Creating great kids with HIPPY Taupō

HIPPY participant Memory Thompson, 3, with a fish she made using fine motor skills, art skills and maths skills. Photo / Supplied

Just 15 minutes a day, five times a week, is all it takes to make a significant difference to improve your 3-year-old preschooler's future, regardless of his or her background and circumstances.

That's the message HIPPY Taupō is spreading to encourage more parents to take up their free, in-home educational programme for 3- and 4-year-olds.

HIPPY (Home Interaction Programme for Parents & Youngsters) was originally developed in Israel but has spread around the world. Here, it has been adapted for the New Zealand Te Whāriki early childhood curriculum and incorporates a mixture of English and te reo Māori.

HIPPY Taupō co-ordinator Jude Asher says the HIPPY programme sets children up to be ready to begin school and to be successful there by providing fun learning activities that the child and adult do together five times a week for 15 minutes.

Jude says while the HIPPY programme normally takes two years or 60 weeks, last year one mother completed it with her child in just 17 months by doing an activity every day. Jude says the child was bright and busy and doing HIPPY gave her enjoyable tasks to focus on, as well as learning that engaged her curiosity and expanded her mind. She loved the free storybooks she received along the way and one was so often read that Jude had to replace it three times.

There was another reason the family signed up to HIPPY too, a common one among parents who may not have had the best memories of their school years.

"Her mum felt she hadn't had success at school and she wanted to do the best for her daughter," Jude explains.

Diamond-Breeze Moeke, 3, demonstrates the maths concepts of sorting, sequencing, numbers, colours and shapes on her HIPPY activity sheet.

At the end, the mother wrote to Jude praising HIPPY and saying she hoped other parents would take advantage of the opportunity.

For families on the programme, all the resources needed to complete the HIPPY activities are provided. As the children progress through the HIPPY workbooks together, the child is also gifted free storybooks as a reward.

Jude says one of the things that makes it easy for parents is that HIPPY is quite prescriptive — the tutor and the workbook clearly lay out what each activity involves and what's required, so there's no guessing or risk of presenting the activity wrongly. The HIPPY tutor regularly visits to explain the activities and role-play them so the parent is confident they know what to do.

Because the sessions are short, at only 15 minutes, it's usually not hard to find the time, and it also provides some valuable one-on-one between parent and child. Jude also runs fortnightly play groups where the children can play and the parents can socialise or learn to do things like make play dough or wax wraps.

Covid-19 disruption meant that last year there were only two young graduates of HIPPY, but in the previous years there were nine.

HIPPY is funded by the Ministry of Education under its Great Potentials programme founded by Dame Lesley Max on the principle that if you prepared children well for school, they would carry that success through in later life.

It is available throughout the Taupō district, including Tūrangi. The main criteria for acceptance is the child's age - they need to be aged between 3 and 4 1/2 when they start HIPPY.

Jude, a former teacher, got involved when her granddaughter would turn up to spend the day with her clutching her HIPPY workbook and saying "Gran, let's do HIPPY".

"What she really liked was that opportunity to cuddle up and read a story and most children love that, a bit of quality time one-on-one," explains Jude. "She's now at school and she's 7, she zoomed when she got to school, she knew it all."

Completing a HIPPY activity at home. Photo / Supplied

Jude says along with maths and language concepts, children doing HIPPY develop critical-thinking skills, something she's seen develop in her own granddaughter.

"I've been able to watch it with how she questions and copes with things and you watch children as they work it out ... I think it's an amazing programme."

Jude says the hardest part of HIPPY is reaching the families that would benefit most. There are 25 HIPPY places available this year in the Taupō district and Jude would like to fill them all by March if possible.

You can contact Jude on 027 4494 808, email hippy.taupo@outlook.com or find them on Facebook @TaupōHippy.