Farewell Teaching
After 17 years as an early childhood educator, I have hung up my teaching hat and moved onto a new career with Storypark. It has been 17 years of fulfilment, joy, and immense rewards. I have laughed more than I’ve...
Living a sustainable centre life
Here are some simple, every day practices you can implement to lead your early learning service on a journey to living more sustainably. At the dining table Place a compost bowl on the lunch table for food scraps that can...
Reflective practice – growing as educators and learners
Reflection has been described as a process of turning experience into learning. That is, of exploring experience in order to learn new things from it. Reflection involves taking the unprocessed, raw material of experience and engaging with it to make...
It’s Just a Phase! The Negotiator
If your child is somewhere between three and four years old, you have probably noticed her newfound negotiating skills. Maybe your first clue was a bedtime conversation like this: “Let’s get your pyjamas on and I’ll read you a story.”...
Supporting high quality ECE outcomes in Toronto
The Quality Early Learning Network (QELN) is a group of leading not-for-profit early learning and family support agencies who are dedicated to the impact they make for children, families, educators and communities in Southern Ontario. Although the organizations who are...
The Importance of Family within the Early Learning Environment
Located in the Ottawa Valley, Petawawa, Ontario is home to Garrison Petawawa, one of Canada’s largest and busiest military bases. The Petawawa Military Family Resource Centre (PMFRC) provides a wide-range of programs and services for the families of Canadian Armed...
It’s Just a Phase: The Interrupter
You’re having a catch-up phone conversation with a friend. She’s sharing the nitty-gritty details of her life when your 3-year-old decides he wants to share the nitty-gritty details of his life. “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.” You try to shush him,...
Chapter books for young children
‘One more chapter! Just one?’ My son was two-and-a-half when he discovered the pleasure of listening to an adult read a chapter book to him, and the corresponding pleasure of begging for ‘just one more’ when that adult came to...
Making Small Feel Tall: The Early Childhood Classroom at a Child’s Eye Level
Imagine being a pint-sized person just under a meter tall. You know, child-size. Now imagine how the world looks from this vantage point: Everything is always (literally) over your head. You can’t look people in the eye. You have no...
Sustainability tips for ECE leaders
Currently, we are over-using the earth, and that’s a worry. Our buy now, think later mindset is creating a world where we will shortly start to run out of resources. Role modeling is a very effective teaching strategy and one...