Looking for Learning: Mark Making is a full-colour, practical guide to mark making in Early Years settings. It will help you spark children's natural curiosity in seeing what happens when they make marks with their fingers, bodies and toys, as well as materials from nature and from your art supplies. From drawing around shadows and swirling paint in water, to printing animal footprints, Laura England, creator of Little Miss Early Years, provides a wealth of creative ideas for incorporating mark making into all child-led play, both indoors and outside. Developing mark making and building language skills are crucial as young children begin to build their confidence in communicating. This dip-in-and-out book is linked to the Characteristics of Effective Learning and presents real-life examples and images as well as practical pointers. With tips from setting up the environment to the adult's role in this child-led play, Looking for Learning: Mark Making is ideal for all Early Years practitioners searching for accessible ideas for using mark making in their settings. Looking for Learning books are the number one tool for identifying learning opportunities in child-led play. All four books are packed full of tried-and-tested ideas for indoor and outdoor activities, helpful hints and tips and full-colour photographs. Written by Laura England, known as Little Miss Early Years, these are a must-have for any nursery or pre-school.

Looking for Learning: Mark Making is a full-colour, practical guide linked to current policy and the EYFS framework. Laura England, creator of Little Miss Early Years, uses theory, cases studies, real-life images and accessible ideas to inspire child-led learning using mark making. This book will help you spark children's natural curiosity in seeing what happens when they make marks with their fingers, bodies and toys, as well as materials from nature and from your art supplies. From drawing around shadows and swirling paint in water, to printing animal footprints, Laura England, creator of Little Miss Early Years, provides a wealth of creative ideas for incorporating mark making into all child-led play, both indoors and outside. Developing mark making and building language skills are crucial as young children begin to build their confidence in communicating. This dip-in-and-out book is linked to the Characteristics of Effective Learning and presents real-life examples and images as well as practical pointers. With tips from setting up the environment to the adult's role in this child-led play, Looking for Learning: Mark Making is ideal for all Early Years practitioners searching for accessible ideas for using mark making in their settings. Looking for Learning books are the number one tool for identifying learning opportunities in child-led play. All four books are packed full of tried-and-tested ideas for indoor and outdoor activities, helpful hints and tips and full-colour photographs. Written by Laura England, known as Little Miss Early Years, these are a must-have for any nursery or pre-school.

Through the simple act of drawing—whether it’s doodling or creating detailed illustrations—embrace your inner voice and unlock the power of your intuitive intelligence. Do you remember being a child and the pure joy brought on by a box of crayons and piece of paper? Do you still find yourself sketching away every time you pick up a pencil? That’s because drawing is a natural impulse that stays with us throughout our entire lives. Whether you are doodling in a notebook or carving your name in the sand, this simple, stream-of-consciousness activity is a window into your deepest, truest self. In Making Marks, you’ll learn that every single line, smudge, or spot you make contains visual imagery with the power to heal the past, develop your sense of empathy, and reveal solutions and answers you never realized before. You don’t need to have any specific experience or skills to benefit from this book; through simple steps and interactive exercises, people of all ages and artistic abilities can gain insight and learn to reconnect with their creative selves. With beautiful black-and-white and full-color illustrations, Making Marks is a powerful guide to self-discovery. Tap into your unconsciousness as artist and spiritual guide Elaine Clayton takes you on a journey of the soul.

Drawing is not a talent, it's a skill anyone can learn. This is the philosophy of drawing instructor Brent Eviston based on his more than twenty years of teaching. He has tested numerous types of drawing instruction from centuries old classical techniques to contemporary practices and designed an approach that combines tried and true techniques with innovative methods of his own. Now, he shares his secrets with this book that provides the most accessible, streamlined, and effective methods for learning to draw.

Taking the reader through the entire process, beginning with the most basic skills to more advanced such as volumetric drawing, shading, and figure sketching, this book contains numerous projects and guidance on what and how to practice. It also features instructional images and diagrams as well as finished drawings. With this book and a dedication to practice, anyone can learn to draw!

Looking for Learning: Loose Parts won "Highly Commended" in the Creative Play Awards 2019 for Teaching Resources. Looks for Learning: Loose Parts is a full-colour, practical guide to inspire child-led learning that's linked to to current policy and the EYFS framework. As each child progresses through their learning journey, Early Years practitioners are expected to identify and understand what learning is taking place in every activity that a child is involved in. Laura England, creator of Little Miss Early Years, uses her wealth of experience as an Early Years teacher to explore the learning that takes place when a child is tinkering with loose parts, including tinker trays filled with nuts and bolts, pompoms and play dough to combine, construct and investigate with. Loose parts are natural or synthetic materials and resources that have no pre-planned use; they can be moved, combined with other resources, lined up, deconstructed and constructed again. They can capture a child's imagination, curiosity and creativity as they play with and manipulate them. This dip-in-and-out book is linked to the Characteristics of Effective Learning and presents case studies, real-life images and practical pointers to explore their use. With tips for setting up the environment to the adult's role in this child-led play, Looking For Learning: Loose Parts is ideal for all Early Years practitioners searching for accessible ideas for using loose parts in their settings. Looking for Learning books are the number one tool for identifying learning opportunities in child-led play. All four books are packed full of tried-and-tested ideas for indoor and outdoor activities, helpful hints and tips and full-colour photographs. Written by Laura England, known as Little Miss Early Years, these are a must-have for any nursery or pre-school.

In The Ultimate Guide to Mark Making in the Early Years, internationally renowned teacher trainer Sue Cowley takes practitioners on a journey: the journey young children embark upon when they learn their first words and make their first marks. Filled with practical activities and honest advice, this must-have guide presents a wide range of creative approaches to developing mark making and building language skills in the Early Years. With ideas to build finger strength and eye-to-hand coordination, activities for understanding the concept of symbols and signs and strategies for building confidence in reading and writing including talk and drama, you'll find a variety of techniques to develop children's key skills and motivation. Sue also includes full-colour photographs and examples of early marks to illustrate how young children's communication skills develop. There are tips for getting boys engaged in writing and a companion website with downloadable resources and useful links. The Ultimate Guide to Mark Making in the Early Years is an invaluable source of inspiration for all those working with children aged three to seven.

To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned. Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.