News
Podcast: Teaching Early Childhood Multilingual Learners
In this episode of the Lifting Language podcast, three experts gather to talk about teaching multilingual learners in early childhood. They discuss the principles of early childhood education and the role languages play, families as resources, and best instructional practices. The podcast is sure to leave you inspired to try some new ideas!Helping Every Child Unpack Their Emotional Backpack
This 4-part Housman Institute series focuses on how we can help young children unpack thier emotional backpacks, and help ourselves in the process. It provides us with the tools, language, and techniques we need to help kids through every part of processing their emotions, including: identifying what they are feeling, understanding them, expressing them appropriately, and regulating them when they are strong.New Online Tutorial Series: Now Available in French and English!
When children are calm and alert, they’re better able to manage their emotions, pay attention, ignore distractions, feel empathy, and really engage in their play and learning. Supporting children in developing self-regulation skills and helping them understand and manage big feelings is a great place to start. Supporting Self-Regulation and 8 Tips for Helping Children Understand and Manage Big Feelings are now available in French and English!
FREE COURSE: Protecting Children – Using Social Stories to Introduce Emergency Preparedness & Drills
In this free course, the Institute for Childhood Preparedness and Autism Little Learners teamed up to create a series of social stories to help children prepare for safety and emergency preparedness drills. The social stories are for all children to enjoy, but they are also aimed at helping children with Autism understand, learn, and communicate new concepts. This course can help you prepare all of the children in your program ahead of time for the changes in routine that come with performing safety drills.Active Supervision
The most important way that caregivers can ensure children are safe is through active supervision. But what does active supervision actually mean?Multilingual Trauma Resources from Child Mind Institute
The Child Mind Institute has prepared free trauma resources to help parents, educators, and other caregivers. No matter how concerned or overwhelmed you may feel, as parents and caregivers you have the power to help children recover. Your comfort, support and reassurance can make them feel safe and secure, guide them through their fears and grief, and prevent them from suffering lasting effects. These resources offer simple tips on what to expect, what to do and what to look out for. There are general suggestions as well as age-specific information, and now they're available in 16 languages!ONLINE WORKSHOP: Getting Ready for Gradual Entry
In this one-hour online workshop participants are provided with a gradual entry checklist to help them with their gradual entry strategy and process. They will also go through age, development, and group considerations to reflect on how they can best support a variety of children and families through the gradual entry process.Place Matters: What Surrounds Us Shapes Us
The environment we create shapes the foundations of early childhood development. Every environment is infused with a combination of influences, which can have positive and negative impacts on health and development. This infographic illustrates how the influences from a child’s social, built, and natural environments—as well as the systemic factors that shape those environments—interact with each other to shape early childhood development and lifelong health.Families in Canada to Benefit From Innovative Early Learning and Child Care Practices
The early learning and child care (ELCC) sector continues to evolve in increasingly complex and challenging environments. Identifying innovative practices and solutions that better address the essential needs of children, families, and caregivers is key to continuing to improve early learning and child care services across Canada. This summer, funding for two projects through the Early Learning and Child Care Innovation Program have been announced. One is a project titled Professional Development for ELCC Workers Through an Indigenous-ECE Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). This project focuses on providing early childhood educators with professional development opportunities to receive training on incorporating Indigenous perspectives, worldviews and pedagogies into early learning and child care environments through the development of an online course. The goal is that by widely offering this free online training across Canada, more ELCC professionals will have these critical skills.