Social Emotional Development

PATHS – (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies)

This year a few of our four-year old classrooms will be “piloting” an evidenced-based program entitled “PATHS” to address the social-emotional needs of preschoolers.  This program teaches the skills that we know that children need in order to be more successful and to prevent challenging behavior—not only in early care and education settings, but also in future educational settings. While we tend to be very thoughtful and intentional about teaching literacy, cognitive, and other skills, we need to be just as intentional about teaching social-emotional skills.  The program utilizes hand puppets and literature to help facilitate your child’s learning of social skills.  Parents are also active participants in assisting with “take home” assignments to further increase their child’s understanding and generalization of the material.

Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning