On Zoom; registrants will be sent the link

Daycare providers and early childhood educators, learn how to incorporate farm-to-school principles into your work with young children in a virtual class that earns two professional development points.

Experienced Shelburne Farms educators Jed Norris and Cynthia Greene show how to encourage children’s connection to healthy foods grown in this region, using hands-on activities that can build healthy lifelong habits and attitudes among children and their families. Sponsored by the Upper Valley Farm to School Network of Vital Communities. Completion earns two hours of professional development.

Farm to Early Childhood encourages children to investigate their food systems, adopt healthy eating behaviors, and develop deeper connections to their communities. It connects Classrooms, Cafeterias/Kitchens, and Communities (the 3C’s)!

This virtual Farm to Early Childhood workshop will introduce participants to the 3Cs of FTEC and provide practical examples for implementation. It will build participants’ understanding of what FTEC is, how it supports high-quality early childhood programming and offer investigations for resources and hands-on activities that can add depth and exposure for children and families around the benefits and value of our agricultural community.

Instructors:
Jed Norris, Early Childhood Program Coordinator:
Jed coordinates the preschool Adventures program that runs in the fall, winter, and spring. Throughout the academic year, he also regularly teaches school programs; in the summer, he roams the farm with groups of campers. Jed comes to the farm with years of experience as an early education teacher as well as a program director of an early education school. He received his undergraduate degree in child development and graduate degree in early childhood special education. Jed is a life-long Vermonter who grew up on a dairy farm and he especially enjoys running into families that he has crossed paths with throughout his life. Jed loves the seasonal changes at the farm, the variety of experiences that each week brings, and sharing it all with his wife and two young sons, who love the farm more and more with each visit or story they hear.

Cynthia Greene, Farm to Early Childhood Partnership Manager
Through the Farm’s partnership project VT FEED, Cynthia works on Farm to Early Childhood initiatives, bridging systemic policy actions with practical classroom and provider professional development projects. Cynthia began her career as a licensed Vermont early childhood educator working with toddlers and preschoolers and later as Executive Director of early childhood education programs. Cynthia shifted her career trajectory to engage in early childhood community organization work through Building Bright Futures as both a regional coordinator and then the manager of the Vermont State Early Childhood Action Plan. Cynthia is an avid gardener, cook and homebrewer who loves to kayak, socialize where there’s live music and break bread often with family and friends.

Upon completion of this training, you will be awarded 2 hours of Professional Development.