For optimal child development, play time has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child. But access to free time has been reduced due to the impact of one or other factors such as current lifestyle, changes in family pattern, increased academic pressure, and unsafe spaces for children until and…

Although early life experiences of language and parenting are critical for children's development, large home observation studies of both domains are scarce in the psychological literature, presumably because of their considerable costs to the participants and researchers. Here, we used digital audio-recorders to unobtrusively observe 107…

Historically underpinning principles of the English curriculum framework for children from birth to five years explicitly acknowledged a spiritual dimension to children's uniqueness and well-being. Yet spirituality receives scant reference in the discourse of creative learning and teaching. This paper considers the relationship of spirituality to…

Family environment plays a very important role in early child development and the availability of stimulating material in the early years of a child's life is crucial for optimising development. The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory is one of the most widely used measures to assess the quality and quantity of…

This paper outlines the role that Forest School can play in children's development. With over 100 Forest Schools in England, 20 in Scotland and 20 in Wales, this concept is growing across Britain. Forest School involves children having regular contact with woodland over an extended period of time; it allows them to become familiar, and have…

This paper first gives a historical overview of mosaics, discussing mosaic masks made by the Aztecs and floor mosaics made by the Greeks, as well as the Roman mosaics at Pompeii and the Byzantine decorative mosaics exemplified by those at Ravenna. The paper then elaborates on children's mosaic making observed during research conducted between 1986…

This paper begins by outlining four aims of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, namely: (1) to create developmental environments which facilitate interaction between adults and children; (2) to develop adults' sensitivity for children and to increase their level of knowledge of the young child's needs; (3) to give adults the ability to…