Learning aids? They’re in the bag

It’s a little before lunchtime, and members of the MMI Department of Education and Child Development are stuffing.

Not themselves, though. They’re stuffing bags.

From left: Abbey Siebler, Kari Price, Barb Jackson, Ph.D., Jennifer Rodriguez, and Yaritza Estrada

Led by Jolene Johnson, Ed.D., a group of staffers are putting together bags with books, toys and educational materials designed for at-risk children and their parents. By the end of the day, they will have filled approximately 800 bags — and by the end of the project itself, they will have filled and distributed three to four times that many.

The materials in the bags, which will be sent out to four sites in Nebraska — Winnebago, two in Omaha, one in Lincoln — as well as one in New Orleans, have been purchased through an acceleration grant received through the Buffett Early Childhood Education Fund.

The purpose of the project, Dr. Johnson explains, is to help parents understand social-emotional learning and executive functioning.

“We’re giving them tools that they can use with their kids at home,” she said.

There are three levels of materials, which allows the group to create a “preschool” bag, a “toddler” bag and an “infant” bag. Also, some materials are in Spanish.

“Each of the bags is going to have different activities parents can do with their children and education material that will tell them what part of the brain the activity is impacting,” Dr. Johnson said.

Each bag features at least one book, and the books have been cross-referenced with the Autism Network, so they’re also helpful to children on the autism spectrum.

“The overall grant objectives are to build capacity with staff understanding and parent understanding of social-emotional learning and how this impacts the brain, so that when their kids go to school, they have increased readiness to learn,” Dr. Johnson said.

The first set of bags went out in late August and early September. Two more shipments will go out in December and March.