What do you think will be most challenging as you work at learning and understanding how to teach from a developmental perspective?

1. What do you think will be most challenging as you work at learning and understanding how to teach from a developmental perspective?

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• Developmental knowledge about infants, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and children in the primary grades should guide and inform the decisions that teachers make about curriculum.
• While we expect children to achieve specific developmental milestones in the physical, affective, and cognitive domains, growth and learning occur in a highly integrated and gradual process.
• Curriculum must account for and support the needs and interests of both typically developing children and those with special needs. Specific supports, processes, and adaptations are implemented when children exhibit developmental delays or other special needs.
• A large body of research confirms the benefits of play across all developmental domains. Early childhood curriculum should incorporate support for play as a primary means of integrating experience and learning.
• Theories about play describe it as a developmental process from both cognitive and social perspectives; they are useful for teachers as they plan for, observe, and facilitate children’s play activities.
• In developmentally appropriate classrooms, teachers typically provide for play with designated activity or learning centers, materials that support development in many different ways, and large blocks of time that allow children to engage deeply in various activities.
• Curriculum for infants centers on care routines and developing secure relationships with adults.
• Toddler curriculum supports their increasing mobility and desire to explore, acquisition of language, and emerging social behaviors.
• Curriculum for preschoolers focuses on the refinement of gross and fine motor skills, developing social relationships, fostering emergent literacy, and internalizing a love of learning through exploration of their environment.
• Classrooms for children in the primary grades should look in many ways similar to those for younger children. Curricula for children from kindergarten through third grade include an increased emphasis on literacy and mathematics but should continue to balance learning in an integrated and individualized fashion.

Discussion Questions

1. What do you think will be most challenging as you work at learning and understanding how to teach from a developmental perspective?
2. Think about your experiences playing as a child; what kind of things did you enjoy doing the most and how do you think your play experiences supported your growth and development?
3. What themes can you identify that run throughout early childhood curriculum?

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