We love to make something from nothing! Perhaps, one of the first recycled craft projects (just behind the milk carton house) was the egg carton ants art craft. These cute little ants are fun for preschoolers to make, but they also work fine motor skills. So, what are you waiting for? Grab your egg cartons and get ready to make some ants. We've added a few more ant art ideas, so keep scrolling and Enjoy!
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What are early childhood teachers studying today? Curriculum for ECE teachers is constantly evolving to keep up with the latest topical trends and innovations. Young children live in a world where computers, tablets, smartphones, music players and gaming devices are readily available, including in their classrooms. Anyone studying to become an ECE Teacher needs to keep up with these trends in technology. The best way to do that is to get yourECE training online and we highly recommend getting your professional development training at ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI.)
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ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI,) the industry leader foronline professional development, offers courses that cover the latest in everything from technology and STEAM to bullying, attention disorders and more. Every early childhood teacher and their staff can benefit from the online ECE training at CCEI. Here at Kids Creative Chaos, we've taken several courses and enjoyed each one of them, including CCEI122: Active Learning in Early Childhoodcourse! Check out our review, here. We’ve also reviewed CCEI's online professional development for early childhood teachers in these past articles:Professional Development for Preschool Teachers andECE Continuing ED Online. No matter how long you've been teaching, you'll discover something new and have an “a-ha” moment during CCEI’s course training. Personally, I’ve taken many courses online and offline receiving certificates and credits toward my ECE (Early Childhood Education Certification) and CCEI is the best!ChildCare Education Institute offers certificate programs and coursework that meets the requirement for national credentials including the CDA. CCEI also has online certification programs for Director and Early Childhood Credentials. CCEI, a Council for Professional Recognition CDA Gold Standard™ comprehensive training provider, is nationally accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) and is accredited as an Authorized Provider by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET.)
Below, is a list of the most popular things ECE teachers are studying. What are you most interested in studying? After you’ve taken a look at the list, let us know your thoughts in the comments below the post.
10 Things ECE Teachers Should Study
Here’s a list of TOP 10 trending topics that ECE teachers are studying today (that teachers wouldn’t have studied 10 years ago), according to CCEI:
Trauma Informed Care: ECE providers work with diverse groups of students from all walks of life. Statistics show that 26% of children living in America will experience some sort of trauma in their life prior to the age of four. CCEI offers SOC108: Establishing Trauma Informed Practices in Early Learning Environments which focuses on ways to incorporate trauma informed practices into the environment and interactions with children.
Mindfulness: Mindfulness practices can prevent instances of undesired behavior, increase focus and engagement and promote a feeling of ownership and empowerment for children. As an additional benefit, classroom communities tend to be more empathetic and kind. CCEI offers SOC106: The Value of Mindfulness in Early Childhood which explores calming and reflective approaches when working with young children.
Spirituality: CCEI’s CHD109: Supporting Spiritual Development in Early Learning Environments is based upon the work of Deborah Schein, author of the book titled Inspiring Wonder, Awe and Empathy – Spiritual Development in Young Children. The course explores what spiritual development is and why it is important to overall development. Participants will also learn how to create moments within their learning environments that promote spiritual development in young children.
Caring for Allergies: Child food allergies are on the rise in the United States and continue to be a public health concern. CCEI’s CCEI119: Food Allergies in the Early Care Setting online course provides an overview of food allergies and basic safety principles to employ in the early care setting. Upon completion of this course, teachers will be able to provide a safe environment for children and staff who suffer from food allergies, identify the eight major food allergens, list the theories associated with the rise in food allergies and identify the importance of food labeling and packaging.
Dual-Language Learning: In some areas, non-native English speakers may make up the majority of a classroom. It is important for all early childhood educators to be prepared to meet the challenges of guiding a child toward English fluency while maintaining fluency in (and respect for) their home languages and cultures. CCEI offers CHD102: Dual Language Learning in the Early Childhood Environment to provide early childhood professionals with strategies and tools for helping young children develop language and literacy skills in English.
Attention Disorders: CCEI offers courses like SPN102: Attention Deficit Disorders to help child care providers understand the symptoms, subtypes and common treatment strategies associated with attention disorders.
Diversity and Inclusion: CCEI’s CCEI640: Creating a Multicultural Environment online training course helps teachers define the goals of multiculturalism, plan and implement an anti-biased classroom, incorporate multiculturalism into learning centers and other classroom activities and promote cooperative social skills in diverse classrooms.
Bullying in the Classroom: Although bullying has been around for years, today’s teachers are more proactive about reducing bullying. CCEI’s GUI100: Bullying in the Preschool Environment online course helps teachers bring empathy and compassion to the classroom as a way of reducing bullying behaviors.
As you can see, CCEI’s course offerings are full of valuable information that keeps up with the latest trends in early childhood teacher study online. Whether you run a daycare from your home, homeschool preschool, or teach in a public early childhood classroom, CCEI has courses for you.
CCEI has over 35+ certificate programs offered in both English and Spanish! They’ve graduated over 15,000 early childhood professionals from its CDA and other certificate programs -- with over 5 million online coursework completed. Its web-based coursework is available 24/7/365. You can see a full list of certificate programs on their website here, but below are just a few of them:
Becoming a preschool teacher or caregiver is a rewarding experience, but it takes patience and perseverance. Not everyone is cut out for such an important career choice. When this is your calling in life, you want to be the best teacher possible for your students. Keeping up on educational trends is key to providing your preschool class a positive experience that will pave the way for their future educational endeavors. It's important to find a balance between fun activities and the solid building blocks of education. We always try to make learning fun.
If you're in need of continuing education for your early childhood program or for a new career in early childhood education, start here with our review ofChildCare Education Institute. CCEI offers many amazing continuing education courses for professional development in early childhood education. Their extensive course list is full of lessons that are relevant and current for today’s ever changing ECE programming.
I encourage everyone involved with childcare and early childhood education, whether you work in a brick and mortar environment or a virtual environment, to sign up for a course or two. And for new CCEI users, you can take a trial course a NO COST! To stay current, be sure to follow the recommendations on the top 10 things ECE Teachers are studying today. I love that they offer so many course options and each course is informative and easily applicable to your lesson plans and teaching technique. Check out CCEI today!
Becoming a preschool teacher or caregiver is a rewarding experience, but it takes patience and perseverance. Not everyone is cut out for such an important career choice. When this is your calling in life, you want to be the best teacher possible for your students. Keeping up on educational trends is key to providing your preschool class a positiveexperience that will pave the way for their future educational endeavors. It's important to find a balance between fun activities and the solid building blocks of education. We always try to make learning fun.
Nowadays, it's common to see toddlers and preschoolers happily engaged with a smartphone or tablet. These devices are ideal when it comes to keeping kids entertained. However, eventually your child will ask for their own phone. When that time comes, you'll want to take the appropriate measures to protect the phone and its software settings. Here are six tips to help you kid proof a cell phone.
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Tips to Kid Proof Cell Phone
Before your child takes the responsibility of owning their own phone, follow these tips to kid-proof a cell phone.
The Right Case
If adults are susceptible to the occasional drop or cracked screen, imagine what damage a kid can do with a phone! All of these phone and tablet devices are fragile and easy to damage.
A heavy-duty case is the right move for a first-time phone owner. There are also a wide range of options for cases, so heavy-duty doesn't have to mean boring, bulky, or ugly. There are many cute, protective cases perfect for your daughter or character cases for your son. Shopping for a phone case is a fun activity to do with your kids, enjoy the time spent searching for the right case!
Screen Protector
While some cases have built in screen-protectors, this is not a universal trait. A screen protector is something every person needs. This thin protective layer protects against cracking and other regular wear and tear. It provides you peace of mind, knowing your kid is less likely to show you a cracked phone screen and help you to avoid costly replacements.
Family Sharing Protections
On some devices, like Apple, you can use Family Sharing for calendars, photos, and other storage. This means you can easily share books, apps, and music purchases rather than buy them multiple times.
In addition, Family Sharing protections allow you, as the parent, to receive alerts when your child tries to download an app, book, movie, and more. You can approve or reject – allowing you to monitor what your child is downloading, as well as the purchases.
It certainly is upsetting to have surprise purchases in your inbox when your kids don't understand some apps and games cost money! Let family sharing help.
Disable In-App Purchases and App Downloads
Another option is to disable in-app purchases. Some games have micro-purchases in the app where a simple click can rack up a hefty bill.
Instead of letting your child purchase endlessly, you can go to Settings > General > Restrictions. From there, simply disable In-App Purchases. You can also disable app installation or deletion. This allows you to monitor how your child is using their phone.
Monitor Screen Time
Most smartphones have screen time built in so you can check and track how much time is spent on each app. If you suspect a Candy Crush overload, you can look at your child’s phone and see just how much time is spent on that game. From there, you can have healthy conversations about screen time and how to limit phone usage.
Gift Cards
Over time, you might want to teach your child the value of money and how to wisely spend what they have. An option is to use gift cards instead of connecting to a family account. For example, you can use an iTunes gift card for Apple products or an Amazon gift card for a Kindle Fire or another Amazon device.
With family settings in place, you can still approve purchases, but you give your kids a little more control over spending.
Bottom Line
Opening your child up to the world by handing them a cell phone is a rite of passage. But before you give them this full responsibility, take some precautions to make sure the entire experience helps prepare them for adulthood.
Whether you homeschool or not, you probably have a difficult time getting your child to practice their musical instrument. No matter the instrument, be it a ukulele, guitar, piano, clarinet, or saxophone, practice makes perfect. So, how do you motivate kids to practice guitar? Read on for some valuable parenting tips that may just save your sanity.
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How do you motivate your child to practice their musical instrument?
No matter how much your child loves playing the guitar or the ukulele, there comes a time when he or she isn’t in the mood to practice. When this happens, what can you do?
First, you need to determine why your child doesn’t feel like practicing. Perhaps they find their old guitar to be too unwieldy or cumbersome, or it won’t stay in tune and they’re not enjoying the sound that comes out of it. If the problem is the starter guitar, it would be a good idea to look into other guitar models that kids would like. A great-sounding small guitar is one of the best motivators for kids to keep practicing.
More ideas on how to motivate your child to practice guitar:
Assess the practice schedule
If practice time is set too close to bedtime, your child may already feel too tired to pick up the guitar. Sit down with your child and talk about a good practice schedule he or she can stick to. Some children may enjoy a 15-minute practice session in the morning before school and another 15-minute session in the afternoon. Put your child in control of the daily practice schedule and give them a gentle reminder to stick to it.
Set up a reward system
Construct a reward system based on goals. For this you’ll need to work with your child’s guitar teacher so you’re on the same page. You can utilize a number of methods for the reward system, such as points for every goal met or number of minutes of practice. It’s up to you and what you think would work best according to your child’s personality. Find ways to keep the reward system fun - level up rewards or create bigger challenges to keep your child aiming for the gold.
Schedule regular performances
Performances keep young guitar players excited. Nervous too sometimes, but it’s part of motivating children to practice. After all, no one wants to play badly at a recital, so one is really bound to practice. Performances also work to hold kids accountable, while helping them develop confidence and keeping them inspired to keep on learning.
Offer words of encouragement
Learning to play the guitar isn’t always a sunny experience. There are good days and bad days. Children may become frustrated at not being able to play a particular chord or learn a new song. Times like these, it’s up to you as a parent to keep their pep up.
Ask how their guitar lessons went and ask them to show you what they've learned. Listen to them play the guitar and cheer them on. Tell them how proud you are of how good they’ve become and how they could get even better with more practice. When they see you are really interested, they are more likely to practice so they can show you more of their guitar skills.
Track progress
Many kids learning guitar may not feel up to practicing because they are not aware of the amount of progress they’ve made from Day One. To motivate your child to practice, track their progress and show them how far they’ve come. You can do this by taking short video clips of practice sessions and performances. When your child sees how much they’ve improved because of practicing, they will become more motivated to keep at it and make their guitar practicing more consistent.
Do you have other tips for motivating children to practice playing the guitar? Share them with us in the comments.
Rushed Time before School can Turn into Memorable Moments with a Daily Conversation added to your Family Mission
Make everyday count with Breakfast conversation bites.
If you are like me, your early morning routine is rushed, scattered, and not always in the best of family spirits. We try, but getting ready and organized for school is hectic. If only, we were well organized and had enough time to prep he everything the night before- but our lifestyles don't always allow for such structured free time. I'm a Homeschool Mommy. It sounds far easier than it is - well, it did to me. As the principal, teacher, gym instructor, and music director, (plus my full-time job as a social media manager) life is often stressed, and I rarely have time to focus on the little things... the important things.
Kellogg’s® Frosted Mini-Wheats® and Scholastic partnered and then contacted me to write about #mini-missions™ it hit home. We do a lot of things for others. We are always up to something for community service or helping friends. It is time to focus on us! So, this week, we did just that. Thanksgiving is nearing, and it is a good time to remember what we are thankful for this year. Our Mini-mission is to continue to collect toys and clothing for area Christmas drives. November is a great month to collect donations as people are beginning to get into the holiday spirit. Sometimes, we collect gift wrap and tape to donate. Other times, we get clothing, books, or toys. Always, we remind ourselves how giving back does the heart good.
Each day at breakfast, we focused on a simple conversation starter. This is a great way to learn more about your kids' interest and what makes their mind tick. My children love to explore theoretical concepts... you know, why is the sky blue? So, I went with it. Plan out a conversation starter each day. Do your homework. If you are going to ask and answer questions like, 'why is the sky blue', you better know your stuff. Research ideas online the night before. Here are a few of our conversation starters, and the fun answers we came up with for our conversation bites #mini-missions™.
Day One
Q: What is your favorite memory from helping with community service this year?
A: I don't know.
Momteruption: Try again.
A: Cake Pops?
Momteruption: What about them?
A: They were good!
Momteruption: Well... they were good weren't they, but what else?
A: I am happy April made the cake pops and donated her time for Santa's Elves of Indy.
A: I was happy to help Daddy that day.
Mom: It is nice to spend time as a family working to help others!
Day Two
Q: Today is the first day of the rest of your life what are you going to do?
A: Ride on Nebu (our pet bird.)
Momteruption: Try again.
A: Ride on a Tiger.
Momteruption: Something, you can do today!
A: I don't know.
Momteruption: Well.. I would try to be more positive from this day forward and always think about what I can do to make life better.
A: I will take care of the chickens!
Momteruption: *sigh* Well, that's a good start.
Day Three
Q: Why is it important to sit down and eat a healthy breakfast?
A: Because food is fuel!
A: Because you are hungry and need food to live.
Momteruption: Those are both good reasons. Food is like fuel it gives us important vitamins and mineral.
Kidteruption: Yeah, like these on the Frosted Mini-Wheats™ box.
Momteruption: Exactly! It is a part of a healthy breakfast, we should have fruit and milk or juice too so we'll be ready to learn!
Kidteruption: Like Bananas!
This is just a sampling of our conversation bites. You can see, it is harder than it looks, but as the days the progressed, the kids began to warm up to the idea :)
Breakfast before School: Introduction to the Every Day is a Big Day program
When your family completes a Mini™ Mission, you can earn free Scholastic books for your family and a chance to win prizes for your school and community. Visit scholastic.com/minimissions to register your family for the Every Day is a Big Day program. Each month, log in and complete a new Mini™Mission to earn 2 free Scholastic books for your family.
When your family completes a Mini™ Mission, you are also entered into a sweepstakes where 131 prizes will be awarded to schools and communities each month. Download free monthly stories chronicling Mini’s™ adventures against the evil Skipper. Kellogg’s® Frosted Mini-Wheats® and Scholastic have partnered to bring you the Every Day is a Big Day program, created to benefit families, schools and communities across the country.
Your family is invited to complete monthly Mini™ Missions to get free books for your family. Also, each month you’ll be entered into a sweepstakes for the chance to win one of 131 valuable prizes for your school and community. As you earn books and enter the sweepstakes, your family is sure to have a blast and learn something new along the way!
Start here and register for your first monthly mission!
This is a sponsored conversation by me on behalf of Kellogg's(R) Frosted Mini-Wheats(R). The opinions and text are all mine.
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