The Allen, Logan, and Simpson Community Early Childhood Council seeks to improve school readiness in our area by engaging families, offering professional development opportunities to providers and mini grant opportunities to STAR rated centers.  Kindergarten readiness means that each child enters school ready to engage in and benefit from early learning experiences that best promote the child’s success.  The kindergarten screener measures readiness in five important domains, academic/cognitive, language development, physical development, self-help, and social-emotional.  

The 2016 Early Childhood Profile for Logan County indicates the following readiness results for preschool aged children in Logan County: 

Academic/Cognitive:  34.1%

Language Development: 75.8%

Physical Development:  47.1%

Self-Help:  44.2%Social

Emotional:  74.8%

Logan County is among the counties in Kentucky in the second highest category for death rates caused by heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. Adult obesity is at 34% in Logan County which contributes to these unhealthy situations. Logan County also has a number of citizens living below the poverty level with over 16% of the total population below poverty and over 23% of children under the age of 18 living below the poverty level. Nutrition Education Programs help families gain access to food and stretch food dollars; communities to decrease hunger; and local food assistance programs to educate recipients on healthy and safe food preparation methods. Agents, paraprofessionals and volunteers are pivotal in training consumers and producers to maximize local access to food products from farm to table.

The average person is 3 generations from production agriculture. It is important to educate the public and our youth about where their food comes from and emphasize food safety. 

The Logan County Extension Agents for Family and Consumer Sciences, 4-H Youth Development and Agriculture and Natural Resources partnered together to provide these events.  One of the activities that we chose to offer our families was Family Fun at the Farmer’s Market.  This event was held on two occasions to give more families opportunity to attend.  Each event incorporated multiple avenues for preschool children to engage in those school readiness skills while also learning more about the farmer’s market.  Activities included making a craft related to and using fruits/vegetables, recipe sampling using fruits/vegetables utilizing the Plate It Up recipes, discussion about farmer’s market, exploration of farmer’s market, distribution of goodie bags including information about the kindergarten readiness skills for parents, recipes, books and other information, gel packs, jump ropes, and bubbles, and a farmer’s market shopping experience. The specific kindergarten readiness skills that were incorporated into these events were: Identify basic colors, Eats balanced diet, Runs, jumps and does other activities, Child is curious, Persists in activities, Follow simple rules/routines, Shows curiosity, Explores new things Evaluation results indicated the following: 

Event #1

•100% of children did not know what types of things you find at the farmer’s market before attending

•100% of children were able to name at least one item found at the farmer’s market after exploring the farmer’s market and attending the event

•All participants indicated they wanted to come back to the farmer’s market

Event #29 total participants

67% of participants were able to sort vegetables by color and/or shape

78% of participants were able to identify red, purple, orange, green and yellow

56% of participants eat fruits and/or vegetables each day

56% of participants follow simple rules/routines

56% of participants can tell others his/her full name

56% of participants can persist in activities

56% of participants can share with others