The Main Street Mobile, an outreach implemented to support children aged five and under and their families, visited Kids Korner in Canora on June 21.
Chlorisa Erickson, Regional KidsFirst early years community developer, Good Spirit School Division, said Main Street Mobile can be a valuable resource for families with young children.
“It’s a mobile resource centre filled with toys and parent resources relating to child development.”
She said it’s aligned with Saskatchewan’s Child and Family Agenda, “with the goal of ensuring all children get a good start in life with healthy families and supportive, safe communities.”
The mobile is equipped with a variety of stations designed to achieve this goal.
Jael Norberg and Hannah Dutchak, each five years of age, were among the first to check out the Main Street Mobile after it arrived in Canora. They played at the “Let’s go Fishin’ station, catching ‘fish’ with magnetic poles. The pair probably didn’t know it, but they were working on their eye-hand co-ordination at the same time.
The bubble blowing station was just what it sounds like, blowing bubbles and chasing after them.
Erickson said this station is good for developing spatial awareness, eye-hand co-ordination and using words to describe size, colour and movement.
The bean bag toss is a simple game of getting the bean bag in the centre of the target, which is helpful in developing motor skills. Erickson said younger children may find a bean bag easier to handle than a ball, because bean bags can’t roll away
It’s important to remember that the Main Street Mobile is not a drop-off centre for children, she said, “They must be accompanied by parents or caregivers at all times, and the parents might even surprise themselves and have some fun.”
Erickson said the success of the initiative to positively impact children and families depends to a large extent upon creating and sustaining partnerships with community groups around the region.
