Family Child Care Toolkit

Family child care programs can access tools and resources on CLI Engage at no cost. The first step is to create your free account!

• New to CLI Engage? Create your free public access account!
• Participating in Texas Rising Star? As part of the Texas Rising Star onboarding process, you should receive an invitation to login to your CLI Engage account. If you’re not sure you received this email, please contact our support team for assistance (be sure to mention you are part of Texas Rising Star).
• Logged into CLI Engage before, and need help? Contact our support team for assistance (be sure to mention any email you might have used).

CLI Engage features easy-to-administer child progress monitoring tools that capture a child’s skill development and progression in skill areas known to predict school readiness. Use downloadable versions, or login to track online!

• Developmental Milestones Checklists for children ages 0-48 months: These checklists are informal assessments of children’s growth and development across multiple domains. Providers can use these checklists to track milestones and plan instruction.
• Understanding Developmental Screening & Early Intervention: View short videos about milestones, children’s development, and how ECI supports young children.
• Explore resources in our Family Engagement Toolkit to help you share skill development with families.

CLI Engage offers hundreds of hours of free, online, interactive professional development for early childhood professionals in many key areas of teaching and learning.

• Texas state guidelines trainings, like the Texas Pre-K Guidelines and Core Competencies
• Core content knowledge in key school readiness domains
• Alignments to early childhood credentials, like the CDA

We also have a specialized training for family child care providers: Beginning Education: Early Childcare at Home

All online training on CLI Engage awards a certificate of completion with all information needed for Child Care Regulation and Texas Rising Star. It’s highly recommended for home-based providers to connect their CLI Engage account to TECPDS, so all certificates automatically save in their TECPDS accounts.

Family child care programs have access to hundreds of activities for use in your home-based program and to share with families. The Circle Activity Collections translate the best early childhood development research into practice through a variety of activities that providers can implement throughout the day with children from birth to age 8. The activity collections feature video demonstrations, alignments to state guidelines, and teaching tips to support providers.

• Circle Activity Collection: Infant & Toddler Classroom
• Circle Activity Collection: Pre-K to Grade 2 Classroom
• Circle Activity Collection: Family, share with your families

Based on the Circle Activity Collections and aligned for comprehensive instruction, the Circle Curriculum provide all the resources needed to support weekly planning and delivery of high-quality, playful instruction. The curriculum is digital and free to access online through CLI Engage. Printed versions can be purchased from the Children’s Learning Institute.

• Circle Pre-K Curriculum
• Circle Infant & Toddler Curriculum

CLI’s family engagement resources make the most of activities you are already doing to engage families in your home-based child care program. CLI advocates a new focus for these efforts: supporting families in better understanding children’s development and engaging in fun, developmentally appropriate activities that not only build skills but strengthen the bonds between family members.

Family Engagement Toolkit