Teachers and administrators are faced with a basic question when planning for a school year: how should the students be grouped when coming to school? Should students of similar age be together or should students be assigned to multi-age classrooms at the elementary school level? If the multi-age method is chosen, how will academic progress be…

Australian Aboriginal culture is rich, complex and fascinating. The art of Aboriginal Australians shows a great understanding of the earth and its creatures. This article presents an activity which has been designed as a multi-age project. The learning outcomes have been written to suit both younger and older students. Aspects of the project could…

Maria Montessori envisioned an educational approach that could serve as a transformative agent for peaceful and positive change in the world; in fact, she dedicated her adult life to perfecting teaching methods and strategies congruent with that vision. Montessorians today continue to share that vision, but they also wrestle with modern realities.…

This ethnography drew on Vygotsky's (1986, 1978) sociocultural theory of development to understand social emotional learnings of young children. The unique K-8 span of circle group--coupled with intentional activities--provided the rich context for language and interactions between students. Examining a school with a mature philosophy and…

This article introduces an empirical analysis of the potentials and contradictions of a "narrative playworld intervention" aimed at changing the pedagogical practices of a Finnish mixed-age elementary school classroom in spring 2004. In the playworld, students and teachers explore different phenomena by taking on the roles of characters…

In recent years, interest has increased in preschool programs that promote low-income children's early learning and development. Although research in this area has focused mostly on 4-year-olds, a growing number of 3-year-olds attend publicly funded preschool. In fact, in Head Start--a federally funded early childhood education program--the…

This report presents exploratory impact findings for 3-year-olds from the Head Start CARES demonstration, a large-scale randomized controlled trial implemented in Head Start centers for one academic year across the country. The study was designed primarily to test the effects of the enhancements on 4-year-olds, but it also provides an opportunity…

Preschool has long been viewed as a way to promote low-income children's early learning and development. Some promising classroom-based strategies have been found to enhance preschool children's social, emotional, and behavioral competencies. Most of this research has focused on 4-year-olds, even as a growing number of 3-year-olds attend Head…

For a great portion of the history of the American education system, multiage education was the norm in one-room schoolhouses throughout the nation. The current graded, curriculum-centered approach in the U.S. appeared during the mid-nineteenth century with the rapid economic development and massive immigration into the country. Concurrently, some…

Postdevelopmental perspectives in early childhood education and care increasingly reference alternative ways of understanding learning, growth and development in early learning. Drawing on these ideas, this paper examines research findings which focused on early childhood teachers' understandings of multiage grouping. The findings suggested that…

This article demonstrates how the use of creative movement and dance offers effective instructional strategies to meet the diverse learning needs of students in an inclusive classroom. Every day in one multi-age, fully inclusive classroom, students are meaningfully engaged in learning through movement--they move to learn science, social studies,…

As the number of immigrants and refugees grows in the United States, the linguistic and cultural diversity that comprises the middle grades classroom continues to increase. Given the need for resources and specific attention to linguistic and cultural strategies for these populations, this three-year ethnographic study examined the schooling…

Cross-age peer mentoring is a somewhat unique and different approach to mentoring than the better-known adult-with-youth mentoring model. In cross-age mentoring programs (CAMPs) the mentor is an older youth, typically high school-aged, who is paired or matched with an elementary or middle school-aged child. Meetings almost always take place in the…

Multi-age classrooms feature the purposeful grouping of students from two or more grade levels in order to form communities of learners. During the past 40 years, multi-age education has been examined in literature and research in many different ways and contexts. In the subject area of visual art, however, little literature can be found that…

Describes looping or multiage, multiyear teaching at two elementary schools (Rocklin and Sierra) in the Rocklin Unified School District in Pacer County, California. Includes several Internet sources about looping. (PKP)