The host of the internationally popular early childhood podcast "That Early Childhood Nerd" provides a framework for understanding the importance of free play. Free play is disappearing from the lives of too many young children, leaving them vulnerable to negative effects on their physical and mental health, social and emotional growth,…

Students in the middle grades experience tremendous development in various domains. However, childhood trauma can significantly impede this development, further exacerbating the functioning of our most vulnerable student populations. This article aims to describe the use of trauma-informed teaching as a form of middle-level, social justice…

During early childhood, practitioners and family members are often tasked with determining optimal approaches to support social skill development in young children with developmental disabilities in inclusive and self-contained settings. Eight different evidence based approaches are highlighted (social narratives, scripting, pivotal response…

Children have a natural proclivity to teach, help, cooperate, and empathize with others, and these interactions can have positive benefits for children's emotional, social, and cognitive development. This article is about ways music teachers can design peer-assisted music learning activities that will benefit everyone in the class and ultimately…

Go beyond reading about early learning theories and see what they look like in action in modern programs and teacher practices. With classroom vignettes and colorful photographs, this book makes the works of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Lev Vygotsky, Abraham Maslow, John Dewey, Howard Gardner, and Louise Derman-Sparks visible, accessible, and easier…

Early Childhood Mental Health Endorsement® (ECMH-E®) offers a credential for those whose work with or on behalf of children 3-6 years old and their families is informed by infant and early childhood mental health principles. Those who have earned ECMH-E demonstrate completion of specialized education, work, in-service training, and reflective…

The Case Study Compilation was developed with and for educators to provide examples of practice related to three questions: (1) What does it mean to focus on social-emotional development and the creation of positive learning environments?; (2) How can educators integrate their approaches to social, emotional, and academic development?; and (3)…

Parents seek for their children "something other" than what they usually expect them to acquire through the regular school program, and they turn to extracurricular activities and out-of-school experiences to find it. Teachers know that each student brings to a learning task a "something other"--certain attributes that affect…

This paper is a portrait of a public elementary school classroom in light of the relationships, history, and ideas that have formed its physical space. In describing Judy Richard's classroom, the author shows how a creative teacher's commitment to seeing her classroom as a living space inevitably brings her to overstep the narrow limits of the…

The Pyramid Model is a conceptual framework for organizing practices for promoting young children's social-emotional development and preventing and addressing challenging behavior. The authors describe a coaching approach that is focused on supporting early educators' implementation of the Pyramid Model. The authors provide a description of the…

This article presents an extended vignette describing a good practice model for implementing SEAL small group work at "Mellington Primary", a fictional school. The vignette/model was developed from in-depth case studies at five primary schools in the north-west of England during a national evaluation of primary SEAL by the authors. The…

The formation, structure, and goals of an open-ended psychoeducational support group for people with serious and persistent mental illnesses are described, differentiating psychoeducation from psychotherapy, and professional from peer-led support groups. Major goals are to provide education for illness management and help members combat social…