Best Practices to Boost Enrollment

In this workshop we can explore admission practices that will build the relationships and boost enrollment. Early conversations with parents set the foundation for communication between teachers, facilitators, and parents as a team. We are all worried how public TK will affect preschool enrollment. Let’s strategize and prepare for the change in our programs.

The Power of Intentional Environments 

What is your environment communicating? What would you like it to say?

In this hands-on workshop, we will discuss how to construct high quality beautiful spaces that support deep and inclusive learning. How to create intentional, thought provoking, and well defined learning areas. Understand flow and layout, and how to use environments to support behavior management. Come discover the power of your third teacher!

The Power of Understanding Brain Development and Play

Participants will have the opportunity to engage materials through play to aid them in their understanding of the stages and types of play as they unfold in early childhood. Participants will learn about the role that the brain has in this process, and learn how to maximize children’s learning through play.

This workshop is based on the Zero to Three: The Growing Brain Curriculum (From Birth-5).

Inclusion: The Power of Together

Children, parents, and the law. Cooking, cleaning, and disinfecting. Supplies and the pandemic. Professional child care is hard work. Now you want me to be inclusive? Yes! Inclusion is equal access to opportunities and resources – something that benefits all of the children in your care as well as the reputation of your child care. Join me to find out what it takes and how to do it.

The Power of Purposeful Play

Join the i3 Institute: Inquiry, Intention, and Innovation, and its lab school teachers from Center of Gravity, for a playful session that promotes STEM learning for infants through preschoolers. We will provide various stations for loose parts and gross motor provocation to develop our 21st-century learning skills through play, observation, and documentation. Spanish language support provided.

The Power of Extending Reading Activities

Reading to preschoolers is so powerful and valuable, but what can we do to extend the power of books?

This workshop will explore activities to push book reading beyond circle time and bring the power of literature into the other learning centers of your program. You will walk away with a list of new activities to try that can help connect children to the books we love to read.

Trazando Sonrisas: La Salud Mental en La Nueva Generation

La salud mental no es un tema nuevo. Pero en nuestro trabajo es esencial para poder crear conexiones significativas con nuestras familias, niños y compañeras/os de trabajo. Acompáñame a reconocer la importancia de la salud mental en nuestro trabajo. Ven y aprende herramientas importantes sobre fomentar la salud metal con niños de todas las edades, sus familia, y nuestros lugares de trabajo, para crear una comunidad mentalmente saludable

Yoga for Self-Care and Joy

This workshop guides participants on mindful movement, alignment, connection to breath and meditation. Together we explore the importance of creating a sustainable healing ritual through the practice of pausing. During our practice together, we interact with yoga, meditation, and self-reflection to heal, repair and restore our mind and bodies.

Class Objectives

• Explore and identify how you hold stress/trauma in your body
• Increase knowledge/awareness of sustainable ways to release stress, heal and restore.
• Get clear on steps you can take (right now) to live in alignment with your future goals

The Power of Circle Time

In this workshop we will learn different elements of an effective circle time.

We will focus on how circle time can be designed and what are some of the benefits of circle time for young learners. How long should circle time last and what should be the targeted age group. Once we have gained basic clarity about circle time we will dive deeper into learning different songs, movement and fingerplays that can be incorporated in circle time. All participants will have something to take away from this workshop.

El Poder de la Danza del Cerebro

¡Prepárate para moverte y bailar! Diviértete y aprende cómo se puede incorporar la danza cerebral a lo largo del día para enseñar vocabulario, lenguaje oral y desarrollo cerebral. ¡Aprende, juega y planifica ideas divertidas juntos!

Empowering Ourselves Through Advocacy

Want to be paid a living wage? Want to tell our governing authorities what child care is all about? Want to find a way to change Licensing and the laws to benefit the provider as well as the children in our care? Advocacy is the way! We need to speak up for ourselves to make it better for everyone. Join us to find out how because “to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

Sustaining an Edible garden with young children

In this workshop participants will learn no or low-cost ways to create and maintain edible gardens no matter their prior knowledge or gardening experience.

Participants will learn through hands-on activities how to align garden work with assessment criteria in alignment with standards such as the DRDP and ASQ. They will also walk away with concrete plans to include nutrition and outdoor education in their daily curriculum, as well as gain understanding of the importance of this work.
Participants will receive a workbook which includes strategies for creating and sustaining a school garden and seeds to get started!

Environments to Reduce Children’s Stress and Support Healing Through Play

In this workshop participants will learn how to create a safe and calm area in your classroom. We will discuss environmental strategies that calm the child’s sensory system, learn ways to create boundaries and how to reinforce safety in the classroom, and expand our understanding on how to provide access and opportunities for children to participate in different types of play. This session will include experiential and reflective exercises as well as some resources to take back into your classroom.

The Power of Inclusion: Including ALL Children

Join our valuable workshop on the vital significance of inclusion for students with special needs. Discover how inclusive education fosters a supportive and diverse learning environment that benefits all learners. Explore practical strategies to accommodate diverse abilities, promote social integration, and enhance academic outcomes. Gain insights from an experienced parent of a child with special needs, engage in interactive discussions, and acquire valuable tools to promote inclusion in your program. Empower yourself to create an inclusive space that nurtures the potential of every student. Everyone benefits from inclusion!

The Power of Storytelling

Through the lens of project based learning, we’ll explore the importance of storytelling. By using dictations, felt stories, and book making, we can encourage literacy and language development in preschoolers. Examples of storytelling in project work will be shown of three year olds and four year olds. As a group we will explore some of the ways you might encourage storytelling in your program.

Understanding TK and it’s Potential

In this workshop, you will gain an understanding of what a Transitional Kindergarten Classroom entails. We will discuss the history of how TK came about and what a typical day may look like. We will share the outcomes of a Robotics Program that was piloted in a TK classroom…..yes you read that correctly…..Robotics in TK.

We hope you will walk away knowing the true power of children and their potential.

Strategies to Support Multilingual Children

Have questions about your multilingual children? Wondering what it is the best way to set up intentional and meaningful environments? In this workshop you will learn and practice research based strategies to support multilingual children in your childcare program. Engaging and interactive workshop!

Reconectarse con Los Niños a Través de la Hora del Cuento

Reconectarse con Los Niños a Través de la Hora del Cuento
En este taller aprenderá sobre las diferentes herramientas de la hora del cuento para involucrar el desarrollo visual, auditivo, táctil y motor de los niños en su programa. Aprenda estrategias para desarrollar las bases del lenguaje y la alfabetización de los niños de su programa, incluidos los estudiantes multilingües.

Diversity Equity and Inclusion in ECE: Going Beyond Definitions & Purpose Statements

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are essential core values for a thriving school community. In this workshop, we will go beyond defining these terms to explore how to live, breathe, and flourish using DEI as a lens and foundation for strong student, staff, and community outcomes.

Working Together To Make Movement An Integral Part Of All Mental Processing

In this workshop participants will learn how the brain and body are united as a whole. Every movement is a sensory-motor event, linked to our understanding of our physical world, from which all learning derives. 

Participants will learn how to support children’s development and abilities through movement and evidence based research.

Table Tips for Choosy Eaters

In this workshop we will discuss building a positive feeding relationship by taking the battle out of mealtimes, helping choosy eaters and allowing children to tune in to their own bodies. We will learn fun and creative meal and snack ideas that include healthy whole grains, fruits and veggies and how to introduce new foods.