Past Events

 

The Canadian Association for Young Children
Presents:

Seeing the Forest and The Trees

Online Presentation by Speaker Laura Molyneux

Thursday, March 2nd 2023 | 6:30 - 7:30pm EST

View a video recording of this event here.

Fitting Forest and Nature Schools into the childcare landscape in Canada.

This presentation will look at the benefits and barriers of including outdoor, play and place based programs into regulated childcare policy. While some provinces have regulated Forest and Nature School within existing regulations, Newfoundland and Labrador is seeking to create unique legislative requirements for Forest and Nature Schools highlighting the unique skills of practitioners and treating our inspectors and educators the same way we treat our children - as capable and competent individuals.

Laura Molyneux (She/her) is the co-founder of Cloudberry Forest School in St John's NL. Cloudberry is a place-based early years program with programs for children and families 18 months to adult as well as a teaching site for ECE students and in-service educators and has been operating since 2014. Over the past 2 years Cloudberry has been working alongside the provincial department of education creating a pilot program and research space to explore the barriers and benefits to licensing outdoor play programs and "outside the fence" policies to support risky play, natural and loose parts but more importantly informing policy makers to consider reflective policy making that benefits children, adults, inspectors and policy makers.

Land Acknowledgement: Cloudberry Forest School respectfully acknowledges the Island of Ktaqamkuk, the land on which we gather, work, and play as the ancestral and unceded homelands of the Beothuk and the Mi’kmaq. We also recognize Innu of Nitassinan and the Inuit of Nunatsiavut and Nunatukavut. Place and land are integrated into the core of the work that we do and we strive to continue to improve on the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and to learn from land as much as we learn on it.

 

-------------------------------

 

The Canadian Association for Young Children
Presents:

A book talk with co-editor,
Katya Adamov Ferguson

                                  

Resurgence: Engaging with Indigenous Narratives & Cultural Expressions, In & Beyond the Classroom

February 9, 2023
6:00 - 7:30 PM
Helen and Bill Norrie Library - 15 Poseidon Bay

Resurgence is an inspiring collection of contemporary Indigenous poetry, art, and narratives that guides teachers in bridging existing K–12 curricula with Indigenous voices & pedagogies. Resurgence was co-edited by Anicinaabe educator Christine M’Lot and settler educator Katya Adamov Ferguson.

This session introduces Resurgence as a new teaching resource that gives creative starting points for critical engagement with Indigenous works. Katya will share ideas for how to centre Indigenous multimodal expressions and present the inspiration for the Footbridge Framework as a guide for teachers K-12.

Katya Adamov Ferguson -- PhD candidate, interdisciplinary artist, & early years support teacher. Katya is a long-serving member of CAYC and is passionate about learning alongside her two young children.

 

--------------------------

 

Join the Canadian Association for Young Children Rethinking Stories Series

Exploring Children’s Experiences of Gender and Heteronormative Disruptive Texts in Early Years Classrooms

Date: December 8, 2022

Nicole Trottier is an early years teacher working to disrupt gender norms. In this session, she will share her research that sought to disrupt dominant gender and heteronormative discourses in her grade two classroom. She will share her experiences as a teacher-researcher, her findings, and the criteria questions she developed for educators when considering the quality and potential of disruptive texts for young children.

View a video recording of this event here.
See the list of “disruptive texts” provided at the session here.