Vignettes focusing on emergent curriculum

Learn how to connect your curriculum planning to children's interests and thinking. With this book, educators will discover a systematic way for using documentation to design curriculum that emerges from children's inquiries, what they wonder, and what they want to understand. Get strategies for designing a classroom environment at the start of the year to facilitate emergent inquiry curriculum. Each chapter guides teachers to document and reflect on their thinking through each of the five phases of a cycle of inquiry process, including observing, interpreting the meaning of the play they see, and developing questions to engage children.

Helps providers implement proven child-centered curricular practices while meeting early learning standards.

Emergent curriculum in early childhood education refers to the process of using the spontaneity generated in the daily life of the children and adults in the program, along with teacher planning, to develop the curriculum. This book presents a story about a year in the life of a fictional child care center as a context for the discussion of emergent curriculum in 22 chapters arranged to cover events sequentially throughout the school year. Chapter 1 introduces the fictional child care setting. Chapters 2 through 21 alternately provide staff meeting topics, ideas, and examples of guided discussions; and ideas and discussions of class activities, field trips, and visits to various sites. Chapter 22, "Epilogue: Talking It Over," contains reflections on the activities and learning during the year by staff and students. Contains a section of notes for each chapter and 23 suggestions for further reading. (DR)

"Guidance for implementing play-based emergent curriculum in preschool classrooms, gaining teachers' and families' support, and using emergent curriculum to build school readiness"--

The long-awaited new edition of NAEYC's book Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs is here, fully revised and updated! Since the first edition in 1987, it has been an essential resource for the early childhood education field. Early childhood educators have a professional responsibility to plan and implement intentional, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that promote the social and emotional development, physical development and health, cognitive development, and general learning competencies of each child served. But what is developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)? DAP is a framework designed to promote young children's optimal learning and development through a strengths-based approach to joyful, engaged learning. As educators make decisions to support each child's learning and development, they consider what they know about (1) commonality in children's development and learning, (2) each child as an individual (within the context of their family and community), and (3) everything discernible about the social and cultural contexts for each child, each educator, and the program as a whole. This latest edition of the book is fully revised to underscore the critical role social and cultural contexts play in child development and learning, including new research about implicit bias and teachers' own context and consideration of advances in neuroscience. Educators implement developmentally appropriate practice by recognizing the many assets all young children bring to the early learning program as individuals and as members of families and communities. They also develop an awareness of their own context. Building on each child's strengths, educators design and implement learning settings to help each child achieve their full potential across all domains of development and across all content areas.

Pre-K Stories offers a lively exploration of how one classroom community played with and collaboratively engaged in authorship. Through everyday stories, readers are invited to witness and engage with classroom practices that honor young children’s brilliance and build on their questions, interests, and strengths. Weaving together literacy, language arts, social studies, science, mathematics, and more, the authors illustrate how curriculum can be authentically and meaningfully integrated. They also offer a unique perspective on the development of language and literacy practices by framing children’s play narratives as the foundation from which rich curricula can grow. Pre-K Stories allows readers to experience the rich cadence of a classroom, while also coming to understand important theories that undergird early childhood teaching and young children’s learning. Book Features: Rich descriptions and examples of 4-year-old children’s authoring and writing processes. Engaging narratives from the perspective of an early childhood teacher and students. A unique perspective on the development of language and literacy practices through children’s play. A view of young children as powerful and capable of co-constructing curriculum with teachers. A dynamic approach that has broad implications for literacy and integrative curriculum practices in early childhood.