Self Help: Toileting and Picky Eating
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers
Date:              Tuesday, October 5, 1-1:45 p.m. OR
                       Wednesday, October 6, 6:30-7:15 p.m.

Join an occupational therapist to learn strategies to increase your child’s participation with toileting and learn ways to manage picky eating. We’ll discuss readiness for toileting training as well as strategies to progress independence in this area. We’ll also discuss ways to introduce new foods to children to help increase the numbers of foods your child eats.  

Blissful Bedtimes (stretch and breathe)
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers and PALS students
Date:              Wednesday, October 13, 7-7:30 p.m.

A few tiny steps towards blissful bedtimes—create a new bedtime routine with effective stretches and a relaxation routine you and your child can enjoy together!

Building Language Through Everyday Conversations
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers
Date:              Tuesday, October 19, 1-1:45 p.m. OR
                       Wednesday, October 20, 6:30-7:15 p.m.             

Parents play a crucial role in supporting their children’s language development. Engaging in rich and meaningful conversations is one of the most powerful strategies parents can use to expand their children’s language skills. The session will focus on the foundational strategies that build vocabulary, expand sentences, improve comprehension and promote thinking skills. In this question-and-answer session, speech-language pathologists will present conversational strategies that build language and answer questions parents may have about using these strategies with their children.

Circle of Security Parenting™
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers
Dates:            
Daytime: Tuesdays, October 26 and November 23, 1-2 p.m.
(please plan to attend both)
OR
Evening: Wednesdays, October 27 and November 24, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
(please plan to attend both)

At times, all parents feel lost or without a clue about what our child might need from us. Imagine what it might feel like if you were able to make sense of what your child was really asking from you. The Circle of Security Parenting™ program is based on decades of research about how secure parent-child relationships can be supported and strengthened.

Learning objectives of the training:

• Understand your child’s emotional world by learning to read their emotional needs.
• Support your child’s ability to successfully manage emotions.
• Enhance the development of your child's self-esteem.
• Honour your innate wisdom and desire for your child to be secure.

This will be a series of sessions that build on one another. There will be a limit to the group size, but we’ll try to accommodate anyone interested through additional sessions.

Fall Fun with Intellidance
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers and PALS students
Date:              Fridays, October 22, 29 and November 5, 10:30-11 a.m.

Intellidance® is a wonderful program for children ages 0-5 that focuses on beginning movement and music skills. There’s nothing but fun, and we use things like stories, songs and props to go along with all the moving and shaking we’ll do.

Get ready for a lively, 30-minute, online series of classes in which caregivers and children can experience the joy of music and dance together! There’ll be songs, rhymes, props and simple choreography to keep your kiddos moving the whole class.

Fall Space and Place/Sound and Silence:
In this series of three sessions, we’ll discover and explore the movement and musical concepts of space and place, sound and silence. We’ll be exploring through a fall theme, so get ready for lots of falling leaves!

Speech Development
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers
Date:              Tuesday, November 2, 1-1:45 p.m. OR
                       Wednesday, November 3, 6:30-7:15 p.m.

Developing clear speech, for some children, is a gradual process. As children's speech develops, the number and type of errors they make changes. Many parents have questions about their child's speech-sound errors and what they can do to support their development of clear speech. This interactive online session, hosted by EIPS speech-language pathologists, will provide information about the progression of speech-sound development and the strategies parents can use to support development.

Storytime with the Strathcona Library
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers and PALS students
Date:               Friday, November 19, 10-10:30 a.m.

Early literacy staff at the Strathcona County Library are excited to share an interactive, virtual storytime with children, sprinkled with fun facts about the library for the grown-ups. Come find out how the library has been adapting services over the last year and learn about upcoming programs and services for families!

Play is the Work of a Child
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers
Date:              Tuesday, December 7, 1-1:45 p.m. OR
                       Wednesday, December 8 6:30-7:15 p.m.

Join us to discuss the role of play in child development, how to understand your child’s type of play and how you can join in or facilitate play. With the holiday season approaching, you may even find some ideas for what your child would enjoy as a gift, either homemade or something available commercially. Play helps to relieve stress and build brains—at all ages!

Stretch, Wiggle, Giggle!
Audience:      Parents/Caregivers and PALS students
Date:              Friday, December 10, 10-10:30 a.m.

This is an interactive, play-based, mindfulness and movement class for you and your children. Children are adventurously curious and creative learners who are built to move, but how do we help those busy little bodies slow down? In this session, we’ll stretch, wiggle and giggle our way through playful movements.