Blog, News & Events
Insights, Ideas, and Resources for Early Learning
Welcome to the Think Small Blog, your go-to destination for valuable insights, innovative ideas, and inspiring stories in the field of early learning. Dive into a treasure trove of articles crafted by our team of experts, dedicated to empowering child care providers, educators, and families.
What is this 7% thing all about?
If you?ve used the Child Care Cost Calculator and you?re left wondering:? How the heck would all of this work?? This blog post is for you!??? Think Small created the ...
2024 Minnesota Early Childhood Reports
If 2023 was the year of legislative activity for child care in Minnesota, 2024 is the year of reports! As projects from the 2023 session get underway and existing projects ...
Ramsey County Early Childhood Academy
It?s no secret that Minnesota is in the midst of a child care crisis. Quality child care in Minnesota has become hard to find, hard to secure, and even harder ...
Early Care and Education Efforts in Progress
The 2023 State Legislative Session is officially underway. Legislators are meeting with constituents, bills are being drafted and introduced, and committees are holding hearings!? Legislative leaders and Governor Walz ...
Early Education Spotlight: Buttons & Bows Child Care
By Marie Huey, Public Policy & Advocacy CoordinatorVideo by Kristie Thorson, Communications Specialist Early Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in high-quality child care and ...
Early Education Spotlight - My Friends Christian Child Care and Preschool
By Marie Huey, Public Policy & Advocacy CoordinatorVideo by Kristie Thorson, Communications Specialist Early Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in high-quality child care and ...
Child Care Assistance Makes a Difference: Aaron's Story
Minnesota’s?Child Care Assistance Program?(CCAP) helps make?child care?affordable for income-eligible families.? This can often be life-changing for children and parents, as it was for the Santamaria Mendez family.Four-year-old Aaron Santamaria Mendez ...
Small Talks: True Costs to Families and Early Child Care Educators
Small Talks features leaders who share key insights on early childhood education and discuss innovative solutions to early learning issues in Minnesota.Inadequate investment, scholarship caps, complicated funding streams, and low ...
Learning from the Data We Seek
Think Small?s mission as a nonprofit is to advance quality care and education of children in their crucial early years. We do this by preparing providers, strengthening families and catalyzing ...
Guest Post: Candidates for Governor Speak Out About Early Education Issues
By Ericca Maas, Close Gaps by 5My organization is focused on closing Minnesota?s worst-in-the-nation achievement gaps, which means closing the early education opportunity gaps facing the 35,000 low-income Minnesota children ...
An Encouraging Find: Another Potential Benefit of Parent Aware
?The survey results show that Parent Aware-rated programs across all parts of Minnesota were twice as likely to have stayed in business than non-rated programs.? High-quality early learning, as defined ...
Early Learning Scholarships Help Children & Families
?Please continue funding programs such as early childhood scholarships.? It definitely makes a difference.? It allows kids to get that extra boost in the beginning so they stay on track ...
Early Education Spotlight: Big Red House
Early Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in high-quality child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent perspectives on ...
Early Education Spotlight: The Teddy Bear House
Early Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in high-quality child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent perspectives on ...
Policy Hour - Changes to Child Care in Minnesota
Staff from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) presented at November Policy Hour about the changes to child care in Minnesota. During the 2017 legislative session, many changes ...
Think Small Offers Free Information Sessions for Parent Aware Participation
By Susan SchaffhausenIn 2017, Think Small undertook new efforts to increase the number of child care providers who devote their care to ensuring children?s health, safety, and best practices for ...
Families First: Connecting Southern MN Children with Early Learning Scholarships
The Policies in Play series takes a closer look at the recently passed state legislative policies that affect early care and education. We work with partners to find out what ...
Policy Hour: Early Education Policy and Funding Changes
By Marie Huey, Public Policy and Advocacy CoordinatorRepresentatives from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) presented at the first Policy Hour of the season. June Reineke and Amanda Varley shared ...
Northeastern Minnesota Addresses Child Care Shortage
The Policies in Play series takes a closer look at the recently passed state legislative policies that affect early care and education. We work with partners to find out what ...
West Central Minnesota Child Care Providers Benefit from Forgivable Loans
The Policies in Play series takes a closer look at the recently passed state legislative policies that affect early care and education. We work with partners to find out what ...
Early Education Spotlight: Stepping Stones Childcare Learning Center, Inc
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in high-quality child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent ...
The Triple Bottom Line of Child Care
The Policies in Play series takes a closer look at the recently passed state legislative policies that affect early care and education. We work with partners to find out what ...
Free Early Childhood Text Messaging Program Offered to Minnesota Parents
Child Care Providers Can Meet Parent Aware Requirement by Encouraging Families to Sign Up When Woodbury parent Amy Raleigh heads to the store with her 4-year old daughter Fiona, she ...
Policy Hour: Parent Aware Changes & Legislative Update
The final Policy Hour of the season was a double dose of early education information! We heard about changes to Parent Aware and received an end of legislative session update.Parent ...
Early Education Spotlight: Little Wonders Daycare
By Marie Huey, Public Policy & Advocacy CoordinatorVideo by Kristie Thorson, Communications SpecialistEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in child care and preschool settings ...
Early Education Spotlight: Little Angels Child Care
By: Marie Huey, Public Policy and Advocacy CoordinatorEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early ...
Early Education Spotlight: Little World of Angels
By: Marie Huey, Public Policy and Advocacy CoordinatorEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early ...
Early Education Spotlight: Daryeel Group Home Daycare
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent perspectives ...
Early Education Spotlight: Bloom Early Learning and Child Care
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent perspectives ...
Early Education Spotlight: Little Learners
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent perspectives ...
Early Education Spotlight: Achcha's Daycare
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work happening in child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent perspectives ...
Early Education Spotlight: Country Kids Childcare
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases great work going on in child care and preschool settings across Minnesota. From innovative early learning programs to parent ...
Early Education Spotlight: Kris Larson's Family Child Care
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases the great work happening in quality child care and preschool settings across Minnesota.Kris Larson?s Family Child Care program in ...
Early Education Spotlight: Aldrich Memorial Nursery School
By: Marie HueyEarly Education Spotlight is an ongoing series that showcases the great work happening in high-quality early learning?settings across Minnesota. The first?installment features Aldrich Memorial Nursery School and its ...
Policy Hour Breaks Down End of Legislative Session
The Minnesota?s Future June Policy Hour reviewed the 2016 legislative session, combing through a list of proposals that passed, did not pass, and some that still may pass if a ...
Evaluation of Parent Aware: Minnesota's Quality Rating & Improvment System - Year 4 Implementation Report
This is the fourth annual report conducted by Child Trends about the statewide rollout of Parent Aware. Funding is provided by Parent Aware for School Readiness (PASR), the Greater Twin ...
2016 Legislative Session Overview: Early Care and Education Key Priority in Minnesota
Governor Dayton signed the supplemental budget bill today, allocating $182 million in funding this year and $300 million of funding over the next two years. He is still reviewing the ...
What are People Saying About Parent Aware?
In print and social media, Parent Aware has been a hot topic in the past couple of weeks. Parent Aware is Minnesota?s early education Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). ...
From Cars to Early Care and Education: Getting the Data We Need to Make the Best Decisions
By: Nancy Jost,?Early Childhood Coordinator for West Central InitiativeRemember the last time you bought a car? I?m guessing you started by thinking about what is best for you and your ...
Army Generals Urge Minnesota Legislature to Support Parent Aware
A group of high ranking military generals residing in Minnesota sent a letter to legislators encouraging them to invest in Parent Aware, Minnesota?s quality rating system for all early learning ...
County by County, Here’s What Child Care Looks Like Across Minnesota
We must close gaps first by supporting early learning programs already in place to reach our most at risk children. Child Care is an essential and large piece of this ...
Modest Investment in Parent Aware Yields Big Benefits for Kids
By: Ericca Maas,?Executive Director of Parent Aware for School ReadinessWhen it comes to early learning, I?ve never met an early educator who didn?t want the best for the kids they ...
Parent Aware is the Backbone of Early Learning in Minnesota
Minnesota is grappling with a tough question: How do we best improve the early learning landscape in our state?It?s important to note that this question presumes an acceptance of the ...
Quality of Early Childhood Programs Improving with Parent Aware
Children attending a Parent Aware rated program are making significant gains in the skills they need to succeed in kindergarten, according to a third party evaluation of the Minnesota programs.
Evaluation of Parent Aware: Minnesota's Quality Rating & Improvment System - Year 3 Implementation Report
The purpose of this report is to analyze Parent Aware activities and outcomes from the third year of statewide expansion. The findings in this report include an analysis of the ...
Evaluation of Parent Aware: Minnesota's Quality Rating & Improvement System - Year 2 Implementation Report
The purpose of this report is to analyze activities and outcomes from the second year of statewide expansion. A previous report produced after the first year of expansion focused primarily ...
Evaluation of Parent Aware: Minnesota's Quality Rating & Improvement System - Year 1 Implementation Report
The purpose of this report is to provide a descriptive portrait of Parent Aware in the first year of statewide expansion. It focuses primarily on features of implementation and serves ...