News

30 Engaging Baby Activities for Cognitive & Physical Development

A baby’s brain is growing and forming new connections every day. And everything you do—from talking and reading to singing and dancing—is helping that process. Even if baby's movements seem random and uncoordinated, important development is taking place, and they're gradually building their strength, coordination, and neural connections. That’s why it’s important to give babies lots of time to explore freely through a variety of movements. Here are some ideas to help get you started.


ActivePlay.ca is Multilingual!

ActivePlay.ca is a new website for early childhood educators that's filled with informative videos, posters, articles, and a monthly newsletter to help early childhood educators get children active. And all of the posters and videos are available in 10 languages, from Arabic to Ojibwe!


7 Tips for Supporting Children in Times of Global Stress

Whether children hear the news directly or feel the impact of heightened strain through other people, they look to the adults around them to help make sense of their feelings and thoughts. With some thoughtful steps, we can support the children we care for, and ourselves, to better manage the impact of the news and avoid being overwhelmed. Here are seven tips and encouragements for adults who are supporting children through this time.


Did you notice these recent product recalls?

3-in-1 LEA Baby Luna cribs have been recalled due to risks of entrapment and other injuries, and Magnetic Marvels have been recalled due to ingestion hazards for all ages. For an updated list of recalls and safety alerts, visit Health Canada regularly.


A Very Angry Preschool Song… Will it Work for Multiple Languages?

"This is an Angry Song” is a popular early years song in England that is a simple way to enable a child to express their anger with words and actions, and help other children understand the feelings a friend is experiencing. When we're working with multilingual groups of children, it's important to consider: Are the expressions and actions meaningful within the children's cultural context? Do they actually understand the words? Here are some tips for adapting songs like this for your CNC group.


LET’S PLAY: PLAY DOUGH ACTIVITY IDEAS

Play dough play provides children with lots of great opportunities to use their imagination and strengthen their fine motor skills. It can also provide hours of fun while children develop problem-solving, language and social skills! A team of CNC staff put their heads together and came up with over 125 play dough activity ideas for CNC… and now you can find them here!  Special thanks to the CNC team that worked on the new content.


Are you new to CNC? Looking for information and resources?

If you’re new to CNC and looking for information and resources, here’s a list of resources to help get you started and set you up for success!

Food Allergy Canada Tip Sheets and Posters

Food Allergy Canada has new tip sheets and posters on topics like: signs and symptoms, epinephrine, and 5 emergency steps. These one-page resources are perfect for downloading and posting in your program.

Play-responsiveness as a Teaching Practice: Using The Original Learning Approach

Join Swedish early childhood care and education expert, Suzanne Axelsson, M.A. to explore how weaving wonder, curiosity, joy, knowledge, imagination, interaction, risk, time, reflection, and listening can bring teaching closer to a state of play. In this thought-provoking webinar, Suzanne shares how play informs educators about each child’s learning and motivation, so teaching becomes focused on sense-making, meaning-making and world-making. She also shares concepts and images from Sweden, as well as from other places around the world including Greece, Italy, China, Iceland, and Australia to further inspire your teaching practices.

Newcomer Parent Resource Series: Available in 16 Languages

Refugee parents come to Canada with unique settlement needs, and language barriers that make it challenging to get information to support their parenting, children’s development, and the health and safety of their family here in Canada. We’ve developed a series of 14 parent resources to help - and they’re available in the 16 languages most commonly spoken by refugee families here in Canada!