The Early Learning Center (ELC) at Gateway Community College (GCC) celebrates The Week of the Young Child™ (WOYC) with many events for children and their families. 

This year, classrooms gathered with Librarian Lillian Maisfehlt for The Little Read, a local event organized through the New Haven Early Childhood Council (NHECC). During The Little Read, the children read and talked about this year’s book, Say Hello written by Rachel Isadora.  Children were able to act out parts of the wordless story with a hat, pretend food and stuffed animal dog.  At the conclusion of each reading, children were given a copy of the book to take home.

The classrooms completed many projects and activities that supported the WOYC themes, which included Music Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Work Together Wednesday, Artsy Thursday and Family Friday, as well as language-based activities to coincide with the book.  The families also worked on a take home project called, “A Page from History,” where they created a visual representation of their family culture.  On Family Friday, the children shared their creation.

Margie Warner, a musician and story teller, visited during the week to perform for GCC students, ELC children, families and teachers.   The children sang, danced and laughed as Margie shared fun stories through song.

The Early Learning Center’s Annual Art Show was held this spring to allow the children to share their artwork with the GCC community.  A family breakfast was organized by Parent Coordinator Heather Hartmann and children were able to journey upstairs to the third floor student gallery where the paintings, drawings and sculpture were on display.  Visitors were invited to write down comments and words of encouragement in the guest book for the young artists to hear.