Spring is For the Birds!

Larry’s Great American Animal Adventure Blog #1: Spring is For the Birds! In the spring, love is in the air…and so are a lot of busy birds! Inside birds’ nests on tree branches high up in the air, baby birds are hatching, growing up and then flying away. I was lucky enough this year to witness such an event firsthand.

Boost Social-Emotional Skills with Classic Dramatic Play Activities

It’s easy for traditional teaching strategies that utilize play-based classroom centers to get lost in the shuffle as teachers face constantly changing curriculum and assessment directives. The Dramatic Play learning center is a classroom favorite that provides natural opportunities to develop social...

Bring Reality into Play

Dramatic Play activities enable children to fit the reality of the world into their own interests and knowledge. Creating opportunities for interaction can be simplified with appropriate product selection. Integrating products from other centers in Dramatic Play activities will reinforce basic...

Autism in the Preschool Classroom: What Educators Need to Know

An Interview with Dr. Mike Assel I’m excited for our upcoming Super-Power Webinar with Dr. Mike Assel of the Children’s Learning Institute, particularly as we are former colleagues. Mike Assel is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and a clinical psychologist. In addition to his research and publishing...

5 Simple Steps for Progress Monitoring in Early Childhood Programs

  In previous posts, I discussed what progress monitoring is and how we know it works. I’d like to dive a little deeper to give you 5 easy steps for monitoring child progress in your education program.   1. Identify Goals for Learning In order to know if you’ve achieved success, you must...

How Do We Know Progress Monitoring Works?

Research has demonstrated that when teachers engage in the progress monitoring of their students, the children learn more, the decision making of the teacher improves, and children become more aware and reflective of their own performance. A large body of research carried out over the past three decades...

The ABC’s of Early Childhood Education

NAEYC (The National Association for the Education of Young Children) hosts their annual “Week of the Young Child” event to raise awareness about early childhood education. This year’s theme is “Healthy Minds! Healthy Children.” Rasmussen College put together the following infographic about child...

What is Progress Monitoring?

Progress monitoring is vital to effective early learning instruction and the key to improving child outcomes. Monitoring a child’s progress is a scientifically-based practice for assessing their performance and evaluating the effectiveness of instruction. It’s cyclical, targeted, standardized and...

A Magical Stopwatch for Teachers

Ever had one of those weeks when you felt even further behind on your Monday to-do list on Friday than you did on Monday? Teachers are regularly tasked with heart-stopping to-do lists. When I taught, I often wished for a magical way to stop time so that I could easily manage daily goals: Create and plan...

Back to the Basics…Remember Reading?

The education field is abuzz with technology talk, centered on the debate over the educational value of tablets, the “app gap” and how much time children are spending each day with media, or “screen time”. Technology can play a critical role in the learning process when used as a medium to supplement...

Healthy Changes for Healthy Students

Impact Lifestyles for a Lifetime The three activities below are excerpts from the Hatch® Fit 4 You® activity guide. Fit 4 You is a proprietary kit that I developed around Head Start performance standards, NAEYC early learning standards and the USDA’s MyPlate initiative to encourage children to make...

The Importance of the Parent/Teacher Partnership

It seems that the moment we finally feel settled in our school year, routines established, friendships formed, it’s time to look ahead to the next school year. Though I don’t recall the topic coming up in Lamaze or parenting classes, making the best choices for our children’s school experience is often...