Programs and Activities CMAS Resources

Loose Parts

Loose Parts presented by Carolyn Hadcock

Supporting The Settlement Of Young Immigrant Children And Their Families, by Julie Dotsch is now available online!

Written by child care and diversity expert Julie Dotsch, with strategies and ideas from caregivers working in the field of newcomer child care, "Supporting the Settlement of Young Immigrant Children & their Families" builds on caregivers’ professionalism, knowledge and experience to provide a greater understanding of the new immigrant and refugee experience from a child’s and family’s perspective.

Leaping the Learning Curve: Five HR Practices that Improve Child Care Administration

Your role as administrator is one of great responsibility—especially as it involves a program that cares for children. However, the human resource function, which can be a full time career in other industries, is usually just a part of the child care administrator’s workload. Finding the time to get up to speed, not to mention locate child care specific resources, on all the HR aspects of administration can be near impossible. Read More

Mentoring for Personal and Professional Growth with Glory Ressler

Here is the first of four workshops from the 2011 Professional Development Conference for LINC Childminders. Mentoring is a powerful vehicle for personal and professional growth. Glory Ressler, from Mentoring Pairs for Child Care project, facilitates a fun and informative exploration of what mentoring is, and ways to apply mentoring.

View the workshop

Six Reasons to Love Your Job!

If you work with immigrant children,

1) You are leading the way in a growing professional field!


Canada welcomes 250,000 immigrants each year, including over 8,000 children and youth, speaking over 80 different languages. You work with these families each and every day. When there is a crisis in another part of the world, and refugee families arrive here in Canada, for many of them, you are their first contact!


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Creating a “climate of delight” while children learn: Dr. Rachel Langford

Play is important to learning. Research tells us again and again that when children play, exploring and experimenting with material, they learn through those experiences. Dr. Rachel Langford offers some strategies to create a "climate of delight" while children learn.Read More

Math Skills Made Fun for Children – Alka Burman

Children who have early experiences with numeracy will have better outcomes when they learn math concepts in school. Strategies used need to be motivating and engaging, and should follow a child-centered approach. Providing opportunities to explore and manipulate real materials will allow children to become comfortable with numeracy and math.Alka Burman, Early Literacy Specialist, shares some ideas for activities to make math learning fun.Read More

Choosing Books for Young Children – Alka Burman

Children often learn about the world and their place in it through books. Books can be an important way for children to share their feelings, concerns and emotions; to learn new concepts or reinforce concepts they already know; and to expand their horizons and have new experiences. Alka Burman, Early Literacy Specialist, shares some tips on how to choose books for young readers.Read More

Print All Around Us – Alka Burman

A print rich environment is one in which children interact with many forms of print including signs, labelled centres, wall stories, word displays, labelled murals, bulletin boards, charts, poems and other materials. With adult support, children gain literacy skills by interacting with print in their surroundings. Alka Burman, Early Literacy Specialist, offers strategies to encourage children's involvement with print.Read More

Constructive Play in Early Learning Environments – Alka Burman

Constructive play is an organized form of play that is, in many ways, goal oriented and thoughtful. Children who are engaged in constructive play use materials to create something, and this increases in complexity as they get older. Alka Burman, Early Literacy Specialist, discusses these concepts.Read More