February’s Great Start Parent Coalition Meeting – Stimulate the Mind

February is an exciting month. Our coalition meeting was just as exciting. We had 29 parents in attendance with all their kids in tow. What an amazing turn out considering it was Valentine’s Day. We made a diversity chain with the help of our childcare experts. The adults and children had a great time creating their link. The KDL book mobile was there again during dinner so families were able to check out some pretty cool looking stories. We had an awesome dinner of steak, spaghetti, and mac n’ cheese with Valentine’s Day cupcakes for dessert.

As the children went to childcare they continued their creativity with arts and crafts. They also helped put together all the links of our diversity chain and had story time with the childcare providers.

Our meeting was based on oral expression and the importance of reading and talking with your children. We watched the Success Basics videos; “Talk, Sing, Point” and “Read and Discuss Stories”. We then shared stories about how we do these things with our children. We also discussed ways we can do more to enhance their vocabulary and read a book about children and diversity.

A guest speaker from Great Start to Quality came and talked to us about their Star Rating System and the importance of quality childcare. She talked about how to research childcare centers and how to ask questions of them. It was very eye opening to learn about how informed you can be when making these types of decisions.

We closed with a brief update on our first COFI meeting. COFI is our parent led group for community organizing and family issues. The group was offered the opportunity to join.  We also discussed the upcoming dad’s bowling event and had sign ups for that. The bowling event will be at Wenger’s Bowl on March 15, 2019. We raffled off a gift set of children’s books, which included the one we read. We also gave away a gift card. It was a great meeting. We always enjoy spending time with our parents and families.