AIR Childcare Training Solutions

The holiday season is a time of joy, celebration, and togetherness, but it can also be overwhelming for many children. The excitement, changes in routines, and social gatherings can lead to overstimulation and heightened emotions. As educators, it's essential to provide support and equip children with tools to help them navigate this bustling time of year.

Course features:
Emotional Regulation https://airchildcare.com/emotional-regulation/
This Is How We Do It: Using Procedures, Routines, and Rituals As Effective Management Tools https://airchildcare.com/this-is-how-we-do-it-using-procedures-routines-and-rituals-as-effective-management-tools/
Yoga for Preschool https://airchildcare.com/yoga-for-preschools/

Strategies to assist children in managing their emotions during the holidays:

Establish Predictable Routines
One of the best ways to help kids feel secure and grounded during the hectic holiday season is to maintain a predictable routine. While there may be variations due to holiday events, try to keep daily routines consistent when possible. Regular sleep schedules, mealtimes, and quiet times can create a comforting framework that helps kids manage anticipation and reduce anxiety.

Create Calm Spaces
Designate spaces in the home where kids can retreat when they need a break from the holiday hustle and bustle. This “calm corner” can be equipped with soothing items, such as soft pillows, blankets, books, or calming sensory toys. Encourage children to use these spaces when they feel overwhelmed, allowing them a moment to regroup and regain control of their emotions.

Use Visual Supports
Visual aids can help children understand what to expect during the holiday season. Create a visual calendar that highlights special events, meals, and activities planned. Incorporating pictures can engage younger children and provide a concrete way for them to visualize the upcoming days. This clarity can reduce anxiety and help children mentally prepare for each event.

Read today's newsletter for more strategies to assist children in managing their emotions during the holiday season:
https://conta.cc/4hTXmZ5

Supporting young children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) involves understanding their specific sensory needs and creating an environment where they feel safe, regulated, and successful.

🔍 Understanding SPD First
Sensory Processing Disorder: Understanding Sensory Needs
This course is a must for anyone working with children. Everyone has sensory needs, but some have such intense needs that it disturbs their way of living. Many children who experience SPD struggle in school and care due to a lack of understanding and proactive measures by their teachers and caregivers. This course will help you understand ALL the domains of our senses and how we can better educate and care for ALL of our students inclusively and effectively.
https://airchildcare.com/sensory-processing-disorder-understanding-sensory-needs/

🎯 Effective Strategies for Managing SPD in Young Children

🧘‍♀️ Create a Sensory-Friendly Routine
• Predictability helps reduce anxiety.
• Include sensory breaks in their day (before they get overwhelmed).
• Use visual schedules with pictures or icons.
Example: “First we eat, then we play with the weighted blanket.”
🛑 Watch for Triggers
Track when meltdowns or withdrawal happen — often there's a pattern (e.g., loud sounds, tags in clothes, crowded rooms).
Tips:
• Use a behavior log to identify triggers.
• Once you know them, you can preemptively modify the environment or prepare the child.
🧸 Create a “Calm Down Space”
A safe, quiet area with soft textures, low lights, and soothing items like:
• Weighted blankets or stuffed animals
• Noise machine or calming music
• Books or calming visuals
Let them choose to go there before they get overwhelmed.

Read today's newsletter for more strategies for managing SPD in young children: https://conta.cc/4qSUQ9S

National Take a Hike Day is a celebration that promotes physical activity, exploration, and environmental awareness among young children. By incorporating outdoor activities and nature-based learning into childcare programs, professionals can inspire a love of nature and a sense of adventure in their students. This approach can also foster curiosity, creativity, and social-emotional learning in young children. Furthermore, outdoor exploration can help children develop essential skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaboration, all while having fun and making meaningful connections with their peers and educators.

Taking Your Classroom Outside - See What a Day Looks Like!
This training allows you to see that the playground area can be used as an outdoor classroom. This training outlines the importance of outdoor play and to allow children to pick their own free choice activities. You will gain the knowledge on how to teach children to be safe outdoors and how to adapt your lesson plans to the children’s interest. You will see what a typical day outside looks like when using the outdoors as your classroom.
https://airchildcare.com/taking-your-classroom-outside-see-what-a-day-looks-like/

Scavenger Hunt Hike
Make a simple picture-based checklist of things to find on the hike:
A leaf
A rock
A flower
Something round
Something soft
A bird or bug
Give each child a clipboard or paper to check off items or draw what they find.
📌 Learning focus: Categorization, vocabulary, critical thinking

Make Your Own Trail Map
Before or after the hike, children can:
Draw their own “trail map” with landmarks like trees, benches, or playgrounds.
Label simple features or add stickers/symbols.
📌 Learning focus: Spatial awareness, early mapping skills, creativity

Read today's newsletter: https://conta.cc/47JTdCz

🚀 Beginner Tech Activities

Digital Storytelling with Book Creator
Students write stories and illustrate them digitally.
Great for language arts and creativity.

Keyboarding Games
Fun ways to improve typing speed and accuracy.

Create a Stop-Motion Animation
Use tablets/phones to take pictures and animate a story.

Our featured course this month is Fostering Family Engagement by Tisha Luthy. Participants of this training will be able to recognize the value of fostering family engagement. Discuss how to evaluate the current culture in their schools/centers. will be able to create programs, events, and curriculum that fosters family engagement. Purchase this course today: https://airchildcare.com/fostering-family-engagement/

Read today's newsletter: https://conta.cc/43uLHdm

Our featured author this month is Tisha Luthy!
Tisha has over 20 years’ experience in Early Childhood Education. She started working in child care settings with children ages 3-5 yrs. Then went back to school and received a Pre-K - 3rd grade Teaching Certificate. Over more recent years, Tisha obtained a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood. Being a teacher, director and a parent herself Tisha Luthy understands the importance of establishing positive and productive relationships with families. Family Engagement is all inclusive portion of a child’s early childhood education and the extension of education continued in the home. Eliminating the separation of education and play is also a crucial portion of extending a child’s learning opportunities. Tisha is passionate about assisting with the extension of education by creating programs, events, and curriculum that fosters family engagement.

Check out Tisha's courses: https://airchildcare.com/buy-a-course/?_bc_fsnf=1&Trainer=Tisha+Luthy

Read today's newsletter: https://conta.cc/47cVx4E

Creating an environment that supports brain and language development in infants and toddlers (birth to age 3) is essential because this is the most sensitive period for forming neural connections, developing communication, and building relationships. The right environment can significantly enhance early learning and promote healthy emotional and cognitive growth.

Preparing the Environment to Support Brain and Language Development
Infants and Toddlers are learning constantly while awake. Set up the environment itself to promote learning, as well as language and brain development. Use room arrangement, pictures, books and simple games to provide infants and toddlers with ways to learn how to learn.
https://airchildcare.com/preparing-the-environment-for-infants-and-toddlers-supporting-brain-and-language-development/

Read today's newsletter: https://conta.cc/46T8Jga

We know how busy you are trying to keep everything running during the school year. Let us help make keeping track of staff training easier! Sign up for administrator access today to get started:

Ready to sign up?
Go to airchildcare.com
Choose register at the top right
Fill out the fields
Select administrator as user type
https://airchildcare.com/login.php?action=create_account

Read today's newsletter: https://conta.cc/48zktpk

Introducing toddlers to engineering concepts through play is a fun and powerful way to spark curiosity and build early problem-solving skills. Here are toddler-friendly engineering activities that are hands-on, safe, and developmentally appropriate:

🧱 1. Building with Blocks

What: Use wooden blocks, Mega Bloks, or foam blocks.
Skills: Balance, design, and spatial awareness.
Twist: Challenge them to build a bridge, tower, or tunnel.

💧 2. Water Play Engineering

What: Water tables or tubs with funnels, tubes, cups, and sponges.
Skills: Cause and effect, fluid dynamics, and problem solving.
Twist: Try to move water from one container to another without picking it up.

🧲 3. Magnet Exploration

What: Large magnetic tiles (like Magna-Tiles), magnetic wands and safe objects.
Skills: Attraction and repulsion, materials science.
Twist: Build 3D structures and test what sticks or doesn’t.

🛤️ 4. Ramp & Roll

What: Use cardboard ramps and toy cars or balls.
Skills: Gravity, motion, experimentation.
Twist: Change the ramp height and predict what happens.

🧃 5. Juice Box Structures

What: Save empty (clean) juice boxes or small cartons for stacking.
Skills: Stability, architecture.
Twist: Try building a tall structure—what makes it fall or stay strong?

📦 6. Cardboard Construction Zone

What: Big cardboard boxes + tape + safe tools (plastic scissors, markers).
Skills: Creative problem-solving, structural design.
Twist: Build a fort or a pretend car/house.

🧵 7. Simple Pulley System

What: String, a small bucket, and a broom handle or chair back.
Skills: Mechanical advantage, cause and effect.
Twist: Use it to move small toys from one place to another.

🧩 8. Stack and Test

What: Use different materials (cups, blocks, paper rolls).
Skills: Load testing, design thinking.
Twist: Put a toy on top—what supports it best?

🎈 9. Balloon-Powered Vehicles (Simplified)

What: A balloon taped to a toy car or paper cup.
Skills: Air pressure, motion.
Twist: Let the air out and watch it zoom!

🧠 10. Problem-Solving Challenges

What: Set a goal, like “Get the teddy across the couch without touching the ground.”
Skills: Creativity, engineering mindset.
Twist: Use pillows, blocks, or string to "engineer" a solution.

Celebrating National STEM/STEAM Day (observed on November 8th) in early childhood classrooms is a wonderful opportunity to spark curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving in young learners.

Our featured STEM/STEAM Courses:
Exploring STEM in Preschool https://airchildcare.com/exploring-stem-in-preschool/
Easy STEM Learning Activities for Preschoolers https://airchildcare.com/easy-stem-learning-activities-for-preschoolers/
Put Some STEAM into Your Classroom https://airchildcare.com/put-some-steam-into-your-classroom/
STEAM Up Your Class https://airchildcare.com/steam-up-your-class/

🧪🎨 How Early Childhood Educators Can Celebrate National STEM/STEAM Day

🌋 Make a Mini Volcano (Science + Math)
Materials: Baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, dish soap
Activity: Let children mix ingredients in small containers and observe the “eruption.”
Extend: Count spoonfuls or try different amounts to compare reactions.
📌 Teaches: Cause and effect, observation, basic chemical reactions

🧊 Frozen Science: Ice Excavation (Science + Fine Motor)
Materials: Freeze small toys in ice blocks
Activity: Provide eyedroppers, salt, and warm water for kids to “excavate” the toys.
Extend: Talk about states of matter—solid, liquid, melting.
📌 Teaches: Scientific inquiry, patience, experimentation

Read today's newsletter for more STEM/STEAM ideas: https://conta.cc/3WEGrjo

Use Our Bulk Discount Pricing Program!
This program allows you to take the money you are already going to spend on training and stretch it even further by giving you an additional credit amount when you purchase a certain amount of bulk credits. The chart below shows the different options to choose from. Once you purchase your bulk training amount, it gets placed onto your account as a store credit. This store credit can then be used to purchase staff trainings and the credit never expires!
Learn more: https://airchildcare.com/bulk-pricing/

Read today's newsletter: https://conta.cc/434PtKv

Creating engaging learning centers, lessons, and activities that develop critical thinking in young children requires a thoughtful mix of hands-on experiences, open-ended questions, opportunities for choice, and a positive, structured environment.

Course Feature: Learning Centers and Activities that Promote Critical Thinking Skills in Preschool Children
Developing learning centers, lessons, and activities that support critical thinking skills in young children keeps them actively engaged and increases positive behaviors. Teaching meta-cognition skills, problem-solving skills, and independent thinking through play is a natural way to develop life-long, deeper thinkers and learners.
https://airchildcare.com/learning-centers-and-activities-that-promote-critical-thinking-skills-in-preschool-children/

Literacy/Storytelling Center – "What Happens Next?"
Materials: Wordless books, puppets, felt boards, story cubes
Activity: After reading or seeing a story, children invent alternative endings
Critical Thinking: Sequencing, cause and effect, imagination, perspective-taking
Engagement Tip: Record their stories or let them act them out
Positive Behavior Tie-In: Role-play encourages empathy and listening

Art Center – "Creative Solutions Studio"
Materials: Recycled materials, drawing supplies, paint, clay
Activity: “Can you make something useful from scrap?” or “Design a new animal”
Critical Thinking: Flexibility, creativity, synthesis of ideas
Engagement Tip: Display their work and let them explain it
Positive Behavior Tie-In: Calm, creative time boosts regulation and pride

Science Exploration Center – "Discovery Lab"
Materials: Magnets, ramps, water table, natural objects, simple experiments
Activity: “What sinks? What floats?” → Predict, test, explain
Critical Thinking: Hypothesizing, observing, analyzing
Engagement Tip: Use science journals or drawings
Positive Behavior Tie-In: Inquiry-based tasks channel energy productively

Read today's newsletter for more critical thinking strategies: https://conta.cc/497ZGcH