Authentic Childhood: Experiencing Reggio Emilia in the Classroom, 3rd Edition. Susan Fraser,

AUTHENTIC CHILDHOOD explores the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. Based on constructionist learning, this text is ideal for students and teachers of all experience levels. AUTHENTIC CHILDHOOD includes inspiring stories of teachers who are transforming early childhood education and teacher preparation through the use of the Reggio Emilia philosophy.

 

Emergent Curriculum in the Primary Classroom: Interpreting the Reggio Emilia Approach in Schools. Carol Anne Wien,

How is compelling, exemplary curriculum created in schools in spite of the pressures to implement a standardized curriculum? In this book, teachers and principals share their experiences with emergent curriculum, the creative practices they’ve developed in urban classrooms, Kindergarten to 3rd grade. We learn what they were trying to do, how they began the process, the challenges they faced, the decisions they made, and what happened with the children. All chapters are written by teachers who have found ways of interpreting the Reggio approach to enrich their teaching within the confines of traditional schools. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand emergent curriculum and for all who hope to nurture an enlivening, energizing way to learn in classrooms.

Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education. Elena Bodrova and Deborah J. Leong,

As the only text of its kind, this book provides in-depth information about Vygotsky’s theories, neo-Vygotskians’ findings, and concrete explanations and strategies that instruct teachers how to influence student learning and development.  Key changes to this edition include a new chapter on dynamic assessment, separate and expanded chapters on developmental accomplishments of infants and toddlers, preschool/kindergarten, and primary grades and on supporting those accomplishments, and elaborations of Vygotsky’s ideas from neo-Vygotskians from Russia.

 

Are you Listening? Fostering Conversations That Help Young Children Learn. Lisa Burman

Conversations take place in every early childhood classroom-between teachers and children, and among children. Are You Listening?asks teachers to examine these conversations and their impact on children’s learning. Often, teachers use conversations to impart information to children instead of really listening to children and allowing them to make their own decisions. Grounded in child-centered, relationship-based theory, this book covers topics such as how to create an environment that supports quality conversations, how to encourage conversations that support learning and development, and how to work with children with limited language capabilities.

 

Learning Together With Young Children: A Curriculum Framework for Reflective Teachers. Deb Curtis and Margie Carter,

Many curriculum books treat teaching as something teachers do to or for children. Deb Curtis and Margie Carter, best-selling authors in the early learning field, believe teaching is a collaborative process in which teachers reexamine their own philosophies and practices while facilitating children’s learning.

Each chapter in this curriculum framework includes a conceptual overview followed by classroom stories and photographs to illustrate the concepts.

The book helps teachers create materials and a classroom culture reflective of their values: Teach through observation, reflection, inquiry, and action, and encourage children to represent their learning in multiple ways, including songs, stories, and drama.

 Designs for Living and Learning: transforming early childhood environments. Debbie Curtis, Margie Carter

Give children wondrous places to learn and grow! Drawing inspiration from a variety of approaches–from Waldorf to Montessori to Reggio to Greenman, Prescott, and Olds–the authors outline hundreds of ways to create healthy and inviting physical, social, and emotional environments for children in child care. Full-color photographs of actual early childhood programs demonstrate that the spaces children learn and grow in can be comfortable for children, teachers, and parents alike.

 

A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play. Vivian Gussin Paley

The author says that kindergarten should be for play. She advocates saving academic work until first grade. As a kindergarten teacher, she would write down the children’s oral stories and then they would act them out. Collaboration is important to kids; in pretend play they incorporate all the participants’ ideas. If you want to change a child’s behavior, using “Let’s pretend” is very effective, according to Paley. For instance, if a kid always knocks down blocks, you can say “Let’s pretend you’re a good block builder.”

 

 

Articles

Let the Children Play: Nature’s Answer to Early Learning
http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Reports/LessonsInLearning/LinL20061010LearninPlay.html

It’s Child’s Play
http://www.etfo.ca/Publications/…/child’s%20play.pdf

Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School District No. 42
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/…/Kindergarten_8-page_summary.pdf

Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html