Enhance Your Skills With Children’s Certificates
Do you love sharing the joy of skiing or riding with kids? Are you looking to cultivate families as regular clients? Lessons for children are an especially important part of every snowsports school’s business and vital to the future of our industry. PSIA-AASI specialist credentials are assessment-based certificate programs. Instructors must be at least PSIA-AASI Level I-certified to work toward children’s certificates.
Children’s Specialist Levels
CS Level I
The CS 1 certificate affirms that the instructor is qualified to teach children in the beginner/novice through intermediate zones on beginner/novice terrain (typically identified as “green”) and intermediate (blue) terrain.
CS Level II
The CS 2 certificate qualifies an instructor to teach children through the advanced zone and on expert (black) terrain.
Children’s Specialist Resources
Below is everything you need to succeed at all levels of Children’s Specialist credentialing.
Children’s MANUALS and guides
Teaching Children Snowsports is free to members. Members may purchase print manuals, additional print materials, and other digital manuals in the PSIA-AASI online store.
Teaching Children Snowsports
“What makes a great children’s instructor?” Teaching Children Snowsports answers this question while highlighting the nuances of teaching children versus adults. Whether you’re an inexperienced instructor or seasoned veteran, Teaching Children Snowsports has something for everyone.
Teaching Children Snowsports, Alpine Field Guide
This guide features 140 games, drills, and activities arranged by skier level and alpine skiing fundamental and is applicable to all age groups. It’s small enough to fit in your pocket (or available digitally) and includes access to ever-evolving playlists of supporting video.
Kids’ Activity and Coloring Book
The Kids’ Activity Book uses games, puzzles, and coloring to teach kids how to have fun and be safe on the mountain. It offers resorts, instructors, and parents a resource that engages children in learning and play to build an emotional connection to snowsports.
Scholarships Available to Support Your Certificate Journey
The PSIA-AASI Specialist Track Scholarship can help you on your journey to adding a Children’s Specialist certificate to your resume. Recipients can also apply scholarship funds toward deepening their knowledge base by attending an event to improve skiing or riding and teaching abilities. The application period closes at the end of October each year and awarded scholarships must be used during the winter season in which they are granted.
A Chat with Inspirational Children’s Educator Alison Cummings
Alison Cummings, a longtime member of the PSIA-AASI Eastern Education Staff, has represented and helped shape excellence in snowsports education for more than 40 years. A retired alpine and children’s examiner, Alison was a member of PSIA’s Junior Education Team (JETs) which, in the 1990s, helped develop some of the association’s earliest resources and training protocols for children’s instructors. Our member magazine, 32 Degrees, published a piece sharing the insights she gleaned throughout her extraordinary career in snowsports.