It was a busy, noisy, interactive day at Jubilee Hall in the Humboldt Uniplex on Friday, May 31st as Regional Kids First hosted the Family Literacy Fun Fair. Children and parents arrived to find a variety of stations and activities designed to amuse and educate early learners.

Regional Kids First is a program funded by the Ministry of Education whose focus is to support families with children under the age of six as they navigate parenting and early learning, according to Christin Rempel of Regional Kids First. 

The activities are all geared to language and literacy. Each station focused on a particular aspect of literacy and communication. The main messages were to sing, talk, read, write, and play with your children every day.

As for the activities, they were as colourful as they were varied. Rempel described a few, "We've got a farmers market where children are free to use our mini shopping cart and choose some fresh produce or meat and run it through the cash register. We're working on colours, sorting, and matching. We've got a scavenger hunt called 'Print is all around us' where the kids can move throughout the room looking for signs that we would typically see every day." The idea is to carry forward the shape and colour recognition of the sign and attach it to the print so that children will begin to read on a daily basis in their own environments.

Sensory play is another key element at this stage of development. To that end, youngsters sifted through coloured rice to find letters and neon bright sand grains for shapes and toys. Throughout the room, children were painting, sculpting, and writing messages using stencils. There was even a post office where they could fashion a postcard and send it to a loved one. 

There was a bit of something for everyone at the Family Literacy Fun Fair hosted by Regional Kids First.