These designers approaches their physics lesson design task from the viewpoint of play. The designs, all having strong gaming influences, aim to be flexible enough to take advantage of the experience and ideas of a teacher working with a standard curriculum, yet interesting enough for students to want to continue exploring resources on their own…

Explores young children's mark-making in a domestic play setting. Suggests mark-making indicates aspects of the relationship between semiotic and conceptual development. Focuses on contexts in which mark-making occurs and on the authenticity of the learning events in which children participate. (DLH)

Examined 2-year-olds' language acquisition with an emphasis on the agency and intentionality of the child. Concluded that development depends on the child's expression of intentionality by actions (performance), the essential tension between the child's engagement and effort, and the integration of linguistic, cognitive, and social aspects of the…

This article summarizes findings of "What Grown-ups Understand about Child Development," a national survey to gauge America's knowledge about child development. The findings suggest a need for more and better information on topics such as expectations of young children at different ages, theories on spanking and spoiling, and choices of…

Helping young children see themselves as learners and movers requires mutual cooperation and support among teachers, families, and children. Physical educators at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, in collaboration with pre-K teachers at two local schools, created the Tots in Action program for that purpose. The authors tell how the…

This guide is intended to help all caregiving adults--parents, grandparents, guardians, care providers, friends, preschool teachers, and other educators--to make the best decisions for and about young children in the early childhood years before the start of formal schooling. The guide aims to help caregivers learn how to: enhance their…

This source book is designed to give parents, teachers, and other caregivers of young children more than 200 sample activities for children that are fun, easy, and educationally sound. Chapter 1 introduces principles of early childhood programs, the "home-school connection," and tips on how to communicate with children. This chapter also gives an…

Intended to facilitate communication between parents and child care providers through creative problem solving, this guide explains young children's normal developmental behaviors that frequently cause concern, and identifies factors parents and caregivers can control in the environment that may have an immediate positive response from a child.…

This paper traces the history of the toy library, a facility or program created to loan toys to children, parents, child care providers, teachers, and play therapists. Types of toy lending libraries are the community toy library, the supplemental toy library, the cooperative neighborhood toy library, and the mobile toy library. The first toy…

This resource kit endeavors to help educators focus on particular aspects of the development of a child's self-concept by using selected artworks from the J. B. Speed Art Museum (Kentucky) collection as a starting point for discussion and examination of child development. Young people will explore the experiences that will affect future choices…

Prepared as part of an effort to attain minimum quality standards for Brazilian day care centers, this document focuses on day-to-day provision of day care services for children from birth to 6 years old as well as broader day care administrative concerns. The first version of this document was prepared as part of a training project for day care…

Conservation is a concern for all cultures, and children are familiar with this concept because of recycling in their homes and home towns. The World Saver Center, an example of the thematic approach to learning, is designed to allow children to experiment with concepts of conservation in a familiar setting. The center, designed to resemble an…

A study examined the effects of specific literacy-related activities in preschool on subsequent language and literacy-related knowledge. All of the subjects were eligible for Head Start or comparable programs, with half of the classrooms being Head Start classrooms. When the subjects were 3 years old, a total of 63 children were visited in 48…

Learning can occur in a natural way when parents serve as models to their child, demonstrating how to learn, facilitating the learning process, and guiding the learner. With a teacher's guidance, parents can improve their understanding of their child's learning. Teachers can encourage parents to share wordless picture books, books with predictable…

SHAPES--an acronym for the South Plains Child Care Management Services (SpCCMS) Helping, Assisting and Preparing Educators and Staff--is also the name of a preschool readiness curriculum that is being developed for use by administrators and teachers. The first phase of the curriculum development consists of the publication of five books to be used…