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Hands-on PD
Training for Early
Childhood Educators

Hands-on Professional Development Training
is the Most Effective Learning Experience
for Early Childhood Educators

Our professional development training drive and promise:

Valuing and Enabling Child-centered Learning Experiences

Tom’s enthusiasm and passion are contagious. 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!

Paola Flórez

Peconic Community School, NY

In-person, Hands-on Professional Development Training Programs for Early Childhood Educators

Format: In-person at your facility | Duration: 2 Hours to Full Day

Choose your PD training topic and get in touch!

Embodied Learning Virtual Training Sample

Sensory Learning and Movement

Teachers and educators often ask me: “Should we teach children these skills, or can they learn them themselves?”

Discover how children’s (0-5) Sensory Perception and Movement impact their Autonomous Learning and Competence.

Our approach in this PD training is: “If children do it, we should do it too.”

Agenda & Learning Topics:

  • 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.

What is Embodied Learning? Embodied Learning Refers to Pedagogical Approaches that Focus on Everyone’s Innate, Autonomous Competence – Physical, Emotional, and Cognitive – to Build Learning Processes

Teach SEL Through STEM

For children, STEM pedagogy is an opportunity to develop their social-emotional learning competence (SEL).
While learning how cause and effect, oscillation, kinetic energy, and many other phenomena work through play, children deal with self-awareness, collaboration, inclusion, and the idea of community.

In this PD training, you learn how children can use STEM in sensory, motor, imaginative, and social-emotional learning.

Discover how to use forms, function, force, and motion in young children’s physical and social-emotional development.

Learning Objectives:

  • 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.

Embodied Learning Virtual Training Sample

Learning Outdoors

The areas surrounding daycare centers and preschools always provide opportunities for children to escape confining indoor spaces and open their eyes to what’s outside.

Urban and natural settings can inspire them to move, play, explore, and learn in a completely new way.

Explore the benefits of outdoor learning!
Discover and understand the pedagogical potential of the outdoor space around your early learning facility.

Learn how to prepare outdoor areas for learning through play.
Learn how to support children’s physical, social, and emotional development outdoors.
Learn practically how to implement your academic curriculum in outdoor education.

Learning Objectives:

  • Explore Natural Materials
    Working with light, shadows, water, grass, dirt, sticks, sand, clay, rocks, and more – in ways that are both creative and practical – you learn how to develop new settings and activities that allow you to engage with toddlers and preschoolers in a variety of projects outside the classroom. 
  • Move and Learn
    You will build and try out zero-budget constructions and settings that enhance children’s movement and curiosity.

  • Let Go
    This training program will give you an extensive kit of safe and practical ideas designed to foster autonomous learning. Learn how to let children go and observe their development under the open sky.
  • Play and Explore (Academics Outdoors)
    You will learn how to “read” the outdoor space outside your school to implement your academic curriculum in outdoor areas.

Embodied Learning Virtual Training Sample

Early Literacy: The Art of Inventing Stories

This PD training is about imagination, listening, and fostering children’s natural ability to tell stories. In this training, we surpass the traditional definition of literacy (”the ability to read and write”) to explore how to support young children in building skills that will bring them to “identify, understand, interpret, create, and communicate in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich, and fast-changing world” (UNSECO most recent definition of “literacy”). To reach this goal and learn how to dig into young children’s languages, we use the story as a form of communication and interaction that doesn’t require the ability to read and write. During the training, both facilitator and participants will experience first-hand and in a hands-on way how children constantly invent stories by drawing (graphism and pre-graphism), pretend-playing, interpreting symbols, staging games, daydreaming, observing and listening to the surrounding world, creating new rules and structures, and hearing their voices. We will make up, tell, and listen to stories throughout the whole training session, aiming to discover the children’s art of invention. Learning Objectives:

  • 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.

Dear Tommaso, Thank you so much for sharing your work with our school community. The power and beauty of the metaphors you share were exactly what we needed to inspire and evolve our commitment and work with children and families.

 

The Curriculum Team

Google Children's Centers

HYBRID, Hands-on Professional Development Training Programs for Early Childhood Educators

Format: Live on Zoom | Duration: 2 Hours | Number of Participants: Unlimited

Hybrid? How does it work?

  1. You gather your educators’ team in a large space with a screen and speakers.

  2. I run the hands-on session remotely on Zoom and interact with the participants.

  3. Educators will participate actively, learn, and interact with each other constantly.

  4. Beforehand, I’ll give you a list of no-cost materials to bring to the session.

Choose your PD training topic and get in touch!

Embodied Learning Virtual Training Sample

Sensory Perception and Movement

Teachers and educators often ask me: “Should we teach children those skills, or can they learn them themselves?”   Discover how children’s (0-5) Sensory Perception and Movement impact their Autonomous Learning and Competence. Our approach in this PD training is: “If children do it, we should do it too.” Agenda & Learning Topics:

  • 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.
Embodied Learning facilitator plays with a xylophone bar made out of cardboard and masking tape

Teach SEL through STEM

For children, STEM pedagogy is an opportunity to develop their social-emotional learning competence (SEL). While learning how cause and effect, oscillation, kinetic energy, and many other phenomena work through play, children deal with self-awareness, collaboration, inclusion, and the idea of community. In this PD training, you learn how children can use STEM in sensory, motor, imaginative, and social-emotional learning. Discover how to use forms, function, force, and motion in young children’s physical and social-emotional development. Learning Objectives:

  • 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.
Embodied Learning Virtual Training Sample

Early Literacy: The Art of Inventing Stories

This PD training is about imagination, listening, and fostering children’s natural ability to tell stories. In this training, we surpass the traditional definition of literacy (”the ability to read and write”) to explore how to support young children in building skills that will bring them to “identify, understand, interpret, create, and communicate in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich, and fast-changing world” (UNSECO most recent definition of “literacy”). To reach this goal and learn how to dig into young children’s languages, we use the story as a form of communication and interaction that doesn’t require the ability to read and write. During the training, both facilitator and participants will experience first-hand and in a hands-on way how children constantly invent stories by drawing (graphism and pre-graphism), pretend-playing, interpreting symbols, staging games, daydreaming, observing and listening to the surrounding world, creating new rules and structures, and hearing their voices. We will make up, tell, and listen to stories throughout the whole training session, aiming to discover the children’s art of invention. Learning Objectives:

  • 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.
Embodied Learning Documentation Training Demo

Reggio-inspired Documentation

Documentation mirrors the daily children’s curiosity, ideas, questions, and explorations. As a mirror does, the documentation is there to help children and adults observe, reflect, remember, engage, and develop. Independently from your pedagogical background or school curriculum, learning how to document after Reggio Emilia (the “Best top ten schools in the World” – Newsweek) and using your documentation as the “third teacher” is a game changer for every early childhood educator and your entire school. In this PD training, you will learn how to document and display any children’s adventure, discovery, and learning process. Learning Objectives: Learning how to create a Reggio-Inspired Documentation means:

  • 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.

Christine Beierly

Early Childhood Educator, Google Children's Centers

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) and 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 and 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).

Contact us

 

Act fast! My PD training calendar fills up quickly

I'll be in touch within 48 hours to schedule an introductory call with you and learn more about your professional development needs and interests.

If you prefer to call:
+1 929-262-8555