Messaging Toolkit

Successfully scaling UNSS to additional Illinois communities, and eventually statewide, requires cohesive messaging to build awareness of UNSS interventions, the opportunity and necessity to leverage dedicated funding streams to sustain these systems, and the connection between UNSS expansion and to larger state vision for Illinois children and families.

The resources contained in this toolkit are intended to support advocates, state systems leaders, UNSS program leaders, other family-facing providers, and lawmaker champions in communicating the story of UNSS, including explaining why these services are critically important to the future well-being of Illinois families and children. This toolkit is model-agnostic; it aims to speak generally about UNSS as an approach rather than focusing on particular programs or models, recognizing that individual communities will need flexibility to choose and implement models that fit their particular needs. In building this toolkit, Start Early hopes that the resources can serve as a jumping-off point for various stakeholders to build upon the messages and materials within for outreach with additional audiences.

• Read–Familiarize yourself with the general framing of UNSS
• Add–Adapt and make additions that speak to your particular audience or perspective
• Share–Share these general materials alongside more detailed or nuanced messaging

Team & Collaborators

This report was prepared thanks to many individuals and organizations that generously provided time and expertise, research, consultation and other supports. Special thanks to: Brian Rolling, Vincent Alvarez, Claudia Valencia, Tajae Sutton, Samantha Price, Kali Huber, Claire Lankford, Dr. Shelly Shallat, Dr. Mofesola Modupe, Family Connects International, the Chicago Department of Public Health, EverThrive Illinois, and the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Special thanks to: This toolkit and the messaging materials contained within were prepared with generous support from the Steans Family Foundation.

To celebrate Pi Day, an annual celebration of the mathematical sign pi, here are some activity ideas to help introduce early math concepts to your child:

• Discover geometry: Shapes are a big part of geometry. Labeling different shapes — from squares to circles to stars — will help your child start to associate the words with the shapes, setting the early foundation of geometry. With toddlers and preschoolers, look at two- and three-dimensional shapes, so they can see how each object looks and functions. Blocks in different shapes are a great tool to use for this.
• Play with volume: If you cook in the kitchen, you are already using volume. For babies and toddlers, start by using words like teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, pint and quart while you are cooking to get them familiar with the terms. Preschoolers can help you measure out ingredients using measuring cups and spoons. You can play fun games that teach incremental volume: how many tablespoons does it take to fill a quarter cup? How many cups go into your quart measuring cup?
• Use comparisons: Many math lessons will involve word problems and comparisons as early as kindergarten. The more familiarity that your child has with comparison terms, the easier it will be for them to understand the word problems. You can create opportunities for your child to learn to compare by using toys of different sizes and words like more, less, lighter, heavier, bigger and smaller.
• See how tall they are: By the time they are preschoolers, most children become interested in how tall and how heavy they are. One idea to help talk about height is to chart their growth on a wall, showing how tall they are each year. For preschoolers, you can also begin to introduce units of measurement like inches and feet by helping your child use a ruler to measure how much they have grown.
• Reading books: Reading is an excellent way of introducing math language and concepts to your child. Books are a natural entry point that make learning math fun in the early years. Engaging your child in the math in storybooks build on their interest, discoveries and questions. Here are some great children’s book recommendations that are full of wonderful math concepts:
  • More, Fewer, Less by Tana Hoban
  • Uno, Dos, Tres / One, Two, Three by Pat Mora
  • Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews
  • The Napping House by Audrey Wood

Through simple language and play, young children will start to learn essential early math and STEM skills. And remember, especially for babies and toddlers, just hearing these words early and often helps plant the seed for your future mathematician.

Here are 4 simple activity ideas to help teach your child about emotions:

1. Build the Word Bank
   A simple way to start building your child’s word bank around feelings is to start with two very common words young children are familiar with: “good” and “bad.” Children are used to using one of these words to explain emotions, actions or even a friend’s personality, “My friend Matt was a bad boy at school today.” Every time your child uses “good” or “bad” in a place where they could use a different, more descriptive word, offer a few suggestions for what they may actually be describing. “When you said Matt was a “bad” boy at school, why was that? Do you think he was sad, or maybe angry?” Coax them to explain the situation and help them identify the word they were looking for. As your child begins to absorb new emotion words, they will be better equipped to explain to you how they feel, and also to sense those same feelings in others.
2. Connect Actions to Feelings
   To begin the process of learning how to explain feelings, it’s helpful for little ones to connect that actions cause us to have these feelings. In the teaching moment video below, children in an Educare classroom are getting ready for a school play. The teacher is helping them identify that because they are about to go on stage, they may be feeling “nervous.” She is getting them used to the idea that actions cause feelings, which we all have. This will help them adjust using their words to describe a situation like “when X happens, I feel Y.”

3. Act on Feelings
   Give your child an easy-to-understand action they can do when they feel a specific emotion. This will give them an age-appropriate outlet to address their feelings, and get them used to the thought of dealing with an emotion. Having this outlet they can regularly use to act on their emotions will pave the way for dealing with more complicated feelings and situations as they get older. For example, in the previous video, the teacher offers children who are nervous about the upcoming play an outlet for their emotions. She asks each child to walk to the center of the circle where a large pot is sitting. One by one each child comes to the pot and shakes off their “nervous feelings” into the pot, where the nerves will stay for good. This is a way for the youngsters to see that everyone feels emotions like they do, and that there is a way to deal with them.
4. Use Specific, Open-Ended Questions
   Start getting your child accustomed to talking about their emotions by asking about an exact moment. If your little one had just been in a play, instead of asking “did you like the play?” ask them how they felt before/during/after a specific moment, “Describe how you felt as you were about to say your lines?” or “What were you thinking after you got off of stage?” For a child who can name their emotions well, begin bringing up questions that help them to identify what other people (friends, teachers, etc.) may have felt during that time so they can begin to pay attention to other people and their feelings. The more they learn about being attentive to their own emotions and others, the more they will be able to understand that emotions are a daily part of life.

Young children are constantly learning about the world and what is possible for them. Themed history months offer a wonderful opportunity to take stock of your home or classroom library and ask yourself: am I presenting a rich view of the world? Am I offering children ideas and possibilities? Am I fostering a strong sense of self, and an openness towards difference? Books are windows and mirrors, they can reflect children’s own lives, and they can offer glimpses into the lives of others. Women’s History Month presents us with a wonderful opportunity to explore the infinite paths a child might choose to pursue, regardless of gender.

When you select a new book to read with your child, choose something you think you will also enjoy. Your enthusiasm will be catching! Look for books with features that appeal to young children’s imaginations—not too many words on each page, rhythmic or rhyming text and illustrations that invite wonder. The books below are chosen for their appealing texts, rich illustrations and simple—but not simplistic—concepts. While the titles are sorted by age, all the books for the youngest readers will work with preschool-aged children also, and some, (like I Am Enough,) are books you might want to read even without a small child at your side! A high-quality picture-book with beautiful illustrations works for every age, (including adults!) because images are texts that foster meaning-making.

Children’s Books to Read During Women’s History Month

Whether your child is a toddler, in pre-K or on their way to kindergarten, here are some great book recommendations from Anne-Marie Akin, our Educare Chicago librarian to read during this month and beyond:

Books recommended for infants:

• I Like Myself! by Karen Beaumont
• Maya Angelou (Little People, Big Dreams) by Lisbeth Kaiser
• Frida: A Bilingual Counting Book by Patty Rodriguez and Ariana Stein

Books recommended for toddlers:

• A is for Awesome! 23 Iconic Women Who Changed the World by Eva Chen
• I Am Enough by Grace Byers
• ABC What Can She Be? by Jessie Ford and Sugar Snap Studio

Books recommended for children in pre-K or kindergarten:

• Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré by Anika Aldamuy Denise
• Like a Girl by Lori Degman
• Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed
• Women Artists A to Z by Melanie LaBarge

Tips for Parents:

1. Explore your child’s emotions together and engage them in imaginative play to learn how to express those feelings so that they can better manage their emotions before starting preschool.
2. Teach your child that it’s okay to have whatever feeling they are having: anger, frustration, embarrassment, fear, even rage, but that it is not acceptable for their actions to cross over and affect someone else negatively.
3. Teach your child that it’s good to try to understand why someone else is having negative feelings. There may be a very good reason for their friend or acquaintance to be feeling angry or afraid.
4. Teach your child that it’s never okay for them or anyone else to use their feelings as an excuse to verbally attack someone. And that when someone does this, it is time to get an adult into the situation.

You as a parent play an important role along with your child’s teachers in laying a strong foundation for social-emotional skills that will help your child to form healthy relationships. It is important for the adults in your child’s life to model positive behaviors and set clear rules.

Make a We Care Center

The We Care Center provides a way for family members to express caring and empathy for others. Fill your We Care Center with supplies like minor first aid items (Band-Aids, wet wipes, hand sanitizer, scented lotion), card-making supplies (preprinted cards, paper, crayons, sentence starters), and a tiny stuffed animal for cuddling.

When a friend or family member is ill, hurt, or having a hard time, your family can go to the We Care Basket to find a way to show that person they care. At first, parents might need to suggest how and when to use the We Care Center, but your children will quickly understand the intent. In this way, the We Care Center encourages the development of empathy by providing a means for children to offer caring and thoughtfulness to others every day.

This content was cross-promoted on our partner’s website, Big Heart World. Check out Big Heart World for additional social-emotional resources for parents and educators.

It’s never too early to start sharing positive reflections by sharing diverse stories with your children. It is important for children not only to see themselves, but others represented in the books we read to them. Reading books with your little one is a fun and easy way to help introduce them to new cultures, experiences and events in history.

Some young children are innately interested in: learning how things work, building things and taking things apart. But all children can be enticed into STEM/STEAM learning through whatever they’re already interested in. Both STEM and STEAM support play, wonder and curiosity; but STEAM includes an art component that allows children to create and design with intention. STEM and STEAM encourage children to solve problems by using inquiry and investigation.

Since young children tend to ask lots of questions, you can introduce STEM/STEAM basics by following these simple “CHIA” steps:

• Curiosity: “So glad you asked!”
• Hypothesis: “Why don’t you make a guess?”
• Investigation: “Let’s look into it!”
• Analysis: “Why do you think that happened?”

Before beginning any activity with your toddler, ask them what they think is going to happen. Then ask why they think that. They’ve just created a hypothesis and given their logic for that hypothesis—the foundation of all scientific exploration. By then creating experiments with your toddler and talking about what you observe, you’re setting them up to plan, brainstorm, build, and solve problems exactly like scientists and engineers do.

Ideas for You and Your Child:

1. Build a ramp for toy cars to roll down. Have your toddler race two cars down the ramp. Ask them to predict which one will get to the bottom first. Then have them play with how to make the cars faster or slower. For example, if you put a small stone on the car, does it make it go faster? Buildable toys provide great opportunities for experimentation. What happens to the speed when your toddler makes the car bigger, heavier, or longer? This is experimentation, and it’s fun!
2. When you go for a walk, you can guide the conversation, or let your child come up with their own experiments. If you see an animal, play with how softly you can talk before the animal notices you. Or ask your child why the squirrels race around the tree. Right answers are not the goal—this is about asking questions and predicting the answer.

Remember that it’s okay for both you and your child to answer “I don’t know” to any question. It’s asking the question that’s important because that is where all science begins.

STEAM At-Home Activity: Building Structures

While at home, parents can introduce building structures with their children. The materials for this activity consist of wide popsicle sticks, clear plastic drinking cups and small cube blocks. Parents can encourage their child to build a structure while engaging in conversation about how many cups will it take to build the structure. What will happen if you use fewer cups and more popsicle sticks? How high can you build? The children can learn about balance, height, measurement and a host of wonderful things. This at-home activity needs little to no planning, but a readiness to think outside of the box.

Don’t underestimate the incredible thinking skills that young children have. With just a playful shift in word choice, we can allow for a dramatic shift in getting our babies ready for a STEM/STEAM education!

Check out Melissa’s tips:

What is Imaginative Play?
Imaginative play is playing pretend. Imaginative play is important for young children, as it not only builds character, but also helps adults understand children’s perspective and how they view and take in the world around them. When caregivers understand a child’s perspective, caregivers can be a better resources for them.

Why is Imaginative Play Important?
Many times, adults thinks that imaginative play is just for the children, when in fact it is for everyone. During imaginative play, you get to be anyone, anything, be any place and experience life outside of reality. During imaginative play you get to be free.
Through imaginative play children learn critical thinking skills, how to follow simple directions, build expressive and receptive language, increase social skills and learn how manage their emotions.

While children can handle exploring imaginative play alone with their thoughts and experiences, caregivers can play a key role in helping scaffold a child’s development. For example, imaginative play might begin with you and your child and just a baby doll. The caregiver plays the role in adding words or actions to the play such as do you think your baby is hungry? That will prompt the child to feed the baby. Now we have a baby and food. Next, the caregiver might say, the baby made a mess with the food, what do you think we should do? This question prompts the child to think whether to clean the baby by washing the baby or just changing the baby’s clothes. Another example, the caregiver can say, “I think I smell something, could it be your baby?” This will prompt the child to smell the baby and change. Now we, have a baby, food and a diaper.

How to Incorporate Imaginative Play at Home?
Incorporating imaginative play into your routine at home helps promote the parent-child relationship. Since bath time is already a routine for children, caregivers can add imaginative play to bath time. Adding imaginative play to bath time can be done by simply adding items such as a baby doll, small cars or cups from the kitchen. Washing the baby can help children identify different body parts and understand the difference between clean and dirty, while adding vocabulary words such as wash, soap, towel, water, clean, dirty. The same as washing the cars, children get a sense of how cars are changing from dirty to clean. For the cups, children can experience filling and dumping the water in and out of the cup. Adding vocabulary words such as filling, dumping, full, and empty. Remember imaginative play can be planned or spontaneous.

Easy Activities for Home

• Singing Concert
  • Materials needed: any safe objects like wooden spoons or pots and pans to use while you and your child sing and dance to their favorite song.
• Baby doll playtime
  • Materials needed: a baby doll or soft stuffed item.
• Bus stop
  • Materials needed: a chair, the couch and paper to use as money.

Tips for Halloween

When it comes to celebrating Halloween, children have the opportunity to live out their imaginative play fantasy by dressing up and becoming their favorite tv character. When picking costumes this holiday season, caregivers should become knowledge of the character that their children pick so that they can ask questions to keep the playing and learning going.

If you are going treat or treat, remember before leaving the house to give your child rules that they must follow while out in the public so that they can play safely. Giving your child the rules before leaving shows you are trusting them to be responsible. For example, caregivers can use character as the example on how following rules is important. For example, “I am expecting you to be a responsible superhero.” Or when the child is doing something outside of the rules, caregivers could say, “I wonder what will Spiderman do if his mother saw him doing that?

If the weather is too hot/cold/rainy for Trick or Treating this Halloween, you can still incorporate dressing up and imaginative play in other ways to still enjoy Halloween:

• District Park Halloween party
• Neighborhood Truck trick or treat
• Family Bowling night with character
• Family party at home (dress up)
• Movie night with the family watching Halloween movie
• Cooking with family