Center for Child Care Professionals at Nunez Community College

Are you employed by a Class A licensed child care center?  Louisiana Pathways offers scholarships that help pay for tuition that financial aid doesn’t pay.  The strictly enforced deadline for the Spring semester is November 27. This program has helped many students to enroll in courses at Nunez to advance their education and help their centers to earn stars in the Early Start Program.  Nunez staff can help to provide paperwork, schedules, fee bills and financial aid verifications to the program, but you must meet the initial deadline to complete the scholarship application and send it to the Louisiana Pathways office.  Follow this link for more information about the program; find an application, submission guidelines and important dates, http://pathways.nsula.edu/college-tuition-scholarship-guidelines/

If you have questions about how you can work with Nunez to use a Pathways scholarship to finance education for yourself or your staff, contact Tonia Loria at tloria@nunez.edu or 504-278-6287.

If you have questions about the Louisiana Pathways Scholarship program, you can contact them at 318-677-3163 or email pipkinst@nsula.edu.

Advising is available for returning students November 14-18.  To schedule an appointment with Tonia Loria, email tloria@nunez.com.  If you would like to be advised by Donalyn Lott, email dlott@nunez.edu. 

A schedule of offered classes can be found at www.nunez.edu and an advising calendar that lists appointments and available open appointment times with Tonia Loria will be available on this website. Early advising is a good idea for all students, but especially those who will be registering for English, Math or Science classes that tend to fill up.  Also, students who believe that they are close to graduating should register early to ensure that they get the classes that they need to finish on time.  Scheduling classes classes early also gives students time to plan for work, childcare and transportation for the next semester.  After November’s early registration, Regular resgistration will be available on January 11-13.

Interested in taking a course this summer?  Early registration for the summer semester starts Monday, March 28 at 9:00am.  An exciting course is being offered this summer, Introduction to Children with Exceptionalities.  We have a wonderful instructor, with years of experience as a master social worker, before she decided to change careers and became a special education teacher.  This course is offered in the evenings, so you can fit it in with your busy schedule.  Visit the Nunez homepage, www.nunez.edu, or follow the link on this site, for more information.

We are having a great time with all of the new resources that have just arrived at the Center.  We have received 25 new CDs, dozens of new professional resource books and shelves full of board books and other infant books.  Here is just a small sample:

CDs

Putumayo Kids: African Dreamland

Putumayo Kids: Celtic Dreams

Animal Romp and Stomp for Kids

Hoppin & Boppin for Kids

Nature Sounds

Traditional Lullabies

DVDs

Video Observations for the ITERS

It’s Mine: Responding to Problems and Conflicts

TouchPoints: Understanding Your Child’s Development

Baby Language

Infant Books

I Spy Series

The Very Grouchy Lady Bug

The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Puppet

Silly Sally

Goodnight Moon

Goodnight Gorilla

My First Signs

Professional Resource Books

The Toddlers Busy Book

Reading with Babies, Toddlers & Twos

Teach Your Baby to Sign

Young at Art

 The Complete Resource Book for Infants

Plus lots more!  We have ordered even more materials that should be arriving in a couple of weeks, so come by and play!

The Center for Child Care Professionals has been busy this month welcoming high school students and community leaders to the Nunez campus and inviting them to become involved in ensuring high quality education for children by supporting education for their teachers and child care providers. As part of a campus tour, more than 500 high school students from Plaquemines Parish, St Charles Parish and Orleans Parish visited our center and heard about educational and career opportunities for working with young children. Students enjoyed the vibrant, colorful atmosphere of the center and were excited about the “kids’ room”. Some students even recognized favorite children’s books on display.
Business leaders from Plaquemines Parish visited Nunez’s campus and stopped by the Center to hear about the resources that we have to offer. As Plaquemines Parish continues to grow and rebuild the availability of high quality child care effects employers across industries. We are hopeful that the Center will be able to support providers as they work to meet the needs of Plaquemines young families.
Chalmette High School hosted a career fair in February and the Center Director, Tonia Loria, participated. Students interested in careers working with young children spent time listening to educational paths, advice and encouragement about entering the early childhood education field and had an opportunity to ask questions.
We are excited to meet young people who are considering making the welfare of young children their career choice and hope that they are wonderfully successful.

We are planning activities for 2011! One thing that we hope to have ready to go in two weeks is weekly Mommy (or Daddy) and Me Homework Hours. This will not be a child care service, but dedicated hours for parents to bring their children with them to the center so that everyone can work at the same time.  We will have crayons, paper and some basic art supplies for younger children, and school age children can work on their own studies, while mom or dad studies, plans classroom activities or researches a topic.  Parents will be responsible for monitoring their children.  What do you think?

Thanks to all who came out to see us at our open house on Saturday, December 4.  We hope that you and the children that you care for enjoy the puppet glove that was our make-and-take.  If you couldn’t come by, free membership is still available.  You can visit Monday-Thursday, between 9:30 and 2, until December 16 , or just send us an email from our contact page, and we will send the form that you need.  

The Center will close for the holidays  December 17-Jan 5.  Hours for the new year will be posted on the website in January. Have wonderful holiday season, and we hope to see you at the Center soon.

The Nunez Childcare Professional Center officially opens on December 4th, 2010. Please join us for our Open House from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.