This practical guide to infant-child day care offers suggestions for teaching in three areas: basic care, free play and guided learning. The Basic Care section contains information on dressing, eating, and other routines. The Free Play section discusses arranging materials, fostering creative and conceptual learning, and supervising group play…

This paper briefly reports on a series of studies that explore the relationship between symbolic or pretend modes of reasoning and cognitive processes which underlie conservation of quantity. It is hypothesized that the mental transformations which the child makes while playing a game of make-believe, namely, the transformation from his original…

This Early Childhood Curriculum Manual, one of four manuals based on approaches developed in the "Celebration in Learning '76" program, provides guidelines for block play activity to adults who work with young children. The first chapter introduces unit blocks, explores some of the problems teachers commonly face in the block area,…

Doll play activities were used to measure attitude change in 270 black, Mexican American, and white students who participated in a multicultural awareness project. The children, aged second through sixth grade, visited People Place Multicultural Center, where they experienced six different settings simulating the cultures of Africa, China,…

As part of a larger 1-year examination of the relationship between television viewing patterns and spontaneous play in nursery school, this study focuses on (1) the correlation between children's television viewing patterns in the home and their level of aggression in nursery school, and (2) specific factors within family settings that might…

Play intervention as an adjunct treatment for accelerating peer social interaction of a preschool isolate was examined. Teacher reinforcement of indoor play equipment utilization was employed as a procedure to increase an asocial four-year-old female subject's social interaction with peers. Touching peers, using peer names, verbalizations,…

This document on mother-infant interaction reports differences found between mothers in a parent education program and a control group. The parent education program provided two different informal methods of stimulating mothers' awareness of their influence on their children's learning and development. Both programs stressed maternal responsivity…

In this study, free play with toys having unambiguous functions was examined to test the hypothesis that a basic cognitive metamorphosis is associated with the new competences displayed in children at about 12 months. Functional play was observed in 64 children at 9 1/2, 11 1/2, 13 1/2, and 15 1/2 months of age. Six sets of toys with 36…

This paper briefly reviews studies of infant-peer and infant-mother interaction, and describes a study which compares the effects of mothers and peers on toddler play. Twenty-six toddlers (13 males and 13 females) aged 21 to 24 months were observed in two social situations each: playing with his/her mother, and playing with a familiar peer (after…

Although the material in this booklet is specifically designed for National Park Service employees, the subjects covered apply to all oral interpretive programs. The first chapter considers researching and writing the script and music and dance in the script; chapter 2 discusses settings, including speaking positions, decor, and properties;…

The changes in preschool children's effective play, affective involvement, and social interaction across a 6-month period of nursery school attendance were examined. Videotaping of the children's activities was done in January/February (pretesting) and May/June (posttesting). The result was a total of approximately 40 hours of tape covering many…

This conference paper attempts to describe some of the ecological conditions under which children's social behavior can be, and perhaps is, organized. Thirteen preschool children between 2-1/2 and 5-1/2 years of age, participated in several experiments with confederates acting as peers and with novel as well as familiar toys. Four behavior…

This study extends some recently acquired knowledge about the development of visual imagery as an associative-learning strategy. Incorporating the present findings into the data already gathered, it appears that as a facilitator, sentence production precedes imagery generation since preoperational children benefit from instructions to engage in…

The impact dolls have on children's formation of self-concepts is a relevant area for research by interpersonal communication theorists because dolls are admired objects, external expressions of internal convictions, and everyday objects that provide meaningful experiences for children. The more positive qualities of traditional dolls help…

An experimental preschool was set up to study the effect of mixing children differing in SES and race on racial awareness and interaction. It was hypothesized that racial self-selection could be explained in terms of SES level and that interracial contact when different SES children were included would serve to counteract racial stereotypes and…