Sanja Todorovic RECE, BA

Sanja joined the Toronto Metropolitan University Early Learning Centre (ELC) laboratory school team in 2001, shortly after graduating from the York University and Seneca College joint program in Psychology and Early Childhood Education.

Her educational philosophy and practice are grounded in her own free-range childhood experience. She is passionate about following children’s natural curiosity, and believes that children learn best through self-directed play and active exploration of their environment. As an educator and co-learner, Sanja observes, listens to, documents, facilitates and shares the children’s learning processes with their families.

During her rich and long career at the ELC, Sanja has worked with multi-age, preschool, preschool/kindergarten, and toddler age groups. Over the years, she facilitated implementation of the laboratory school’s many pedagogical approaches inspired by Project Approach, Emergent Curriculum, outcome based education, Reggio-inspired approach, inquiry-based learning, and Environmental Approach. Sanja has collaboratively developed and presented workshops on a variety of topics for Early Childhood Studies students and the ECE community. Recently, Sanja co-authored with Dr. Nicole Land the article Getting to Know Movement Differently: Nurturing communicative, relational, and collective movement pedagogies with toddlers (external link, opens in new window) , which is approved for publication in the Journal of Early Childhood Research. 

Some of Sanja’s ongoing, as well as most recent, interests and passions include: loose parts play; nature and outdoor education; educators as co-learners in partnership with children, families, student educators and colleagues; learning environments from children’s perspective; and Linguistically Appropriate Practice (LAP).