Curriculum

Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) is a home-based, family focused program that helps parents provide educational enrichment for their preschool child. HIPPY USA believes that parents play a critical role in their children's education. The HIPPY program seeks to support parents who may not feel sufficiently confident to prepare their children for school, and is designed to remove barriers to participation in education. HIPPY's primary goal is to increase vulnerable children's success in school and, ultimately, in life.

The HIPPY Curriculum, designed for children ages three, four, and five, contains 30 weekly activity packets, nine storybooks and a set of 20 manipulative shapes for each year. In addition to these basic materials, supplies such as scissors and crayons are provided for each participating family. The program uses trained coordinators and community-based home visitors who go into the home and role-play the activities with the parents and support each family throughout their participation in the program.

The daily activities are developmentally appropriate for children. The packets are written in a clear scripted format that is designed to provide guidance for parents and to ensure a successful learning experience for the parent and child working together in their own home. Parents become the facilitator in the learning process with their child. Parents gain confidence through their own participation in the HIPPY program and eventually become comfortable expanding the activities and broadening the learning experiences for their child.

• The HIPPY curriculum is primarily cognitive-based, focusing on language development, problem solving, logical thinking and perceptual skills. Learning and play mingle throughout HIPPY's curriculum as parents expose their children to early literacy skills such as:
• Phonological and phonemic awareness
• Letter recognition
• Book knowledge
• Early writing experiences

In addition, the curriculum fosters social/emotional and physical (fine and gross motor skills) development. HIPPY introduces skills and concepts in a progressive manner, first using the physical body, then concrete objects and finally representation of objects in pictures, followed by many opportunities for practice and learning. The HIPPY storybooks bring children's literature into the home. HIPPY provides numerous opportunities for children and parents to discuss the storybooks in varied and increasingly complex ways.

• HIPPY is not a curriculum of mastery, but rather a curriculum of exposure to skills, concepts, and experiences with books that together constitute "school readiness" for young children. Skills and concepts are developed through a variety of activities including:
• Reading
• Writing and drawing
• Listening and talking
• Singing and rhyming
• Playing games
• Cooking and sewing
• Shapes and colors
• Puzzles and more

The storybooks and activity packets are available in both English and Spanish for all ages. The HIPPY curriculum activities are constantly reviewed and updated in order to ensure that the materials are relevant for our families and reflect current educational research findings.

And There Is More

• In addition to the core HIPPY materials, HIPPY USA has developed enrichment materials to enhance the curriculum and provide additional learning opportunities for children. These activities were selected to broaden the child's experience base for successful learning in kindergarten, and to increase the parent and child's enthusiasm for learning. Some of these include:
• Exploring Healthy Eating: Activities for Parents and Children Together, developed with the Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy at Tufts University
• The HIPPY Curriculum Enrichment Guides for Ages Three, Four and Five
• The Creative Games, targeted for the Age 5 child who is ready for the next level of learning and focus on developing open-ended questioning, problem solving and creative thinking.
• Extension activities that expand the learning experiences emphasized in the core  curriculum.

For more information please email info@hippyusa.org or call 501-537-7726.