Agrilife Extension Resources

In order to facilitate healthy social emotional development among young children, early childhood professionals first need to have the tools to regulate their own emotions and manage their own stress.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to provide early childhood educators with information and resources to recognize stressors and signs of stress and empower them to adopt healthy approaches to stress management.

Increased engagement in outdoor and nature play can benefit young children’s learning across all developmental domains.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to offer early childhood professionals strategies for supporting children’s social emotional development through outdoor play and learning activities.

Increased engagement in outdoor and nature play can benefit young children’s learning across all developmental domains.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to offer early childhood professionals strategies for supporting children’s physical development through outdoor play and learning activities.

To facilitate positive social and emotional outcomes for children, early childhood educators need to understand and recognize the role of stress and trauma on early brain development and implement proactive and responsive measures to build children’s resilience.

This 2-hour course aims to help early childhood professionals understand how they can play a part in cultivating positive social emotional outcomes for each child by applying trauma-informed and resiliency-supporting practices in early learning settings.

Despite the known benefits of outdoor and nature play for young children, early childhood educators and administrators may worry about issues of safety and liability.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to equip early childhood professionals to view risk in outdoor and nature play as a process of balancing risks and benefits, rather than a barrier to including outdoor and nature play in your program.

Executive function is the collection of processes in our brain that help us make calm and rational decisions to accomplish tasks and goals. These skills can be developed through interactions with children to support their learning every day to develop these skills.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to educate early childhood professionals on the benefits of targeting executive function, its component skills, and common patterns of executive function development to support teachers with planning learning experiences to support children’s development of executive function.

A well-designed, naturalized outdoor learning environment can be the ultimate tool for facilitating meaningful, impactful outdoor play and learning experiences for young children.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to introduce early childhood educators and directors to best practices in outdoor learning environments and offer tips for making incremental improvements to enhance the quality of your program’s existing outdoor spaces.

Early childhood professionals should understand the standards, policies, and guidelines that must be followed based on the type of program they are working in. These regulations may vary for early childhood businesses, and some may have to follow multiple standards. Understanding these regulations, including best practices, keeps children safe and programs in compliance and ensures high-quality educational experiences for children.

After completing this 3-hour course, the learner will be able to explain the importance of understanding standards and policies, describe why we have regulations in the field of early childhood, list resources that provide state and federal guidelines, and explain best practices for implementation and creating systems for compliance.

Many parents work nontraditional hours, meaning their children need access to early care and education programs outside typical operating hours. In the absence of qualified early care and education programs that offer nighttime care, these families may have to make challenging and precarious choices, choosing between maintaining their employment and leaving their children without the appropriate care.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to support early childhood program owners and directors through the process of incorporating extended hours of care, including overnight care, to support the needs of many families across Texas.