Imagine an affordable, high-quality, hands-on, fun PD training session designed to take place at your school.
No hidden fees, or consultant’s travel and hotel costs to cover.
Stop worrying about your professional development budget! Give your educators’ team the most rewarding and motivating PD training experience directly at their workplace.
Meet Your Facilitator
Hi, my name is Tommaso Lana.
I’m an educational consultant, facilitator, and founder of Embodied Learning.
I’ve been living and working internationally since 2005 (Germany, Australia, USA). I’m currently based in New York.
I was born in Italy and went to a Montessori school when I was little.
Growing up, I developed a passion for children’s autonomous learning, the experiential learning pedagogies from Northern Europe, and the Reggio Emilia approach.
I support and motivate educators’ teams, school directors, and managers in exploring and appreciating young children’s learning potential through their sensory competence and movement.
My experience spans training educators’ teams for award-winning educational projects (Google Children’s Center, Children’s Center at Caltech), consulting high-end cultural institutions (The Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center), and mentoring managers in large public service systems (Los Angeles Public Library).
Hands-on training offers a dynamic, interactive, and experiential approach to learning.
- Early childhood educators LEARN by DOING, OBSERVING, and TRYING things out – as children do.
- Educators’ ACTIVE engagement leads to improving TEAM COLLABORATION dynamics.
- Educators experience CHILD-CENTERED approaches and learn firsthand how to SUPPORT children as PROTAGONISTS of their own LEARNING journey.
★★★★★
Tom’s enthusiasm and passion are contagious and can be felt through the screen. His emphasis on creating and building connection, his invitation to learn with the child by following the child’s curiosity and sense of wonder; coupled with his dynamic, creative, thoughtful ideas is nothing short of a magical experience. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and understanding!
Hands-on Professional Development Training Programs for Early Childhood Educators
Format: Live on Zoom | Duration: 2 Hours | Number of Participants: Unlimited
Choose your PD training topic and get in touch!
Sensory Perception and Movement
- Exploring Tactile, Auditory, and Olfactory Systems, their Integration, and Beyond. Activity #1: Resonating Clothing Hangers Activity #2: “The Journey to Standing Up” Activity #3: “Peeling an Orange” Topics: Time perception; stimuli’s intensity; tactile and auditory competence; fine and gross motor skills + imagination; balance and kinesthetics; curiosity and discovery; autonomous learning experiences v. direct instruction.
- Exploring Balance, Sound, Gravity, and Behavior. Activity #4: Body Xylophone (Sensory Integration, Psychomotor Education, Special Needs) Activity #5: “Running and Laughing” Activity #6: Paper Parachute Topics: Proprioception, sensory integration & behavior, overstimulation, self-regulation, elements of psychomotor education, sensory integration through collaborative play
- Learning from Everyone’s Sensory Systems through Play and Movement. Activity #7: “Snowball Fight” Activity #8: “That’s You!” a Body-scheme game Topics: Sensory integration through collaborative play, body scheme and discovery of the individual “form,” embodied cognition, and learning through imitation.
Teach SEL through STEM
- Direct, Practical Implementation Through multiple interactive activities, you will learn how to appreciate learning as a physical and emotional act within a “natural” STEM environment you can easily set up in your classroom.
- Language, Emotion, and Science You will learn how to use children’s perceptual systems and embodied cognition as a language to introduce multiple conversations related to experiences in STEM.
- Social-Emotional Learning and Physics Learn how to combine oscillation, kinetic energy, and other physical phenomena with self-awareness, collaboration, and community.
- Science, Engineering, Math, and Inclusion Learn how to set up STEM-based experiences that support every child or student to thrive, ignite a problem-solving culture, and elevate each person’s potential.
Early Literacy: The Art of Inventing Stories
- Participants will “learn by doing” as many innate techniques children commonly use to invent stories.
- They will learn how to support young children’s imagination and interact in imaginative play “environments.”
- They will learn how to listen to any children’s verbal creative process and how to support them in finding their voice and other forms of expression, especially graphism.
- They will learn new ways to share stories with children beyond reading books out loud.
- They will learn how to construct a story by playfully analyzing the structure of stories.
- Finally, they will learn how to use books non-conventionally as a source to invent new stories.
Reggio-inspired Documentation
- Learning how to ask open-ended questions
- Re-learning how to listen to children
- Learning how to organize your teaching time (day, week, and season)
- Learning how to run projects
- Learning how to communicate with parents
- Learning how to self-assess your work
★★★★★
While attending the Embodied Learning virtual workshop, the gears in my mind were turning, inspired, and creating. Tommaso’s enthusiasm is captivating, and I’m so excited to learn how I will apply what I’ve learned not only to my virtual work with children but to my practice in the classroom.
