Caregiving

As early childhood educators, you are not only keeping children safe and healthy through the environment you have in place but also teaching children about safety and modeling safe, healthy practices.

After completing this 2-hour course, the learner will be able to describe ways to keep children physically safe, explain how to teach children about safety and modeling safe practices, support wellness during routines, describe how to respond to injuries and emergencies, and engage families in safe practices.

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.

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.

Each of us comes from a unique place in the world. No one else has shared the same experiences in the same way. These unique experiences and where we come from have an impact on how we teach and how we interact with our children. It is critical to be aware of how these experiences impact us. Awareness of its influence and ensuring we are providing opportunities for children to gain a positive sense of self and pro-social skill development is crucial.

After completing this 2.5-hour course, the learner will be able to describe the importance of adults modeling prosocial behaviors, describe the importance of self-esteem and self-regulation, and explain the impact of our cultural identity on our actions and interactions.

Supporting the development of language skills is a crucial undertaking for all early childhood teachers. Language is the foundation for verbal language to occur and can be developed throughout every minute of the day!

In this 4-hour course, the learner will be able to explain strategies to use in the classroom to support children’s language development, describe how to create a language-rich environment and how this supports children’s growth and development, and explain how dual language learners are supported through ECE best practices and why this support is essential.

Math is FUN! It is one of the few times you can see the wheels turning as children engage in the exploration of number and number operations, geometry and spatial sense, classification, and pattern skills! Learning happens right before your eyes!

Science and young children are a great fit! How many times does a young child ask, “Why?” This natural curiosity is the precursor to all different types of inquiry and exploration. Everything is new and fascinating for young children. Building on that is such fun, for you and the children! This course may be included in the training hours needed for the CDA credential.

After completing this 4-hour course, the learner will be able to describe how science supports development in the area of cognition, define and give activity examples for the categories of science and describe how technology can be used in a developmentally appropriate way in prekindergarten.

Although developmental domains are frequently discussed in isolation, that is not the way children learn. Development in one domain impacts the other domains. Children should be engaged in high-quality developmentally appropriate activities that teach multiple areas at one time.

After completing this 1-hour course, the learner will be able to describe how the integration of activities has a positive impact on children’s learning across the domains and create activities that address components in multiple domains.

In an early childhood setting, children should be surrounded by print and, through interactions with the teachers, begin to attach meaning to that print. Their name is usually the most important word a child begins to recognize and try to write. Open this exciting world for your children as you interact with them with print.

After completing this 4-hour course, the learner will be able to describe how to create a literacy-rich environment and how this environment supports children’s growth and development, explain strategies to strengthen vocabulary development, and examine critical components for fostering children’s reading and writing development.