Promoting the goals of quality early care and education – help children develop to their full potential, support families in providing a good start for their children, increase professional recognition of early childhood educators, and provide quality programs for all children – is seen as a fundamental activity for early childhood professionals today.

The overall goal for using Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is to support excellence in early childhood education through decision-making based on knowledge about individual children and child development principles combined with knowledge of effective early learning practices.

In caring for children you have a responsibility to provide positive learning experiences, advocate for and protect
children, and help families in their aspirations to provide good lives for their children. Sometimes children and families
face difficult situations, and you are challenged to provide extra support, deal with sensitive issues, and become more
aware of what is happening in the lives of children outside of your program.

Approaches. Why and how children learn through movement activities. Research tells us that from birth to age six there is important learning happening. One important way children explore and learn about their world is through physical movement.

Activities. Ways to build movement into an early childhood program to support learning. Dancing is part of our work with young children – we sway with babies, twirl toddlers, and teach fancy footsteps to preschoolers. Studies suggest that movement and dance are not only artistic, athletic, and healthy, but a learning opportunity as well.

Caring for other children and your own at the same time can be hard for both you and your child. If you look at it from your child’s point of view, she now has to share her toys, her house, and Mom too!

“No!” “Don’t do that!” “NO!” “Get down!” “No!” “Stop!” “NO!” Do you ever feel like you are saying, “No,” “Don’t,” “Stop” all day long? Or there may be a child who seems to get on your nerves and you find yourself telling her, “No” all the time. A day full of “No” is stressful for you and for the children.

Keeping mealtimes happy and relaxed is important for both children and adults. What are they like in your child care home? Are you struggling with picky eaters or kids who seem to play with their food instead of eating?

As early educators, we observe play often and see children making connections to a variety of learning skills and concepts. What we truly
see is that play and learning are interwoven. To support and discover children’s learning through play, we need to “unweave” the
threads of play and become familiar with what to look for.

Almost all early educators will experience teaching a child whose home language is not English. According to NAEYC (The National Association for the Education of Young Children), “Projections indicate that by 2030, 40 percent of school-age children will have a home language other than English.”

Ideas for creating a calming environment and encouraging prosocial behavior. Children have the opportunity to hear and see many unsettling, often violent images through television, newspapers, radio, and electronic games. As caregivers to young children, what can we do to create peaceful environments that children need?

Routines and actvities to help children develop a sense of belonging in a child care program. The term sense of place reflects why a place is special and unique. It also reflects how attachments are fostered within the group and how each person develops a sense of belonging. A major goal for both parents and child care educators is that the children form positive attachments with the people involved in a program and with the child care program itself. So, how do you create a positive sense of place?

In early education and care, mission statements carry great meaning and are an important part of the program, no matter how small or large. Mission statements, sometimes called vision statements, typically describe the goals of a program; what unique qualities it offers and its overall vision. Mission statements are vital because they are unique to each program and they offer a voice to guide and share the definition and purpose of the program.

While all children develop and grow at their own unique rate, some may experience developmental delays and need extra help and support. An awareness of early intervention (EI) is valuable for adults caring for children.

Because you work so closely with children, you observe the different ways children develop and their unique learning styles. While all children grow and develop in their own way, you may notice changes in some children that are different than those in most, or that are different in comparison to general developmental milestones. Early recognition of a child’s unique learning needs requires that you know about early intervention.

With our society moving at a faster pace and its citizens becoming increasingly detached from each other due to advances in technology, busy schedules, and the frequency at which we move and change jobs, it is harder and harder to feel a sense of community.

Children, including infants and toddlers, are not too young to have mental health problems. Adults who work with children recognize that emotional wellness lays the foundation for learning and positive well being.

Although consistency and routine are profoundly important in work with children, new ideas and opportunities are vital as well. With some simple additions and modifications to programs and routines, child care professionals can inspire interest, invite learning, and invigorate both the children and themselves!

From the start, families need to know how important they are as essential partners in our work with children. The first contacts and efforts we make with families sets the tone for how the relationship progresses.

Research shows that family involvement makes a difference in promoting school success for every child of every age. Along with success comes a joy and satisfaction of building home and school partnerships that grow and develop over time.

“Play is some of children’s most important work,” said Fred Rogers. Those caring for children know the importance of play. We also know there are many steps in developing play. Two important aspects of play for young children are entering play and sustaining play. Entering play comes naturally to some children, while others may need guidance and encouragement. How can you support play?

There are simple, strategic choices that a teacher can make in the classroom to nurture a child’s executive function development. Some easy to implement ideas include enrich play, reinforce step-by-step routines, encourage storytelling, stop look and listen, time, and calming space.

Light is known to be one of the most intriguing elements of exploration and discovery with young children; a way to tap into emotion, beauty, vivid imagination, and concrete learning. Light sources can evoke feelings, and assist our work, living, and play.

"Developmentally appropriate practice requires both meeting children where they are—which means that teachers must get to know them well —and enabling them to reach goals that are both challenging and achievable."

Cheerful, exciting, and lots of energy! These are good ways to describe five-year-olds. They love to plan and will take a lot of time to talk about who does what. They care about the feelings of others. It isn’t as hard for them to wait for their turn or share as it is for younger children.

What to expect from four-year-olds and fun, easy play ideas. Full of energy. Silly. Pretenders. These are all good ways to describe four-year-olds. They are imaginative. They have discovered humor and enjoy telling “jokes.” They love to talk and ask questions. Four-year-olds are building self-confidence and like trying new things. They may overestimate their abilities and “leap before they look.”

Spring is a wonderful time to introduce children to the wonders of gardening. Young children learn by experiencing “hands on” and by having opportunities to think about, re-visit, and question their experiences.

Have you ever had a friend move away? Have you had a pet die? Have you lost someone close to you? Sad times are part of life, just as much as happy times. This is true for both adults and children. Here are some ideas for working with children who are going through some sad times.

Do you the children in your care help you with daily chores? Although it may be easier to do the job yourself, children learn from doing real work. Organization and cleaning are basic skills all people need for their whole lives. Also, doing chores helps children feel useful.

There are many times when parents are stressed out and tired. These are times when they may lose control and treat their children badly. There are things you can do to help both the parent and the child in these tough times.

We have all seen the difficult behaviors that may encompass early childhood, such as crying, yelling, snatching, hitting, biting, and refusing to follow directions. Challenging behaviors will almost always show their face in our work, but with knowledge, deeper
understanding, and heart, we can gently guide misguided behaviors.

Do you celebrate holidays in your early care or out-of-school program? What do holiday celebrations look like in your child care? The holidays present an opportunity for staff to offer engaging, developmentally appropriate, and culturally welcoming experiences for children and families.

21st Century skills are among the standards that children will need to meet in order to succeed, including the ability to view failure as an opportunity to learn and to assess own ideas in order to improve.

Strategies to help children learn how to work out and express anger in an appropriate manner. It’s normal for children and adults to have angry feelings at times. Karen may get angry at Lydia for coloring on her paper. Joel becomes angry when Kyle takes the blocks away.

Most people who care for children have run into at least one child who swears, uses “potty talk,” or uses hurtful or socially unacceptable language. At some time in their development, young children experiment with language, as they learn what is or is not socially acceptable, and begin to test boundaries.

Guidelines for room arrangement and materials to set up an infant room. The goal of an infant program is to offer optimal opportunity for growth and development, as well as offer a safe and nurturing environment. What do we need to consider for optimal infant environments?

Research demonstrates that children need responsive care and
opportunities to build healthy attachments to their caregivers. It’s difficult to imagine responsive care without holding an infant, rocking a toddler, or graciously accepting the good-morning hug from a happy three-year-old. Physical contact with others is valuable and a critical component of healthy development, but may be missing or misunderstood in many early childhood programs.

Taking children on a walk is such an easy activity, especially when the weather is warm. If you stop and think about it, a lot of great learning can take place on a simple walk around the block or in the back yard.

Easy recipes for making art mixtures such as doughs, paint, and goop. Some of the best learning times happen when children are playing with things that are gooey, sticky, gummy, gloppy, and runny! You and the children can make some of these interesting mixtures at home.

Children are born curious! Ones have been watching, listening, touching, tasting and smelling everything around them since they were born. Their rapidly developing brains have been noticing differences between things, events that happen the same way every time, and how they can make events happen. They’ve already been practicing the most basic of math and science skills! Learn how to nurture these abilities.

Two-year-olds (Twos) seem to be into everything, adamantly demanding to do things themselves. Twos are gaining a remarkable amount of knowledge about how the world works. They gain the incredible ability to talk – to communicate in a new way what they are noticing and thinking. Recognize how caring adults can support that learning.

The preschool years, ages three and four, are a time when young children become immersed in extensive explorations of topics that interest them. Preschoolers are rapidly developing the mental abilities to think in mathematical and scientific ways in order to explore and understand their favorite topics. Preschoolers are also seeing evidence of math and science concepts in everyday life, from laying out the right number of napkins for snack to predicting and testing the direction a ball will go when it’s kicked. Examine the abilities that preschoolers are developing that help them think in more complex ways.

Even the very youngest children enjoy pouring, stirring, dumping, and concocting. These experiences provide children with opportunities to explore, wonder, and question. They learn to prepare, plan, predict, and gather important skills and information.

When a child goes to child care it may be the first time that child has been away from his parents. It can be hard for a child when a parent leaves, even if it’s only for a few hours. But each child is different. Some will come, tell their parents, “Good-bye,” and they’re ready to start playing. Others cry and hang on their parents when it’s time for them to leave.

Spring time often means April showers and muddy trails, yards, and playgrounds. Sometimes the prospect of trekking through mud becomes a deterrent to outdoor time for children and adults. But some people find mud to be almost magical and puddles to be powerful. Most children get excited when given the opportunity to enjoy mud. In fact, the World Forum Foundation: Nature Action Collaborative for Children designates June 29th as International Mud Day.

Based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, USDA established MyPlate as the nutrition icon to remind Americans to eat healthfully and to make better food choices. It uses the familiar image of a place setting to show proper proportioning of the five basic food groups as they would fit into a daily meal plan.

A nature journal is a simple format of writing and drawing ideas about the natural world. Nature journals are a helpful means to inspire children’s creativity, intellectual ideas, and physical competencies.

Everyday you observe children, so you can’t help but know what is happening, right? The truth is, you may not. Working in an early care and education program, you do observe children, formally and informally, and you communicate regularly with families, but it is still possible to miss seeing things. Often caregivers become so busy that even with the best observations and communication systems, you might not know everything about a child or his or her family. But you can commit to looking closer at actions, giving a second listen to what is said, and asking about events in children’s lives.

Nature has given us the gift of beautiful, exciting, outdoor spaces, but are we using it? Our role as early childhood practitioners is to be sure outdoor spaces are safe, thought-provoking, and are able to meet children’s developmental needs – and fun!

What children learn through painting activities and appropriate painting activities to offer young children. Painting in early education and care is part of its natural landscape. We can see the easel filled with an array of vivid colors just waiting to be explored. What does painting with young children really offer?
Are they too young? What do we need?

Suggestions for building partnerships with children, families, co-workers, and the community. Partnering simply means working together. Each day we partner with children, parents, co-workers, communities, and even ourselves.

Do you like to eat broccoli?
Spinach? Onions? How about liver? Everyone has foods that they like and some they don’t like. The same is true with children. Sometimes it seems like children have a longer list of “don’t like” foods than ones they like. That’s when adults get worried.

When you open your doors to welcome the children for the day, it’s important to have a plan. A plan prepares you to care for each child in the best way possible and provide an enriching experience. Today’s early educators are discovering many innovative approaches to planning. Instead of simply writing a lesson plan of activities, take a deeper look at strategies for planning and discovering the rhythm of the day.

Play is the central activity of young children. Play is the main way that young children explore, interact with, and enjoy the world around them. It’s where their inborn curiosity and creativity shine and where they can practice problem-solving and persistence. Play is self-motivating and is the best context for young children to practice making decisions and overcoming barriers. Discover what play looks like in one-year-olds and how caregivers can support it.

Play is the central activity of children. Through play children explore, interact with, and enjoy the world around them. Play is the best context for children to practice making decisions and overcoming barriers, develop problem-solving skills and persistence, and support their natural creativity and curiosity. Learn what play looks like in three- and four-year-olds and how caregivers can support it.

Play is the central activity of children. Through play children explore, interact with, and enjoy the world around them. Play is the best context for children to practice making decisions and overcoming barriers, develop problem-solving skills and persistence, and support their natural creativity and curiosity. Learn what play looks like in two-year-olds and how caregivers can support it.

“The importance of play” is a theme that arises repeatedly in child care books, magazines, and professional development resources. There are even organizations whose single purpose is to help project the important voice of play and play-based practices. What are the voices of play trying to tell us?

The American Academy of Pediatrics says, “Breast milk is best for infants.” Providing infants and mothers the opportunity in child care to continue breastfeeding, or to use breast milk in bottles, is important.

Research in education, science, and public policy demonstrates that early educators hold immense professional responsibility for the healthy development of children and also for productive contributions to society as a whole.

Ways to maintain a positive outlook and reduce job stress. There are times when caring for children can be exhausting, stressful, confusing, and challenging. When the work we do as educators and caregivers seems to lose its joy, it may be time to “rediscover the joy!”

Most of us have ideas of how we can be ethical. But have we really thought about what ethics means and how it affects our work? Where do we find informed solutions to the incredibly challenging dilemmas that we all may face at one time or another? How do we reflect ethical conduct?

At the end of your day working with children, you probably do what a lot of early childhood practitioners do: Spend time thinking about what happened during your day. You often are too busy in the actual moment of working with children to really stop and think about all that is going on. Is it really that important to reflect on your work?

How to build and support relationships within an early childhood program. In learning communities, there is one important that helps weave magic: Relationship. young children and their families, it is paramount connections and relationships.

It’s not surprising that children have an interest in rocks and are immediately drawn to them. Rocks are intriguing, beautiful materials that have multiple options for use; rocks can become anything! So why not create a rock garden in your child care environment?

School readiness includes the many skills that develop over time from a child’s birth through school entrance age. School
readiness includes the areas of social-emotional, cognitive, language and literacy, and physical development. Another
important part of school readiness includes a child’s ability to maintain focus on a task and show interest and curiosity in
learning. The interactions children have with caring adults inside and outside of their families, each child’s developmental
history and each child’s unique make up, all influence the development of school readiness skills.

Part 1 of a two part series on self regulation. Teaching approaches for helping children develop self-regulation skills. Researchers believe that most children are born with the ability to acquire self regulation skills. As early educators know, this is one of the most complex skills to develop and is individual to each child.

Part 2 of a two part series on self regulation. Setting up the learning environment to support the development of self-regulation skills. Although most children acquire self regulation through positive early experiences, experts suggest that self regulation is a skill that needs guidance or to be taught.

Play is essential to young children in learning and making sense of their world. It connects and establishes all areas of development for young children. Play, for children, is the primary basis for understanding. As adults caring for children, how do we shape good play?

As an early childhood practitioner caring for children, a main task is developing plans and approaches to teaching that best support children’s overall development and learning. Planning helps you shape how your time together with children will unfold.

You don’t need test tubes and chemicals to do great science projects with children. You can find a lot of materials for science right in your home or backyard. Children will love trying some of these science projects.

Research shows that healthy sleep contributes to better concentration, memory, and cognitive function and is important for overall good health. Healthy sleep also helps each person, adult or child, to feel at his or her personal best.

“Some days I feel like all I do is tell children, 'Don’t do this, don’t do that.' It gets to me. I feel like a broken record. When will they ever learn to behave?”
Do you ever feel the same way? Learning can take a long time. When children are busy playing, it’s easy to forget the rules. You may find yourself reminding them over and over again about the same things.

When warmer temperatures return, people are eager to reintroduce themselves to the natural world that has been resting for several months. Maximize this time by pairing spring nature treks with intentional story times.

Many mothers with young children are choosing or planning to breastfeed their babies. Research demonstrates that breastfeeding provides the best nutrition for infants. Many mothers must to return to work and face the challenges of continuing to breastfeed, and this can be difficult. How can we as caregivers support breastfeeding?

Food allergies in children have increased significantly in recent years though the reason why is not yet clearly known. Understanding how to manage food allergies in the child care setting is essential for keeping children safe and for helping parents to feel confident about the ability of other caregivers to know what to do, especially in the event of a food allergy emergency.

Why talk with babies? They can’t talk with you! Some people think those ideas are true. Studies have shown that the more we talk with babies, the better they will understand. Babies who hear lots of talk tend to use more words sooner. Children who can use a lot of words at age three will be able to use even more words when they go to school.

Most adults depend on the TV, radio, and newspapers to find out what’s happening in local areas and in the world. Adults may forget that children are seeing and hearing the same news reports. Stories and pictures that may not seem bad to adults can be confusing and frightening to young children.

Just like adults, children need to develop strategies for managing their emotions, so that they can build social-emotional skills. When children are more socially and emotionally aware and skilled, they can more effectively navigate relationships, calm down and problem solve when challenges arise.

Touch is a means of learning for children. From the very early stages of life touch conveys communication and discovery. Teaching and providing children appropriate touch is a responsibility of early educators. Valuable
information can be found to assist teaching children about appropriate touch through the use of research, self-reflection, and intentional planning.

Ways to respond to teasing among children and ways to discourage teasing. Teasing is very common with young children. Although teasing is common, it has been found that it can lead to bullying, especially if not addressed with children when they are younger.

Media screens are everywhere—television, smart phones, touch pads, e-books, computers—and new ones are hitting the market frequently. Parents and educators are raising and teaching children in an era when the abundance of digital media presents unique challenges as well as educational opportunities. Limited research shows that there can be many negative effects on young children through early exposure to specific types of screen time. Knowing how to manage this technology and use it appropriately is critical for early educators.

When children use their minds to create images based on words (rather than being provided with images in a book or on screen), they develop abstract thinking skills – being able to think about something without a real object in front of them.

There’s a lot in the news about children and the rising rate of childhood obesity. Studies are showing that what children drink plays an important part in keeping children healthy and at a proper weight.

“Be Nice!” Adults have often heard other adults say, “Be nice!” or “That isn’t nice!” Do they expect children to just “be nice”? Of course, they would like them to, but realistically it’s not always that simple. As with all components of caring for children, they need to consider the child’s developmental ability, family, culture, and background.

From the start of life (and some believe before birth), language can be brought to children in easy yet exciting ways. Think of what language connects for children: communication, understanding, emotion, need, social skills, literacy, cognitive associations and much more.

Communication is an important part of what we do as caregivers. Of course we need to positively communicate with the children, but we also need to communicate with families, co-workers, visitors, bus drivers, neighbors, or anyone who is involved in our work with children. When we value all whom we interact with on a daily basis, we are sending the message that we care and we are involved.

Toilet learning is a big step for both children and adults. Changing diapers all day is a lot of work, and families may find that diapers become very expensive. Although the adults are ready to take that big step, the key is the child’s readiness. Toilet learning can take a lot longer when a child is pushed into it, and often involves tears and frustration on both the child’s and the adult’s side.

Touch can be a challenging topic to discuss. There are strong concerns and issues to consider, such as inappropriate touch and abuse, as well as each person’s individual feelings and history regarding touch.

Severe stress, research shows, can be harmful to a child’s well being. Normal stress is considered a natural part of healthy development and is even needed to learn how to cope with adversity and build resiliency. The experience of common, short-lived stress among caring, nurturing adults supports growth promoting experiences and skills in children. Extreme or chronic stress, on the other hand, not only endangers children but can weaken aspects of brain development and overall health.

Early childhood practitioners can use carefully chosen prompts and questions to facilitate deeper learning as children explore and experiment. They can also support rich thinking and conversations as they share their findings with peers and adults. When adults ask purposeful questions to prompt a child to recall an activity or demonstrate understanding, this can help children make connections between previous experiences and current ones.

An important goal in early education is to connect and inspire learning in young children. Many early educators are gaining significant results in encouraging learning by embracing the use of reflection. What do we need to think about when considering reflection as a learning tool?

Question: What’s the best way to keep adults and children from getting sick? Answer: Wash your hands! You’ve heard it said a thousand times since you were a child, but many people still don’t wash their hands as often as they should.

Many adults think children should be able to say their ABC’s, count to 20, and know their colors and shapes before they start school. If you talk with a kindergarten teacher, you may hear a very different answer.

No matter what their role, adults who spend time working with young children are important. Early educators provide multiple skills in serving children and their families. What are some of the critical links early educators provide?

There is no doubt that children try to act out the things they see on TV. But studies have shown that even without TV, children will still play games for power and control. Many people think this type of play comes from the amount of TV children are watching and the kinds of shows they see.