivation and drive, and are often described as having "stick-with-it" or "get-the-job-done" attitudes. When it comes to young children, helping develop WILL Skills in part involves giving them words of encouragement and adequate time to practice and ultimately master a skill before swooping in to help. It also involves realizing that motivating children to do something through the constant use of rewards, whether in the form of stickers or sweets and treats, is not the same thing as self-motivation and has been shown, in fact, to potentially backfire and actually impair WILL Skill development.
 
WIGGLE Skills: While you may not be accustomed to thinking of wiggling as a skill, the important thing to understand about it is that physical and intellectual restlessness go hand in hand. While we all learn about the world by physically interacting with it, this is especially true for infants and young children. While there are certainly times when it is appropriate to strap young children in (e.g. in a car seat while driving) or have them practice sitting still, expecting them to always look but don't touch is not only unrealistic, but stands to limit their learning. What young children really need is plenty of wiggle room in which they can safely explore, poke, touch, prod, and learn about the world.
 
WOBBLE Skills: Defined by adaptability, agility, and the ability to recover from failure, cultivating WOBBLE Skills involves creating safe settings and environments in which children are allowed to fail, and then are encouraged to brush themselves off, get right back up, and try again. From a practical standpoint, this amounts to such simple everyday approaches as allowing toddlers to topple, resisting the urge to say "don't run" simply for fear that a preschooler might fall, or helping young children problem solve when they run into obstacles rather than coming to their rescue by providing quick and easy solutions.
 
WHAT IF Skills: WHAT IF Skills are highly valued in today's world, and represent the culmination of all of the QI Skills. They include creativity, innovation, and imagination, as well as hope. There are lots of creative activities that help foster WHAT IF Skills, from reading books and telling stories to drawing pictures and make-believe play. That said, it's also worth remembering that young children naturally excel at being creative and imagining a world of possibilities. That means that our role in cultivating QI Skills doesn't just involve teaching them, but rather realizing that there's more than one way to do things and making sure we don't train the creativity and imagination out of them.
 
 
TWIN CITIES
FAMILY EVENTS
Now-4/30  Farm Babies, MN Zoo, Apple Valley
Now-5/13 Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit, MN Children's Museum, 
St. Paul 
4/8   Goldy's Gallop Kids Run , TCF Bank Stadium
4/17-6/10 Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, Children's Theatre Company
4/20-5/20 Whoever You Are, Stages Theatre, Hopkins
4/21  Earth Day Clean Up
, multiple locations throughout Minneapolis
4/28 Get in Gear Half Marathon, 10k and 5k
, Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis 

by Angie Williams

"...many children will require careful step-by step instruction from reading effective cues to acting on decisions."

Cora, our younger, very spirited daughter is approaching the age of 3, and my husband and I are bracing ourselves. We recall the joys and challenges of this age with Abby, our older daughter; many of these are already in full swing. What is new this time around is that we are not only trying to find parenting strategies that work for Cora, but we are also trying to help Abby relate to her sister in a productive way...
 
Especially for Children
8885 Evergreen Blvd
Coon Rapids MN 55433

Lisa Ward
Director, EFC Coon Rapids 

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