Expanding our notion of family to include the Rainbow Family
Kath Cooper is back again to talk more about Rainbow Families. While celebrating and acknowledging all family compositions is important, time and again it is the unnoticed family structures that need a little more ‘love and attention’ from teachers. Rainbow Families are one of those. In this blog, acceptance of Rainbow Families will be discussed. A Rainbow Family is a...
How to use the Marte Meo Supportive Communication Learning set
Dutch born, Maria Aarts, studied parent-child interactions for 40 years across various countries and cultures. She recognised the difficulties in explaining scientific observations of a child’s problems to parents and other educators and in turn developed ‘Marte Meo‘. Marte Meo means ‘One’s own strength’ and is a method which is widely used in 43 countries. It gives parents and caregivers information that’s not only...
Plan the way that works for your early learning service with Storypark
What does the new planning feature do? Well, quite a few things it turns out! Storypark’s new planning feature was designed and developed on the advice of our partners and users who told us they need a better way to collaborate around their programme and curriculum planning. After listening to educators around the world, we realised that everyone plans differently...
Plan for everything from QIPs to appraisals with Storypark’s planning tools
Shirley Fyfe from East Sale Kindergarten shares her experiences with using the new Storypark planning tool, and the outcomes the service has seen since using planning across all aspects of their service. East Sale Kindergarten is located at the RAAF base in Victoria, Australia, and is a non-profit cluster-managed service providing sessional 3 and 4-year-old Kindergarten to children in the local...
Planning with consistency and coherency at Daisies Early Education and Care Centre
Before Daisies Early Education and Care Centre used Storypark’s planning tools, their planning mostly took place on many notebooks and pieces of paper, which made keeping track of what different age groups had been exploring and investigating difficult. Since implementing the planning tool at their centre, Daisies have mostly been using it for their investigation work with children – for...
More study tips for ECE students
In my previous blog, I started a conversation about the issues of working, life, family and studying. The challenges are real, and the trifecta of time, energy and location is often times a real challenge. I might ‘feel’ like studying, but there is a whānau event, I might have the time to study, but I don’t feel like it, and...
Not another “no” with toddlers
As I was driving this morning, I passed a food van parked by the side of the road. On its side was emblazoned its business name, ‘Not Another Pie Van’. I drove on, wondering what they sold (presumably not pies). How would their customers know? Were they relying on people stopping and checking whether they were actually a coffee van?...
The power of friendships in early childhood – video
Early childhood educators sometimes overlook the power of friendships. Hear Jane Bertrand from the University of Toronto discuss socio-emotional responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, and scaffolding.
No tech in your early learning center? No problem!
There’s a lot of talk about digital tools in early childhood. If you don’t have ipads and other devices at your center, you might feel like you are limited in ability to utilize some of the latest developments. The good news is you don’t need mobile devices and wifi to create digital portfolios to document children’s learning and engage families....
From start to review – the ongoing nature of reflective practice
Some practical advice for when undertaking the continuous improvement process is to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable. The sooner we are, the better we can accept the ongoing nature of true reflective practice. From Start to Review: the ongoing nature of reflective practice and how we can better use it to support our role and save time. Ok, let’s...