The camp community is plagued by various stereotypes, including that camps and their staff are excessively happy, of poor quality, focused on partying and debauchery, scary, or overly strict. These cliches are perpetuated by the mass media. Each stereotype is discussed, and strategies for countering them during staff training are presented. (TD)

Maintains that staff guidance in early childhood and child care programs can be optimized when it functions within the guidelines of developmentally appropriate practices in regards to staff age, stage appropriateness, and individual appropriateness. Differences in individual staff temperament and cognitive styles are considered. (BB)

Describes successful practices and procedures for designing effective infant care programs for children born to teenage parents, including supervisory support for nurturing caregiver-child relationships, continuous staff training in infant development, low teacher-child ratios, active parent involvement, a child development curriculum, and…

Suggests that a better understanding of effective methods for teaching adults will contribute to a paradigm shift in training of child care center staff based on developmentally appropriate practices for adults. Details seven recommendations for improving staff training, and contrasts appropriate and inappropriate practice in the areas of…

Describes the experience of a conservative, suburban school system making the change from traditional classroom instruction to more developmentally appropriate practices. Discusses the planning and implementation process, focusing particularly on the issues of skills acquisition, assessment, staff development, and parent involvement. (TJQ)

Presents reasons and specific "how to" information for increasing the comfort level and learning possibilities for toddlers. Notes that toddler-sensitive child care recognizes that toddlers are distinct from infants and from preschoolers in terms of developmental characteristics. Lists characteristics of toddlers, ways to make child-care…

Reviews two evaluation tools pertaining to quality of school-age child care: "The School-Age Care Environment Rating Scale" and "The Pilot Standards for School-Age Quality." Both scales were designed to be used for staff self-evaluation, in staff training, by staff who supervise and monitor programs, and by researchers…

To support science inquiry in preschools, the Education Development Center in Newton, Massachusetts, developed three teacher's guides to help teachers identify science-rich questions embedded in children's play and use those questions to engage the children in age-appropriate science inquiry. This article follows three Head Start teacher teams as…