LEWES — In November, children attending Child’s Play by the Bay, an early learning child development center located in Lewes, participated in a food drive service project benefiting the Delaware Food Bank.

Teachers at Child’s Play provided the kids with a visual shopping list that showed pictures of various non-perishable food items. The visual shopping list allowed the children to participate actively in the food shopping experience.

When possible, parents were encouraged to allow their child to assist with the shopping, complete the checkout process, and pay for their items.

“Early intentional exposure to logos, signs and words lead to knowledge that symbols have meaning,” stated Child’s Play preschool teacher Katie Miller. “This is a very important pre-literacy skill. This lays the groundwork for conventional reading and writing.”

As the children started to bring their food donations to Child's Play, the food items were used for classroom learning activities such as sorting, graphing and practicing number skills.

“We firmly believe in using real objects and items when offering young children early learning experiences. Providing the children with canned goods and boxed foods gave them ways to incorporate some sorting and patterning learning into the classroom using products that they purchased," said teacher Amy Burhop.