April 15, 2024
Last week, Omaha Children’s Museum marked the Week of the Young Child. This was our second year participating in this fun and important celebration of families and teachers. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) established the Week of the Young Child in the 1970s as a way to recognize the needs of children, their families, and the educators who help to shape them. NAEYC uses this week to reinforce that focusing on young children, specifically ages birth through 8, is key to their success in school and professionally later in life. “Today we know more than ever before about the importance of children’s earliest years in shaping their learning and development. Yet, never before have the needs of young children and their families been more pressing. The Week of the Young Child is a time to recognize that children’s opportunities are our responsibilities, and to recommit ourselves to ensuring that each and every child experiences the type of early environment – at home, at child care, at school, and in the community – that will promote their early learning” (NAEYC). Like last year, Nebraska’s Association for the Education of Young Children had different themes to focus on each day of the week.
Music Monday
Not only is music important in the development of early language and literacy skills, it is also a fantastic (and fun) way to begin developing early math skills! So, whether you are jamming out in the car on your way to school or dancing around your living room, put on your favorite song and help your little one to find the beat by clapping, drumming, or stomping while counting!
How OCM Celebrates this Daily: The next time you and your little one are at Omaha Children’ Museum, check out the amazing dance floor in the Art Smart area. Programmed with many videos of local artists or popular trends, you and you little one can follow along with the moves provided, or work out your own!
Tasty Tuesday
Did you know you have a science lab in your house? That’s right! Your kitchen! A great way to introduce early chemistry concepts to your little ones is to cook with them. Children are born with a natural sense of curiosity and desire to learn. “An environment with purposefully selected materials [such as the ingredients of a recipe] allows for in-depth play experiences that help develop and strengthen children’s decision making abilities, which ultimately leads to future independent decision-making across other areas” (“Early Learning Guidelines,” 36). What we as adults struggle with is the desire to be rigid on our children to complete the recipes correctly; instead, we should embrace their inner curiosity! If they want to add extra salt to a recipe, rather than us correcting it, let them try it! This can lead to wonderful opportunities to ask them open-ended questions such as “What do you notice about your recipe? How is it different from mine?” Yes, it might result in some less-than-appetizing creations, but fostering this curiosity within our young learners will allow them to take more safe-risks in their learning as they continue to grow.
How OCM Celebrates this Daily: OCM’s stellar Education team regularly hosts a daily Kitchen ABCs program, teaching important nutrition and cooking skills while helping build fine-motor techniques. While this program is taking a hiatus for the summer, there are still great opportunities throughout the museum. Consider signing your child up for one of our Kitchen ABCs summer camps. Or keep an eye out for our mobile Kitchen Cart popping up throughout this summer’s Power Up exhibit. Don’t have time to attend a full program? No problem! Head to the HyVee Grocery Store in the Imagination Playground and use this area as an opportunity to talk to your child about the importance of nutrition and a balanced diet.
Work Together Wednesday
Working together can help children to grow in their social and early literacy skills, as well as help them grasp a better understanding of math and science skills. There are many fun ways to practice this at home! Make a fort out of couch cushions at home (a great engineering task!); when done, crawl inside and share your favorite stories! Or take your favorite blocks and organize them by size, then by color! When you’ve finished your task, don’t forget to celebrate your victories! All these experiences are key to developing important social skills, which are indicators of being Kindergarten Ready. According to Nebraska’s Early Learning Guidelines,
Children enter kindergarten with a wide variety of skills and knowledge. All areas of a child’s development should be considered, not just his/her academic skills. Science has established a link between social emotional development, behavior, and school success.
Social skills that are essential for academic success:
- Getting along with others (parents, teachers, and peers)
- Following directions
- Identifying and regulating one’s emotions and behavior
- Thinking of appropriate solutions to conflict
- Persisting on a task
- Engaging in social conversation and cooperative play
- Correctly interpreting others’ behavior and emotions
- Feeling good about oneself and others
All these factors can be built upon with simple games and tasks such as those suggested for “Work Together Wednesday!”
How OCM Celebrates this Daily: There are countless opportunities around the museum to work together, either with those you’ve come with or with some new friends! Work together at the water table in Imagination Playground to build a dam over the river. Team up to create a puppet show in the Theatre in Art Smart. Work with new friends to fill up the hopper in the Gravitron and celebrate together as the balls drop!
Artsy Thursday
We use art to think, problem solve, and create! Open-ended art projects are a wonderful way to begin developing children’s creativity, social skills, and fine motor skills. And the best part is, you don’t need to break the bank on materials! Sometimes, using the most random of materials results in the most creative construction. Don’t have any clay around? Why not try soap carving instead! Crayons getting worn and broken? Try painting with Skittles instead; simply arrange your candy how you’d like your image, add a little water, and watch the color transfer! “In recent years, school curricula in the United States have shifted heavily toward common core subjects of reading and math, but what about the arts? Although some may regard art education as a luxury, simple creative activities are some of the building blocks of child development. Learning to create and appreciate visual aesthetics may be more important than ever to the development of the next generation of children as they grow up” (Lynch). Art and the appreciation of art are fundamental for successfully developing so many early childhood skills. Art creation is an indicator of the development of fine motor skills. “According to the National Institutes of Health, developmental milestones around age three should include drawing a circle and beginning to use safety scissors. Around age four, children may be able to draw a square and begin cutting straight lines with scissors. Many preschool programs emphasize the use of scissors because it develops the dexterity children will need for writing” (Lynch). Both making and enjoying art also help children develop key language skills. Not only are they able to learn shape and color words, descriptive language is learned which helps not only with describing their own creations, but also helps them find ways to communicate how they are feeling and their needs. In addition to developing decision making skills and encouraging innovation and cultural awareness, exposure to art at an early age also helps develop some surprising skills with which we as adults sometimes struggle! “’Parents need to be aware that children learn a lot more from graphic sources now than in the past,’ says Dr. Kerry Freedman, Head of Art and Design Education at Northern Illinois University. ‘Children need to know more about the world than just what they can learn through text and numbers. Art education teaches students how to interpret, criticize, and use visual information, and how to make choices based on it.’ Knowledge about visual arts, such as graphic symbolism, is especially important in helping kids become smart consumers and navigate a world filled with marketing logos” (qtd in Lynch).
How OCM Celebrates this Daily: At OCM, we have an entire area dedicated to art! Check out the Art Smart Center! Spend some time at the Paint Wall creating your very own Picasso. Or become a walking work of art by drawing a beautiful creation on your face at our Face Painting station!
Family Friday
We love celebrating families every day of the week, but this week in particular we want to recognize all the support families provide for young learners. Whether it is bringing them to places like Omaha Children’s Museum to learn through play, pulling out the pots and pans to cook with your little (or even start a heavy metal-pan band!), or simply running errands together, everything you do contributes to the growth and development of these learners. OCM and the Week of the Young Child would love to see how you spent your week celebrating. Share any pictures or stories about your family or post to Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #WOYC24 and #FunAtOCM.
How OCM Celebrates this Daily: At OCM, we absolutely love seeing the whole family interact together. Parents, this is your permission to be a kid again! I assure you, the Firetruck Climber is adult safe. So, next time you see your child having the time of their life, join in! The memories you create with one another will last a lifetime!
The Week of the Young Child may only officially come around once a year; however, it is important to celebrate all the achievements (no matter how small) and all the experiences you get to share with your children each and every day. We are honored that you choose to make OCM part of those memories and we look forward to building more moments together in the years to come.
Sources:
Lynch, Grace Hwang. “The Importance of Art in Child Development.” PBS Kids: For Parents, 16 May 2012,
https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/the-importance-of-art-in-child-development, 20 March 2023.
National Association for the Education of Young Children. “What is WOYC.” NAEYC,
https://www.naeyc.org/events/woyc/faq. 20 March 2023.
Nebraska AEYC, Inc. “NAEYC Week of the Young Child: 50th Anniversary.” Nebraska Association for the
Education of Young Children, https://www.nebraskaaeyc.org/week-of-the-young-child.html. 20 March 2023.
Nebraska Department of Education. “Early Learning Guidelines: Nebraska’s Birth to Five Learning and
Development Standards,” https://www.education.ne.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ELG-PDF.pdf. 15 March 2023.
