Recognizing that children's earliest years are critical, stakeholders in Delaware have joined together to define what types of experiences children should ideally have before they enter kindergarten. A statewide committee with policymakers, parents, and representatives from the early care and education community, schools, higher education, and…

This paper considers the connection between play and literacy in the early childhood classroom. The paper discusses five literacy goals that can be reached by supporting children's natural inclination toward playful endeavors: (1) developing symbolic processes; (2) fostering language growth; (3) supporting the ability to solve problems; (4)…

Peace Education is now considered by many as a viable curriculum that could be integrated into many school programs. This paper identifies and clarifies the role that peace education can play in the creation of a humane, nonviolent learning environment; highlights recent research on brain-based learning that holds significance for the inclusion of…

This paper documents the background of a curriculum framework, the Foundation Areas of Learning, for children from birth to age 3 in South Australia. The paper examines some of the dilemmas in creating such a framework and some of the rewards as the system coped with the challenge of including its youngest learners in a clearly articulated…

Summarizes and evaluates a preschool program for three and four year old children coming from a deprived background and with scores of 85 and under on the Stanford-Binet scale. (JM)

Examined the influence of curriculum preparation on children's content knowledge of dramatic play centers' themes, dramatic play behavior, and theme-relevant conversation during play. Found that theme familiarity may have been a critical factor. Posttest content knowledge was positively related to frequency of dramatic play. Teacher effects on…

Describes a project to create accessibility in a preschool, whose genesis was a student comment which blossomed into a four-month endeavor. The project serves as a guide to implementing an emergent curriculum project. Describes the process of responding to children, anticipating their next inquiry, following their lead, and encouraging their…

A Head Start program located on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado incorporated the Montessori approach in their program beginning in 1997. Findings from numerous focus group interviews with a cross-section of community members suggest that the educational materials, learning environment, and teaching techniques appropriately…

Highlights the importance of inclusion of music in preschool curriculum. Promotes using a variety of musical activities to stimulate imagination including quiet listening, marching while clanging instruments, dancing, singing, and playing games. Provides suggestions on where to start, songs, rhythm instruments, musical props, stories and music,…

Reflects upon the nature of caring and teaching in the infant care setting. Presents two scenarios of caregivers interacting with infants and toddlers who are having difficulty with a motor activity to illustrate caring. Urges caregivers to consider caring as an attitude of total, focused presence with the child and at the heart of teaching. (KB)

Describes how one preschool program's curriculum evolved to consider children's individual differences in learning through an individualistic approach with hands-on active learning and exploration experiences to serve the whole child. Shows how multiple intelligences theory was used to assess the curricular balance. Delineates activities to…

Discusses the contribution of language-based activities to training for thinking skills in a cognitively oriented curriculum. Focuses on the thinking and language dyad, which serves as the framework for a teaching model and the criterion for selection of content. (RJC)

Describes a curriculum for teaching young children about dinosaurs. Activity topics included Diplodocus eggs, sorting dinosaurs, creating terrariums, and extinction. Describes the incorporation of dinosaur activities into other subject areas and resource materials. (RJC)

Discusses a mathematics curriculum for children in preschool or kindergarten which emphasizes manipulation. Suggests activities in the following concept areas: observation, classification, comparing and contrasting, seriation, patterning, graphing, informal measurement, and counting. (RJC)