Early Learning Newsletter

This Saturday!

Join us this Saturday for family fun! For families babies, toddlers, preschoolers and elementary age students.

Craft Ideas to do with your Little One!

Find Fine Motor activities that keep your preschoolers ENGAGED!

https://earlylearningideas.com/art-for-preschoolers-painting-with-marbles-and-balls/

Supplies

For this process art project, you need four supplies.

a ball
a box
paper (any color)
paint (I like to use tempera)

The ball, of course, is the most important supply. We can’t call this “painting with balls” without one. It’s fun to experiment with different types of balls. Try some of these ideas:

whiffle balls
marbles
playground balls
smooth balls
nubby balls

Your box needs to be big enough so that you can lay a piece of paper at the bottom. The sides need to be high enough to contain a ball. You can use the bottom of a pizza box, or pick up some nice shallow boxes on your next trip to Costco.

There is no set way to make a ball painting. Play around with it and use the method that works best for you. Kids can use an eyedropper to add drops of paint directly onto the paper.

They can then add balls to the box and roll them around through the paint until a beautiful work of art is created.

https://www.readingfoundation.org/resources/hub/reading-and-play

Reading 20 Minutes Every Day and Playing With a Purpose are essential activities to do with your child to help them get READY! for Kindergarten.

Reading Tips:

For Babies: Hold the little one on your lap and snuggle; use a lot of eye contact and voice inflection. Smile, relax and enjoy. Let baby know you think books and reading are fun. You are promoting brain development as you read, sing and talk to a baby.
At this age, babies need to hear language and experience its rhythm, rhyme, vocabulary and syntax. Slow down and enunciate each word clearly. Don’t rush; it’s okay to linger on a page if the baby is interested.
Baby is also absorbing the social context of the interaction—cheerfulness and enjoyment. Positive emotions and experiences are important. Consider reading to baby in short segments, perhaps just a few minutes or pages at a time. When the baby turns away or gets fussy, that may be a cue to change activities and read again later.

Toddlers and preschool children benefit from the Three R’s: rhythm, rhymes, and repetition. They are active learners, involve them while you read together. Break the 20 minutes of daily reading into smaller segments, perhaps 5 minutes each.
Discussion builds comprehension and communication skills. Ask who, what, why, when, where and how questions. At this age, children likely enjoy answering questions such as, “What is this animal?”, “How many birds do you see?”, “What color is this car?” and “What do you think will happen next?”
Smile, relax and listen. Be sure to allow plenty of time for the child to respond by counting to five silently in your mind. This is called “wait time” and shows respect for a child’s growing thinking and speaking skills.

Services

Clothing/Household Goods

Local Health Care

Food Assistance

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Friends of the Estacada Public Library are the Local Champions of Imagination Library.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides specially-selected, age-appropriate, high-quality books for children from birth to age five. Books are delivered to your home each month in a package addressed to the child receiving it. This program is free of charge to participating families, and is funded and maintained locally by Friends of the Estacada Public Library and other community donors. Visit the Imagination Library web site to find out more about this exciting early literacy program.

Registration is open to children from birth to five years old who reside in zip codes 97022 and 97023 ( Eagle Creek and Estacada ).

Fill out the online registration form

Imagination Library links

Goodnight with Dolly Storytime Videos--Dolly reads 10 bedtime stories; Literacy Tips and Resources for Parents and Caregivers; Coloring & Activity Sheets