76th Annual SECA Conference

We know children learn best through play, but how do we facilitate play intentionally to prevent challenging behavior? In this session, we look at evidence-based play methods that are actionable and easy to implement. Simple strategies to build trust, engineer empathy skills, facilitate negotiation, and engage in sensory play with children displaying challenging behaviors will be shared. Join us and share some of your own strengths and struggles over play-based learning.

This training session focuses on the critical role of open-ended play in early childhood development and the importance of intentionally designing play spaces to support this type of exploration. Participants will learn how open-ended play fosters creativity, problem-solving, and social-emotional growth in children. The session will provide practical guidance on setting up play environments that are developmentally appropriate, flexible, and conducive to self-directed learning. Educators will also explore strategies for observing and facilitating play without interrupting its natural flow. By the end of the training, participants will be equipped with the tools and insights needed to create intentional, supportive environments that encourage children to explore, imagine, and learn through play.

This session creates space for early childhood education practitioners and future practitioners to engage in activities and conversations centered around intentional and purposeful planning of opportunities and activities aimed at helping young children grow and develop a variety of math skills, processes and thinking.

Imaginative Small World Play
Educators will investigate the benefits, materials and skills to create small world play for young children. Young children will engage in using their imagination, creativity, building, sensory and language skills through small world play experiences. Imagination is nurtured with small world play experiences, let's imagine some small worlds for your students.

Harnessing younger students’ innate curiosity about the natural world and desire to protect it can be done with hands-on classroom activities that build STEAM skills, increase environmental literacy and show sustainable paths forward. In this session, the presenter will facilitate a series of interdisciplinary lessons that involve creating 3-D models, engaging in an interactive story, and working collaboratively on solving authentic problems. In one activity, participants create a 3-D model of the Earth, which they decorate to show different physical geography features, including farmland, forests and cities. In another, they use engineering skills in experimenting ways to clean up a local river. In yet another activity, they explore the impacts of both individual and collective actions that make positive impacts on their environment and create handprint pledges to “lend a hand to the Earth” in small and large ways. The session activities aim to excite and motivate students to work toward the type of world they want, and showing them how STEAM skills can empower them to do that. The presenter will allow time for discussion and provide participants with take-home lessons in an electronic format.

This session will help participants learn strategies for designing physical spaces and open-ended play provocations using loose parts that help young children develop skills in all developmental domains and individual approaches to learning.

Have you ever tried to support a child who displays challenging or mistaken behaviors? Do you often struggle with helping dysregulated children return to a regulated state? As Early Childhood professionals we aspire to promote safety, security, and a sense of belonging in the classroom. By using evidence-informed pedagogical practices as a foundation, our presentation will explore best teaching practices for preschool-aged children. As professionals we know the importance of providing a calm and regulated space for young children through the implementation of social emotional learning and trauma-informed practice. The purpose of our session is to assist early childhood professionals in supporting children who may become dysregulated, defensive, and reactive in the classroom. When children experience heightened states of arousal, they exhibit one of four primary reactions—fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. We will explore each of these responses in depth and provide resources for professionals as they navigate associated challenging or mistaken behaviors.

This session highlights the critical role of family engagement in fostering young learners' growth and development. Participants will explore the benefits of building strong partnerships with families and discover practical strategies, resources, and activities to actively involve families in the classroom. The training will provide creative, culturally responsive approaches to strengthen communication, promote collaboration, and create a welcoming environment for families to support their child’s learning journey.

It is not uncommon to hear the phrase, “Teaching is not what it used to be” these days. What brought on that phrase? Is it really that teaching has changed or is it something else? We also hear the comments such as “Since the Covid……” as well as the increase in challenging behaviors and increased social-emotional needs. Addressing the needs of these students and their families cannot be done by the classroom teacher alone. We will need to work together with the other experts and professionals internally within the program and externally within the community.

In this session, we will examine the concept of partnership and how to transfer aspects of the ideal definition to the existing early childhood education field.

Training and coaching practices used to prepare educators in Early Learning Centers include children with disabilities yet, successful inclusion in preschool education requires teachers to modify the instructional setting, use effective instructional methods and strategies, adapt instruction, and provide equal learning opportunities for all children. The lack of special education knowledge, skills in evidence- based practices, and teaching experiences to fulfill these roles is one of the most significant barriers to effective inclusion of children with or at risk for disabilities. The criteria for staff development effectiveness would require an understanding of content and pedagogical knowledge that requires countless hours.
The proposed VP-GEEP is a multi-component workshop approach model is a structured and purposefully directed site-based professional development workshop model that identifies special education concepts that will engage educators with a hands-on approach, and promote a collegiality and collaborative exchange of ideas, practices, and strategies to improve children’s outcomes in context. Site based educators are aware of critical contextual characteristics and therefore, can apply contextual based evidence-based practices to intervene and plan for the child with disabilities based on their needs, and resources. The mnemonic VP-GEEP is a purposely designed seamless workshop model that will assist teachers in Early Learning Centers recall special education concepts. Each letter in the model represents a concept that educators will collaboratively learn, apply, and implement strategies and practices in context.

Packed with arts integration strategies to activate your natural storytelling skills through foundational performing arts elements, participants will discover ways to use props, movement, dramatic play, and simple songs to activate sequential thinking skills and recall in early learning literacy. The presenter will share arts integration lessons and strategies specifically designed to reach early literacy standards for preschoolers. Participants will have the opportunity to develop an initial concept of an arts integration lesson that they could envision trying in their learning environments along with some “best practices” in arts integration lesson development. Lastly, participants will learn techniques for collaborating with teaching artists to enrich their classroom learning environments with exposure to creative professionals.

Literacy doesn’t start with children decoding and encoding text; rather it begins as children engage in functional and playful conversations and oral storytelling experiences supported and facilitated by their teachers and other caregivers. In this session, participants will better understand the role of oral language and storytelling in young children's literacy development. Session participants will learn effective ways to prompt children for language success and learn storytelling activities such as story acting, storymaking, and creating oral mentor texts. This interactive session will help participants plan playful, and developmentally appropriate learning experiences designed to build a literate foundation in young children.