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Programs and Activities

WEBINAR: Reimagine Documentation to Support the Quest for Program Quality

The last two years have been challenging in terms of holding on to our values and intentions for our programs and for ourselves as professionals. This inspiring webinar explores how you can support the use of documentation to help educators refresh their thinking about practice, gain insight into children’s actions, and continue to learn. Participants will uncover how documentation can become a form of professional learning, and how raw documentation is possible – despite the challenges!!

8 Tips for Making Your Program Culturally Inclusive Year Round

Celebrating diversity is a huge part of building the empathy and perspective-taking skills necessary for the development of kind, inclusive, caring human beings. As educators, we have an incredible opportunity and responsibility to support the development of these skills with even our youngest learners. Here are 8 tips for making sure your program is culturally inclusive year-round!

Try some holiday fun physical activities!

Active for Life has a fun list of holiday activity ideas for families that are always popular this time of year.

New Activity Ideas have been added to LET’S PLAY!

New activity ideas are being added all the time! Do you have a child who’s really interested in textures? Or maybe you have a group of children who really love to dump and pour? Do you ever feel like you’ve run out of activity ideas to extend their play and learning? We gathered a team of experienced CNC staff to put their heads together and our collection of inspiring play extension activity ideas for CNC is growing every month! You can find them here, in LET'S PLAY: CNC Activity Ideas

Have you explored the Devereux Centre for Resilient Children YouTube channel?

Devereux Center for Resilient Children (DCRC) promotes resilience, social and emotional development in preschool children, and promotes the resilience of the adults who care for them. Their YouTube channel provides helpful videos that share guidance and tips, as well as a new 4-part series on culturally responsive care and teaching practices!

Have some soccer fun during FIFA World Cup!

The FIFA World Cup is one of the world’s most widely watched sporting events, with countries around the world participating. So it's a great time to have some soccer fun with the children in your program! Just about any sport or physical activity will help to develop physical literacy and good movement skills. However, if you had to pick one sport that developed the most skills and capacities for little ones, it would have to be soccer.

Have you tried making your own games?

During the pandemic, the CNC team at Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s Bayshore site put their heads together to come up with creative ways to re-purpose cardboard delivery boxes. They used their extra time to save money and have some fun making everything from race tracks to carnival-style games for their program. Many of their creations were even laminated for quick disinfection! Click here to learn more.

200+ activities you can do with kids at home

Children have been home a lot over the last few years. Here's an epic list of over 200 full of play ideas that you can share with parents: games to keep their minds and bodies moving!

7 Strategies to Support Children’s Emotional Development

Did you know that every person has five emotional needs that must be met before they can be in a position to learn and grow? As an educator, it's important to set children up for success. In order to do this, you need to consider... what are things that trigger you or your children in the classroom? Children’s behavior gives us information that helps us understand how they are feeling - and there is a difference between reacting and responding! Here are 7 tips that can help!

Have you tried the Active for Life Build Your Own Lesson Plan tool?

Do you want to build more physical activity into your CNC programming? You can use this Lesson Plan Builder to create custom lesson plans. Simply start by choosing your desired age range, and then click the skills you want to develop and the activities you want to use. When you are finished with your selections, you'll have a lesson plan that you can print out with a simple click of a button!