Early childhood (EC) environments that are safe and engaging can positively influence developmental outcomes in children. Indeed, the benefits of a high-quality environment for young children are numerous (Kostelnik et al., 2019). The EC classroom is also the primary workplace of EC teachers and much like the children they serve, they can also…

This article explores advocacy practices that support teachers' integration of play and playful learning in their classrooms. Activism is a well-documented transformative aspect of the teaching profession (e.g.), which is recently experiencing heightened political pressures. At the same time, COVID-19 exacerbated existing inequities in early…

In this paper, we present an argument for Practitioner Inquiry (PI). We briefly introduce PI, and we indicate how PI recasts the professional and political role of the Early Years Practitioner (practitioner). At the core of this article is the work of the early childhood pioneer, Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852). Froebel provided principles to…

This fact sheet shares survey findings from directors of 157 child development centers in the District of Columbia (DC) in summer 2023. Findings describe directors' perceptions of direct wage supplements provided to early educators through DC's Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund and implications for their facilities and the child care field.…

Adults, including early childhood teachers and caregivers (i.e., parents, carers, kinship members), have an important role in supporting young children's learning through play in early childhood. However, little consideration has been given to the relationship between these significant adults' perspectives of play and the play experiences of young…

The early years of childhood development are a significant time for the acquisition and application of skills that foster motor development, cognitive understanding, and social well-being. However, there are gaps in knowledge of and practical skills for developing physical literacy within early childhood educator preparation programs. This article…

The authors begin this article with an account of the crises in education in the US today. Curriculum theory is applied to the ideas in the 4th edition of NAEYC's 'developmentally appropriate practices,' and the relationship between the ideas in this edition to current issues is discussed. The authors also present a brief description of democratic…

While it began with a variety of narrative representations of writing personal experiences, since Ellis (2004; Bochner & Ellis, 2016), evocative, performative, and creative nonfiction forms of storying have coalesced to form contemporary autoethnography. For over a decade, Canadian arts education researchers have blazed trails to employ those…

This fact sheet shares 2023 survey and focus group findings from early educators eligible for from the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund in the District of Columbia. Findings describe the perceived of the payments on the child care field. Early educators share that the Pay Equity Fund helps advance fair pay that reflects their credentials…

This article discusses what resilience is and how to think about resilience from intersectional and neuroscience viewpoints. It provides practical resilience-building strategies that educators can apply in the classroom. Understanding resilience from different perspectives will help early childhood educators build resilience capacity in young…

Community partnerships are essential for vitality in neighborhoods. A growing demand exists for training programs to attract and prepare a highly qualified workforce to serve young children and their families. Personnel across different stages of their career can help address our teacher shortages. Service learning is a useful strategy in…

In this article, we provide guidance about when planned ignoring should be considered, questions that may arise, and step-by-step procedures for implementing. A scenario of a kindergarten student is used to illustrate planned ignoring and possible questions regarding implementation in an educational setting. Forms and resources are provided to…

The purpose of this article is to provide early childhood teachers with an approach to classroom-based toilet training for urination when less intensive toilet training methods are unsuccessful. The focus of this article is on urination, but improvements in on-toilet urination may be correlated with an increase in on-toilet defecation (Perez et…

Japanese early childhood teachers use the "mimamoru" approach, in which teachers let children develop their sense of right and wrong in a group-oriented environment where they are accountable to others. Cultural in nature, the "mimamoru" approach is based on teachers' beliefs that children are truly autonomous beings who can…

The dominant sustainability ethos and discourse within early childhood education pursue a normative ontological and epistemological direction aimed at empowering children's agency and thus, building certain predefined moral values, knowledge, and skills. Likewise, mainstream early childhood teacher education programmes strive to build early…