Presents strategies to make planning-through-play activities a fun and integral part of the preschool developmental curriculum. Strategies are influenced by a Piagetian approach and an information processing approach that focuses on development of decision making. Specific suggestions are based on a model preschool program in Brookline,…

Maintains that many early childhood educators are apt to practice nice thinking rather critical thinking when, in fact, the latter would clear their heads and inform practice. This position is supported by examples of teachers' uses of such terms as "home-school cooperation,""planning," and "curriculum." (BB)

Play-skills training, provided to eight Zambian elementary children with intellectual disabilities, resulted in more substantial increases in interaction between subjects and nondisabled children when coupled with teacher prompts, compared to training alone. Having a nondisabled child take the initiator role increased and maintained social…

Describes a preschool curriculum unit that includes activities designed to help prepare young children for medical treatment, visits to hospitals, and health care. (BB)

Reviews the way in which story dramatization stimulates children's development. Discusses five steps in the process of story dramatization. (BB)

This special section contains articles on outdoor activities in early childhood programs which can be used as training materials for directors and teachers. Articles discuss the value of outdoor experiences; a playground evaluation instrument; attitudes about outdoor play; ideas forteachers to stimulate children's outdoor play; and strategies to…

Explores the ideas of teacher Vivian Paley about social justice in the kindergarten classroom. Reviews her book "You Can't Say You Can't Play." Once kindergartners begin to grapple with questions of rejection and exclusion, Paley extends the debate to older children to encourage schoolwide conversations about justice and democracy. (SLD)

Suggests ways in which parents, teachers, and caregivers can deal with young children's concerns and fears about war. These include assuring children that adults will take care of them; limiting adult television viewing; knowing how much to tell children about war; being good listeners; monitoring children's war play; and helping children deal…

Explored interrelationships among day-care experience, temperament, and preschoolers' social behaviors in a peer play laboratory. Found that sex predicted both aggressive and prosocial behaviors, and daycare inhibited socialization for some children. Findings suggest that variables of temperament and day-care experience are important to consider…

Compared the influence of free play and work lessons on kindergartners' cognitive co-construction as a means of testing the value of a sociocultural model of early childhood education. Measures of active participation, intersubjective cooperation, and cognitive distancing showed that both child-related and situation-related factors influenced…

Affective and behavioural indicators of the effects of schooling, and of other interventions, might be more important than cognitive indicators, particularly in the long run and considering the urgent need for civil societies. Examples are provided of the statistical properties of affective and behavioural indicators, and of their current use in…

The traditional approach for teaching physical education in early elementary school has emphasized "fun" activities and many low-organized games. For very young children, ages three through about eight years of age, the curricular time that has been used for low-organized and competitive games can be substituted with more developmentally…

This study examined child inclusion issues and training marriage and family therapists (MFTs) to treat children. This modified Delphi study utilized a panel of experts, and gathered data through questionnaires and qualitative interviews. Panelists believe children should participate in family therapy sessions for both child and adult problems,…

A preschool program in rural Bangladesh was evaluated in terms of cognitive and social outcomes of children. The preschools provided a half-day program, 6 days a week, with free play, stories, and instruction in literacy and math. Four hundred children between 4.5 and 6.5 years were assessed, half in preschools and half in villages where there…

Educational buildings and grounds can provide a supportive and stimulating environment for the learning process as well as contribute to greater community needs. These issues were addressed at an international conference entitled "Making Space: Architecture and Design for Young Children". Described here are the importance of outdoor…