UVA Launches Digital Portal for Early Childhood Curriculum Used Statewide

Illustration by Julia Parlette-Carino

As Rebecca Decker reflected on her students from last year, who are enrolling in kindergarten this fall, she knew they were ready. And not just academically.

"Socially, they were ready," said Decker, who teaches pre-kindergarten at an early childhood education center in Lynchburg, VA. "Over the course of the year, they were able to talk about their feelings. They were able to express those feelings and figure out their solutions."

Decker credits that development to elements of the STREAMin³ curriculum, including the puppet Tucker Turtle, an open-source emotion regulation tool that has been integrated into the curriculum.

"We love Tucker Turtle," Decker said. "I had some really sensitive friends who needed Tucker Turtle to talk about their big feelings."

The STREAMin³ curriculum, developed by researchers at the University of Virginia Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL), aims to help children connect and communicate, regulate their thoughts and actions, and move their bodies, as teachers focus on six STREAM areas: science, technology, reading, engineering, arts and math.

To support the more than 4,000 educators enrolled to use this curriculum across Virginia, the team designed and launched a user-friendly digital portal of the curriculum this summer. The portal includes libraries of customizable lessons, activities and other resources teachers can access from their laptop, tablet or phone.

“The portal is a wonderful balance of suggested plans and guides with plenty of room for customization, all integrating the STREAMin³ curriculum and aligning with state standards,” said Kate Matthew, STREAMin³ project director at the UVA School of Education and Human Development.

Decker was “pumped” to start the school year with the new tool. 

“The new portal gives you the chance to be creative and come up with your own ideas,” Decker said. “It’s been so fun. We've been going crazy with ideas.” 

The portal houses all the STREAMin³ curriculum elements, including the weekly plans, activities, and routines. It also provides letters teachers can share with parents and caregivers and assessments teachers can use to consider children’s development and individualize their support. Teachers can toggle between their daily and weekly plans and search for activities by skill to see the recommended curricular elements. 

“The goal of the portal is to improve the experience for teachers,” Matthew said. “It allows us to ensure teachers have access to the most up-to-date resources as we add them.”

Much more flexible than the previous printed materials, the portal allows teachers to populate their daily plans with the touch of a button, customizing activities for the day. They can also favorite specific activities to easily find again later. Teachers looking for suggestions for specific times of the day, or even ideas for parts of the room, can link off to see recommendations. The library also includes options for things like routines, activity cards and games.

The team intentionally included features with teachers of mixed age groups in mind. Teachers can see activities and guides for the curriculum's three age groups—infant, toddler and pre-k—allowing teachers to add activities from any age into their weekly plan.

“We have been able to plan ahead and even add on for the next few weeks,” Decker said. “But it is flexible enough that if something isn’t working well on Monday or Tuesday, we just swap something else in for the rest of the week. 

"It's just been so exciting for us, and so exciting for the kids, and so exciting for the families. Everyone's involved.”

With trainings and a webinar under her belt, Decker has taken the lead in supporting her fellow teachers with the new portal.

Online trainings and webinars are part of the professional development options the The STREAMin³ team has developed for the diverse early childhood education workforce serving children in varied settings: in-home, center-based, as well as public school settings. The library of on-demand courses is accessible to current teachers engaging with the curriculum, as well as new hires who are starting fresh.

The team has also embedded professional development supports into the portal itself. 

“With a simple click, teachers reviewing plans for the day can open up a window to learn more about the value of morning circle time and read about best practices,” Matthew said. “The portal then pre-filters activities or games that are recommended for that time of day.”

And because the portal is web-based, the language setting can be changed for immediate translation into any language.

The portal was created with Simple Thread through current funding and support from the Virginia Department of Education. The STREAMin³ curriculum model was developed at CASTL, with initial funding from Elevate Early Education (E3), to be used in their model school for children ages one to five, The New E3 School, in Norfolk, VA. The team’s intention was for the program to be widely scaled across a variety of early childhood education programs, and E3 has continued to advocate for the development and scaling of STREAMin³. Additional prior funding and support was also provided by the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development, the Virginia Department of Social Services, the Obici Healthcare Foundation, the Alleghany Foundation, and ReadyKids Charlottesville.