Author: Brenda Cockerham
Planning Unit: Johnson County CES
Major Program: Making Healthy Lifestyle Choices (general)
Plan of Work: Making Healthy Lifestyle Choices
Outcome: Initial Outcome
Building lifetime patterns begin in preschool. It has been well established that prior to five years old, children can be impacted in a positive way to affect their lifetime when armed with the right tools. For these reasons, Johnson County FCS and the Early Childcare Council has worked diligently toward arming preschool children with the right tools to move forward developmentally. Two major efforts have taken place. The creation of a parent/teacher packet that arms the parents with the knowledge of what is expected of the five year old as they enter school, and the development of curriculum designed to teach one concept at a time beginning with health and minerals, in a classroom or day camp setting. The field test of the first part of the curriculum is has been completed. Out of 32 children in two Head Start classes, 100% did not know what a mineral was or the name of one. Following the lesson, 90% could site calcium as a mineral that was important to building strong bones, teeth and muscles in the human body. They gained a sense of why calcium was important to consume. (This is one of the secret ingredients in becoming a super hero). One parent reported that "Eating calcium was all my child talked about" after the program. In addition to this field test, three hundred participants have become aware of the five categories of child development through the parent expo, an annual event designed by the Early Childcare Council. Extension FCS created the parent handbook for the event with support from state specialist, established a correlating evaluation system and helped coordinate with the Johnson County Health Department reinforcement packets for each concept that was given to each child. These are now given through 5 agencies to children 5 and under throughout the year.
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