let the children speak their feelings and encourage them to use their words, support them and help them understand the situation and their feelings.

take time to yourself for hobbies and take a step back to reevaluate what you want to do with your career

be responsive to the child as you would be talking and being responsive to an adult, using listening and social cues will help the child feel heard and understood.

taking time away outside of working with children to have your own hobbies is helpful, giving yourself time to not think of work or talk about it can help you focus on your own life and health.

focus on learning about the individual children and ask them questions about themselves, it is important to foster positive relationships. provide firm and caring discipline to show you are a reliable and nurturing figure.

incident and illness as well as emergency preparedness guidelines will be useful for the program and for keeping the children safe, generally if there is something in the guidebook, it is meant to keep children safe

a crib with a firm mattress and no gaps in the sides

allowing physically appropriate and adult-guided activities like “the floor is lava” or “Simon says” are good ways to get kids moving and bring new energy into the day.

healthy habits can be made fun by having a positive attitude while completing or showing the children how to do it. Having small rewards can help even as praise or gratitude.

I would highlight emergency preparedness, emergency planning, the safety backpack for recess and evacuations, kept clean spaces, organization and anchored cabinets to walls and floors.

I would start by observing the child, ask another coworker what they have noticed and then make appropriate reports with the director and to authorities, possibly meet with the parents first to discuss possible causes.

keeping them mentally safe is worrying, hearing them talk about violence or guns or that they want to hurt a teacher or family or friends is very off putting to hear. School shootings are also quite frightening to think about how to be able to protect them.

Speak regularly with the family members about the child’s development, what they’ve been interested in and some goals/milestones they have accomplished.

I would want the childcare provider to support their passions and what they’re good at while implementing challenging work to help them grow, as well as having an empathetic approach and respect for my child

Ask the children to show you what they are working on, involve them with helping you if they can and would like to, encourage them to share their work with their friends and to do activities with friends. Bringing in new materials or introducing a new activity like a new art project can engage them more meaningfully.

I think keeping the same schedule every day is best, using visual, audio ques like ringing a bell for clean-up time, or clapping when it’s time to come in from outdoor time is helpful. Allowing children to help you do these things gives them a sense of responsibility and learn the routine better.

I think that the layout of the learning environment matters, it should be organized, spacious and feel unified to the children.

prepare a script or guideline of what you will say to the parents, remember to use empathy and kindness when detailing observations, test scores, observations, etc. and offer referrals.

Observing and documenting a child’s development helps early learning providers to piece together a timeline of development, see what is needed and lacking and how to supplement it.

I don’t think screen time should be used in childcare, likely children get enough screen time at home, early learning programs should focus on learning and give opportunities to childeren who may not have opportunities to learn certain things at home.

Early learning providers can create serve and return environments by quickly responding to babies/young children, and creating a supportive, nurturing environment for the early learners.

I would start first by, explaining to the parent that 3 times being late in the past two weeks is too many, and has an impact on the child mentally. then I would ask the reason for the late pick-ups and create or try to work out a solution. I think it’s also important to note some centers have late fees for late pickups that may be implemented… Read more

What surprised me most about the WACs was the emphasis on giving examples with the described requirements. I was a little surprised about how much detail was on home-school environments. All the requirements are extremely crucial to the development and learning of children, so I understand that the WACs need to be described with such detail.