Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) recently held their spring sampler events. At the event, parents had the opportunity to try the program at the event. As with all ECFE classes, parents and children played together and then had a snack. Next, parents and children were split up. Parents had group discussion while the children played with their peers. In the group discussion, parents talked about raising their children and they received advice on how to better educate their children. They asked questions about difficulties they may be facing in raising their child(ren). The goal of ECFE is to educate parents on how to be effective educators in the home. “The philosophy of Early Childhood Family Education is seeing that children need to learn. Since parents are the main educators of children ages 0-6, we want to bring them together and teach them how to do this,” said Kimball ECFE coordinator, Maggie Lundorff. Throughout play time, parents were encouraged to follow their child’s lead. “We want them to get on the child’s level,” said Lundorff. Through discussion, ECFE educators teach the parents about appropriate toys for their child’s age. ECFE then provides these toys to stimulate learning which helps children develop different parts of their young brains. One of the children’s favorites learning games at ECFE is the sensory table. This table is filled with different items for children to play with. For example, they may have sand, rice, water or snow. During a recent winter-themed session, ECFE participants played with snow at the sensory table. The teachers brought in squirt bottles filled with different colored substances. “The children learned cause and effect from this activity,” said Lundorff. “They saw how the colors mixed and learned if you squirt across the table, there are consequences.” In the same day, children also learned fine motor skills by creating a snowflake art project. Each participant dipped thread spools into paint, which created a snowflake image on their project sheets. At the end of ECFE sessions, parents and children sing with hand-song skits, such as the “Itsy-bitsy spider.” This encourages language, rhythm and coordination. “We really want to get parents to teach kids how to experience things in new ways,” Lundorff said. Last year, Kimball and Eden Valley-Watkins ECFE served 63 families. For more information on the programs ECFE provides, call Maggie Lundorff at (320) 398-5425 ext. 229 or at (320) 764-5575 ext. 3114.
