What is Week of the Young Child?
Created by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in 1971, the Week of the Young Child (WOTYC) is an annual celebration that focuses on the needs of young children and their families. WOTYC serves to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs. This week, and every other week, we recognize the importance of your child’s earliest years in shaping their learning and development for life.
Why is the Week of the Young Child Important?
Here at Kids’ Care Club, we know that the first 5 years of a child’s life are crucial in shaping your child’s learning and development. The Week of the Young Child serves as a time to recognize the daily experiences of every child in their home, child care, school, and community, that promotes their early learning.
Week of the Young Child at KCC
This year’s WOTYC took place from April 4-8, and we had a fun-filled week at KCC celebrating early learning and all of the children in our program through different daily themes and dress-up days.
Monday: Music Monday & Favorite Character Day
First and foremost, signing, dancing, and listening to music are fun! Engaging in all things music and movement helps develop your child’s language, early literacy skills, and movement. Here at KCC, we welcomed our students to bring musical instruments for show and tell in the classroom while we were all dressed up as our favorite characters.
Tuesday: Tasty Tuesday & Favorite Sports Team
One of the ten standards of excellence in a NAEYC accredited program is health. A NAEYC program must promote the nutrition and health of all children. After all, children must be healthy and safe in order to effectively learn and grow. We celebrated with a picnic on our playground with each child bringing their own healthy sandwiches! To add to the fun, we all dressed up in our favorite sports teams.
Wednesday: Work Together Wednesday & Rainbow Day
Working together offers countless opportunities for problem-solving and critical thinking. Working together and building projects together help children develop their cooperation skills, explore and discover new math and science concepts, and support fine and gross motor skill development. Even better? We all dressed up as a color of the rainbow to celebrate the diversity of our program here at Kids’ Care Club.
Thursday: Artsy Thursday & Decades Day
Who loves to make art? We do! Thursday was dedicated to creating art using the items around the classrooms. The only limit in the classroom was each child’s imagination. Art was made throughout the day with crayons, paper, glue, pencils, markers, and more! Each child and their teacher dressing up in the style of their favorite decade added even more excitement and creativity to the day.
Friday: Family Friday & Polka Dot Day
Our families are the children’s first and most important teachers. On Friday, we celebrated all of our families as the heart of our programs while dressed in polka dots. We invited all the children to bring in photos of their families to share in their classrooms with all of their friends.
While we get to celebrate Week of the Young Child, we are even more thrilled that the principles we celebrate each and every April are core to our program here at Kids’ Care Club. Our young children, their families, and the early experiences that shape them into learners for life are worth celebrating every day.
