The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
On Saturday, January 24 there was a child care workshop held at the Victoria Inn sponsored by Manitoba Child Care and co-sponsored by the MCCA Norman Region. The workshop began at 9 a.m. and went till 2:30 p.m. and there were 41 people who participated. One of the organizers, Linda Clark, was delighted with the turnout stating that, "the more qualified the care givers are, the better care the kids get". Of the many groups in attendance were people from the day care centres (where there are larger groups of kids and there is a director and staff), nursing school (such as the Flin Flon Guidance Nursery that has the kids for only half days or up to three hours), Aboriginal Headstart and Family Day Care (which are licensed facilities and have up to eight kids). In Flin Flon the Day Care coordinator is Deb Odegaard. The morning session was under the theme of 'serendipity' and was about emergent curriculum in the playroom. This session helped the care giver consider how curriculum naturally emerges out of the children's own interests and questions. It helped them learn about some of the techniques and tools for an emergent curriculum, such as helping the care giver to offer projects that will foster a deeper understanding of concepts and a better interest in learning. After lunch the focus was on 'guiding children's behaviour' and the essential guiding skills were explained by Debra Mayer who is the national coordinator for the YWCA Canada's Building a Community Architecture for Early Childhood Learning and Care project. Debra, who is from Winnipeg, offered a customized workshop through 'teachable moments' to the early childhood communities. Clark stated that she hoped this interest in this workshop would perhaps encourage some more care givers to attend the next conference that is set for May 27-29. The theme will be "Growing Minds, Blossoming Futures". Call Deb Odegaard at 687-1300 for more information.
