The

Little Read

A Book Report Week of the Young Child

April 2014

To celebrate the 2014 Week of the Young Child, the New Haven Early Childhood Council organized its fifth annual literacy event -- The Little Read -- a citywide series of events based on stories by Tomie dePaola. The wordless children’s picture book, Pancakes for Breakfast, was distributed to over 3,200 children in early childhood classrooms and family childcare homes. The Council also partnered with community organizations that hosted an array of literacy-based events throughout the City and provided over 1,400 additional children’s picture books for home libraries through this outreach project. The week began at City Hall, where children were greeted by Mayor Toni Harp, Superintendent Garth Harries and the Executive Director of the Office of Early Childhood, Myra Jones-Taylor. Mae Gibson Brown, a talented storyteller, told the children about making pancakes at home with her mom. Mae being Mae, she also invited everyone over to Superintendent Harries’ house for pancakes.

We thank the City of New Haven Community Services Administration, the New Haven

Board of Education and the Board of Alders for supporting

The Little Read and our citywide literacy initiative.

Children at the Stetson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library heard a story about making bread with a secret ingredient.

Who do you love? Children joined our storyteller at the Fair Haven Branch for a bi-lingual storytelling where they shared just who they love.

The Leitner Planetarium hosted a cloud and sky-gazing event with a special reading by a pint-sized New Haven reader!

It Takes a Whole City It takes a whole city to raise every child to be a reader! At each of these community-based sites, children, and their families, participated in exciting storytelling events and were given a new children’s picture book to extend the learning and support emerging readers. Interactive events based on the books of Tomie dePaola happened in these places:

At the Wilson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library, children heard stories and learned to “squeak up” and be a storyteller.

Yale Art Gallery was the site of an art activity inspired by The Art Lesson.

At the Mitchell Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library, children heard stories about the sunset featured in The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush.

At the CitySeed Farmers’ Market, children planted seed potatoes, joining Jamie O’Rourke for a story.

Children were regaled with stories about what makes moms famous through stories by Mae Gibson Brown at the Downtown Branch.

At the Connecticut Children’s Museum, children heard the story of how our storyteller, Mae Gibson Brown’s mom made clothes out of feed sacks in West Virginia where she grew up.

At Farnam Courts and the Eli Whitney Museum, children heard about an exciting encounter between the knight and the dragon and then made their own little friendly, wooden dragon.

Our books all featured titles by Tomie dePaola. Throughout our community, books were read and stories told at these sites:

All Our Kin Clifford Beers Clinic The Dad’s Project Department of Social Services The Diaper Bank Fair Haven Community Health Center Family Resource Centers at:

Wexler Grant Kathryn Brennan Fair Haven K-8 Ross-Woodward Hill Central

New Haven Reads! NH Health Department’s Nurturing Families Network. Nurturing Families Network – Family Centered

Services of CT Yale New Haven Hospital Nurturing Families

The Little Read The Council partnered with early childhood classrooms, libraries, family childcare homes, and social service agencies to implement The Little Read. Each site organized exciting and fun family reading events to celebrate Week of the Young Child and to highlight the importance of literacy for our youngest children. We congratulate the directors and early childhood educators in classrooms and in family childcare homes throughout the City who organized inviting events for Week of the Young Child and provided reading opportunities for thousands of families. The innovative activities early childhood settings designed for our book, Pancakes for Breakfast, are testimony to the creative spirit and boundless energy of our teachers. We applaud the many community organizations that hosted events where families could learn together, hear stories and build their home libraries. The mission of the New Haven Early Childhood Council is to ensure that all New Haven children, birth through 8, are healthy, safe, thriving in nurturing families, and prepared to be successful lifelong learners. The Week of the Young Child engages families in literacy-based activities and provides families across the City with new children’s picture books to encourage reading at home. The New Haven Early Childhood Council is proud to share some of The Little Read tales from around the City.

Bethesda Nursery School 305 St. Ronan Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 787-5439 The Week of the Child was a great success at Bethesda Nursery School. The children were very pleased with receiving their own copy of Tomie dePaola’s Pancakes for Breakfast. We went over the story and acted it out a number of times over the week, the children enthusiastically providing the narrative for the wordless book. For snack, we made a giant pancake and shared it out among ourselves. As a wrap-up, the children created (and narrated) their own wordless books.

Bishop Woods School Pre-K 1481 Quinnipiac Avenue New Haven, CT 06513 203 946-8623 The pre-k classrooms at Bishop Woods School enjoyed the book Pancakes by Tomie dePaola. We had “breakfast for lunch” -- pancakes and syrup -- followed by finger plays and songs about pancakes. We set up dramatic play area and served up some delicious pancakes for our friends! Parents visited throughout the week to read aloud to the children in Miss Brenda’s and Miss Gina’s classrooms.

Calvin Hill Daycare Center 150 Highland Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 764-9350 The Calvin Hill Day Care Center and its Kitty Lustman-Findling Kindergarten celebrated the Week of the Young Child with our annual spring Pot Luck Supper for children, parents and teachers on Sunday, April 6. Almost everyone came, and we were entertained by Betty Basiden¹s "Roxy Puppets” performing a wonderful puppet show about a baby dinosaur – a connection to the hatching emus and dinosaurs at the Peabody Museum. In addition, the Threes and Kindergarten classes made their own puppets. The Preschool classroom wrote and illustrated their own pancake recipe from the Tommy dePaola book, Pancakes for Breakfast that the New Haven Early Childhood Council gave out as a gift to each child at the Center. And the pancakes we made were delicious!

Centro San Jose School Readiness Program Catholic Charities 290 Grand Avenue 790 Grand Avenue New Haven, CT 06513 203 777-5068 or 203 772-1131 Catholic Charities CDC Children read the book and ate pancakes for breakfast and talked about what they would feed us for breakfast if we were to go to their houses. Many of the children said that we would be able to eat pancakes with eggs; some said that we could have chicken and rice; others said that we would able to eat a taco and so on. Children really enjoyed doing this activity! We asked the families to read the wordless picture book, Pancakes for Breakfast, at home with their child and write two or three sentences about what the children said about the pictures. We are putting a book together about Pancakes for Breakfast. Centro San Jose During our annual art show we read the book to families, discussed and made pancakes to eat. The children also made some exhibits based on the book to tie it all together.

Helene Grant Head Start – NHPS 540 Ella Grasso Boulevard New Haven, CT 06519 203 946-8666 Week of the Young Child was celebrated within our school as teachers began decorating their doors and having discussions about the old lady who Tomie DePaola focuses on in his story, Pancakes for Breakfast. To culminate such an amazing week at our school, we decided to bring the book Pancakes for Breakfast to life. We felt this would be a great opportunity to allow our students to grasp the concept of creating a story by the use of illustrations and drama. With a fellow literacy coach, Sandra Shia, we put pencil to paper, narrating our thoughts and feelings of what we felt was happening in the story. We included open-ended questions for students and brought the star of the book, who we named Concheta, to the main stage. Teachers throughout the school participated by donating their time and center materials to create the setting of our play. Students were amazed at how they could take the book, Pancakes for Breakfast, then add their own thoughts and words to create their very own story. Today, students continue to have conversations about the old lady, Concheta, and the fun they had reading the story and watching the play. We took a book without words and opened a world of adventure to the children of our school!

Columbus Academy NHPS School Readiness 255 Blatchley Avenue New Haven, CT 06513 203 691-2500 The joy of reading, culture and community all came together at The Little Read during the Week of the Young Child at Columbus Family Academy. Families and their children enjoyed a breakfast of pancakes, of course, but also tamales, taquitos, eggs, fruit and pastries in the school cafetorium. During breakfast, they enjoyed an Irish Step Dancing performance by one of the school’s teachers and the children and adults alike had the opportunity to learn to jig. After breakfast, everyone returned to their classrooms and one of the office staff told the story of Pancakes for Breakfast, twice -- one time in Spanish and one time in English. At the end of the school day, Pancakes for Breakfast was sent home with the children, to their delight.

Creating Kids Childcare Center at the Connecticut Children’s Museum 22 Wall Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 789-1622

Our annual Week of the Young Child breakfast began with some fast and furious butter-making! Families were amazed to learn that with just a little pinch of salt and some cream, they could make their own delicious butter. And just in time for our pancakes breakfast.

Once everyone had full pancake bellies with added syrup, butter and fruit, we gathered to hear a letter written to New Haven’s children from none other than Tomie dePaola, our featured author, to look at our featured book, Pancakes for Breakfast, and to sing pancake songs by our talented musician, George Melillo.

Dwight Early Childhood Center NHPS School Readiness

1324 Chapel Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 946-7214 To celebrate the week of young child at Dwight Early Childhood Center, we held a “Pancake Breakfast and Share a Story” activity. Our families were invited to their child’s classroom to share the wordless children’s picture book, Pancakes for Breakfast. Each family participated in an activity planned in their child’s classroom. In Room One, the children and their parents wrote their own stores and the children illustrated the book by drawing pictures in the book. In Room 2, the children and their families built their own pancake breakfast. In Room 3, after reading the book, the children used props to retell what they thought the story was about.

Edith B. Jackson Childcare 405 Canner Street #1 New Haven, CT 06511 203 764-9416

During Week of the Young Child, EBJ had a pancake breakfast and distributed the book to families! What a turn-out!

Parents and children were offered a "home-made" (really school-made) breakfast, a great start to their day, chatting with other families and enjoying the service.

The director flipped more than a few silver dollar size yummy flapjacks - an awesome recipe from Head Teacher, Bev Guertin, who also delivered three dozen gluten-free flapjacks from her skillet downstairs.

Cut up strawberries and real maple syrup and creamy butter topped the pancakes and juice, milk, coffee and tea were offered.

Felicitas’ Family Home Daycare Juanito’s Family Home Daycare 1094 Townsend Avenue New Haven, CT 06513 203 466-2988 Every year we are thrilled to celebrate Week of the Young Child. This year’s book, Pancakes for Breakfast, has pictures, but no words, so it gave us the opportunity to add more description while reading it to the children and when writing the story for our event. We invited all our families to come on a Saturday morning and bring their own pancakes to share with everyone. We made up stories both in English and Spanish, naming our main character Granny Betty, or Abuelita Carmelita in Spanish.

Our school-aged children got creative and decided to act out the book. They practiced every day. The children were so excited and couldn’t wait for Saturday to surprise their parents. Using the

pictures from the book, there were maple trees, a red house outline, Granny Betty’s kitchen, the chicken coop, and a place to buy the syrup. A parent came up with the idea of doing a dance with his own children, but other children from the daycare joined in, the music was a Mexican folklore song, children were dressed in the typical costumes and we even read the history behind the dance. After the dance, children took their places as animal characters, Granny, the neighbors and our own maple syrup sales person. We made butter with the parents, using small containers and heavy whipping cream, not to mention the strong arms. At the end, we all shared a very delicious breakfast with all the families and some special guests.

Gateway Community College Early Learning Center 20 Church Street New Haven, CT 06510 203 285-2132 The Early Learning Center celebrated picture books and pancakes Saturday morning, April 5th. Josh Berrios, Male Investment Coordinator, shared Pancakes for Breakfast with Dads and children in the Gateway Community College children’s library area. Dan Palmquist from the GCC Culinary Department partnered with ELC to facilitate a pancake-making breakfast for the families! There were many choices: chocolate chips, blueberries, bananas, etc., and the families were able to follow the process on a large screen. Each family had their own cooking area. Everyone had a great time, ate well, and enjoyed the pancakes they made! All the Dads are looking forward to the next event which will be a Father’s Day breakfast in June.

Leila Day Nursery 100 Cold Spring Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 624-1374 Pancakes for Breakfast was the perfect book for our class to “read”. We had just “read” the book Fossil by Bill Thomson that, like Pancakes for Breakfast, has no words. We explained to the children that this book would be like the book Fossil in some ways and waited a bit as we “read” before asking how the two books were alike. Of course, they knew right away. During the first “reading” of Pancakes for Breakfast everyone was silent. The children were encouraged to make up their own story and keep it to themselves until the second time we “read” the book. The second time we went through the book the children took turns sharing their interpretations of the story. Finally, a teacher shared a version of the story. The next day we revisited the story. The children shared what they remembered about the events of the story. We created sequence cards showing the steps of how to make pancakes according to the book. The sequence cards were shared with the class and some students had the opportunity to tell the order of making pancakes using them during our group lesson. We then put two sets of the sequence cards out for all the students to use during choice time. Some children worked with the cards themselves, while others chose to tell the story to other children as they placed the cards in order.

Lil’ Cupcakes Childcare – Josie Queen 125 Westerleigh Road New Haven, CT 06515 203 814-6953

The children loved reading Pancakes for Breakfast and, after a few days of me ‘reading’ it to them, they started reading to themselves and each other. They were happy to take their own copy home. A couple of the parents commented they had never thought to get wordless books before! We made pancakes together for our morning snack and had breakfast for lunch. Inspired by following a recipe, we also made smoothies for morning snack for a few days, deciding on the ingredients together and trying different things based on what the children discovered they liked and didn't like. Pancakes for Breakfast paved the way and the children loved the idea of making up a story of their own, so we made our own book based on the children's favorite book series by Laura Numeroff. We called it If You Give A Dinosaur A Donut!

The children helped make up the story and illustrated it and then we put it in our book basket so we could read it throughout the day. I asked the parents to provide simple recipes they like to make together as a family and we will make the recipes together and put them all into a book that the children can bring home.

LULAC Head Start LULAC Head Start Fay Miller Center Mill River 250 Cedar Street 375 James Street New Haven, CT 06519 New Haven, CT 06513 203 777-4006 203 777-7501

Our program hosted 26 classroom family pancake breakfasts! Children used math skills by measuring and counting and followed directions from various recipes. They also used

language skills to talk about family breakfast traditions and times when they cooked together, and at the end, they enjoyed eating pancakes with their family, classmates and teachers. During the Week of the Young Child, male family members were invited to participate in classroom events throughout the week. One father came in and helped with the breakfast and the classroom pancake activity. The activity was designed to promote literacy and family engagement. The children and parents were dressed in pajamas and they sat to eat breakfast together. After the breakfast, this father read Pancakes for Breakfast book to all the children. He used his imagination and creativity to interpret the pictures on each page of the book. He went page by page with the group of children and talked about the process of making pancakes.

One of our pre-school Head Start classrooms at our Mill River Center, used the book to create the clay display below. Throughout the week the teaching staff would encourage the children to use clay to make different items from the story. The children used the modeling clay to make pancakes, butter, milk, and other items that were shown in the pictures. At the end of the week, the teaching staff used all of the items the children made out of clay, and put it in a diorama, illustrating the end of the story. This was then displayed throughout the center for parents and children to see. The teaching staff shared their creativity with other programs by bringing the diorama to the teacher’s appreciation dinner and celebration at The Children’s Museum.

In an infant and toddler classroom at Mill River, teachers invited parents to come into the classroom and read the story with the children. The parents and children pointed out different items on the page and talked about how to make pancakes. Afterwards, they had the opportunity to eat a pancake breakfast together.

As an activity, the classroom used fabric cutouts and decorated tee-shirts using a placemat, plate, pancakes, and butter. Families and children worked together to put the tee-shirts together and then displayed them in the center on a clothes line.

At our Fay Miller Site, one of the preschool classrooms presented the book to the children a few pages at a time. Children used the pictures to create their own narrative for the story by looking at one page of the book and describing what was going on. The children's words were recorded on a round piece of pancake paper and the pages were put together to create a book. They did the same activity with the parents. The children and families compared their books, looking at similarities and differences. The books were hung outside of their classroom next to pictures of the children and parents eating pancakes. Program wide, LULAC staff encouraged families to participate in classroom activities. At each site, family members who had volunteered throughout the week were entered in a drawing for a pancake breakfast basket. This basket included pancake mix, a spatula, and measuring cups. This sparked parent curiosity and kept families engaged throughout the whole week. At the end of the week, teaching staff displayed pictures of their classroom and family activities throughout the building allowing all parents to see how each classroom used their creativity and imagination to interpret Pancakes for Breakfast!

Montessori School on Edgewood 230 Edgewood Avenue New Haven, CT 06511 203 772-3210 Montessori School Edgewood celebrated Pancakes for Breakfast with our children, families, and staff by having volunteer parents read the book to our children. We also provided breakfast with pancakes, syrup, and orange juice for all five classrooms and for all the parents that attended our parent engagement event. Parents read the book Pancakes for Breakfast to all five classrooms -- from Infants to Toddlers and Preschool. Some of our parents volunteered to make a poster board for their child’s classroom using the theme pancakes for breakfast. All of our parents/families received the book Pancakes for

Breakfast during Coffee & Donuts time with family. They were given time to review the book before reading it to the children since it was a wordless book. MSOE children, parents, and staff had a wonderful time reading and eating some pancakes during the event!

Morning Glory Early Learning Center 1859 Chapel Street New Haven, CT 06515 203 389-4148

Morning Glory Infant Toddler Center 49 Parmelee Avenue New Haven, CT 06511 203 789-9902

The Week of the Young Child at Morning Glory Early Learning Center was kicked off by sharing information with the parents of the many upcoming events that were being held in their communities to celebrate Week of the Young Child.

We invited families to a special fun evening at our center where the children would each receive a free copy of the special book that we were going to be reading, Pancakes for Breakfast. The event was celebrated with families and staff and the reading of the featured book, Pancakes for Breakfast. The parents expressed delight as they listened to their children answering and asking questions as the book was being read. The party was a hit and all the children received a copy of the book. It was a fun evening!

Nathan Hale PreK 480 Townsend Avenue New Haven, CT 06512 203 946-5185

The children made pancakes each day and we invited the parents to come in for an activity and to read. The children were asked to create their own story with their family members!

On Thursday, we had a pancake bar, with bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. The children made their own butter with one of the teacher’s great-grandmother’s butter churn. They made whipped cream with an electric mixer. We discussed people-powered equipment as well as more modern, electrical equipment. The children shared their stories. We also had a pancake relay race. The entire week was filled with fun activities.

NHPS – Early Childhood Learning Center 495 Blake Street New Haven, CT 06515 203 946-5300 The children at ECLC explored pancakes in so many different ways to celebrate Week of the Young Child and our book, Pancakes for Breakfast! They rolled pancake dough and flattened it into pancakes, tossed pancakes with spatulas to perfect their cooking aim, wrote short stories about eating pancakes, made a dramatic play pancake restaurant and organized a pancake recipe book with their families.

Here are some favorite kid stories about pancakes:

NHPS -- East Rock PK 133 Nash Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 503-5900

During the Week of the Young Child, the children in the P.M. class at East Rock School wanted to pretend they were at a pancake house restaurant, ordering different kinds of pancakes. We had shared the book Pancakes for Breakfast throughout the week. In the Dramatic Play area, the students created a sign and menus for the restaurant. Two of the children ordered pancakes; the waiter took the order and gave it to the chef. Then they paid for their meal. Teachers laminated the menus, provided materials needed and took turns engaging with the children as patrons.

We also read The Case of the Missing Pancake and The Pancake King. Parent volunteers joined in the fun, reading stories and leading crafts activities.

Our A.M. classroom celebrated week of the young child by implementing activities that were pancake themed. We mixed together a “pancake recipe” using ingredients to make pancake playdough and then

form pancakes onto a tray. This sensory activity helped the children work on their fine motor skills, social skills as they worked together, following directions, following a recipe, and their shape recognition while having fun! Our class also created pancake art. We cut our round circles and squares of butter, glued the pat of butter to our pancake, and then drizzled pancake syrup (glue) onto our pancake. We also used spatulas to “flip” pancakes over to match upper and lower case alphabet letters. The uppercase letters were on the large pancakes, and the lower case letters were on the mini pancakes. This activity helped us to work on our pre-literacy skills like alphabet recognition, letter sounds, and fine motor skills.

NHPS – Wexler Grant PK 55 Foote Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 946-8627 Wexler Grant School Pre-K shared the book, Pancakes for Breakfast, by Tomie dePaola, and celebrated pancakes and the Week of the Young Child all week. Families of our children joined in for pancake daily activities. We loved the books and the curriculum box for Pancakes for Breakfast. Our activities included a shared reading experience, a pancake breakfast, 3D pancake art, one-on-one reading experiences and measuring how tall we are with a non-standard unit of measure: PAPER PANCAKES!

St. Aedan’s-St. Brendan PreSchool 351 McKinley Avenue New Haven, CT 06515 203 387-5693 St. Aedan-St. Brendan Pre School celebrated The Week of the Young Child by diving in to many activities that we all enjoyed, basing the activities around the book Pancakes for Breakfast. We thought the choice for this year’s book was excellent, giving us the opportunity to explore many ways to celebrate. Each child made a personalized book at home with their parents indicating what s/he likes best to eat for breakfast; class wide we put words to Pancakes for Breakfast -- a fantastic exploration in narration. We invited parents to come in and read stories to add an extra special element to our pajama day! One highlight of the week was when our three classrooms switched rooms on “Pancake Celebration Day” and enjoyed a different activity in each room. In PreK B, children made construction paper pancakes complete with paper pats of butter and magic marker syrup. PreK C hosted a pancake tasting where we found out that chocolate chip pancakes were voted #1, blueberry #2 and plain ended up in last place. PreK A hosted pancake-themed gross motor skills activities. Our week ended with hosting a pancake breakfast for our families. The children helped in making a huge salad using fruit that was donated by families. The families also brought in other assorted breakfast items and enjoyed a delicious breakfast with the children.

St. Andrews Child Care Center 1230 Townsend Avenue New Haven, CT 06513 203 469-9000 To celebrate the Week of the Young Child, it is traditional at St. Andrew’s Child Care Center for each class to begin with an invitation to their families to share breakfast. After that, each classroom plans their own special activities. One classroom let the children work on the experience plans drawing on memories of favorite activities over the year. Another classroom “made” pancakes and spatulas to have an exciting pancake relay race. It is also traditional to send out invitations to community members, former students, their families and the families of present students and staff members to share their favorite stories with the children. As usual, a steady stream of readers (ages 6 to 94 years) came throughout the week to read.

St. Frances & St. Rose School 423 Ferry Street New Haven, CT 06513 203 777-5352 At St. Francis & St. Rose School, we had a wonderful Week of the Young Child. We made breakfast, more specifically pancakes, with the families of the children in our classroom. We started with the story, Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola. One great aspect of this book is that it has no words, so every time the story is told, it is from a different perspective.

First, one of the parents read the story then one of the children read the story to their peers, each with their own flavor. It was very interesting to see how the children paid attention to their fellow classmates when s/he read. We had the opportunity to talk with parents about how they made different types of pancakes, and parents and children had a chance to share and exchange recipes. Every day we were joined by different family members and parents who would come in to read us a book and spend time with us!

Tane Trimble – Tane’s Lil World Family Daycare 1579 A State Street (rear) New Haven, CT 203 389-5854 Pancakes for Breakfast prompted much cooking at our family childcare! Here is Adonis cooking up pancakes as Kai patiently waits with fork and butter knife in his hand for some yummy flapjacks drenched in sticky maple syrup. Everyone loved getting a new book to share.

The Little School House 1440 Whalley Avenue New Haven, CT 06515 203 389-6372 What an awesome activity for the parents and children of The Little Schoolhouse! Recipes and more recipes were the outcome of what parents shared with other families at our school. Children were inspired by the book, Pancakes for Breakfast. They went home and read the book with their parents and used the illustrations to develop a wonderful and personal story based on their own life experiences and prompted by the illustrations in the book. Parents talked about the success of the activity. They used their own family recipe as an extension to the story and made their own special pancakes at home. There was constant chatter heard throughout the school as our preschoolers shared their excitement about their cooking activity. There were Banana Pancakes, Glazed Cinnamon Honey & Banana Pancakes, Buttermilk Pancakes, Chocolate Chip Party Pancakes and Pancake Fritters. One little child made sure to note that one ingredient you need is: A pancake maker! The recipes were collected and made into a book. Mothers received a copy of the pancake recipe book as a Mother’s Day present. What a perfect gift for mothers from their own preschooler and friends!

Recipes from the

Preschoolers of

The Little Schoolhouse

Pancakes for Breakfast

United Community Nursery School 323 Temple Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 782-0141

We were all excited about beginning our WOYC with a walking trip across the Green to City Hall. Parents or grandparents of 23 out of 30 children joined us for the trip! The kids did a great job of listening to the event speakers, and they especially enjoyed storyteller Mae Gibson Brown. Afterwards and throughout the week, parents and children worked together on their own “breakfast stories” with parents writing their children’s words and children drawing pictures. Then each classroom assembled their own Breakfast Story Book!

Yale New Haven Hospital Daycare Center York Street Campus 110-112 Davenport Avenue New Haven, CT 06504 203 688-5247 The children, parents and staff had a wonderful time celebrating the 2014 Week of the Young Child and the Little Read. The week was spent with a number of center wide activities including a Pancake Search – the children and parents had to locate pictures of items used to make pancakes throughout the building. We also had pajama days, and a center wide pancake breakfast where parents could bring their children to share in center-made pancakes and other breakfast foods.

Parents also came to read the beloved book Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola. The preschool children also had a Pancake Field Day which involved a number of playground gross motor activities around pancake events!

YMCA School Readiness Preschool 52 Howe Street New Haven, CT 06511 203 776-9622

The New Haven YMCA Youth Center preschool participated in celebrating The Week of the Young Child. We took advantage of visiting the many different activities that went on in the city during this week, including the Kick Off at City Hall with the Mayor, the Superintendent and the Executive Director of the new Office of Early Childhood.

The children were excited about inviting their families to the center to read the book Pancakes for Breakfast and to create their own pancakes. One of the classrooms even added food coloring to the pancake mix and the children could choose what color pancake they wanted to eat. See the green pancake version above!

They did arts and crafts before the event where they decorated their own paper pancakes with all the toppings they wanted. They used those pancakes to decorate the banner for the Family Pancake Breakfast that was held on Friday. Our families came bright and early for this special event

with their children and enjoyed a nutritious pancake breakfast inspired by the book, Pancakes for Breakfast.

A parent volunteer read the book Pancakes for Breakfast with lots of enthusiasm and participation from all of the children. The parents were amazed at how excited the children were about making pancakes, reading the story and getting their own copy of Pancakes for Breakfast. The children loved the book. Because it was wordless it gave the children the opportunity to create their own story. Parents came back to the teacher and shared how the children went home and read the book to their parents and siblings. In classroom A the children named the old lady Sally. The book helped the children to use their imaginations and do predictions. The teacher asked, “Where do you think the lady will get the eggs and milk?” The children answered, “Walmart!” or “From the supermarket!” We used the book to show them where eggs and milk actually come from.

The children had new books, new songs and a new love for the culinary arts.

New Haven Early Childhood Council 203 946-7875 www.nhecc.org The Early Childhood Council brings together community members who share a desire to improve the lives of young children and their families in New Haven. Our mission is to ensure that all children arrive at kindergarten with the skills, knowledge and support they need to succeed. Convened by Mayor Toni Harp and the Superintendent of Schools, Garth Harries, the Council is implementing an ambitious community plan, one that draws on the resources of our community, to nurture a lifelong love of learning in our children. Knowing that high-quality experiences, both in formal learning settings, in the community and at home, can make all the difference in setting the stage for a life of success, the New Haven Early Childhood Council supports innovative programs and projects to provide high-quality Early Care and Education, Family Engagement opportunities and reliable Child Health services. The Little Read is one of those initiatives -- a community-based early literacy project -- engaging our City in an effort to promote reading for our young children.