Empowering families to learn together is at the heart of everything the KET Early Childhood Education team does. At the end of the day, the team loves to hear “I didn’t know how many resources were available for me to teach my kid at home too.” It’s that ability to spread the love of learning that makes every camp and workshop KET can host through the Ready to Learn grant crucial to the growth of Kentucky’s children.
Watch this short video to hear from some of our families on their experiences with the Ready to Learn programs in their areas.
Parents are frequently looking for ways to supplement what their kids are learning in school, or to explore new concepts with them, but they don’t know how to do it. Kelly Henderson and her daughter attended the Ruff Ruffman Family and Community Learning (FCL) session so they could learn about science together.
Kelly was pleasantly surprised by the amount that even she learned through the Ruff Ruffman materials and how it gave her a way to connect to her daughter. After the first night, Kelly said they talked about science concepts while they cooked in the kitchen together. She didn’t realize how much she could teach her kids as she went about her daily routine. Incorporating learning, even science, didn’t seem so overwhelming after experiencing the simple concepts and techniques demonstrated at the Ruff Ruffman workshop.
For some care givers, science and math are the “scariest” things to try and teach. The format of the FCL workshops breaks it down into manageable chunks that are reproducible at home. By showing families how they can take the concepts they see Ruff Ruffman exploring on the videos and then using every day household items to test them out themselves, it makes those “tough” subjects a lot less intimidating.
“Doing things as a family is important,” states father and Sensational Science Camp with Ruff Ruffman volunteer, Jordan Koskoski. Jordan and his wife became volunteers this past summer because of his family’s previous experience with the Odd Squad camp. Jordan and his son bond over doing science together at home, whether they are discussing what makes thunder happen or why the grass is green, they both have inquisitive minds. Jordan does admit that he doesn’t always know the answers but his experiences with Ready to Learn have given him the confidence to figure them out.
“He just started Kindergarten this fall and he has taken what he has learned during camp into school,” shares Jordan. His son is actually ahead of his classmates when it comes to working in a group and Jordan credits that to his Ruff Ruffman camp experience. It’s not just the concepts of shadows or materials that kids and families walk away with, it’s the tools for how to learn.
By bringing the families together and giving them the tools and encouragement they need, KET hopes that the learning will continue long after the vans are packed up and headed back to the station in Lexington.
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