Wonders Professional Development Consortium
Workshops scheduled for late summer and early fall will be posted here soon. If you would like to join our mailing list to receive information about our workshops, please email Judy Beman at jbeman@wonderschildcare.org.
Here is a sample of some of our recent workshops.
Building Relationships
The relationships you develop with the families and children in your program are absolutely essential to the success of your center. This interactive workshop provides you with the tools you need to create community and connect to challenging families and children. You will also learn how to develop and create healthy, meaningful and lasting relationships with your children and families. It’s the little things that count and by the end of this session you’ll understand why.
CPR/First Aid Training (adult, child and infant)
Learn how to administer CPR and First Aid for adults, children, and infants. You’ll learn how to handle emergency situations, take basic precautions to prevent disease transmission, care for injuries or sudden illness until advanced medical help arrives, help someone in breathing and cardiac emergencies and administer chest compressions.
Health and Nutrition
Healthy foods for after-school programs. Come learn how to make it happen. This session will include discussions about reading food labels, healthy snacks, portions, menus, veggies and other nutritional tips for teachers.
Positive Discipline I
How do you manage children’s challenging behavior? Research shows that punishment doesn’t change behavior; children simply work harder to hide the behaviors. This interactive, introductory workshop explains the philosophy behind Positive Discipline and equips participants with the basic skills necessary to help children learn and manage their behavior.
Promoting 21st Century Skills in School Age Child Care Programs
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a national organization that advocates for 21st century readiness for every student. The partnership advocates for the integration of skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and communication into the teaching of core academic subjects. Recognizing that high quality afterschool programs serve as an extension of children’s learning time, The National Partnership for Quality Afterschool has created lesson plans and instructors guides for incorporating Literacy, Arts, Math, Science, Technology and Homework into Afterschool programs. This workshop examines the 21st Century skills framework and looks at how the afterschool toolkit can be incorporated into SACC program planning.
Positive Discipline II
Teachers currently using principles of positive discipline and looking to improve their skills will find this workshop to be informative and energizing. This interactive training takes a closer look at the theories of Positive Discipline and helps participants to delve deeper when working with children to change behavior. Participants will be able to learn from the experiences of their peers and will be equipped with advanced skills to work with children with challenging behavioral problems.
Pro-Active Ways to Deal with Difficult Behavior in Early Childhood Classrooms
This training covers the principles of development and how they drive children’s behavior. It examines the classroom environment (physical, temporal and social) and how it encourages and discourages various behaviors- how we talk to children, manage peer conflicts, manage transitions, use visuals and individualized strategies for specific behaviors.
The Wonders Mentor Program
The Wonders Mentor Program, a part of our Professional Development Consortium, focuses on modelling, coaching, and reflection. Liza Pringle, former Wonders head teacher and assistant director, leads the early childhood education mentor program, working directly with teachers and mentoring in the classrooms to further advance our teaching practices. The school age mentor program takes advantage of the expertise of Wonders program directors who have recently participated in training on facilitation of the professional development learning process. As with our professional development coursework, our mentor program integrates reflective learning practices.
