education

Describe what curriculum is and what it includes. Explain historical influences on modern curricula. Describe what “developmentally appropriate practice” means. Describe contextual factors that affect early childhood professionals’ work with curricula. Discuss active reflection as an important teacher activity. Introduction Imagine yourself interviewing for your first early childhood teaching position. You know you will need […]

Online Resources for Using Graphic Organizers Birbili, M. (2006). Mapping knowledge: Concept maps in early childhood education. Early Childhood Research & Practice, 8(2). Retrieved from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v8n2/birbili.html. This article explains how a particular graphic organizer, a concept map, can be used to help children organize and process their thinking. EduPlace: An online site sponsored by Houghton-Mifflin

Chapter Summary Planning is a comprehensive process that includes making decisions about how to address curriculum, respond to the needs and interests of children and their families, work with colleagues, and arrange the physical setting. Planning also includes considering all the decisions you make within the context of developmentally appropriate practices and your belief system.

Account for learning standards as the project proceeds As this project moved forward, Mary and Jane repeated this cycle of steps several times as they continued to plan. The project continued for more than a month. They used a checklist to indicate which of the South Carolina learning standards were being addressed. Like Phyllis and

Adjust future planning to adapt to the direction of the inquiry To proceed with the inquiry, Mary and Jane decided to focus on three things based on the interests represented in the childrens observations and questions: (1) how the water harvesting system works, (2) how pumps work, and (3) how vertical drop affects the descent

Organize and reflect on documentation After several days of water activities, in their subsequent discussions with the children, the KWL chart was revised to add: K: Spray bottles are pumps (but we dont know why they work); some water can go up without a pump; we can make water go faster if we make it

Designing a Water-Moving System The challenge of designing water-moving systems was difficult, but the children were very invested in this part of the initial activities and every design presented was subsequently built and tested. Among their observations, they note that: The children are highly motivated to get water to move uphill but realize that without

Week One Water Activities During the first week, as Mary and Jane began predicting the direction of the long-term study, they focused on moving water. Document what happens Mary and Jane review their notes and the drawings done by the children.’ Place Your Order Here!

Provide materials and resources to support multiple possibilities for directions the inquiry might take As with thematic unit planning, teachers use brainstorming to organize their ideas about potential activities and explorations. Mary and Janes brainstorming included the ideas represented in Figure 6.9 to investigate the questions and theories represented in the childrens KWL chart. Since

Choose a tentative topic As the teachers revisited their observation journals and looked back through the childrens writing journals, their insight was that the concepts of power, force, and motion were themes the children had already been exploring for months; but because the contexts for this exploration had seemed so disconnected, they had not recognized