January 17, 2018
On December 19, 2017, Penn State Better Kid Care's CDA course was awarded the CDA Gold Standard following a quality review of their training and student services by the Council for Professional Recognition (the Council). The CDA Gold StandardSM is part of the Council’s early childhood education effort to help CDA students find the high-quality training and student services they need in preparation for the CDA exam and a career as early childhood educators.
January 12, 2018
Commonly heard responses are that early care and education (ECE) professionals observe children to monitor progress, to complete required assessments and screenings, and to identify learning or behavior challenges.
December 12, 2017
Relationships are the active ingredient for learning. Children's relationships with adults, peers, and the world around them are the foundation for all growth.
December 5, 2017
Adults are very important in a child’s life. Children need nurturing adults to guide them throughout childhood. You can see empathy, caring, and compassion in your young children, but you need to cultivate these wonderful qualities for children to grow up happy, have better relationships, and have the skills needed to make a difference in the world.
November 13, 2017
Do the children in your program sometimes demonstrate amazing creativity? Do they explore art media in interesting, unique ways? Celebrate their work through effective displays!
October 19, 2017
Almost 50 years ago a friend and colleague, Jim Van Horn, wrote an article about parenting. Read the article now, and you find everything he said is still relevant for parents today.
October 17, 2017
Children need the dizzying input that comes from spinning, rolling, and swinging. These important movement experiences help the child’s nervous system to mature and organize. Many adults eventually start to dislike the feeling of spinning or repetitive swinging, but for children, it is a crucial sensory and motor skill input.
September 19, 2017
How professionals think about and approach learning matters. Learn how to cultivate a commitment to learning.
July 6, 2017
The simple act of reading aloud can be a powerful way to help children develop the necessary skills for school, work, and life.
June 14, 2017
Tooth decay is the number one chronic disease that affects young children and is five times more common than asthma. Untreated, tooth decay can cause pain and infection, resulting in children who stay out of care and experience problems with eating and speaking. Dental decay (also known as dental caries) can affect children’s concentration and learning. Twenty percent of children between five and eleven years of age have at least one untreated, decayed tooth. Children from low-income families suffer from twice as much untreated tooth decay (25%) as children from higher income families (11%). (CDC 2014) Yet tooth decay is easily preventable. Regular dental habits such as toothbrushing and a healthy diet can reduce the occurrence of cavities greatly. To be most effective, both should be part of a child’s routine at home and at his early care and education program. Additionally, adults in the child’s life should model good oral health practices and participate in routines with the child.
May 9, 2017
Have you thought about culture lately, including your own? Working with children and families from diverse backgrounds other than the early childhood professional’s own requires continual self-reflection and learning. Children and families in early childhood education (ECE) programs are substantially diverse—whether the differences are cultural, linguistic, ability, family structure, race, religion, or socio-economic. An awareness of CLAD—cultural, linguistic, and ability diversity—is fundamental to working with children and families.
April 13, 2017
Community-based services provide families and children with needed resources and information. Early care and education (ECE) professionals who learn about their community’s resources, and connect families with these resources, provide an important bridge to services for children and families.
April 6, 2017
Children are at risk of injury because their developmental stages limit their physical, mental, and emotional abilities. As they grow, children naturally test out their environments, but their curiosity and fearlessness put them at great danger for injuries.
February 22, 2017
Nothing brings out the tiger instinct in parents more than seeing their child disappointed, angry, upset, or hurt. Parents want to fix the situation and make it all better. But is that really preparing a child to deal with the ups and downs of life?
February 14, 2017
Positive youth development (or PYD) is the “best practices” approach that after school, extended learning, out-of-school enrichment, and summer learning programs currently use to work with youth ages five through eighteen. What is it, where did it come from, and how does it contribute to youth success?
January 11, 2017
Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released updated recommendations for the use of technology with young children from birth to five years of age. The changes reflect the understanding that technology is everywhere, and that appropriate uses of certain types of technology can be useful in learning and relationship building in young children.
December 7, 2016
In the United States, the number of children under the age of 17 living in non-English language households increased from 28% to 32% between 2004 and 2013 (Child Trends 2014). In two-thirds of these homes, Spanish is the language spoken—about 16 million children. Other dual language learners come from homes that speak Indo-European languages like French, German, Russian, Hindi, Asian, or Pacific Island languages. Children who learn more than one language are a diverse group. Dual language learners may be recent immigrants or have parents who are recent immigrants. As infants and toddlers, dual language learners may learn more than one language simultaneously. As older children, dual language learners may learn English after acquiring proficiency in their native language.
November 22, 2016
Parents often struggle with being honest with their children about their strengths and weaknesses for fear of ruining their self-image. Yet, a false sense of self leads to disappointment and an inability to see one’s true strengths. How can parents build their child’s self-confidence and avoid over-inflating their egos or giving them a false assessment of who they are?
November 21, 2016
As children develop social and emotional awareness and skills, they are able to more effectively build and navigate relationships, identify feelings, and learn to calm down and problem-solve.
November 9, 2016
Meeting children’s needs includes quality, interactive partnerships with families. Families are children’s first and most important teachers. The term family includes the significant adults in children’s lives who care for, protect, nurture, advocate for, and teach. These adults may be biological parents, adoptive and foster parents, grandparents, or legal guardians.
November 4, 2016
As children develop social and emotional awareness and skills, they are able to more effectively build and navigate relationships, identify feelings, and learn to calm down and problem-solve. Check out our new Social Emotional Resource Summary that includes BKC modules, research to practice tip pages, and vodcasts.
October 31, 2016
Most people know that physical activity helps children and adults to maintain a healthy body. However, did you know that movement activities build brain structure?
October 17, 2016
The scene: You finish the story you have been reading with the children at the same time that Devon needs help tying his shoe, a conflict arises between Sasha and Mike, and just as you need to transition children to hand washing and lunch. You juggle conversations with children during lunchtime, while thinking ahead to your next small group activity.
October 6, 2016
Parents want the best for their children, and there are several ways they can help their child be successful in life.
September 13, 2016
Remember lunchtime recess and romps on the playground with friends after school? For many children, those days and those playgrounds are gone. There is a transformation, a renaissance for playgrounds, as a part of the free play movement.
August 18, 2016
As the world becomes more globally conscious, an important job of educators is to help children and youth acquire knowledge about cultural differences so that they will be able to work together and solve future problems together. Cultural competence is a critical set of skills that teachers, as well as out-of-school staff, need to help all children reach their full potentials.
July 19, 2016
In simple terms, temperament is a person’s manner of thinking, behaving, or reacting. Each person has patterns of behavior, or temperament, that are also part of his or her uniqueness. Parenting methods and techniques need to be compatible with a child’s individual temperament to be effective.
July 13, 2016
PYD Foundations: Safety and Wellness; New Staff Orientation – Working with School-Age Youth; Dual Language Learners: Strategies for Successful Opportunities in ECE; Cooking Matters for Child Care Professionals: Basics; Interactions Matter: Positive Teacher-Child Interaction Strategies; Plan for Learning: Create Child-Centered Schedules and Activity Plans; Observation: Methods and Strategies; Observation: Discover and Strengthen Connections; Health & Safety Basics: Requirements for Certification
June 9, 2016
Responsive, warm and supportive interactions between caregivers and children build the foundation for learning. Interactions include how an educator approaches, responds to, communicates with, and supports children in all domains.
May 19, 2016
The ways that professionals react to children and their families impacts the ways that children think about themselves and their families. It can be easy for professionals to make incorrect assumptions and let personal biases affect what they say and how they treat others.
