Agrilife Extension Resources

Developmentally appropriate preschool STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) experiences give young children opportunities to develop divergent thinking, problem solving, and cause and effect. Experiences have great potential to affect brain development during the crucial early childhood window of opportunity.

“Getting the wiggles out” is not the sole purpose of outdoor play. This course helps teachers understand the importance of outdoor play and how to make it a priority. Safety aspects such as playground standards

Classroom management refers to skills teachers use daily to supervise and organize time, materials and activities, while keeping children safe. From the rules and routines to the activities, each component needs to be planned and followed through with children to ensure they are learning through play throughout the day.

Children identify a problem, use stuff to make stuff that does stuff to solve the problem. Learn about research related to engineering design with preschoolers and ideas/activities to encourage and support children in becoming junior engineers. Planning, building, and testing out are the engineering skills of the future.

During play, children escape the constraints of reality where the usual meanings of objects can be ignored and new meanings substituted. Explore the definitions and theories important to the concept of play, appropriate play materials and how to support learning and play in early childhood classrooms.

Literacy skills are essential to success. Students who enroll in this course will learn about the various components of emergent literacy, strategies for promoting early literacy development in children, and how to create a literacy-rich early childhood environment. This course qualifies for 1 clock hour of credit.

Understanding the meaning and implication of developmentally appropriate practices in a classroom, as well as teacher/child interactions based on those practices is introduced. Effective characteristics of developmentally appropriate practices, the value of intentional teaching and strategies to use are also introduced.

Children use their senses to explore the world. More than just seeing or noticing, through science, children can determine how important or unimportant an observation is. Enrich the sensory table, beyond digging and pouring. Build an “Observation Station” with simple, sensory-rich explorations preschoolers will love.

Circle time, or large group time, is when children come together to learn and have fun, solve problems, and be part of a community. This setting helps children begin to look at the world from the perspective of ‘we’ and ‘ours’. Circle time experiences, transitions and strategies for keeping children engaged are introduced.