More than 100 classroom activities to help children learn about and care for the earth Educate young children about the environment through experience and play. These activities encourage children to develop a sense of wonder, curiosity, and joy for nature. Each chapter focuses on a common and important environmental topic—from waste reduction and recycling to air quality, weather and climate change, and energy reduction—and provides information to help you present these topics to children in developmentally appropriate ways. Early Childhood Activities for a Greener Earth will help you excite children, engage families, and encourage your community to be green. Early Childhood Activities for a Greener Earth is a 2014 Teachers’ Choice Award for the Classroom winner!

This resource helps educators and caregivers understand why all species of animals are valuable to children's early learning.

Sustainability education has typically centered the human-focusing on the changes and paradigm shifts needed to ensure a sustainable future for humans. Yet nonhuman beings, specifically plants and animals, are and have always been central to our lives, prompting wonder, curiosity, sensitivity and awe, as well as being important in their own right. In Multispecies Thinking in the Classroom and Beyond: Teaching for a Sustainable Future the contributors discuss the importance of seeking a more inclusive, more just, and ultimately a more hopeful future. They consider how everyday, entanglements with plants and animals can challenge us and expand our worldview. The contributors consider the importance of reciprocal relationships with plants and animals and provide practical strategies, approaches, and examples of how that looks in practice in all types of educational settings.

This book provides a refreshing look at kindergarten teachers’ practical knowledge and their context-specific reasoning of the usefulness of constructivism from a culturally emic perspective. Examining the similarities and differences between constructivism and Confucianism from both instructional and moral perspectives, it provides a unique contribution to teaching and teacher education. An understanding of the compatibility between constructivism and Confucianism is valuable in cross-cultural exchange and learning, and as such the book is a great source for educational researchers in a time of globalization.

The Block Plan Preschool is the ultimate tool for parents to use in bringing in free play and reducing structure in children's lives while still making sure they are challenged, inspired and ready for school! The Parent Handbook is an abridged version of The Block Plan Preschool: Preparing Your Child at Home for Kindergarten. It includes discussion of early education philosophy, kindergarten readiness, how to make the curriculum work for your family, and themes and book lists for each month. Perfect for taking to the library to collect books from the book list or giving to caregivers or grandparents so they understand your parenting philosophy, the Parent Handbook is printed in a convenient, trade paperback format. The flexible structure of The Block Plan Preschool helps children learn all they need to know before entering public school, but allows them to explore and learn at their own pace and according to their own interests. Best of all, the lessons are fun for both parents and kids and helps the whole family play together! Parents are a child¿s most important teachers and The Block Plan Preschool is an empowering resource to help them improve their child¿s early education, reclaim the simplicity and freedom of childhood, and enhance family relationships!

From the author of the New York Times bestseller that defined nature-deficit disorder and launched the international children-and-nature movement, Vitamin N (for “nature”) is a complete prescription for connecting with the power and joy of the natural world right now, with 500 activities for children and adults Dozens of inspiring and thought-provoking essays Scores of informational websites Down-to-earth advice In his landmark work Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv was the first to bring widespread attention to the alienation of children from the natural world, coining the term nature-deficit disorder and outlining the benefits of a strong nature connection--from boosting mental acuity and creativity to reducing obesity and depression, from promoting health and wellness to simply having fun. That book “rivaled Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring” (the Cincinnati Enquirer), was “an absolute must-read for parents” (the Boston Globe), and “an inch-thick caution against raising the fully automated child” (the New York Times). His follow-up book, The Nature Principle, addressed the needs of adults and outlined a “new nature movement and its potential to improve the lives of all people no matter where they live” (McClatchy Newspapers).Vitamin N is a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive, and practical guidebook for the whole family and the wider community, including tips not only for parents eager to share nature with their kids but also for those seeking nature-smart schools, medical professionals, and even careers. It is a dose of pure inspiration, reminding us that looking up at the stars or taking a walk in the woods is as exhilarating as it is essential, at any age.

This book introduces the concept of soil security and its five dimensions: Capability, Capital, Condition, Connectivity and Codification. These five dimensions make it possible to understand soil's role in delivering ecosystem services and to quantify soil resource by measuring, mapping, modeling and managing it. Each dimension refers to a specific aspect: contribution to global challenges (Capability), value of the soil (Capital), current state of the soil (Condition), how people are connected to the soil (Connectivity) and development of good policy (Codification). This book considers soil security as an integral part of meeting the ongoing challenge to maintain human health and secure our planet's sustainability. The concept of soil security helps to achieve the need to maintain and improve the world’s soil for the purpose of producing food, fiber and freshwater, and contributing to energy and climate sustainability. At the same time it helps to maintain biodiversity and protects ecosystem goods and services.