DEY supported advocacy by awarding mini-grants ranging from $250 to $500 to early childhood educators and advocates. Recipients were required to submit a report detailing how the money was spent. You can read the reports below.
Mini-Grant Recipients.
The project served as community-level advocacy by translating child development theory into practical, visible learning experiences. It reinforced the importance of developmentally appropriate practices that should inform early childhood education policies and decision-making.
Our goal was to create opportunities for those who support early childhood learning to play and learn and about playing and learning.
Educators learned how to integrate play to support cognitive, social-emotional, and creative development. By emphasizing play types, personalities, and stages, educators were encouraged to foster individualized and child-led play experiences.
The campaign and art asks participants to envision their own needs with regard to the DEY principles.
Our puppetry collective Hermafrodita is based in the south of Quito, Ecuador’s capital city, and thanks to DEY’s mini-grant, we were able to provide a full arts program for kids in three underprivileged child care centers across the city. Our program’s primary objective was to validate and nurture children’s freedom of self-expression, creativity, and identity by widening the scope of gender roles through the arts.
We launched the website in late December 2024/ Early January of 2025. Our goal is to provide information to parents and to survey parents about these mandates and how they are impacting the classroom in ways that are not developmentally appropriate as well. In addition to providing context and information, we will be using the site to mobilize parents to attend local and city-wide education council meetings across NYC and advocate for culturally responsive and developmentally sound curricula through testimonials, letter-writing campaigns, and telephone campaigns to local officials as the situations unfold.
Research shows that relationships between older and younger generations can foster empathy, reduce age-based stereotypes, and improve mental well-being. Programs that bring together youth and seniors create valuable experiences, helping both groups feel a stronger sense of purpose and community.
The project aim was to improve on how children learn in primary schools by promoting, increasing and sustaining the use of learning through play techniques by teachers, parents, education managers who surround and interact with refugee children at school, home and in refugee camps.
Through the Banned Book Preschool Storytime, our goal was to highlight the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in children’s literature, while supporting and welcoming all families in our community.
Installing and hosting a Little Free *Banned Books* Library aligns well within DEY’s principal goals. Hosting a space where children and families will have greater and free access to a wide range of books supports literacy development and in this current social and political climate, offering free banned books is a form of political and educational advocacy.
The Puerta Abierta believes that all children and their families deserve a dignified and progressive education, one that evokes curiosity about the world we live in. The goal of the joint project between Puerta Abierta and Mya was to provide an opportunity for the early childhood education program at the school to enhance their outdoor play garden.
Our goal is to always bring awareness to the community about the importance of early childhood education. We submitted proclamations with both our city and county along with inviting them to attend.
If we want teachers to incorporate play in their classrooms, they need to be knowledgeable on the practices that are based on research. Teachers are our first line of defense in keeping play in classrooms. But to do it, they must know about and believe in the benefits. More than just knowing, teachers need to be able to articulate why play is critical for our children. The book study allowed undergraduate students, our future teachers, to access the related research in a way that is developmentally appropriate for preservice teachers.
While the children read books, the families had the opportunity to work with a CCR&R staff to write letters to legislators regarding the issues they face with child care.
Disabled & Neurodivergent Children At Play: Play offers a perfect opportunity for young children – and their adults! – to explore concepts related to disability.
Outdoor Hut: We believe that our programme gives a lovely opportunity for children and their parents to experience real play and support children’s development at their own pace.
The goal of this project is to provide open-ended, play-based experiences for students throughout the day. We have been trying to think outside of the box and create classroom environments where kids can explore and learn through their senses.
Our project goal is to increase opportunities for sensory play for young children and educating the grownup caregivers on the…
Hope School organized a Community Event to Sensitize School Heads, Teachers, Parents, Educational and Security Stakeholders on the Importance of Play in holistic growth of the Child.
The Proposal and Results: My proposal requested funds to be able to share complementary copies of Not My Idea: A…
WildRoots Play was awarded this Mini Grant for our nature playgroup start-up costs, including advocacy for best practices in our work with families and young children.
Quality care is not a privilege, it is a human right.
The Somerville Community Growing Center, www.thegrowingcenter.org in Somerville, MA is a place for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to gather, learn, and celebrate in nature, together building a welcoming, accessible, and thriving community.
This summer Kids World used a DEY Mini Grant to support their summer program for children 4-12 years of age and to provide the children with a unique and calming approach to exploring process art and nature play.
Our DEY Mini Grant for Alhambra Preschool Academy was used to purchase an outdoor table that allowed for wheelchair access. The in-ground mounted table allows access by the special education classroom and children with wheelchairs. The teachers use this table for sensory provocations, potting seedlings, and reading storybooks together.
Labor of Love Childcare in South Bend, Indiana is using their DEY Mini Grant award to host “Meet Me At the Museum” days at no cost to families. They held two dates in May and are planning more dates for August and beyond.
The Oaks Children’s Academy participated in their first ever International Mud Day celebration on June 29, 2023!! Mud Day is a way to connect children to the Earth and soil, and discover the messy joy that comes from playing in and with mud!! We joined others around the globe in a day of splashing, rolling, squishing, sliding, making mud pies, and more!
Child care providers received advocacy training and shared their stories with state legislators at the Child Care Advocacy Day in Madison, Wisconsin.
Our Week of the Young Child celebration was amazing. Our county executive, Steuart Pittman, Chief of Staff, Jeff Amoros and our local library CEO, Skip Auld attended the event. It was so important to us that our stakeholders not only experienced the program at Sarah’s House but saw first-hand the barriers faced in our industry with workforce and affordable childcare for all families.
Addison County Celebrates and Advocates for Young Children and Play – Currently in Vermont there is historic state legislation being crafted to support early care and learning programs and the families who access these programs. On April 12, a Courage to Care Rally was held at our statehouse. Leading up to the rally ACDN worked with the local newspaper to include a special Early Childhood insert in the paper. The insert included articles on the following topics: The Importance of Play, Legislative Update (highlighting the rally and other ways families can advocate), Learning in the Great Outdoors, Play-based Learning, and more.
The Osprey Festival Provides Children Opportunities to Interact with Nature in Playful Ways
Over three recent days, parents at Northrop Elementary had the opportunity to engage in engineering, writing, mathematics, and literacy all through play!
Early Head Start in Graves County, Kentucky was excited to host a family engagement event in person again. They wanted to provide activities for the fall season that promoted parents playing and interacting with their children.
Duluth Preschool Head Start program located in Duluth Public Schools in MN was awarded a $500 mini grant from DEY to purchase 306 pairs of boots socks. Eight of the classrooms have requested boot socks to have on hand to keep toes warm in our cold Minnesota weather. Thank you DEY!
This lending library supplies parents and teachers with various books and resources on play-based learning to increase the knowledge in our community. It was funded through a DEY Mini Grant.
The Play is the Way team recently kicked off its preschool lending library program called, By the Playbook. Play is…
Head Start teacher Sarah Stith of San Antonio, TX and artist and education activist Traci Molloy of Brooklyn, NY submitted…
Activity Report With the modest funding from the Defending Early Years (DEY-Mini Grant Initiative) in September, 2020, Mercy Youth Initiative…
The International Play Association (IPA USA) received a DEY mini grant that was used to redesign its website, www.ipausa.org, to…
Valley of the Sun Chapter of the Arizona AEYC received a mini-grant from Defending the Early Years for its Flip…
Activity Report With the modest funding from the Defending Early Years (DEY-Mini Grant Initiative) in December 2019, Mercy Youth Initiative…
Thus far, we have hosted 3 teacher trainings and one parent workshop focusing on the importance of play. In each…
Grantee: Pamela Hamlin, Family Literacy Specialist in the Youth Services Department of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System (Largo,…
Grantee: Mary Jane Eisenhauer, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Early Learning at Purdue University Northwest, Westville, IN…
Grantee: Sarah Krueger, Education Enrichment Systems, San Diego, CA Description of how they used their DEY mini-grant: We are happy…
Thanks to play advocate Sarah Lahm for this guest post! Sarah joined other pay advocates in Minneapolis to advocate for…