East Haven Transition to Kindergarten Review

My name is Mary Varunes, I am the coordinator of the East Haven Early Childhood Collaborative.  The goal of the collaborative this year was to continue a community initiative, “Transition to Kindergarten Workshops” (Kinder Prep), to give parents skills to better prepare their children for Kindergarten, with an outcome being “School Success”.  I am delighted to say that the program has been very successful thanks to the United Ways “Success by Six” Grant.    There was a series of 7 workshops that were facilitated by public school teachers on topics such as Oral Language, Fine Motor Skills, and Social & Behavior expectations in Kindergarten.  The workshops were parent/child interaction and activities were topic related.  The parent feedback was extremely positive; the main theme was additional workshops.   The East Haven community hopes to continue this program next year with the continued support of the United Way.