The Hatch Early Learning Blog

COVID-19 has presented a unique set of challenges, especially for families with small children. My family is no different. My three-year-old daughter, Nora, usually enjoys busy days, playing with friends at preschool and/or daycare, sharing greetings with those we encounter running errands, and making new acquaintances when we play at the park. Sadly, almost all of our normal routines have changed. At her young age, Nora realizes our daily lives are totally different, but she does not understand why.

Hatch has received requests from our social media community for recommended child-friendly resources to help expand cultural literacy and provide some historical context around current events. Hatch’s Creative Diversity line was developed to provide learning resources that celebrate and honor all cultures.

The past few weeks in America and abroad have been filled with civil unrest and protests over the death of George Floyd and the unfair treatment of people of color. As I deal with the internal turmoil within myself, I ponder about the littlest learners we encounter daily and what they are thinking. I also wonder how we, as members in early childhood education, can evoke change for a better tomorrow.

Last weekend I was awakened by the sound of the phone ringing. It was my sister-in-law, giving me a play-by-play of the first distance-learning week of the new school year. I could tell from her voice that she was overwhelmed with the process of balancing work Zoom meetings, connecting my niece, Nia, to her school’s digital learning platform, and generally keeping the household afloat. I quickly asked, “How can I help?”

Looking back over my 13 years at Hatch Early Learning, I have witnessed a remarkable evolution. I recall the creation of our Product Development team, which took Hatch products to the next level with solid research behind the innovations. The goal at Hatch has always been to put powerful tools in the hands of teachers and, even more importantly, in the hands of children, to help them learn, grow, and contribute meaningfully to society.

In early April, after about two weeks working from home, I read an article about the psychological benefits of feeling and expressing gratitude on a daily basis. If you’re like me, you get caught up in the rush of the day and, more often than not, don’t set aside the time for gratitude. That day in April, I decided to grab a notebook and write three things for which I was grateful and pledged to repeat the practice daily. At first, the list was trite and generally repetitive: family, health, etc. However, as I participated longer, the list became deeply personal. It also became more external; I found myself expressing gratitude more often.

During this season of uncertainty, the Hatch Early Learning Team has reinvested its time, talent and support systems to address customer priorities in the “new normal.” Our customers have always served as our inspiration for product development and innovation.

Teaching children life skills is not only important for self-care, independence, and sufficiency— it also allows them to feel empowered, works on socialization and reasoning, and helps develop healthy self-esteem. According to Macmillan Education, “In a constantly changing environment, having life skills is an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life.”

Drawing is widely recognized as part of the developmental progression of writing development. However, drawing remains to be something that it not widely taught in early childhood classrooms. Since drawing is part of a young child’s writing tools, we need to embrace this developmental stage of writing and explicitly teach drawing to young children!

Diversity isn’t taught – it’s experienced. And that experience starts early. Early childhood education teachers are tasked with many difficult tasks over the course of a school year and as a result, diversity and multiculturalism can be easily shelved as part of a unit or as an add-on to curriculum. But in order for these lessons to be meaningful, they need to be part of everyday life in the classroom.