By Amy Hoffman Have you heard the news? The Program Quality Assessment (PQA) team at the Pennsylvania Key has a lot to offer to programs. You may already know that we (usually) conduct external assessments to support early learning and school-age programs; this involves an assessor visiting your program and observing a wide range of...Read More

Natalie Grebe Pasta has been satisfying hungry stomachs all over the world for thousands of years. Athletes use it for carb loading. Restaurants feature it on menus. Parents use it as their go-to when they need a quick and easy meal that the whole family will enjoy. Luckily, pasta is usually a favorite of most...Read More

Natalie Grebe Its 9:00am in a preschool classroom. Two teachers have successfully orchestrated their class of 17 children to clean up their morning centers. One of the teachers calls out 9 names and asks those children to join her on the reading rug. The other teacher tells the remaining eight children to sit at their...Read More

Kelli Harris National Friendship Day was originally founded by Hallmark in 1919. It was intended to be a day for people to celebrate their friendships by sending each other cards. By 1940, the market had dried up and the holiday fizzled. It was first proposed in Paraguay in 1958. In 1998, Winnie the Pooh was...Read More

Amy Hoffman A few weeks ago, a friend commented that her 5-year-old had been “feeling all the feelings” earlier in the day. He was reacting to those feelings by crying when she left his sight, yelling at his younger sister, and refusing to follow directions. And how did my friend react to this? She set...Read More

Erin DelRegno As teachers, you won’t learn anything about the children in your classroom or about their developmental needs if you are going to do all the talking. You are there to guide children’s learning, not to give them all the answers, or ask them questions that they already know the answer to. As assessors,...Read More

Erin DelRegno and Angel Avery-Wright With STEM careers on the rise, creating makerspaces/centers for children to explore in school-age spaces is a great idea. Pocono Services for Families and Children (PSFY) took this one step further and began focusing on career exploration with their school-age children and building needed skills for jobs; filling out timecards,...Read More

Leah Zabari Cold weather creeps up, leaves begin to change, and pumpkin everything enters the stores. This is my favorite time of year when I get to decorate with pumpkins, cornstalks, and hay bales and when holidays like Sukkot and Thanksgiving leave my heart full of gratitude for friends and family. The Fall season always...Read More

Aimee Currier I love my GPS! No other device can predict with near certainty just how long it will take me to get somewhere. It’s nice to be able to listen to some music or a podcast without having to really think about when I need to make my “next move.”Read More

Leah Zabari My mouth is watering just thinking of the banana split I am about to eat on a super-hot, sunny afternoon. I must follow all the steps to making this banana split so it can be the best dessert ever! Putting it all together:Read More