Ideas For Materials To Take
To The Legislative Visit
To make the visit more personal, you may want to consider bringing some materials that reflect your work with young children or represent your profession as an early childhood educator. You may choose from the following:
- A documentation panel showing children in your program learning through play. Using the resource: “When I…..I am learning……” to document children’s work.
- Children’s artwork, such as a drawing, sculpture, or structure that may be accompanied by a written documentation of the child’s thoughts, reflections, and description of the work.
- Children’s written work – letters, journal, or a paragraph on a specific topic – favorite activity, thoughts about their teachers, a recent field trip, etc.
- A photo album containing pictures of children in your program. They could be involved in specific learning activities, socializing, or just hamming it up for the camera. Or, one large photo (8 x 10).
- A parent’s receipt for a month of child care, a teacher’s pay stub, or the director’s calculation of the “true cost of care” or a “turnover log” documenting the cost of turnover (forms available from QUEST – mail@paQUEST.org).
- A child of the visiting parent - if the parent is comfortable with the child accompanying them and the child is comfortable coming with the parent.
- A packet for the legislator to peruse at his/her convenience. Choose materials carefully. Less is better. They will be more likely to read a few well-written pieces than a compilation of everything that’s ever been written on
early care and education. Think about including the following:
- A brochure from your program
- A recent newsletter or annual report
- Fact sheets
- One or two good press clippings
- Relevant article from NAEYC’s Young Children
- A button or sticker
DVAEYC, 2005
