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Friday Freebie – Professional Development Plan
Happy Friday! This week I’ve shared a ton of opportunities for professional development – webinars, publications, and really great conferences. Today’s freebie will help you plan and track all of your professional development efforts. These Professional Development Plans are not only helpful, they’re also cute. That’s important because your PD Plan should be something that you want to post and look at every day. Go download yours and have a wonderful weekend!
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Amazing Conferences for Early Childhood Educators
I’ve mentioned before that I consider myself a professional development nerd. There is just something about a room full of teachers learning new things that I can’t resist. One of my favorite things to do is attend a great conference, and if you’ve followed this blog for a while you’ve certainly seen my posts from the NAEYC conference. Right now is the perfect time to start researching upcoming conferences and planning for those that you’d like to attend. Many local AEYC conferences happen in the spring, there are all kinds of specialty conferences throughout the summer, and the big one – NAEYC is in the fall. If you start planning…
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Easy Resources
I’m always looking for an Early childhood resource on some topic or another – things to share with families, articles to help teachers that I know are dealing with tough stuff in the classroom, ideas for encouraging best practice, and strategies for managing behavior issues. The first place that I always turn is NAEYC. If you aren’t familiar with NAEYC then you must be living under a rock – I’m joking, but the National Association for the Education of Young Children is a source I trust completely, which is why I look there first. Here are some of my favorite publications from NAEYC: Position Statements: These documents help professionals understand…
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Easy Portfolios and Assessments for Early Childhood
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Free Early Childhood Webinars
One of my favorite things about the field of Early Childhood Education is that things are always changing. This means that I am constantly learning something new about best practices, educational theories and techniques, and innovative strategies. I am a professional development nerd, I love trainings, seminars, and conferences, and I regularly sit through webinars solely because I find the subject matter fascinating. I wanted to share one of my favorite professional development resources with all of you and I’m hoping that you will enjoy it as much as I do. You’ve got to check out Early Childhood Investigations, the free webinars available on this site are written by experts…
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Easy Portfolios and Assessments for Early Childhood
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Friday Freebie – Clip Art Favorites
Happy Friday! This week’s posts have been all about saving money, so I wanted to share one of my favorite tips with you – I love love love free clipart! I also fully believe that my clip art collection has made my newsletters, classroom party invites, and important notes more likely to be noticed and read by parents. Today’s freebie is a fun polka dot flag set from my all-time favorite clip artist, Erin Bradley Designs. You can find more of her work on Teachers Pay Teachers, or on her own site shoperinbradleycom
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Creating a Parent Donation List that gets noticed!
Whether I need specific materials for a class project or there are items that I always need for the classroom (Kleenex anyone?!) Parents and families are always the first people that I ask for help. Over the years I’ve come up with some tips for putting together donation lists that get results. First and foremost you need parents to notice that you are asking for something. Let them know where they can look for these kinds of messages, and make sure that you always put them in the same spot so that family members don’t have to search for them. Use bright colors and graphics that will grab their attention.…
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Sourcing Recycled Scraps for the Classroom
Some of my favorite materials to use in the classroom are recyclable materials. They are easy to get and they fit right into my budget – free! The problem is that I usually have to know what I want in advance and spend a good deal of time tracking down enough materials for the entire class to use. I always ask parents, coworkers, and my own family members to help me collect materials, but they aren’t always as invested in the collecting process as I am. All of my collection also tend to take up a lot of storage space, storage space that is already at a premium in the…
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Using your local Child Care Resource and Referral
I promised posts this week that will help you save money and find resources for your preschool and child care programs. In my opinion, there is no greater resource than your local Child Care Resource and Referral. According to Child Care Aware there are over 400 Child Care Resource and Referral offices across the US, and while they all offer slightly different services, many of their offerings are similar. For example, at my local Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) they help families locate child care programs that meet their needs, offer professional development trainings and technical assistance to child care providers, provide programming for parents and families, and run…
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Free books for the classroom
I am so excited about the series of posts that I have planned for this week, they are all about ways to save money or find inexpensive resources for preschool and child care programs – who doesn’t love that! Let’s start with how you can get free books for your classroom – yup, free! Books are a necessity in any preschool room, a great way to share new information, encourage classroom communities, and instill a love of reading at a very early age. But books aren’t always the most durable items in a classroom. So whether you need some more to replace your favorite worn out copies, or you’re just…
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Friday Freebie – Valentine Movement
Happy Friday! This week has been all about movement activities, so it’s only fitting that this freebie goes with that theme. These Valentine-themed movement cards are from Play Learn Teach and there are a ton of ways that you could use them. Download your set and get a couple days of fun out of them before February is over, then stash them away for next year! Have a wonderful weekend!
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Friday Freebie – Cloud Hunt
