Category: Child Development

• When the Calming Corner Doesn’t Work – What Now?

  

  The Calming Corner is a wonderful tool for promoting self-regulation, but what happens when it doesn’t seem to work? Teachers spend countless hours setting up the perfect space, creating sensory bottles, finding pillows, and printing tools for learning. It can be frustrating when all that effort seems to be in vain.  The first step should…

• The Importance of Play!

  

  Every adult understands a child’s desire to play. They may even be amazed by the creative nature of children’s imagination. But most do not understand the relationships between play and learning for children. In fact, for most people, learning involves acquiring a specific new skill, such as memorizing alphabets, counting, writing, etc. Some believe that…

• Introducing the Calming Corner

  

  A Calming Corner is a space where children can go to practice self-calming when feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated or upset. Helping children identify their feelings, choose ways to manage their emotions and taking time to calm down in a soft, quiet space teach children self-regulation. After setting up a Calming Corner, like anything else, we need…

• Set Up a Calming Corner

  

  Children often need a soft, quiet, protected place where they can relax and have some space away from loud or busy areas in the classroom. Teaching children to soothe themselves by going to a ‘cozy area’ can help them feel comforted and better able to cope. They may benefit from a ‘cozy area’ to be…

• Encouraging Independence With Self-Help Routines

  

  It is essential that educators allow time in daily routines to both teach children tasks related to self-care and time to practice the skills. Self-help skills like helping clean up toys, taking care of hygiene and learning to dress, undress, and self-feeding build a sense of independence and confidence in developing children. Read Ways to…

• What is Physical Development?

  Physical development refers to a child’s gross and fine motor skills. To increase strength, muscle control and coordination, the child requires adequate nutrition and fitness levels. Physical development in children follows a directional pattern (Bayley, 1993): • Large muscles develop before small muscles. These large muscles are in the body’s core, legs and arms. Children…

• Assessing Development with our Embedded Authentic Assessment System

  We believe learning is a process. Authentic Assessment allows you to capture learning as it happens. The Experience Early Learning Assessment System includes resources to help document your child’s learning progress through natural and intentional observations. Experience Curriculum for toddlers, preschool and PreK includes an Embedded Authentic Assessment system. The Assessment Guide will help you…

• Social Relationship Skills

  

  What Are Social Relationships? A child’s ability to build positive relationships with both adults and peers is important to social-emotional development and success in school. Children build social competence through observation as well as by comparing their own beliefs with those of others. The ability to interpret and understand others begins at birth and evolves…

• Attention & Persistence Skills

  

  What is Attention & Persistence? Attention and persistence are skills that pertain to selecting and maintaining attention towards relevant information, such as listening to the teacher or persisting on a task. Studies have shown that children with the ability to pay attention and persist with a task have a greater chance of future academic success.…

• Self-Regulation Skills

  

  What is Self-Regulation? Self-regulation is a child’s ability to manage her emotions, behavior and body when faced with a difficult situation, problem or challenge. Self-regulation includes the ability to identify feelings, the ability to calm down after an exciting or upsetting incident and the ability to regulate reactions or emotions like frustration or excitement.  Why…