The Helping Professional
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Being a helping professional is about giving to others. We need to be aware of how much we contribute to others and do our best to balance out the other side by giving to ourselves.
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Getting Started
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I am sitting at the kitchen table, facing the temptation to stay in my comfort zone instead of moving forward. How can I move away from my comfort zone and into new areas of learning and growth filled with possibilities?
Read MoreNurturing as a Skill Set of Professionalism
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Nurturing as a skill recognizes several important constructs about how children develop social-emotionally, physically, and cognitively. If we are to support whole child development, we need to acknowledge that nurturing all the ways young children develop and learn is a complex business.
Read MorePointillist Animals
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Our learning community started a new investigation, but the children quickly become uninterested in the work. I decided to create another invitation in an attempt to re-kindle interest in the original subject. The outcome of this work was not what I expected.
Read MoreFollowing Directions
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Always following directions tell us there is only one correct answer. In practice, directions are a guide to the beginning of a learning journey.
Read MoreThe Biology of Stress and the Implications for Our Practice
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Reactions to stress are individualized. Our ability to cope relies on a complex and ever-changing equation of individual and environmental factors.
Read MoreThe Teacher Mindset
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We all have a balance of fixed and growth mindset that guides our collaborations with children. The mindset we bring into the classroom influences outcomes in our learning community. Determining our mindset and deciding how it affects our practice helps us enrich our work with children.
Read MoreThe Care and Nurturing of Productive Relationships: Part Two
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Communication can be our biggest stumbling block to having successful relationships. In this post, we look at strategies that we can use to build and enhance productive relationships with our program leadership.
Read MoreThe Secrets of Productivity for Early Childhood Educators
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I always feel that there is often too much opportunity for the time I have. I want to explore what productivity means in the context of our daily practice as early childhood professionals.
Read MoreThinking About Journaling
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The act of choosing to create a journal is of great importance. Journaling is where to slow down and create space to think deeply about how you work. Organizing your journal supports the ability to go back and make use of your thinking and reflections.
Read MoreThe Care and Nurturing of Productive Relationships
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Sometimes, we fall into the trap of believing other people are responsible for meeting our needs in the workplace. The care and nurturing of productive relationships start with self.
Read MoreThe Role of Self Care in Early Childhood Education
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Our most significant vulnerabilities originate from the traits valued in our field, caring, compassion, and self-sacrifice. These traits are hard-wired into who we are and the attributes that keep us from self-care.
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Developing a Leadership Credo
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We are all leaders. We all have values and principles that we enact in our professional practice. Our ability to clarify our beliefs made us much stronger as educators.
Read MoreWhat is Reflective Practice?
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At its heart, reflective practice helps us shift from feelings of scarcity, the act of not having enough or being enough, to one of abundance, seeing the richness and depth of early childhood education.
Read MorePainting with Wax
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Spending time in museums, craft fairs, and other creative venues creates an opportunity for educators to learn new innovative techniques that can be brought back to the classroom and shared.
Read MoreWhat is Mindfulness?
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The gift of being fully present is something that goes beyond personal gains, it stretches out to the children, students, colleagues, and family. When we are fully present, the people in our life feel heard and valued.
Read MoreGarden Drawing
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In our program, we take nature walks with the children. During our walks, we explore trees and climb a few. We look at plants and search for bugs. During one of our walks, we visited the community garden. This was the beginning of a wonderful new creative exploration.
Read MoreHow to Find the Right Fit
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As early childhood professionals, we change programs and roles many times in our careers. When we decide to make a change, how do we find a program or role that fits our key values as a person and educator?
Read MoreEngaging Classroom Spaces
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Each classroom investigation travels an uneven path with a different timeline. Some investigations last for days and others for years. As an educator, we can support each investigation through classroom design.
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