Children and parents can learn and have fun together at the Early Childhood Fair on Saturday at Fairlane Village mall, Pottsville.
The fourth annual fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the mall’s center court. The event is sponsored by the Early Childhood Community Partnership of Schuylkill County.
Held in coordination with Week of the Young Child, the free educational fair features games, crafts, stories and prizes. Children are asked to register at the Local Interagency Coordinating Council table to get a participation ticket. The LICC is a community-based collaboration that includes parents, professionals and providers of early intervention services for children.
Alretta Schwenk, service coordinator for the Schuylkill Intermediate Unit 29, Early Intervention Program and a member of the LICC, said children who fill out their ticket with stamps and stickers by visiting each of the fair’s participants will receive a free activity packet.
Schwenk said this year’s fair will have 22 participants, including schools, child cares, libraries and organizations such as Service Access and Management Inc. Home Depot will also have a bird house project, which is a popular activity with the kids, she said.
Schwenk said the fair pulls in more than 100 people, with last year’s attendance topping out at 137. She said the event is geared toward children up to age 8, but kids aged 12 or 13 have participated.
The participants will have activities for the children to do, each lasting about five minutes to give the children time to visit every table.
Schwenk said the fair’s format is beneficial for all attendees because organizations get to share their information to new people and families learn about resources that could be useful to them.
The Week of the Young Child is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children for early learning, children, teachers and families. The event was established in 1971 to recognize that the early childhood years — birth to age 8 — lay the foundation for a child’s success in school and life. For more information, visit www.naeyc.org/woyc. The motto for this year’s celebration is “2016 Celebrating Our Youngest Learners.”
To learn more about the Early Childhood Fair, call 570-544-9131, ext. 1222.