Agrilife Extension Resources
We have a range of digital and print materials and resources related to child care training, including a number of online courses for child care professionals seeking to fulfill state-mandated training requirements.
- Course
In early childhood, a child’s social emotional development and mental health are one and the same. That means the strategies early childhood educators use to cultivate positive social emotional development are, by definition, supportive of positive mental health outcomes.
The purpose of this 2-hour course is to give early childhood professionals a review of key milestones and learning goals in the social emotional domain of development and a selection of practical strategies to help children achieve them. - Course
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 cognitive development through outdoor play and learning activities. - Course
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 language development through outdoor play and learning activities. - Course
Indoors or outdoors, a strategic approach to observation and assessment gives early childhood educators the information they need to effectively plan for children’s needs, interests, and abilities.
The purpose of this 2-hour course is to offer tips for incorporating systematic observation into outdoor and nature play activities, including what to look for and how to document what you see. - Course
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. - Course
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. - Course
Outdoor and nature play provides an opportunity to teach young children about nature conservation and environmental stewardship.
The purpose of this 2-hour course is to highlight strategies early childhood educators can use to model and teach environmental awareness and conservation principles. - Course
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. - Course
Children do not develop in a vacuum, so their social emotional development and mental health outcomes depend in part on the protective factors available in the settings and systems where they live, learn, and grow.
The purpose of this 2-hour course is to highlight the roles of families and communities in supporting young children’s mental health and provide early childhood educators a variety of strategies to maximize the positive influence those systems can have on a child’s social emotional development. - Course
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.