It is through our valued partnership with the Allen, Logan, and Simpson Community Early Childhood Council that we, the Logan County Cooperative Extension Service, seek to improve school readiness in Logan County by educating, encouraging, and engaging families. 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. According to the 2022 Early Childhood Profile, only 43.5% of Logan County children are ready to enter kindergarten. 

To address our school readiness areas of concern, the Logan County Cooperative Extension Service in cooperation with our community partners, provided a fall school readiness event called “Preschool Pumpkin Days" for families of preschool aged children in Logan County. 

This county-wide initiative was held at the Logan County Extension Office by the Logan County Extension Agents in Family Consumer Sciences, 4-H and Youth Development and Agriculture as well as the Logan County SNAP-Ed Assistant. Other key community partners that were instrumental in making these events happen were family resource directors from all of the Logan County Schools and Stevenson Elementary School, the Logan County Library, the Logan County Health Department, and the Logan County Schools preschool teachers.  

We hosted a drive through event that provided 87 children with resources to address the areas of healthy eating, literacy, physical activity, self-help skills, gross and fine motor skills and social skills. In addition to the resources for children, 78 parents were provided information on school readiness as well as training components for each resource included in the goodie bag on how items could be used to teach and reinforce school readiness skills.  Each station of the drive through event focused on one or more of the school readiness skills for Kentucky, in addition to home gardening activities. In addition to the drive through portion of the event, an in person activity was also offered allowing each child the opportunity to sample a healthy snack option as well as participate in a hand on fine motor skill activity.  52% of parents who attended the event felt their child was not ready for kindergarten, according to a school readiness survey prior to the program. It is through the Preschool Pumpkin Days program and the tools given, we hope that percentage lessens as their skills develop as a result of participating.