Home Visit Kits

Learning at Home

Introduction

Infants (0-3 mths.)

Infants (3-6 mths.)

Infants (6-9 mths.)

Infants (9-12 mths.)

Living Room

Kitchen

Bedroom

Bathroom

Outside

Infant Curriculum

Toddler Curriculum

Main Page

Introduction

Recognizing that parents are their children's first teachers, the Family Enrichment Program offers monthly home visits to each child and family enrolled in the program. The Home Visitor's role is that of a resource for parents and a facilitator for learning. As facilitators for learning, Home Visitors have an in-depth knowledge of infant and toddler development. During Home Visits they help parents to determine what their children are ready to learn and take on the role of supporting child development by teaching the parents to teach their own children.

In order to support Home Visitors, the Family Enrichment Program Educational Team developed a library of Home Visitor Kits to be utilized by all staff who conduct home visits. Four Infant Home Visitor Kits were designed for use with babies and 20 Toddler Home Visitor Kits were designed for use with one, two and three year olds. Each kit includes a handout of developmentally appropriate activities and a collection of toys to be used to demonstrate the activities. The Home Visitor kits were planned to be convenient and portable, with all materials rich in learning, yet small enough to be contained in a plastic lunch box. Specific materials were selected because of their ready availability at local toy or discount stores, making the Home Visitor Kits easily replicated. In all cases, Home Visitors are also encouraged to use toys and learning materials found in the home environment to demonstrate the developmental concepts that are being highlighted in each kit. A book and a consumable toy related to the theme of the home visit accompany each Home Visitor Kit. The consumables are left for the family to encourage the infants and toddlers to continue the play activities. After the home visits, the Home Visitors clean the toys in the Home Visitor Kits and return the kits to the Home Visitors' Library.

Four Infant Home Visitor Kits were designed for use with babies, birth to twelve months. Each infant kit emphasizes a different three-month period, including birth to three months, three to six months, six to nine months and nine to twelve months. At each age level eight types of baby games are highlighted. These games include special bonding games, growing and learning games, laughing and having fun games, finger and toe games, bath and dressing games, kitchen games, art and singing games, and going to sleep games.

Twenty Home Visitor Kits were designed for use with toddlers, one to three years old. Ten Home Visitor Kits were designed for one to two year olds and ten were designed for two to three year olds. Each toddler kit contains suggested activities in the areas of language, cognition, fine motor and gross motor development. All the activities and accompanying materials capitalize on various locations around the house in an effort to reinforce to families that learning is going on all the time and to assist families in making everyday experiences meaningful for their children. Specifically, home visits are planned to be implemented in the living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and outside.

The accompanying handouts for the Infant and Toddler Home Visitors Kits were cut apart and put in each home visit kit to serve as a ready reference for the Home Visitors. Handouts for the consumable books can be accessed through the Story Sack Library.