The Value of Play for Preschool Children

Intentionality is one of the hallmarks of a high-quality learning program. This involves not only using a curriculum that aligns with child development and guidelines, but also ensuring instruction is targeted to the needs of each child in your classroom.

This 4-hour course for early learning educators discusses how to use the cycle of curriculum learning to plan whole group, small group, and individual level to appropriately meet the needs of all learners.

A major component of completing the process for the Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential is building your CDA Professional Portfolio. This portfolio contains all the documentation needed to meet the requirements of the CDA credential and will be part of your CDA Verification visit. This resource binder should be built to be used by you as you work with the children and families you serve.

In this four-hour course, the learner will be able to identify the essential components that must be included in the CDA Professional Portfolio, including the family questionnaires, the Reflective Dialogue Worksheet, the resource collection items, and the accompanying competency statement for each of the six areas required and the Professional Philosophy Statement. This binder will be part of the resources examined by the CDA Professional Development Specialist and used as a reflection tool during the CDA Verification Visit.

Knowing what children can do and what they know is powerful information that can guide early learning teachers to create appropriate learning experiences for their children. The purposes and types of assessments are examined.

This 4-hour course for early learning educators is designed to review the purposes of assessment, how to evaluate and interpret the results, and create a plan to share results with families.

Children are born curious about the world in which they live. In this course, we discuss how to use a variety of dresearch-based learning materials to promote and enhance their natural curiosity, reasoning, and problem-solving in the areas of social studies and nature.

After completing this 2-hour course, the learner will be able to describe how social studies and using nature support children’s cognitive development. Social studies experiences should reflect the range of the children’s cultural groups. The learner will be able to give activity examples from these two areas.

Engaging families to become involved in their child’s early care and education sets the foundation for that involvement to continue throughout the child’s schooling. Helping families understand the importance of this involvement is critical. Families may not always understand how important they are in the education process, from early care onwards.

In this two-hour course, the learner will describe strategies for conducting orientations, holding formal meetings with families, discussing ways to support child development at home, encouraging parent involvement, and determining community resources available to help families and their children.