Expert Corner

A Blueprint for Supporting Emergent Bilinguals in Your Program: Roma Chumak-Horbatsch’s Linguistically Appropriate Practice

At one time or another, all child care professionals in Canada—whether in a newcomer-focused program or not—will likely look after non-English speaking children. Read More

Making Room for Diversity in Your Program: Q&A with Valerie Rhomberg

When you walk into a program that cares for newcomer children, it is common to see multiple cultures and languages represented in the physical child care environment, as well as through the people in it: the staff, the children and their families. Multiculturalism is supported and embraced in countless ways. But what about diversity? Isn’t it just another word for multiculturalism? Not necessarily, according to Valerie Rhomberg, Manager of Academic Programs at Mothercraft College and co-author of "The Affective Curriculum: Teaching the Anti-bias Approach to Young Children". Read More

Helping children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)

You know about the five senses—sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell—but you may not be aware that most of us have two additional sensory systems that help us to control and integrate the information we gather. Children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) find it difficult to process and act on information received through these senses. Read more...

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

Celebrate multiculturalism with a “Kids Around the World” bulletin board

Canadian Multiculturalism Day is an opportunity to celebrate our diversity! Here’s a fun activity idea that can also personalize and bring culture into your space.

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!


Read More

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