| How to Create an Environment that Supports Children’s Ideas AND Maintains Your Boundaries |
| Children need to feel they have a voice that others value. In this session, we explore how to say YES to children’s ideas more often in family child care. Lizz Nolasco from the Erikson Institute unpacks how to establish and maintain your boundaries and how to use positive guidance techniques when collaborating with children. You will learn ways to adjust the environment to support children’s increasing need for autonomy and how to build upon children’s ideas through intentional interactions, observations, and planning. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Back-and-Forth Interactions |
| High-quality interactions are often cited as the basis of a high-quality early childhood education program. What do high-quality interactions look like? Feel like? Sound like? How can one educator balance the interaction needs of a mixed-age group? Watch this introductory session to learn the what, the why, and the how of back-and-forth interactions in family child care. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Supporting Infant’s Large Motor Development |
| Infancy begins a critical period of motor development. In this session, we explore gross motor milestones throughout the first year of life, the unique benefits of floor play, and pediatric recommendations for the use of infant containers (for example, bouncers, activity chairs, and swings). Participants learn from occupational therapist Gretchen Becker-Crabb how to safely engage infants in floor play, including tummy time, in a mixed-aged environment. |
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| Transitions Throughout the Day: Strategies, Skills, and Wisdom from Satellite Programs |
| Children experience many transitions throughout the day, such as arrival, mealtime, and naptime. Predictable, individualized routines for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers during daily transitions help minimize emotional distress and increase cooperation. Watch this session to discover how to plan and establish consistent routines with a mixed-age group. A panel of Satellite family child care professionals highlight their skills and showcase their strategies for smooth transitions. You will learn how to support children through unavoidable transitions by incorporating techniques like shared responsibility, visuals, songs, games, and fingerplays. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Risky Play |
| Risky play is unstructured play that involves some risk of injury – physical or emotional – and often includes experimenting with height, speed, tools, and nature. Risky play supports self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-confidence; however, allowing risk taking can be uncomfortable for many caregivers. Watch this session to reflect on your own approach to risky play, hear from other family child care professionals, and learn strategies for supporting children’s natural inclination to push boundaries. |
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| Business Practices: Budgets 101 |
| Budgeting is a complex business practice in family child care. Learn how your program will benefit from having a budget. We explain the parts of a budget, the budget cycle, and its connection to a profit and loss statement in this session from Satellite’s and WEESSN’s 2021 Business Practices Series. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Open-Ended Questions |
| Open-ended questions, or prompts with many possible responses, support children’s pre-literacy and critical thinking skills. In this session, we explore how adults support meaningful conversations and expand learning for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school agers with open-ended questions. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Process Art |
| Process art, also known as open-ended art, is art that emphasizes the material, technique, and experience of art creation rather than the finished product. In this session, we define process-based art, explore the importance of process art, and discuss strategies for offering process art opportunities in family child care. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Dr. Peter Gray Discusses Mixed-Age Play |
| Mixed-age play, or play among children of different age groups, has invaluable benefits for children’s development and is a unique component of family child care. In this session, Dr. Peter Gray, research professor and author, explores how mixed-age play benefits younger and older children and enhances creativity and playfulness. |
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| Nature-Based Winters: Indoors and Out in Family Child Care |
| Time spent outdoors is shown to reduce stress, regulate mood, and improve sleep. Let’s make the most of nature-based learning in family child care during the cold, snowy winter season. In this session, we will explore strategies for supporting infants, toddlers, and preschoolers outdoors in winter with contributions from family child care educators Alexis Koonce and Valerie Johnson. For when it’s not safe to go outside, we will discuss incorporating nature indoors through developmentally appropriate sensory, art, literary, and science experiences. |
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| Making it Work: Incorporating Rich Art Experiences into a Mixed Age Setting |
| Art nurtures a wide variety of developmental benefits for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school agers, but what makes it meaningful? How can you plan and offer art in a mixed-age group? Watch this session to learn strategies for supporting children’s creative expression in family child care through planning and implementing process-based, developmentally appropriate art opportunities. We will explore considerations for mixed-age groups, including maintaining safety, preventing overwhelming mess, and developing shared responsibility. |
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| Children as Naturalists: Forest School in Family Child Care |
| Forest School is a nature-based approach to early childhood education that prioritizes frequent sessions of unstructured play in outdoor spaces and in all weather. The Forest School approach supports risk taking in play, nurturing children’s independence, emotional resiliency, and self-confidence. Join co-founder of Gather: A Forest School Community Ashley Causey-Golden, licensed clinical social worker Janna Hack, and accreditation consultant Jen Jorgensen as they discuss how you can adapt this approach to family child care settings to promote new forms of discovery in nature. |
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| Building Children's Independence: Montessori in Family Child Care |
| Montessori is an educational method centered on five key areas of study: practical life, sensorial, mathematics, language, and culture. It uses independent hands-on work as a method of teaching real-world skills and emphasizes individualized pacing of curriculum. The Montessori method is best implemented in a multi-age setting where children can develop mentoring relationships. In this training, we will dive into how the Montessori philosophy can be adapted for family child care programs. |
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| Nurturing Children's Imagination: Waldorf in Family Child Care |
| Waldorf Is a curriculum approach rooted in nurturing children’s imagination through creative expression. Storytelling is at the heart of Waldorf curriculum; educators are encouraged to use fables, fairy tales, and myths for teachable moments. Waldorf education concentrates on hands-on learning through art, dance, and music in sensory rich environments. In this training, we will discuss how the Waldorf approach may be a good fit for your family child care program. |
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| Fostering True Play in Your Program: Anji Play in Family Child Care |
| Anji Play is an educational philosophy developed in China and centered around five interconnected principles – love, risk, joy, engagement, and reflection. Anji Play recognizes that children have the right to extended periods of self-directed, unguided true play. The Anji Play philosophy focuses on creating environments that can best support deep engagement in play. In this training, we will discuss how to apply this philosophy in family child care. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Defining Your Philosophy |
| How do children learn through their relationships, the environment, and their community? What is important for children to learn and when? Answers to these questions inform your program’s philosophy, something particularly personal and unique in family child care. A written philosophy statement provides clear expectations for families, direction for your program, and space for self-reflection. In this session, we explore the what, why, and how of a well-defined philosophy statement with examples from participating Satellite Family Child Care programs. |
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| Children as the Co Constructors of Their Own Learning: Emergent Curriculum in Family Child Care |
| Emergent Curriculum stemmed from the Reggio Emilia approach and is a flexible way of planning learning opportunities for young children. Emergent curriculum recognizes children as competent, curious learners and acknowledges that children learn best when given a say in their education. This results in a curriculum that is co-constructed by the educator and the child. In this training, we will discuss in depth how this can be implemented in family child care. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Should We Tell Children to Apologize? |
| How do I teach children about consequences? Licensed clinical social worker Janna Hack will explore the skills required to effectively apologize and compare it to the stages of emotional development in early childhood. What does sorry mean? Come learn strategies to support children’s development in empathy, conflict resolution, and accountability for the impact of their actions on others – without requiring apologies. |
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| Exploring Quality in Family Child Care: Background Noise |
| Let's talk about the auditory system! Come learn from Dr. Rochelle Newman, Chair of the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland, speaking about her own research into the influences of background noise on infants and children. You will learn what background noise is, how it affects children’s development, and how to mitigate it in family child care. |
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