Early Childhood Education

This course examines methods for creating and maintaining environments that emphasize safety, promote wellness, and encourage exploration and learning. Topics include hazard assessment, safety education, responding to injuries and emergencies, sanitation, meal planning, health education, organizing the environment, and utilizing appropriate materials, plans, and routines.

This course provides comprehensive coverage of early childhood professions, the field’s historical, philosophical, and social foundations, and the conditions that affect programs for children. In addition, the course examines stages of development and current childcare topics and issues.

This course emphasizes the importance of skillful observation when planning appropriate activities and experiences for children. In addition, the course explores the use of informal and formal assessment strategies to plan and individualize activities and lessons and the use of assessments for determining the ability level of children.

This course is designed to teach students major content areas of early literacy development, instructional strategies, and appropriate early experiences that support early literacy development in preschool children. Emphasis is placed on speaking and listening, as well as reading and writing. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to select, plan, implement, and evaluate appropriate early literacy experiences.

This course examines methods for creating, analyzing, and administering effective programs including financial management, licensing requirements, staff supervision, enrollment procedures, health and safety issues, and publicity procedures. Students learn to communicate effectively with parents about their children. The NAEYC Code of ethics and accreditation criteria from professional, state, and national organizations are reviewed. Childcare standards are used to develop a philosophy for childcare and to define program goals.

This course focuses on the physical and cognitive development of children, the promotion of literacy, and the utilization of creative experiences in childcare settings. Topics include developmental needs of children, age-appropriate activities, cognitive theory, and brain research; creative environments, language arts, music/movement, art, and aesthetic experiences. Students will evaluate, plan, and implement activities that focus on children’s needs and interests.

This course involves the study of classroom management, motivation, building self-esteem, positive discipline strategies, and social and emotional development in children. Topics include approaches to guiding children’s behavior, managing the environment, rules and limits, problem behaviors, appreciating oneself and others, dealing with separation, providing appropriate support for children, preventing child abuse, promoting success with appropriate materials and activities, interacting through play and developing friendships. Students develop a personal philosophy of child guidance.

Students will learn how to establish and maintain positive collaborative relationships with families, how to apply family system theories, and how to communicate effectively not only with parents but also with other professionals and agencies that support children’s development. Students will learn how to provide families with information regarding a range of family-oriented services that are designed to help families’ identified needs. Students will learn to affirm and respect the diversity of individual families.