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Thoughts from the Fun Van

Masking Your Child’s Imagination

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One of the best parts about playing with young children is watching them create an elaborate world out of nothing and anything all at the same time. A box becomes a spaceship, a banana becomes a telephone and a paper plate can become the mask of a superhero, animal or president. Young children create worlds inside their own minds and bring them to life through pretend play. As parents and educators, we want to help engage these creative play scenarios by providing different materials, ideas and encouragement as our children continue to pretend and play.

Masks help jump-start a child’s imagination and gives them the opportunity to become something other than themselves. They initiate story-telling, dramatic play, and engage social-emotional development. Masks are also a great way to connect children with characters in different stories. During the spring sessions at the Fun Van, our educators have each taken a different spin on creating masks. Whether it is using paper plates, toilet paper rolls, paper, or egg cartons, toddlers and preschoolers can engage in the benefits of role playing, story-telling and dramatic play with the use of common household materials.


Ideas to get you started:

Story: The Three Little Pigs   

 Pig Noses made out of egg cartons and elastic

 

 

Story: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Bear Masks out of paper plates, paint and Popsicle sticks

 

Story: Duck and Goose: Here Comes the Easter Bunny

Bunny Masks out of paper, pipe cleaners, Popsicle sticks and pom poms

 

President’s Day Masks out of paper plates, paper and cotton balls
Story: This Little President: A Presidential Premier

Footprint Sleds

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We may live in the desert and sledding, unfortunately, is not a common activity.  However, reading books about the snow and activities one can do in it is definitely something we can do around here.

At Fun Van we like to have a craft and a storytime as well as all the other fun we have in class.  We often like to like to connect the craft to the book if possible.  These Footprint Sleds was a fun activity to go along with the book The Big Red Sled by Jane Gerver.

 

 

Max and Marla by Alexandra Boiger, Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner, and The Snowy Day by Jack Ezra Keats are other fun snow books you should definitely check out.

 

Costumes!

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We love seeing your cute kids in costumes!  Parents are welcome to join in the fun too!

Bones

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Straws make great bones, but only when doing crafts.

Does Fun Van Really Work?

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Maricopa mom attributes kindergarten success to parenting education program

Mid-year of kindergarten at Butterfield Elementary School in Maricopa, 5-year-old Ruby Hoeh’s reading indicators were assessed. She was performing at a first grade level and had a strong foundation to become a successful reader.

Her mother Kristy Hoeh, attributes much of the success to Ruby’s participation in the Apache Junction Fun Van program at the Maricopa Library.

First Things First funds the Apache Junction Library Fun Van to bring the program to parents, caregivers and accompanying young children (age’s birth to 5) that live throughout Pinal County. The Fun Van offers an eight-week program, two-part program consisting of Early Childhood STEP (Systematic Training for Effective Parenting) and Raising A Reader. Both parenting education programs teach helpful parenting techniques to improve family communication and encourage cooperation. STEP provides parents with effective discipline strategies that promote self-esteem and mutual respect.

While Raising a Reader is designed to foster a love of books by developing a habit of reading with your child, it also teaches parents reading strategies to expand their child’s thinking, promoting language and literacy development.

Hoeh signed up for the Fun Van when her daughter Kristy was just 2 years old and she was pregnant with her son Jimmy. The program staff taught Hoeh how to engage her daughter by asking open-ended questions with the goal of getting the kids to think.

“Every week we received a new book to take home and learned about activities kids could do in everyday life that promote reading, text recognition and vocabulary building,” said Hoeh.

The parent educator also helped Hoeh work through her daughter’s daily power struggles and meltdowns.

“Kristy was feeling frustrated when she first entered our program, said Fun Van Parent Educator Felicia Smith. “Her daughter Ruby had very strong feelings and they were both just trying to get through each day. Hoeh was raised to feel like her feelings were not her own.  ‘That’s not how you feel,’ was something she heard regularly at home so she wanted to raise her children to feel comfortable expressing what they were feeling or needing.”

For Hoeh, it meant learning to acknowledge her children’s feelings even when she doesn’t approve of how they are expressing them, such as saying, “I love you so I’m not going to argue with you,” and “I see you’re really upset, but it’s not OK to talk to mommy like that.” She also began setting personal boundaries with her children, as well as others in her life.

“I’ve learned that parenting can be intentional and purposeful and fun and doesn’t just happen. It’s more fun when you think about developmental stages and what’s appropriate at each age and engaging them on different levels in life, and in interactions with other kids,” Hoeh said.

Both Ruby and Jimmy, who started the program as an infant, have benefitted so much from the program on so many levels, Hoeh said.

“First, they’ve developed an excitement for reading and they’ve made new friends and learned how to interact with other people, share, and express their feelings and trust adults,” she said.

“The program has equipped me to be a better parent, too, more confident and calmer. It helped me recognize the importance of being a parent and putting effort in being a parent pays off in the long run.”