Program – HIPPY International

the hippy program

Parents engage with the curriculum by role playing the parent-child activities with a home visitor

HIPPY is a developmentally appropriate, early literacy curriculum designed to promote children’s cognitive, social, emotional and physical development. The curriculum consists of a set of easy-to-use educational activity packets and storybooks developed for parents of children ages 2-5. Parents engage with the curriculum by role playing the parent-child activities with a home visitor who is from the same community, and often a former HIPPY parent. All home visitors are supervised by a professionally trained program coordinator.

hippy curriculum

HIPPY program materials

Designed for parents and their children, aged three to five years-old, HIPPY program materials consist of storybooks, activity books and ‘basic supplies’ such as geometric shapes, scissors and crayons.

Activity books are set out like lesson plans for the parent, providing them with developmentally appropriate activities for their children with the objective of ensuring a successful and enjoyable learning experience.

Skills & concepts

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 opportunities for practice and learning.

Nurturing school readiness skills

Reading together and talking about the storybooks help develop a love of literacy in the family.

Building on the storybooks to expand literacy skills, HIPPY’s easy-to-use activities nurture school readiness skills, including language development, perceptual and sensory discrimination, logical thinking and problem-solving.

HIPPY activities

Wide-ranging, fun-learning HIPPY activities include reading, writing, drawing, singing, rhyming, games, puzzles, cooking, baking and more. Parents are encouraged to build on the information in the activities in order to generalize the learning in all areas of their children’s lives.

Constant reviews & updates

HIPPY facilitates initiatives for change, additional materials and extension activities developed in different member countries.

Constant reviewing and updating ensures that the HIPPY curriculum is relevant for families and reflects current educational research findings.

home visits

The home visit is an effective, evidenced-based, cost-efficient way to bring families and educational resources together.

HIPPY’s key service delivery approach enables the program to reach out to parents on an individual basis where they feel most ‘at home’ – in their home. This is especially important for parents in locations lacking community services or for parents who have yet to avail themselves of community services.