Our Work-Past Collaborations

Pebble & Pond offers a variety of Educational Services for educators, including sessions on Literacy / Reading, Social and Emotional Learning, Hanen Language training, and Professional Development Coaching. Pebble & Pond's founder, Maryteresa Nocera, in addition with multiple collaborators within the education sector, have designed an exciting and engaging offering of workshops and talk series for events. Maryteresa is also an instructor for education-related courses at Ontario post-secondary institutions.

Supporting Oral Language Skills Through Intentional Practice-2025

This professional session was held virtually in April 2025. All Early Childhood Educators working in Kindergarten at the TCDSB were invited to select one of two sessions. The sessions focused on sharing and delving into strategies such as Strive for Five, making words sparkle, building vocabulary, and more to support oral language development and communication in Kindergarten! Thank you to our collaborators for helping us making this a great event.

Exploring Perspective-Taking Through Sociodramatic Play (2024)

This professional session was an online and in-person hands on learning opportunity for educator teams in the TCDSB. We worked on developing our understanding of oral language development, perspective taking and more. The educator teams had the opportunity to view the webinar online at their convenience. Then we went into the school and modelled the strategies. We created story bins for each of the books we used, each bin had materials to support the read alouds and follow up. The story bins are shared among the classes and can go anywhere, including outside!

Conferences/Motivational Talks/Parent Evenings (2023-2025)

Maryteresa has presented at conferences such as ETFO Spring Conference, Reading for the Love of It Conference, and Read With Me (Parent Session). Maryteresa will also be presenting at The Sowing the Seeds Conference this Spring 2025. Maryteresa has given motivational talks to ECE students from Seneca College, York University Teacher Candidates and more! Maryteresa is also a Sessional Instructor for York University.

Action! Literacy in Play

This session delved into what Early Literacy looks like and sounds like for our youngest learners. Educators explored considerations for intentional and purposeful interactions with students, as well as how to create learning invitations that support literacy skill development through play.

Supporting Emotional Intelligence, Self-Regulation and Social Skills

Understanding social and emotional learning, and self-regulation. Using puppetry to support the development of emotions with young children. In collaboration with ECE / puppet theatre professional, Cristina A. Renda.

Comprehension Begins With a Read Aloud (Literacy session 2)

This session focuses on why is reading comprehension important? What does comprehension look like in Kindergarten or Preschool? How does it all begin with a read aloud? Included in this session are strategies and hands on learning opportunities.

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Literacy (presented for LDAO)

Teaching literacy through a culturally responsive lens. This project was in collaboration with Brenda Pena Sevillano (Literacy Lead, TCDSB). We are continuing to learn ourselves and grow together.

Create Transformative Learning Sessions

Maryteresa has experience creating and facilitating professional learning and motivational talks for events. Designed for pedagogical leaders, whether you are looking to create your own sessions for educators, parents or community groups, Maryteresa will walk you through the strategies to build a community of learners.