Training Packages
Supporting Learning and Academics
Is your program faced with any of these challenges?
How can we reinforce state academic standards and still not become just like school?
How can we support literacy development in fun and engaging ways?
How can we lessen the struggle of getting our participants to do their homework?
How can we define our role in helping our participants learn instead of being told our role by the schools?
The following workshops address these questions:
Learning: The Afterschool Way
Substitute quarter cups for one cup measuring cups in your afterschool cooking classes and you have a great opportunity for reinforcing fractions. Just like that our programs are aligned with the state academic standards. There are so many easy ways that school age care can provide an active and important role in supporting children’s learning, that is different than what exists during the school day. Our programs are already providing many learning experiences. Learn how to be intentional in providing those opportunities and get the credit for our good work.
Integrating Literacy: Books and Beyond
You know the routine, the kids don’t want to sit and read in your after school program, but you want to help them become better readers or have funding requirements that require literacy development. The solution is moving beyond books with fun, creative activities that support the application and reinforcement of literacy skills. Roll up your sleeves and join us as we demonstrate how to intentionally integrate literacy into popular activities, and stay true to the mission of school age care.
Nuts and Bolts for Setting up Homework Centers
Does your afterschool program require staff to help children with homework? This training will provide a systematic way to organize your efforts to establish a homework policy, program and structure. Learn how to communicate with the parents and school so that children can be successful and empowered to complete their homework. We will discuss goals, staffing, accountability and ways to celebrate success
Changing the Us/Them Attitude: Building Relationship with Schools
Do you want to find out how to bridge the divide between the school and afterschool program? Do you feel that the school is dictating what to include in your program? Learn how to develop an equal partnership with the schools by being proactive in developing and communicating the role of your afterschool program in supporting participants’ learning.
Program Planning
Is your program faced with any of these challenges?
How do we make our activities fun for both our Kindergarteners and our 8th graders?
How do we make our program fun for both the kids that love music but hate science and the ones that love building forts but hate sitting down reading a book?
What are easy ways to organize our activities so that we don’t have to spend so much time planning and running around gathering materials at the last minute?
The following workshops address these questions:
Thinking, Feeling and Growing: Developmental Areas and Program Planning
We continually try to find appropriate activities for our participants who range in age from 6 to 12 and sometimes even older. First, we have to know how their differences and similarities. Then, we have to find the right balance of time between bringing all the age groups together to form a community and times when the special needs and interest of specific age groups are addressed. Learn the physical, emotional, social, cognitive and ethical developmental characteristic of the different ages, and then how to use those characteristics to your benefit in planning appropriate activities.
Tapping the Strengths of Your Participants: Learning Styles, Multiplie Intelligence and Program Planning
Auditory, visual, kinesthetic learners. Musical, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic intelligences. What do all these words mean and what part to they play in the way we organize our out-of-school program? Find out how to enrich your program with multiple ways of approaching the same activity and explore how to structure activities to take advantage of participants’ strengths and natural ways of doing things, to enrich your entire program.
“Let’s Make a Club!” Thematic Curriculum for Afterschool
Learn how clubs get children excited about new and familiar topics. View clubs as a way of bringing together all curriculum areas as well as enrichment activities into various themes.
Building Community
Is your program faced with any of these challenges?
What do we do with participants who don’t seem to be able to talk without yelling?
How can we help Susie, who nobody wants to play, with make some friends?
We have 60 participants in our program but Johnny who has ADHD takes up 25% of our staff’s time? We don’t want to kick him out of our program but it doesn’t seem fair to all the other participants. What can we do?
When we confront the bully in our program about his behavior, he says that he was only playing. His parents doesn't believe there's a problem, but other kids are beginning to miss the program because they feel intimated. What are we suppose to do?
How can we build up our staff so they work as a team?
The following workshops address these questions:
