Environmental education curriculum intended to help early childhood educators foster the affective and aesthetic development of preschool children. Addresses the requirements of quality preschool environmental education programming, as well as developmentally appropriate practices. Provides specific goals and practical guidelines for achieving these objectives. Discusses how to infuse environmental education into all aspects of the early childhood curriculum, including indoor and outdoor activities and using community resources. Considers special topics such as dealing with fears, working with children with disabilities, working with infants and toddlers, and involving families. Also includes suggestions for program evaluation. Each activity has a bibliography of recommended resources for lesson extensions.
Today's teachers and providers are often challenged by and concerned about the expectations in their states' early learning standards. How appropriate are standards for young children? How do they correlate with existing expectations and curricula? How inclusive are standards for second language learners and those with disabilities and developmental delays? In Play, Projects, and Preschool Standards, authors Gera Jacobs and Kathy Crowley tackle these questions-and more-head-on. They provide readers with plenty of lively, creative ideas to develop children's genuine curiosity while building essential skills for all children to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. With inviting, informal language, the authors walk readers through the creation of well-planned projects and activities that both capture children's interest and enhance social and early academic development in all curriculum areas. Each chapter offers: "What Research and the Experts Tell Us" snapshots and applications of the research in practice, "Try This" activity ideas that engage children and address standards, Suggestions for tailoring activities to meet the needs of bilingual children and children with special needs, This timely book is sure to give teachers and childcare professionals the confidence and ability to connect the experiences that make preschool so enjoyable with the potential for learning that makes preschool so valuable. Book jacket.
This practical book offers a scientific framework for the early years that is divided into four key areas: biological science, physical science, earth science and environmental science. Topics covered include life, nature, environmental care, sustainability, and biodiversity - with links throughout to the EYFS. A Sense of Wonder is an easy-to-read guide for educators looking to implement play-based science learning and inspire children of all ages in the Early Years Foundation Stage.
The purpose of this publication is to establish a rationale for early childhood environmental education and to offer some guidelines and suggestions for planning and implementing developmentally appropriate environmental education programs for preschool children. This monograph is divided into four major sections. Part 1 outlines the rationale for early childhood environmental education and includes contributions from researchers both in the United States and the United Kingdom. Part 2 presents philosophical and research perspectives relating to environmental education for preschool children. It also outlines some of the major developmental characteristics of children during the early childhood years, especially in relation to cognitive and moral development. Part 3 provides specific guidelines and suggestions for developing and implementing environmental education programs at the early childhood level, thus establishing a framework for quality in such programs. Highlighted in Part 4 are existing programs offering environmental education for pre-school children. These programs include early childhood centers offering a nature-based curriculum and environmental education centers offering preschool programs. The final sections of this monograph offer information on efforts to establish international networking, an annotated list of selected resources, and biographical information on the contributors to the monograph. (JRH)
Through theoretical discussion as well as hands-on participatory learning approaches, Thomashow provides concerned citizens, teachers, and students with the tools needed to become reflective environmentalists. Mitchell Thomashow, a preeminent educator, shows how environmental studies can be taught from different perspective, one that is deeply informed by personal reflection. Through theoretical discussion as well as hands-on participatory learning approaches, Thomashow provides concerned citizens, teachers, and students with the tools needed to become reflective environmentalists. What do I know about the place where I live? Where do things come from? How do I connect to the earth? What is my purpose as a human being? These are the questions that Thomashow identifies as being at the heart of environmental education. Developing a profound sense of oneself in relationship to natural and social ecosystems is necessary grounding for the difficult work of environmental advocacy. In this book he provides a clear and accessible guide to the learning experiences that accompany the construction of an "ecological identity": using the direct experience of nature as a framework for personal decisions, professional choices, political action, and spiritual inquiry. Ecological Identity covers the different types of environmental thought and activism (using John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and Rachel Carson as environmental archetypes, but branching out into ecofeminism and bioregionalism), issues of personal property and consumption, political identity and citizenship, and integrating ecological identity work into environmental studies programs. Each chapter has accompanying learning activities such as the Sense of Place Map, a Community Network Map, and the Political Genogram, most of which can be carried out on an individual basis. Although people from diverse backgrounds become environmental activists and enroll in environmental studies programs, they are rarely encouraged to examine their own history, motivations, and aspirations. Thomashow's approach is to reveal the depth of personal experience that underlies contemporary environmentalism and to explore, interpret, and nurture the learning spaces made possible when people are moved to contemplate their experience of nature.
Sustainability is a global issue that urgently needs addressing, and for which the most serious consequences are for children and future generations. This insightful research text tackles one of the most significant contemporary issues of our times – the nexus between society and environment – and how early childhood education can contribute to sustainable living. By offering international and multidisciplinary research perspectives on Early Childhood Education for Sustainability, each chapter explores and investigates the complex topic of sustainability and its relationship to early childhood education. A particular emphasis that runs through this text is young children as empowered citizens, capable of both contributing to and creating change for sustainability. The chapter authors work from, or are aligned with, a transformative education paradigm that suggests the socio-constructivist frameworks currently underpinning Early Childhood Education require reframing in light of the social transformations necessary to address humanity’s unsustainable, unjust and unhealthy living patterns. This research text is designed to be provocative and challenging; in so doing it seeks to encourage exploration of current understandings about Early Childhood Education for Sustainability, offers new dimensions for more deeply informed practice, and proposes avenues for further research in this field.
'This book is a must-read for parents and educators who want to refocus children's attention to one of the greatest secrets to long-term happiness - discovering the extraordinary in the ordinary' - Jessica Joelle Alexander, co-author of The Danish Way of Parenting Children of the last twenty years have grown up in an increasingly frenzied and demanding environment so that, on one hand, education has been rendered more complicated, and on the other, the essentials have been lost to view. In order to ensure their future success, parents often feel that they must fill their children's schedules with endless activities that cause leisure, spontaneous activity, and the experience of nature, beauty and silence, to fade out of their lives. This veritable race toward adulthood distances children more and more from the natural laws of childhood. A constant stream of loud and flashy stimuli disturbs the only true and sustainable learning that exists in them: that of calmly and quietly discovering the world for themselves and at their own pace, with a sense of wonder that goes beyond mere curiosity for the unknown or interest in novelty. In a world such as this, it can be a daunting task for a parent or educator of young children to discern how to best raise their children. Catherine L'Ecuyer offers clarity, drawing attention to the findings of many studies of the last few decades on the effects of screen use, overstimulation and mechanistic approaches to education on young children, and suggests time exploring the real world, more silence and the 'Wonder Approach' as remedies. Learning should be a wondrous journey guided by a deep reflection on what the natural laws of childhood require: respect for children's pace and rhythms, innocence, sense of mystery and thirst for beauty.
An international bestseller and one of The Times’ “Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century,” Claire Keegan’s piercing contemporary classic Foster is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love; now released as a standalone book for the first time ever in the US It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas’ house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end. Winner of the prestigious Davy Byrnes Award and published in an abridged version in the New Yorker, this internationally bestselling contemporary classic is now available for the first time in the US in a full, standalone edition. A story of astonishing emotional depth, Foster showcases Claire Keegan’s great talent and secures her reputation as one of our most important storytellers.
How we can all be lifelong wonderers: restoring the sense of joy in discovery we felt as children. From an early age, children pepper adults with questions that ask why and how: Why do balloons float? How do plants grow from seeds? Why do birds have feathers? Young children have a powerful drive to learn about their world, wanting to know not just what something is but also how it got to be that way and how it works. Most adults, on the other hand, have little curiosity about whys and hows; we might unlock a door, for example, or boil an egg, with no idea of what happens to make such a thing possible. How can grown-ups recapture a child’s sense of wonder at the world? In this book, Frank Keil describes the cognitive dispositions that set children on their paths of discovery and explains how we can all become lifelong wonderers. Keil describes recent research on children’s minds that reveals an extraordinary set of emerging abilities that underpin their joy of discovery—their need to learn not just the facts but the underlying causal patterns at the very heart of science. This glorious sense of wonder, however, is stifled, beginning in elementary school. Later, with little interest in causal mechanisms, and motivated by intellectual blind spots, as adults we become vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation—ready to believe things that aren’t true. Of course, the polymaths among us have retained their sense of wonder, and Keil explains the habits of mind and ways of wondering that allow them—and can enable us—to experience the joy of asking why and how.
