Teaching preschool children is not focused on academics but is more inclined towards teaching them about how to interact with other kids their age, how to respect figures of authority other than their parents, how to pay attention and how to behave properly inside and outside of the classroom.
In short, preschool lessons are more on teaching the kids how to respond to external stimuli now that they are outside their comfort zones, which is their homes, for the first time.
If you’re a preschool teacher who’s relatively new at the job or you’re a teacher who just needs a bit more help with running a classroom full of 4 and 5-year-olds, you can look at teaching tutorials online or even online courses for teaching preschool if you really want to get as much help as you can with your classes.
Online Courses for Teaching Preschool
While you may have a good grasp on your lessons for teaching your kids their ABC’s and 1-2-3’s, these will not be as effective as you’d wish them to be if you go about teaching them in a way that your young students will find boring, too confusing or just downright uninteresting.
You can get help in this area by taking a course on how to integrate playtime into your lessons. The Texas A&M University, in partnership with AgriLife Extension Service, provides several online courses on child care and child education.
Child care courses are actually interrelated to teaching preschool courses because both work at giving the young ones the kind of attention and assistance they need in order to thrive in their environment.
The courses also help teachers recognize and respond accordingly to each child’s individuality.
Child Care and Preschool Teacher Courses
As you browse through the internet, you will find that there are websites for child care and teaching preschool online courses that talk about similar topics.
This is perhaps because these same topics are the most common factors that affect a child’s first venture into the “outside” world.
Incorporating play into the lessons is one such common topic discussed by various online courses. AgriLife Extension has a similar course titled “The Value of Play for Preschool Children.”
Teachers will learn the importance of infusing playtime factors into their lessons and why by doing so, they are creating a healthy, learning environment for their young wards.
Teachers are also given pointers and suggestions on indoor and outdoor playtime activities.
Another very common topic that is often discussed in this type of course is the role of parents or the family into the educational experience of preschoolers.
AgriLife’s “Establishing Positive Partnerships with Parents” will equip teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to develop healthy partnerships with their students’ parents and how to positively communicate with the parents regarding issues that affect their child.
Other courses offered by AgriLife Extension are: Fostering Children’s Self-Esteem, Helping Children Resolve Peer Conflict, Supporting Children’s Social and Emotional Development, and Effective Communications Strategies.