We believe high-quality professional development for teachers and administrators is a key element to ensuring students’ success. We offer skills development courses for ages birth to five designed to work with any curriculum, so all early childhood educators have the tools and techniques they need to thrive.
Professional Development Sessions Emphasize:
Building Brain Power in the Early Years
Description:
The first few years of life are a time of great opportunity and vulnerability for brain growth and development. The experiences children have during this time can actually shape the structure of the brain and alter its functions. This training will review numerous factors that affect brain development, with a focus on the key findings of early brain research, including the Windows of Opportunity during the formative early years.
Objectives:
- Identify factors that affect brain growth and development.
- Understand the effect of stress on brain development.
- Learn about the 5 R’s for supporting healthy brain development.
Social-Emotional Development
Description:
This course shows educators how to create a secure environment that fosters positive and age-appropriate social-emotional skills in children during the wiring windows of brain development. Positive social-emotional development refers to the skills necessary to create healthy attachments with adults, maintain healthy relationships, and regulate one’s emotions and behaviors. Dr. Becky Bailey, founder of Conscious Discipline®, states self-regulation is the key to academic success. This training will provide the tools to create healthy relationships while providing a safe environment for children.
Objectives:
- Acquire a deeper knowledge of social-emotional development based on brain development research.
- Learn strategies to calm, foster problem-solving skills, encourage self-regulation, and promote accountability.
- Learn best practices, techniques.
Developmentally Appropriate Practices
Description:
Developmentally appropriate practices require that teachers make daily, intentional decisions based on their knowledge of each child’s level of development, taking into consideration the child’s learning style as well as cultural and social differences. This course will help teachers learn how to maintain a classroom environment that helps to promote the cognitive, physical, emotional, and social needs of children.
Objectives:
- Identify intentional teaching techniques that can be used to meet each child at his or her level of development.
- Learn developmentally appropriate techniques that will immediately impact instruction through hands-on exploration.
- Provide applicable information and research that can be used to create developmentally appropriate environments that are engaging and active.
Developing Language and Communication Skills for Infants and Toddlers
Description:
Infants and toddlers need many opportunities to hear and be exposed to language. Teachers need to talk to them about what is happening, and they need a language- rich environment in order to understand what is taking place. This training will help teachers understand the importance of early language skills for infants and toddlers.
Objectives:
- Define and discover primary goals of Oral Language Development for Infants and Toddlers.
- Gain a better understanding of how to build awareness of sounds and developing vocabulary for children.
- Identify developmental milestones for language in children 0-3 years.
- Review strategies for increasing children’s listening and speaking skills.
- Recognize the benefits of reading with children.
- Collect ideas on how to provide language-rich activities throughout the day and materials in the classroom.
Building Early Literacy Skills for Threes and Pre-K
Description:
Participants are guided along a developmental sequence of emergent literacy
based on the research documented in the article “Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel” (2008) and supported by the book Early Childhood Literacy: The National Early Literacy Panel and Beyond (Shanahan & Lonigan, 2012). Participants will review literacy instruction models that include strategies to build oral language skills focused on vocabulary and comprehension, phonological awareness, concepts of print, expressive writing, and alphabet knowledge.
Objectives:
- Understand the developmental milestones of language and literacy.
- Analyze classroom environments and develop a plan to enhance a child’s language and literacy skills through meaningful and intentional experiences.
Words, Words, Words: Strategies to Increase Vocabulary in Young Children
Description:
This course will identify the most effective strategies for teaching vocabulary based on the research documented in the article “Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel” (2008) and supported by the book Early Childhood Literacy: The National Early Literacy Panel and Beyond (Shanahan & Lonigan, 2012). Participants will review myths of vocabulary instruction and expand knowledge of research-based practices including tiered vocabulary instruction.
Objectives:
- Understand the importance and implications of vocabulary development.
- Identify and practice effective methodologies of vocabulary development.
- Apply tiered vocabulary instruction in a model lesson.
Read Aloud: Building Comprehension Skills
Description:
Children develop three times more high-level vocabulary from listening to a story than from conversation (Jim Trelease, 2015). It is a vital, shared experience that builds listening, vocabulary, and key comprehension skills before, during and after reading. This course gives early childhood professionals an opportunity to explore research- based strategies to effectively implement reading aloud and embrace the joy of literacy among children.
Objectives:
- Learn effective shared reading strategies focused on various genres (e.g., personal narratives, non-fiction, predictable text, informational text).
- Model effective read-aloud strategies, including ways to support children in their thinking process and stimulate participation and a love for reading.
Essentials of Writing
Description:
This course stresses the importance of recognizing and adapting to the individual developmental readiness for writing in young children. The course will feature age-appropriate modeled, shared, and independent writing strategies focused on functional and compositional writing. Participants will engage in activities and strategies to nurture children’s writing and expand their skills.
Objectives:
- Engage in meaningful discussions and stimulating activities to strengthen understanding of the importance of modeled functional writing, as well as compositional writing experiences.
- Enhance knowledge of appropriate strategies and materials that support children in seeing themselves as writers.
- Identify the early stages of writing and developmentally appropriate differentiated strategies for nurturing writing.
- Explore journal writing and strategies.
Literacy/Numeracy Connection
Description:
This course will focus on the connection between early literacy and numeracy
skills and review strategies to create a rich environment to help develop these in tandem. This connection is critical in terms of early school success and is a necessary building block in other content areas.
Objectives:
- Identify critical dimensions of early literacy and components of numeracy for young learners.
- Select developmentally appropriate strategies for connecting literacy and numeracy in the classroom.
- Enhance learning through practical, engaging, hands-on activities that can be implemented in the classroom.
Math for the Young Child
Description:
This course presents an overview of research-based best practices that should underscore early math instruction in preschool. Specifically, participants will examine five content areas—Number and Operations, Geometry, Measurement, Algebra (Patterns), and Data Analysis (Graphing and Classification)—identified by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) as focal points for preschool mathematics. Participants will engage with this material and content in a way that closely mirrors the dialogic, hands-on learning through which young children should experience mathematics. A variety of teacher-directed and child-initiated contexts, including whole group, small group, and play-based practice center activities, will be presented.
Objectives:
- Identify research-based developmental progressions to better understand how young children learn number, geometry, and measurement concepts.
- Use progress monitoring to differentiate instruction for children operating at each developmental level identified in the first objective.
- Understand how to integrate mathematics in other content areas and meaningful learning contexts that connect to children’s everyday lives.
Full Steam Ahead! How to Integrate STEAM into your Instruction
Description:
Participants will gain a better understanding of the importance of integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) in the classroom. Guiding children to explore, observe, and predict is an integral part of a child’s educational success.
Objectives:
- Learn practical tips for implementing STEAM in your classroom.
- See how nature-based activities offer the perfect opportunity to address STEAM subjects.
- Understand the Four C’s that make STEAM instruction effective and engaging.
- Discover examples of common materials that can be used for STEAM activities.
- Learn about Inquiry-Based and Project Approach teaching strategies for STEAM.
Making Center Time Intentional
Description:
Center time is a significant part of an early education day. However, many educators are uncertain about how to make this an effective, purposeful practice time. This session will give educators the tools, strategies, and examples to make the most of center time. Participants will learn about the best methods of designing centers for optimal impact. This course features activities that help children solidify previously taught concepts by providing intentional practice.
Objectives:
- Identify effective center time strategies that impact classroom practices, foster sharing, and support intentionality.
- Explore examples of center time rotation and transition activities that are purposeful.
- Identify strategies on how to modify lesson plans that support intentional center time.
Keys to Building an Effective Dual Language Program
Description:
We know that children learn best in environments where they feel comfortable, accepted, and safe. This training will focus on the Dual Language Learner: A child who is acquiring two or more languages at the same time, or a child who is learning a second language while continuing to develop their first language. We will cover effective teaching strategies and the environments needed to support children who are learning in two or more languages. You will learn about activities that support the child’s cognitive, social and emotional, language/literacy and physical development, as well as strategies that promote a learning environment that is safe, nurturing, responsive and language and communication rich.
Objectives:
- Recognize responsive teaching and learning environments for Dual Language Learners.
- Identify effective teaching strategies and responsive language practices for Dual Language Learners.
- Discover strategies to embrace Dual Language Learner’s families as partners in education.
Implementing Observational Feedback into your Daily Practice
Description:
During this training we will discuss how to take feedback reports such as CLASS to set goals for improvement. In addition, we will review best practices in classroom interactions that will make the biggest impact.
Objectives:
- Help teachers create a nurturing environment.
- Guide teachers on ways to have organized and well-managed classrooms.
- Create engaging opportunities for children based on various observational tools which will be used to set goals for improvement.
Music and Movement
Description:
This upbeat course shows educators how to create meaningful and pleasurable music and movement experiences for children. Studies show that children can learn concepts, such as patterns, rhymes, shapes, and vocabulary, through music. The combination of music and movement enhances a child’s physical and cognitive development.
Objectives:
- Gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of music throughout the day.
- Identify positive ways to encourage music appreciation in young children.
- Practice activities for incorporating music and movement in the classroom.
- Explore singing, moving to music, and playing instruments with children.
- Identify appropriate materials to include in the music and movement area in the classroom.
Physical Development
Description:
This course allows participants to explore developmental milestones and probe further into the gross and fine motor skills of preschoolers. Adding intentional, physical activities to the daily curriculum promotes the development of balance and coordination and engages both hemispheres of the brain. Frog Street lessons will be modeled and practiced in group activities.
Objectives:
- Learn the essentials of physical development.
- Differentiate between gross and fine motor skills and their vital functions.
- Recognize how physical development impacts the brain’s ability to function at an optimal level.
- Review the Frog Street resources that are designed to develop fine and gross motor skills.
The Six Building Blocks of Family Engagement
Description:
This session provides participants with the opportunity to explore the foundation for family engagement that emphasizes the process of working with your school family.
Objectives:
- Understand the impact of family engagement.
- Discover the Six Building Blocks of Engagement.
- Explore using Partners in Education: Dual Capacity Framework Version 2.
- Discuss the impact of collaborative communication.
- Engage in social and emotional supports for families.
