Passionate about supporting young children and eager to make a difference?  Would you like to confidently start a job with a local early childhood center?  Ellsworth Adult & Community Education is working with partners to develop an Early Childhoood Education Micro-Credential.  This certificate offers the skills, knowledge and experience to start a job in a center!  

Our micro-credential is a standards-based credential, so you demonstrate skills and knowledge in a variety of ways, including past learning and experience.  You earn three badges that include building a work readiness and communications foundation, early childhood education certificates, and hands-on experience in the classroom. 

Badge 1 Communications for the Early Childhood Professional, Work Readiness for the Early Childhood Professional, Pediatric First Aid & CPR, Mandated Reporting and more to prepare for Badge 2.  Most of Badge 1 is achieved in-person in classes scheduled at Ellsworth Adult & Community Education. 

Badge 2 You’ll earn certificate options documenting your knowledge and skills to work as part of a team to provide professional, safe, healthy, and developmentally appropriate programs in partnership with families.  All of these certificates are available self-paced online.  

Badge 3 offers hands-on experience demonstrating that you can apply the knowledge and skills in a local facility.  These sessions are set up upon completion of Badge 2. 

Give us a call to learn more about the micro-credential and the opportunities. The in-person sessions are on Wednesdays during the day.  

Renata Lahner of The Lahner Group, is a licensed insurance agent with over 18 years' experience helping individuals find the right Medicare  coverage based on their medical and financial needs.  She will explain how Medicare works, what it covers, what it does not cover, details in differences between supplemental and advantage plans, and much more. 

The Lahner Group is a Maine-based Medicare and insurance brokerage primarily serving clients in Maine, Florida, Arizona, and California. The goal of The Lahner Group is to bring the best resources and information to those of the Medicare population, taking into consideration each person’s unique situation, including their health and financial needs. The Lahner Group we strive to assist and connect Medicare recipients to the most appropriate benefits provider in their state, and to earn and preserve the trust of their clients and partners.

This is a live online class using ZOOM.

Soups made  with love can be a nourishing, flavorful and  inexpensive way to feed your family.  In this series, we will share techniques, tools, ingredients and tips learned through years of cooking for family and friends.  You’ll learn techniques about preparing ingredients, bringing them all together and tips on storage and serving.  A focus of the workshops will be the use of affordable and locally available ingredients, and adapting recipes to a variety of tastes and dietary requirements. Handouts, recipes and a small container of soup for your family to try will be provided.

Part I-Blended Soups

Blended soups are a great way to use a variety of vegetables you have on hand.  In this workshop we’ll prepare curried butternut squash soup.  We’ll share lots of ideas about ingredient options to make soups creamy and  about herbs and spices that will create a rich flavor to have your family coming back for more.  

You accumulate assets over time and may forget to look at the big picture.  For example, you start a small retirement account at your first job and name a beneficiary at that time; you buy a piece of land while you’re still single; you inherit money and deposit it to your checking account.  When you die, each of those assets will follow different distribution paths. 

“Estate Planning” is about getting documents prepared to plan for your future AND about making sure you’ve got your i’s dotted and your t’s crossed.  You don’t have to be rich or old to go through this process.    

Join Rebecca Sargent and Elizabeth Young, with Jones, Kuriloff & Sargent, LLC, to learn about the documents and considerations.  There’s the financial power of attorney (i.e., who's going to pay your bills when you no longer can); medical power of attorney (i.e., who will make medical decisions if you’re incapacitated); and your Will (i.e., what happens to your assets when you die). 

This workshop is for people who want to learn the basics about estate planning.  If you have put off thinking about these issues because you don't know where to start or what questions to ask, this workshop is for you!  This is an in-person class.

So we have cookie swaps, but how about going healthy and sharing ideas about how to dress up a salad?  Let's learn from each other about creating dressings that will make you and your loved ones look forward to eating healthy greens and vegetables! 

Whether you're new to homemade salad dressings or just love to share cooking ideas, this workshop is for you.  Annie Sargent will bring some of her favorite recipes and tips and we hope if you have some favorites you will do the same. 

Are you interested in feeling more confident in communicating with others and on a team?  Teamwork and communication in the 21st century are skills that direct service employers want their employees to have. 

This 8-week, in-person course is designed to introduce the components of the skills of listening actively, strengthening relationships and focusing on solutions through communication, and to provide an opportunity to practice and demonstrate these skills.  There will be lots of listening, responding, teamwork, and talking about problems and solutions.  This course is a component of the Early Childhood Education Micro-credential, but anyone can benefit!  This is an in-person class.  No class 11/22/23; makeup class, if needed, 12/06/23.

Emily Nash brings many years of experience teaching adult education and has strong skills in designing curriculum to meet the real needs of students. She’s respectful and sensitive to the needs of adult learners and is always a good listening ear. She loves to read, and between stints as an adult education teacher, she is a seasonal professional landscaper. Emily is a student advisor, and teaches English, HiSET prep and Multilingual Learners. 

If you are interested in this class please attend the Early Childhood Education Micro-Credential Information Session or call 207.664.7110 for an appointment to meet with a student advisor. 

Experience the joy of singing songs and strumming ukuleles together Ohana Style, a community-based experience with family and friends. Ohana means family in the Hawaiian language.

This is an inter-generational peer-learning approach to music making. This class is open to all levels, from beginner to ukulele wizard. Participants register as a pair (one child 6 or older and one responsible adult-parent, grandparent, ‘auntie’). The pairs will be able to practice the songs and learning materials at home and help each other learn.  We will draw from a range of folk songs and popular music. Participants are encouraged to offer suggestions of songs that would be good for our group to learn.

Each participant must have a ukulele. All kinds of ukuleles are acceptable (soprano, concert, tenor, baritone, U bass). If you aren’t sure what you have, we can figure it out in class. Come join us for ukulele fun. Aloha!

Make-up date 

This 1.5 hour class covers the basics of growing common kitchen herbs like oregano, thyme, basil, and cilantro. We will learn how to preserve herbs through drying and freezing, and how to utilize culinary herbs in various recipes. This class will be interactive with time to share ideas and ask questions! All participants receive a recipe booklet with recipes for herbs covered in class.   This is a live online class using ZOOM 

Make up date, if needed 03/14/23.

Nicole Gurreri is a professional horticulturist with a background in public health and nutrition. She enjoys meeting new people and building community within her courses.