Collaborative for Children

As a teacher, each day, you have many opportunities to interact with parents and coworkers. Each workplace interaction is an opportunity to build respectful professional relationships. This 2-hour course has been designed to help you learn how to use effective communication strategies to use with parents and co-workers. The course will allow you to have a deeper understanding of the causes of communication conflicts, and how to resolve them. 

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

What do you need to know about doing assessment? This 1-hour course will give a brief overview of the needs for assessment and observation in an early childhood classroom. The course will examine strategies to assist teachers in preparing to do assessment and analyzing results from those assessments. Students will learn how to communicate with parents about children´s growth and development using those assessment documents. 

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

The importance of a safe and healthy environment for children is of vital importance. This 1-hour course will provide teachers with the necessary tools to implement safe and healthy practices in their schools, both inside and outside. Students will learn about disease risks, hand washing procedures, sanitation, and supervision measures that must be maintained for children’s safety. A brief review of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Shaken Baby, and Child Abuse and Neglect issues are included.  

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

This 1-hour course has been designed to assist the student in building positive and productive relationships with families in their centers. Students that take this course will examine how language and cultural differences can impact their relationships with families, and will help students work through how to develop successful communication techniques to use with their own families, even when there are disagreements.  

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

As a teacher of young children, your classroom management responsibilities include managing and organizing: time, materials, activities, and the safety of your students. This 2-hour course has been designed to help you learn appropriate classroom management and organizational practices that experts recommend are important for providing quality child care. 

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Guidance and discipline issues are one of the most challenging aspects of any early childhood teacher’s work. This 1-hour course will help the student become more knowledgeable about what contributes to problem behaviors in the classroom, and how to work with children most effectively to promote positive behaviors. The student that takes this course will discover the connection between the classroom environment and the children’s behaviors. 

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

The preschool years are incredibly important years of development and growth for a young child. In this 1-hour course the student will learn more about a child’s development during those years. The course will provide the student with an overview of 4 main areas of child growth and development (Cognitive, Language, Physical and Social/Emotional), and offer practical tips on how best to support children’s development through these early years.  

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Students that take this 1-hour course will learn about developmentally appropriate practice, and the importance of having a classroom that is based around those principles. The value of intentional teaching is discussed and the students will be introduced to the effective characteristics and strategies of intentional teachers. This course will also review the role of room assignment, scheduling, curriculum, and assessment in providing an appropriate classroom environment for young children. 

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Early childhood classrooms are diverse settings and teachers need to have the tools and understanding to be able to work effectively with children with a range of developmental abilities, disabilities, and backgrounds. This 1-hour course will assist you in serving the diverse needs of children in child care settings. The course will address the laws that protect families and children, and discuss how best to serve families with children with special needs.  

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Child care centers that have detailed plans and policies in place are better able to protect young children that are in their care. This 1-hour course is designed to help provide beginner directors with the basic tools to address these foundational issues. Other essential issues such as, hiring, recruiting, and maintaining quality staff are also discussed. The course will additionally review professionalism and leadership styles, as these are important components of a well-run organization. 

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

“Getting the wiggles out” is not the sole purpose of outdoor play. Active play is essential for not only healthy development, but also for many other reasons. Unfortunately, outdoor play is not a priority for some schools. Research clearly shows outdoor play helps children to develop strength and coordination, make connections to nature, and satisfy curiosity and interest. This 2-hour course will help teachers understand the importance of outdoor play and how they can make it a priority in their daily curriculum. This course addresses both safety aspects such as playground standards, inspections and equipment as well as addressing the teaching side of playgrounds. This module will present information of facilitating outdoor play, planning of curriculum and observation of that play.  

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Learning centers can provide early childhood classrooms with a perfect environment in which lesson plans can come to life. Truly effective centers will help children develop in all areas while having fun with peers. This 2-hour course will assist you in understanding the purpose for having learning centers and will lead you though a step-by-step process of how to develop, build and manage a center. Effective learning centers do not just happen; they take careful planning as to what content to include, how the content will be used, organized, managed, and assessed.  

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

In this 2-hour module, we will examine common disruptive behaviors such as biting, aggression, non-compliance, separation anxiety, and impulse control. This course will help you develop strategies to help children achieve positive behavioral outcomes. Through the course, you will develop a personal behavior management plan. Each behavior will be examined through the eyes of an infant (0-12 months), toddler (12-24 months), two year old (24-36 months), three year old (36-48 months), and four year old (48-60 months). This is important because at certain ages these behaviors are completely developmentally appropriate while at other ages they are a sign of behavioral concerns.  

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Circle time, often called large group time, is a time when children come together as a group to learn and have fun, solve problems, and learn to be a part of a community. During this special time of the day children begin looking at the world from the perspective of “we” and “ours”. As children and teachers come together to talk and learn a feeling of community grows and children become more comfortable functioning as a group. This 2-hour module will assist teachers in planning more effective circle time experiences. The module describes appropriate activities and transitions for helping children move from one activity to the next and strategies for keeping children engaged during circle time. 

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

This 2-hour course has been designed to help teachers develop an understanding of how language and literacy develops from the infant years through the preschooler years. Definitions of important language and literacy concepts will be presented. Teachers will learn how to develop strategies for creating language and literacy rich environments and develop strategies that support second language learners with developmentally appropriate practices. Additionally, teachers will learn how to integrate language and literacy experiences into the early childhood classroom. 

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

During this 2-hour math module, teachers will explore the concept of mathematics in an early childhood setting and learn how mathematical concepts develop from the simple to the complex. Students that take this course will examine and identify the five math content areas and learn strategies for integrating the concepts throughout the day in a way that will engage preschool children. This course will additionally help preschool teachers understand the importance of connecting mathematical concepts to literacy while creating a math-rich environment in the classroom. 

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Teachers who take this 2-hour course will learn about the positive benefits of play. During play, children can escape the constraints of reality; the usual meanings of objects can be ignored and new meanings substituted. For example, a toy block can be a phone, a brush, or even a tasty sandwich. During this course, students will learn about the definitions and theories important to the concept of play, appropriate play material and how to support learning and play in early childhood classrooms. Additionally, teachers will develop age appropriate strategies to use to assist children with their play experiences.  

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

The teacher that participates in this 2-hour module will develop a plan for maintaining an interactive science center for the classroom that offers exciting science experiences that are brought to life for preschool children. After completing this course the teacher will be able to describe how science concepts are developed and will understand the four different areas in science: Life Science, Health Science, Physical Science, and Earth and Space and Environmental Science.  

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

Developing a comprehensive staff development program can be a daunting task. As with all gigantic tasks, breaking it down into steps can streamline the process and provide useful information. This 2-hour course will provide useful information to program directors looking to improve their staff development program. During this course, participants will develop methods and explore strategies for identifying center and staff training needs. Additionally, this course will present effective adult learning strategies that will assist the program director in developing effective training plans. 

credit hours: 2 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00

By the time the teacher completes this 1-hour course, they should be able to recognize the significance and importance of the environment of the school as a whole and their personal interactions and communication with staff, parents, and children. The physical environment of a program can have either a positive or a negative impact on the well-being of those in the program. The goal of a program is to have a positive environment for ALL. This course will help teachers identify the ways to make the environment more inviting through different modes of communication that take place daily in schools. This course will help teachers to understand their role in that communication process, and making their environment a better place to be for everyone. 

credit hours: 1 hr course price: Pay First certificate fee: 12.00