Resource Books

This informative book by Rachel Wagner, MSW, in partnership with the Devereux Center for Resilient Children, is designed to support all adults who interact with young children. It explains FLIP IT's four simple steps for transforming challenging behavior in young children: F - Feelings, L - Limits, I - Inquiries, P - Prompts. Teachers and parents can help children learn about their feelings and gain self-control by using that mnemonic. This strategy was created for use with children 3-8 years old. Learn to FLIP IT with the book's practice pictures, reflection activities and real-life stories. Paperback. 88 pages. © 2011

Uncover simple strategies that will help you bounce back from life's ups and downs! The book contains a 23-item reflective checklist designed to help you gain valuable insights about your personal strengths. As you reflect on your strengths, the journal will help you establish goals and uncover strategies that will strengthen your relationships, increase initiative, support internal beliefs, and maintain self-control. In today's world, we all face risk. Spend time offsetting that risk by reflecting on all of your strengths, identifying strategies to implement, and celebrating the progress you have made. Copyright 2013.

When trust is the foundation, everything changes. Trust First: Turn Behaviors that Challenge Us into Opportunities to Learn shares a powerful approach to classroom management built on relationships, respect, and belonging. In this practical, inspiring guide, Dr. Deborah Bergeron and Rhonda Conn-Parent help early childhood educators move beyond compliance-based systems and cultivate an environment where children feel safe, connected, and ready to learn. With real-world strategies grounded in trust psychology, the book addresses persistent challenges - such as behavior issues and disengagement - through a new lens of compassion, communication, and community. Whether you�re facing burnout or simply seeking a more joyful and connected way to teach, this book will reframe the way you view your students. Rediscover the joy of teaching through the power of trust.

Do children in your classroom have a hard time starting or completing activities? Do they struggle to remember directions? Are they easily distracted? Do they have a hard time making and keeping friends? Alert and Attentive offers practical strategies to help young children develop the attention skills they need to thrive. Learn how self-regulation and executive function skills work together to support attention and focus. Discover ways to create a calm and supportive learning environment that fosters concentration, helps children ignore distractions, and promotes learning. Alert and Attentive is your go-to guide for creating a classroom where children thrive. With practical tips, real-world stories, and evidence-based strategies, you'll empower young learners to reach their full potential.

Family engagement is one of the most powerful predictors of student achievement, and parent-teacher conferences are a key opportunity to build those important connections. Partnering for Success: Strategies for Effective Parent-Teacher Conferences equips early childhood educators with practical, research-based techniques to foster trust, collaboration, and communication with families. This essential guide provides step-by-step strategies for planning, conducting, and reflecting on conferences that go beyond routine meetings to become meaningful, productive partnerships. Each chapter delivers actionable tips - from creating a welcoming environment and listening effectively to celebrating achievements and following up. With helpful forms to make planning easier, this book helps educators confidently navigate every stage of the conferencing process.

As an early childhood professional, you play a key role in the early identification of maltreatment and unhealthy patterns of development. You are also the gateway to healing. In Reaching and Teaching Children Exposed to Trauma, you will find the tools and strategies to connect with harmed children and start them on the path to healing.

Every day, 250 children are suspended from school. Many are children of color, deprived of opportunities to experience learning at the same rate and quality as white children. Many families don't feel heard or respected in their child's schools. Don't Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms leads early childhood professionals to explore and address issues of bias, equity, low expectations, and family engagement to ensure culturally responsive experiences. Importantly, this book will challenge you to consider your perceptions and thought processes: identify your own unconscious biases-we all have them, recognize and minimize bias in the classroom, school, and community, connect with children and their families, and help close the opportunity gap for children from marginalized communities. This book offers strategies, tools, and information to help you create a culturally responsive and equitable learning environment. Paperback. 144 pages.

Develop the fine motor skills your child needs for school success! Fine motor skills are a stepping-stone for school readiness, and Everyday Play gives you the tools you need to make developing those skills easy and fun! Organized by age, the dozens of activities in Everyday Play are inexpensive, require few or no materials, and are easy to do with your child. They give you and your child great ways to have fun while laying the foundation for important skills that they need for school. Activities include: No-Mess Finger Painting, Marble Painting, Racing Tracks, Squeezy Water Play, Graph Paper Art, and Water Droppers. Holding a pencil, drawing a line, zipping a coat - Everyday Play helps your child accomplish all these milestones and more. With a chapter of frequently asked questions from real parents, developmental guidelines, and easy strategies for teaching your child important skills, Everyday Play is the book you need to ensure your child is ready for school.

Engage children with meaningful constructive play! This book provides educators of young children with guidance in how to create early childhood environments that support children's natural need to play. It includes strategies for creating and scaffolding the block play experience, recommends children's books that support the learning, and outlines ways to match behaviors, content, and concepts to learning standards. Lesson plans include: Thanksgiving -- sharing and giving; our families and ourselves; winter and winter animals; large buildings around the world; birds, insects and spiders; the ocean and ocean life; amphibians and reptiles; ways to travel; and wild animals. 128 pages. Paperback.

Filled with developmental games based on the latest brain research. Divided into 4 chapters, each representing a 3 month period. Each chapter has a chart that helps anticipate the development milestone for those months. Games and activities reinforce the skills babies need to reach those milestones. Paperback.

With new activities and explorations, tips and information to help you understand how to support the littlest learners, and research nuggets to enhance your own professional knowledge, the Encyclopedia of Infant and Toddler Activities, revised, will be your go-to resource! Activities will help you support curiosity, play, exploration, persistence, emerging foundations in literacy and math, problem solving, and so much more! Paperback. 288 pages.

A positive, strengths-based leadership system is the key to transforming the quality of early childhood programs. Inspiring Early Childhood Leadership lays out strategies designed to support program leaders in finding new ways to reduce the levels of stress on themselves and their staff, and move into a unified, engaging system for leading with passion, intention, and purpose. Author Susan MacDonald's goal is to take leaders past their challenges with a vision of new possibilities so they can ensure a high-quality learning environments, fueled by positive, engaging energy. Paperback. 144 pages.

An ideal way to start children on an exciting, creative adventure towards global understanding! The fun, easy-to-do art activities in Global Art use collage, painting, drawing, printing, construction, and sculpture to help children appreciate people and cultures from all over the world. Each activity is explained in step-by-step detail and accompanied by geographic and cultural background to help you make the most of the teaching possibilities. Paperback. 190 pages.

Young children are naturally interested in their world. With Social Studies and Me!, you can support children's curiosity by using storybooks to engage them in social studies and literacy learning. Each storybook exploration includes: Social studies standards and learning objectives, ways to link the book to children's experiences, ways to foster standards-based discussion about the book, ideas for extending, observing, and assessing the learning, and ways to connect with families.

With the 100 activities included in this resource, teachers can easily incorporate learning about animals into any curriculum. Each activity features learning objectives, vocabulary, related children's books, materials, preparation (if necessary), directions, and an assessment component.

New technologies and digital communications channels are changing the way parents and caregivers discover child-care centers and decide where to enroll. In response, center administrators have to rethink the traditional paths to enrollment. The Basics of Growing a Child-Care Business offers information to help you stand out from the competition. This book offers clear strategies for growth. Charm: Grab the customer's attention. Create a solid foundation for your marketing strategy. Advise: Establish yourself as an expert and set your sales goals. Delight: Design your customer experience, and create an ongoing sales pipeline. Tracks: Gather Data, measure your results, and adjust your approach.

100 easy-to-do activities give children a peek into the lives of their creepy-crawler friends. Each activity features learning objectives, vocabulary, related children's books, materials, preparation (if necessary), directions, and an assessment component.

Preschoolers have a sense of wonder about so many aspects of their world. They enjoy demonstrating their knowledge to others, and they are challenged to use their brains in fascinating new ways every day. Whether they are making clay figures, rolling cars down ramps, experimenting with writing, or exploring nature, they are expanding their mental horizons constantly. This book will help you understand typical milestones children tend to reach during the preschool years as they develop their ability to think, understand, and solve problems. As you examine classroom scenarios, you will gain insight into various ways young children express their developing cognitive skills and some challenges that tend to occur. Paperback. 136 pages.

As an early childhood educator, you want every child to thrive, regardless of their abilities or learning style. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides a framework for designing learning experiences that are inclusive and accessible to all children. In this guide, you'll learn how to apply UDL principles to your early childhood environment to create a welcoming, engaging, and effective learning environment for every child. From designing flexible learning spaces to using technology to support diverse learners, you'll discover practical strategies and tips for implementing UDL in your classroom. With real-world examples, this book shows you how to: create a classroom culture where children feel safe and comfortable, design and adapt materials for different learning styles and needs, collaborate with families and colleagues to support children's learning, use technology to enhance learning for all children, and incorporate UDL principles into your daily routines and activities.

Do some children in your classroom have difficulty remembering the rules, gathering their materials independently, or completing activities? Do some find it hard to follow and remember instructions? These Children may be struggling with executive function. With stronger executive-function skills, children are better able to: Follow and remember a sequence of directions, Work on projects from start to finish, Develop problem-solving and organizational skills, and Self-monitor and regulate their emotions and behaviors. Organized and Engaged: Simple and Effective Strategies to Support Executive Function explains what executive function is, why it matters, and how it differs from self-regulation. Discover strategies, activities, and play-based ideas to support children's classroom success.

Children are expected to read, write, count, and sit still at younger and younger ages. As these unrealistic expectations mount, family members and teachers alike continue to believe that these activities will prepare young children for school. But there is a better way one that helps children build school readiness through developmentally appropriate activities. Best of all? The children can have fun! Building on Emergent Curriculum guides preschool teachers to tap into young children's natural inclination for play to build their skills, promote their development, and, ultimately, prepare them for elementary school. Paperback. 168 pages.

Connecting with dual language learners (DLLs) is a growing reality among early childhood educators, who need to learn practical, proven strategies to reach these students. Grounded in research and strengthened by the author's personal experience as a student learning English, Connecting Right from the Start helps teachers understand the culturally and linguistically diverse children in their classroom, as well as those with disabilities. Some of the skills teachers will learn: ways to make DLLs feel more comfortable in the classroom, the stages of second-language acquisition, ways to challenge DLLs without overwhelming them, and ways to involve families in school activities.

Preschoolers tend to be social beings. Whether they are playing with dolls side by side, building block castles together, or rolling down hills with friends, most young children enjoy the company of others. Playing together comes naturally, but you can help them negotiate turn taking, learning how to mend hurt feelings, and practice communicating positively while they play. This book highlights the milestones children tend to reach during the preschool years as they develop socially. As a guide and facilitator, you can share strategies that will help preschoolers learn to be cooperative team members and kind friends while having fun together. Paperback. 96 pages.

Parenting isn't always the joy it's made out to be. On the contrary, many parents feel they are struggling to maintain their sanity and control of their young children's behaviors. Offering realistic, practical advice for parents who want the joy back in parenting. Instead of getting bogged down in negative cycles, the book will help readers leave those behavior struggles behind and turn children on to cooperation and respect. The book will also help adults model their "best self" and show children how to live. Unlike other parenting books that focus on problem behaviors or parental wellbeing, this book is grounded in research from child-development specialists and focuses on creating a home that is consistent, responsive, and loving. Paperback. 296 pages.