Center-Approved PD

The Impact of Emotions in the Classroom — Emotional Intelligence De-Mystified

This workshop will focus on how a teacher’s emotions can have a significant impact on the overall classroom environment. Participants will gain an understanding of the five skills related to emotional intelligence as well as how they can create and sustain an emotionally safe classroom for their children.

The Toxic Impact of Stress on a Child’s Brain and Body: What Can We Do in Our Daily Practice?

While stress is a normal (and actually, necessary) part of life, high levels of chronic stress factors can have extremely negative impacts on a child’s brain and body. This workshop will focus on the ways that stress impacts young children and offer strategies about how to combat this impact. Some of these strategies include creating and sustaining supportive relationships, a responsive environment, and mindfulness techniques.

Circle Time: It’s More than Calendar and Weather!

A “good” Circle Time can set the tone for an early learning program’s day, as it can set the stage for learning, offers the children opportunities for sharing and listening, and enables children to experience many content areas within a supportive group environment. When not done well, Circle Time can be an ineffective, inefficient time of the day because a teacher may have unrealistic expectations of the children.

No Bullies Here — Preventing Bullying Behavior in Early Childhood Settings

As early childhood teachers, we have the capability to teach children the appropriate social skills that will prevent bullying from occurring. This training will examine the four characteristics of bullying and will introduce some strategies to prevent bullying behaviors from further developing before they become a problem.

Growing Up WILD

Growing Up WILD builds upon children’s natural sense of wonder about nature. Early childhood educators will discover and experience a range of nature/science activities that are developmentally appropriate for ages 3 to 7. Participants will receive the Growing Up WILD guide and skills to complete these activities with their students.

This is offered jointly by the Audobon Society of Rhode Island and Roger Williams Park Zoo.

Disciplining Children Positively by Preventing Challenging Behaviors

This training explores the four “P’s” of positive discipline: (1) a positive attitude about children and behaviors, (2) providing supports, (3) being proactive, and (4) preventing concerns before they occur. Participants learn specific strategies they can use to prevent and address challenging behaviors and make improvements in early childhood and school-age programs.

The Assessment Circle

Curriculum is like a road map = it helps you get where you want to go. Assessment is what fuels that journey. Attend this two-part series to learn how curriculum and assessment go hand in hand, how to implement assessment techniques as a process of documenting and evaluating growth and development, and how to effectively communicate with parents regarding assessment.

Active Bodies, Active Minds: Incorporating Nutrition and Physical Activity into Each Day

This training explores the links between nutrition, physical activity, and children’s health and well-being. Participants learn about and practice fun, educational activities they can incorporate into their classroom schedules and environments to promote wellness among children.

Child Development 101 – What’s “Typical,” What’s Not? Regarding Social-Emotional Development

Social and emotional milestones are often more challenging to understand than stages of physical development. Research shows that social skills and emotional development (reflected in the ability to pay attention, make transitions from one activity to another, and cooperate with others) are a very important part of school readiness.

Creating IPDPs with Your Staff: It Can be Fun!

Individualized Professional Development Plans (IPDPs) are written plans that are designed to help individuals develop and continue their professional growth. The process of developing and carrying these out plans can seem like a daunting task, not only for a busy child care center director but for the teachers as well. However, IPDPs are important because they guide professional growth and help teachers reflect on how that growth changes over time in meaningful ways. Attend this workshop and learn about the 4-step process of developing IPDPs that will actually help improve quality for children and make portions of your job easier!

Building the Bridge: Creating meaningful school to home connections using book bags

Building quality and meaningful school to home connections is important, but how do we do it? Come learn about why family engagement is crucial for the development of the children in your care and create a way to send home your curriculum home in a fun, family-friendly way.

Building Bridges to Math and Science through Block Play

This workshop will help teachers explore the 6 stages of block play, while learning to incorporate various components of STEAM.  Teachers will also identify social-emotional strategies (such as problem-solving, negotiation skills, and communicating) to help young children plan and carry out activities that are linked to math and science outcomes, while playing and learning in the Block Center.

Keep Your Teeth on Your Own Body (Tips for Toddlers and Biting and Beyond)

This training will explore the myriad reasons why a toddler may bite, and offer solutions for how to prevent and/or appropriately respond to biting, as well as offer practical ideas on ways to communicate with parents about biting.

Healthy Bodies/Healthy Minds

Health and nutrition are important for more than children’s physical development. They are also crucial components to learning. Let’s work together to encourage the healthy habits children need to succeed.

The target audience for this training is educators working with toddler through preschool age children.

Feeding Infants in the Child and Adult Care Food Program

This training will equip Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) sponsors with the information they need to successfully feed infants in their care. Topics include: assessing developmental readiness for solid foods, hunger and fullness cues, handling breastmilk and formula, supporting infant self-feeding, and crediting infant foods in CACFP.

CDA Planner

Prepare for the Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential: build your portfolio, identify critical resources, and understand the necessary requirements for the CDA. This course guides participants through the entire CDA process. Upon course completion, participants will have prepared their documents and materials to apply for the CDA, and they will know what to expect out of the CDA Verification Visit and CDA Exam.

Building Strong Relationships with Families

Effective family engagement involves intentionally including families in the decisions, plans, and activities that promote their child’s learning. Strong communication skills are essential to this process. In this course, participants will learn communication skills that support the establishment of positive, responsive, and cooperative relationships with families. This course includes strategies for communicating with diverse families, skills for navigating difficult conversations, and practical approaches for managing ethical dilemmas. In addition, this course equips participants with communication tactics to encourage partnerships between school programs, families, and the community.

From Food to Physical Activity

Participants will explore the importance of healthy eating, proper nutrition, and physical activity in the early childhood setting. The strategies for minimizing the development of childhood obesity issues will be identified. In addition, the topics of responding to and accommodating food allergies in young children will be addressed. This course will meet the new Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) training requirements for providers and teachers.

Understanding and Supporting the Development of Executive Function Skills

This session will provide participants with an overview of the three dimensions of executive function skills: working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. Participants will gain experience interpreting observations of children in terms of executive function skills. We will discuss research-based strategies for supporting the healthy development of executive function.

All About the ITERS-R: A Fun, Hands-On Overview of the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale for Improving Quality

This workshop series provides an overview of the ITERS-R tool so that participants will be able to self-assess their own classrooms and set goals and timelines for quality improvement. (Please Note: This offering does not meet the BrightStars Learning Environments training requirement which begins at Level 2 in Standard 1: Learning Environment.)

Responsive Feeding for Infants and Toddlers

Many caregivers approach feeding infants and toddlers using strategies similar to how they were raised. These traditional and often nonresponsive feeding practices can lead to overweight infants and toddlers, which is becoming more frequent in the United States.

Responsive feeding gives children the opportunity to notice, understand, and trust their bodies’ cues. This helps to build the skills they need to self-regulate food intake and has been shown to prevent obesity. If caregivers do not watch closely, it is easy to overfeed infants and toddlers. Regular overfeeding can eventually override a child’s internal controls, so that they no longer have appropriate hunger and fullness cues, or don’t recognize those cues.

All About the ECERS-R: A Fun, Hands-On Overview of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale for Improving Quality

This workshop series provides an overview of the ECERS-R tool so that participants will be able to self-assess their own classrooms and set goals and timelines for quality improvement. (Please Note: This offering does not meet the BrightStars Learning Environments training requirement which begins at Level 2 in Standard 1: Learning Environment.)

STEM in the Preschool Classroom

Participants will be able to identify the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the classroom. They will learn to understand what STEM is, the importance of STEM for young learners, activities that promote STEM learning, and strategies for getting all children involved in STEM activities. A STEM focus ensures that children will learn to innovate, adapt, understand social and cultural cues, and problem-solve.

Safe Sleep and Sweet Dreams for Infants

This course provides information about creating a safe sleep environment in the child care setting. It presents an overview of the risk factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and other sleep-related causes of infant death, and educates child care providers about ways to reduce the risks. Participants will gain a greater understanding of SIDS, as well as other sleep-related causes of infant death, and will learn specific strategies to reduce the risk. They will learn how to create a safe sleep environment in the child care setting, as well as tips for talking with parents and other family members about creating a safe home sleep environment.

Autism 101

Once considered a rare disorder, the most recent study on autism prevalence from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 1 in 59 children are living with it. Most of us likely know someone – a friend’s child, a neighbor, a family member, a student – who has been diagnosed. The “phenomenon” of autism seeming to be everywhere leads to many questions: Is it becoming more common? What is it, anyway, and what causes it? Is there a cure? What are some strategies for working with a child who has autism who is already in your early childhood classroom? Autism 101 attempts to answer these questions and more. We hope that after taking this course, you are not only more knowledgeable about autism but that you’re inspired by the incredible strengths of this very special group of individuals.