Six children and their teacher join hands in a circle. A boy holds alphabet blocks that spell out PLAY.

The Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CMEC) "believes that purposeful play-based early learning sets the stage for future learning, health, and well-being."

Early Childhood Education
squares, circles and triangles

Early Childhood Education

Welcome

Welcome to Manitoba Education’s Early Childhood Education (ECE) website. This page provides supports to early years teachers, early childhood educators and parents. We focus on the young child, birth to age 8 since this is the most rapid period of development in human life. Through a collaborative approach, we partner with school divisions, other government departments (provincial, federal), educational stakeholder groups, and parents to promote developmentally appropriate programming and services that help to prepare children for successful school entry and optimal learning in the early years.

What do we do?

  • share expertise in the area of early childhood development and early learning
  • promote and facilitate strong and equitable partnerships between school divisions and other community-based early learning and child care organizations
  • monitor early childhood development research and connect evidence-based research to practice and policy decisions
  • encourage research on early childhood learning through partnerships with researchers, other government departments and school divisions
  • offer resources and assistance on early childhood education topics, including early literacy and numeracy, social and emotional development, support to Newcomer and Indigenous children and families and developmentally appropriate practices
  • collaborate with government and community partners to support early childhood programming in schools and community settings
  • promote the use of Manitoba’s Early Development Instrument (EDI) to inform decisions and actions that optimize the development of young children
  • promote the role of parents* as their children’s first teachers

* The term parents includes guardians, caregivers and other family members who can help young children learn.

Resources

Newcomer Parent Guide

This parent guide provides information on what families can expect in Manitoba Kindergartens and information on how to register for school. The guide also provides helpful tools such as checklists and questions that can be used to communicate with teachers and administrators for various purposes.

Kindergarten – What can my child expect in Kindergarten? ( 1.1 MB)


Early Development Instrument

The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a questionnaire completed by Kindergarten teachers in the second half of the school year that measures children's ability to meet age-appropriate developmental expectations in five domains. For more information, see the Assessment and Evaluation website.