Important curriculum features for cognitive development include:

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Why is it important to modify routine and structure for different age groups?
2. How can you use classroom routines to support different developmental domains?

Preschool

Young children are perpetual motion machines! In addition to developing increasing control over their bodies, 3- to 5-year old preschoolers use language to express their feelings, questions, and thoughts. With preschoolers, much of the guesswork about their needs and interests is replaced by the need to provide a wider variety of experiences and materials that (1) challenge them to refine their physical skills, (2) help them begin to form friendships and navigate social relationships and conflicts, (3) explore their theories about how things work, (4) foster emergent literacy, and (5) develop a love of learning. Further, beyond the infant-toddler period, preschoolers have acquired the ability to engage in much more complex play that provides a platform for highly integrated development of thoughts, feelings, and conceptual understandings (Gestwicki, 2011).

Critical considerations for preschool curriculum from the perspective of DAP (Copple & Brekekamp, 2009) include the following:

1. A preschool curriculum should represent real learning in the present, not preparation for later (p. 111).
2. Three- to five-year-olds bring an already wide variety of experiences to the preschool setting, which should serve to inform curricular decisions.
3. The curriculum should support and integrate cultural knowledge.
4. Scaled-down versions of curricula for older children are not appropriate.

Physical Domain

The goals of curricula for physical development focus on developing coordination and fluidity of movement. Children are growing so fast during this time that their body image may lag behind their actual physical appearance, and they may have difficulty with spatial awareness. Preschoolers are also, compared with adults, farsighted, and may not yet have firmly established “handedness,” bolstering the case against using work sheets and small print with children of this age (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009).

Many of the physical developmental needs of preschoolers can be supported by careful planning of the environment and blocking out indoor and outdoor time periods where children are free and expected to make choices, direct their own play, and moderate their personal behavior; thus the curriculum can be largely intentional without being overly teacher-directed. This is not to say that specific activities focused on movement and exercise should be excluded. Many fine resources and activities are included in comprehensive preschool curricula, including supplementary programs specifically directed at physical growth and health activities and practices for 3- to 5-year-olds.

In general, curricular considerations for supporting and promoting physical development indoors include:

• Organizing the classroom or care setting for high mobility (Gestwicki, 2011)allowing for freedom of movement from center to center and with room for children to play on the floor
• Displaying and labeling materials so that children can retrieve, move/carry, and replace independently
• Access to age-appropriate games that encourage movement and dexterity
• Access to a wide variety of materials in each activity area that encourage refinement of fine motor skills while allowing for differences in interests and ability levels
• Plentiful formal and informal opportunities for learning to use and practice with writing tools

Extending the curriculum for physical development to the out-of-doors should be intentional to ensure plentiful opportunities for the development of physical strength, agility, coordination, and endurance. Increasing concern about obesity among young children in particular points to outdoor play as a critical strategy for encouraging children to be more active.

Outdoor curriculum is addressed in more detail in Chapter 8, but in general the curriculum should include the following:

• Opportunities for swinging, sliding, rolling, climbing, jumping, running, throwing, kicking, and riding (Gestwicki, 2011, p. 105)
• Organized games and activities intended to develop particular skills and learning about rules
• Engaging interest areas that provide additional opportunities for active play, such as digging, gardening, water play, dramatic play, and so on, which support the development of fine motor and perceptual skills

Affective Domain

Curricula for preschoolers support the affective domain primarily by promoting the development of identity, community and friendship, and self-regulation. The emergence of the social self takes center stage and with it attention to cultural and gender identity, making and being friends, and solving problems without coming to blows or hurting someone else’s feelings. Children at this age are also emerging from what Erikson called the psychological stage of trust vs. mistrust into the period of autonomy vs. shame/doubt. In other words, infants and toddlers have learned to trust and feel secure in their relationships with those who are most significant in their daily lives and care. Now, as preschoolers, they are ready to venture into a wider circle of people, places, things, and ideas, but they are perhaps not always confident and sure about how to do so.

Children of this age are also highly motivated by the desire to please the adults they care about, and are apt to forge significant bonds with, and admiration for, their teachers. Sensitive teachers channel these tendencies toward the development of prosocial behaviors while also realizing that the bravado often displayed by a 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old child may camouflage a surprisingly fragile and easily damaged ego. How children navigate their way through this new territory can significantly impact their social competence for the rest of their lives (Gestwicki, 2011).

The curriculum supports preschoolers’ affective development with an environment, activities, ample time, and materials that provide opportunities for:

• Exploring identity (gender, culture, language, personality)
• Creating an ethic of acceptance, respect, and caring for self and others
• Modeling and practicing effective strategies for problem solving and conflict resolution
• Extended sociodramatic and pretend play
• Identifying and communicating feelings and ideas with words
• Developing resilience, or the ability to cope with stress and a range of emotions that can be volatile and difficult to manage at this age

Cognitive Domain

Preschool curricula abound with ways to promote and extend cognitive development. Key goals in this area include development of memory, attention, symbolic representation, logic and reasoning, language and literacy, multiple perspectives, and the acquisition of concepts fundamental to later learning across all content areas. Balance in curriculum is extremely important in the preschool years, so teachers must not concentrate on this area of development to the exclusion of the other important domains.

Curriculum supports preschool children’s cognitive development with activities, materials, room, and extended periods of time for:

• Sorting, classifying, and grouping objects
• Exploring number, quantity, matching, and patterning
• Observing objects and processes
• Learning about the physical properties of objects
• Pretend play focused on themes with ready access to props
• Drawing, painting, writing

Finally, an increasing number of studies confirm the highly integrated nature of learning at this age. Healthy social, emotional, and physical development in preschoolers provides a foundation for future academic success and is closely correlated with it (Bakken, Brown, & Downing, 2017; Bodrova & Leong, 2007; Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). Preschoolers’ experiences with curriculum have a significant impact on their long-term attitudes toward learning and school. High levels of natural energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity can be nurtured or destroyed during this time!

Many states currently recognize these connections with a section of their early learning standards that addresses “Approaches to Learning” (South Carolina Department of Education, 2005). These are dispositions that represent a merging of social, emotional, and cognitive development such as initiative, persistence, engagement, risk taking, creativity, compliance, and reflection.

Preschool curricula that support development in these integrated domains include:

• Daily chances for children to make and be accountable for choices
• Regular practice in planning and communicating actions and intentions
• Having a voice in discussion of issues and events that are important to the classroom community
• Ways to include and respect the interests of children about topics and ideas in curriculum content
• Documentation and sharing of children’s ideas, efforts, and products with others

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