Check Out This Easter Egg! We Have Some Goodies Inside the April Family Newsletter

April 2022

2022-23 Voluntary PreKindergarten

Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program (VPK) is a free educational program that prepares 4-year-olds for success in kindergarten and beyond. Children must live in Florida and be 4 on or before September 1st of the school year they enroll. Parents whose children are born between February 2 and September 1 of the calendar year may postpone enrolling their 4-year-old until the following year when their child is 5.

Parents can choose from different educational settings and various program options. Private child care centers, public schools, and specialized instructional service providers offer VPK. VPK providers have the flexibility to structure daily hours per week to meet the required number of 540 instructional hours.

Enroll Your Child Today!

Ways to Contact your Coalition Family Support Specialist

If you have a question about child care financial assistance or voluntary pre-kindergarten, you can contact a Coalition Family Support Specialist by calling, emailing, or texting their cell phone number directly. See the contact information by clicking the button below.

Contact your Family Support Specialist

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that can affect social communication and behavioral development. ASD is a spectrum disorder which means that each child is affected differently and has unique strengths, challenges, and needs. ASD begins before the age of 3 and lasts throughout a person's life, although symptoms may improve over time.

Early identification of ASD is important so children and families can attain the services and support they need as soon as possible. With awareness, acceptance, and the appropriate support, children with ASD can reach their incredible potential.

Help Me Grow was designed to create an opportunity for parents to track their child's developmental growth. Whether your child needs assistance with an Autism diagnosis, or you just want to check in on your child's development, Help Me Grow is here to help.

CALL 2-1-1 and ask for Help Me Grow, or use the ASQ online tool to complete your child's developmental screening TODAY!

Child Abuse Prevention Month

Plant your own pinwheel. Click below for instructions for a DIY pinwheel craft for kids.

Make your own Pinwheel

We know the cost of college, no matter how far off, can seem overwhelming – even if they’re still just learning their ABCs. Yet as a committed parent, you want to make sure your child has all the tools they need – academic and financial – to succeed.

Our partner Florida Prepaid College Savings Plans wants the same for your child. That’s why Florida Prepaid is encouraging families to start saving for college by joining families in the journey. When you enroll in a Florida 529 Prepaid Plan now through April 30, 2022, you’ll earn $125 for each year of college or university purchased! Familied can earn a total of $500 that will go into a Florida 529 Savings Plan.

The Florida 529 Prepaid and Florida 529 Savings Plans are both great ways to save for college – and they work well together to cover all the costs of college beyond just tuition.

A Florida 529 Prepaid Plan is a stress-free, risk-free way to save for college. You simply purchase a plan the locks in college costs for less. Florida Prepaid manages the plan so you don’t have to. Plans covers the cost of tuition and most fees, and there is an optional Dormitory Plan. And your savings are guaranteed by the State of Florida, so you can never lose your investment.

With a Florida 529 Savings Plan, your family can choose when and how much to contribute to fit you budget and savings goals. The Florida 529 Savings Plan can be used nationwide for qualified college education expenses, including tuition, fees, room, board, books, and supplies. Investment earnings are tax-free as long as they are used for education expenses.

Saving for college is one of the many important steps you can take to secure your child’s future. Florida Prepaid is here to help you make that possible.

Learn More and Enroll

During the Month of the Military Child in April, we recognize our military children and youth. Now more than ever, they have shown resilience and strength in the face of tremendous challenges from COVID-19. Their determination, positivity, and triumph are everything. April is a time to applaud military families and their children for the daily sacrifices they make and the challenges they overcome.

Sesame Street offers a whole site dedicated to Military Families. If you are not familiar with the site, check out below for all the valuable resources that Sesame Street has to offer to Families in our community.

Thrive is a free online program for busy parents like you. It promotes positive parenting, stress management and healthy lifestyle practices. Find out how Thrive can help you raise healthy, resilient children from birth to 18.

Sesame Street For Military Families

Thrive for Military Families

We have a number of videos featuring some of our early learning experts who are here to offer us tips, tricks, and sometimes more complex explanations of early child development. Take a look and be sure to follow us on Facebook for more Parenting Pro Tips coming soon!

ELC Parenting Tips - Structure and Routines

Check out this parenting resource from ZERO TO THREE, an organization that believes during the first three years of life, emotionally nourishing relationships lay the foundation for lifelong health and well-being.

A Year of Play

Browse fun seasonal activities by month to find play activities that promote your child's development.

April’s theme is Colors. Try these fun activities to learn colors and to try some new artistic activities:

Talk Together

For your baby: Notice the colors that fill your baby’s world. Point out his red hat, the green leaves, the orange tabby cat. Have a snack of yellow bananas, red strawberries, and purple grapes. Look out into the black night and try to find yellow stars winking in the sky.
For your toddler: Once your child knows the names of colors, you can begin to use these words in context: “Can you get your red sneakers?” “Would you like a green apple or a yellow apple for snack?” You can also begin to expand your child’s understanding of color by pointing out the difference between grass green and lime green, lemon yellow and golden yellow. April is the time when color begins to bloom outside with flowers and trees. What colors can your child find in the world around her?

Read Together

Read some colorful books. For babies, try Spot Looks at Colors by Eric Hill, the Colors board book by DK Publishing, My Very First Book of Colors by Eric Carle, or Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert. For older toddlers, good choices include Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See by Bill Martin, Jr., Frederick by Leo Lionni, What Makes a Rainbow by Betty Ann Schwartz, Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert, and My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss.

Play Together

For your baby: Make color trays. Take a muffin tray and in each opening place an object that is red, for example. You could place a strawberry, a red teether, a piece of red watermelon, a red mitten or sock, and a red foam ball (make sure it is not a choking hazard). Let your baby touch and play with these objects, but supervise closely since babies this age are likely to “mouth” things they find interesting in order to learn more about them. As you baby plays, you can repeat the word “red”—a red ball, a red strawberry, a red sock. Try making trays of different colored objects.
For your toddler: Toddlers love to help out doing “real” jobs around the house. For colors, try a cooking project where make a rainbow snack together. Pick out a range of healthy foods of different colors—yellow bananas, red watermelon, green grapes, blueberries, etc. Let your child choose what to have as his snack and talk about all the different colors he can eat. What does he think is the best-tasting color?
For babies and toddlers: Make a color book. Staple together 6 pages of construction paper (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) to make a book. Write the appropriate color’s name on each page. Let your child color pictures on each page. Cut photos from magazines and have your child glue these pictures on the right color page (e.g., a photo of a red apple goes on the red page). Read your book together—what is her favorite page? An alternative is to take six photos of your child wearing a shirt of each color and gluing them to the appropriate pages.

3 Ways You Can Use Family Vacations to Teach Your Kids About Money

Traveling with kids means exploring the world together and making memories on family vacations they’ll never forget. It’s also an easy way to teach kids about money that will boost their financial literacy. With its currency switching, daily meals and souvenirs, travel brings a consciousness that things cost money into kids’ realms. Talking to them about those costs will help them become financially wise adults. While many parents feel uncomfortable talking about money, travel offers a natural way to teach kids about money and give them the skills they will need to one day travel as confident adults. Read More...

Easter Bunny Footprints

There is nothing sweeter than a cute Bunny Footprint Craft hanging in your house leading up to Easter. This Easter Bunny Footprint Craft is a great keepsake of your little one's footprints for all the Easters to come.

Bunny Footprints

Painting with Peeps

Supplies

Paint
Paper or Canvas
Peeps marshmallow treats
Foam Brush (optional)

Use a paintbrush to apply paint to the peeps or dip into the paint.

Then decorate your canvas or sheet of paper with a fun design if you would like.

Pom Pom Easter Eggs

Cardboard

Pom Poms

Glue

Cut some egg shapes out of cardboard. Your kids can color them with markers or paint them, preferably with one color so the pom poms can stand out.

Have them take different size pom poms and glue them on to create colorful easter egg patterns.

Courtesy of: Happytoddlertime.com

Shaving Cream Dyed Easter Eggs

Here's a quick and easy way to dye your Easter eggs this year! Use shaving cream and food coloring! You can also use Cool Whip as a substitute. We think this is way more fun for kids to do than the traditional way. Plus, they create some really pretty marbled designs.

Instructions

Egg Carton Flowers

If you have a few egg cartons left over from all of your egg dyeing festivities from Easter, try this fun Spring themed craft that is easy for kids to do. These colorful egg carton flowers are perfect to display or make as a gift for Mother’s Day.

Instructions

Bunny Nose Mask

You and the kids can make these bunny rabbit masks in minutes and they’re super fun for popping into Easter baskets and sharing with friends.

Instructions

We need you! Join the Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) for a platform to discuss the needs and wants of your unique family. Complete the application now, and information about how to join the next virtual meeting will be emailed to you. Don’t miss out!

Join the PAC HERE!

April Special Dates

Alcohol Awareness Month

Financial Literacy Month

National Child Abuse Awareness Month

Month of the Military Child

Keep America Beautiful Month

Autism Awareness Month

National Volunteer Month

Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Stress Awareness Month

National Library Week (April 3-9)

National Wildlife Week (April 4-8)

National Volunteer Week (April 17-23)

Administrative Professionals Week (April 25-29)

Every Kid Healthy Week (April 24-30)

Florida KidCare offers quality, affordable health & dental insurance for ALL FL children from birth through the end of age 18! Children are eligible for head to toe coverage, even if one or both parents are working.

Click here and use code ELC5 to receive an expedited application process.

We exist to help grow healthy children, parents,

and the relationship between them.

If you have applied for child care assistance and are on the Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida’s wait list, please call us at 850-747-5400 or toll free 866-277-9077 for other financial options.

Sponsored by the Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida and the State of Florida, Division of Early Learning