The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework advocates building civic competence in all students6 The C3 Inquiry Arc involves engaging students with compelling and supporting questions, using disciplinary content and skills to have students investigate these questions, evaluate sources they use along the way, and take action with their new…

This article describes how American and Japanese kindergartners see play and what teachers can learn from them. The authors share their findings from analyzing photos and interviews from 44 American children in the southeastern United States and 55 Japanese children in the main island of Japan, all aged five to six years. In the study, children…

Writing and photography are composition processes that help develop children's linguistic and visual competencies, respectively. Using photography in teaching writing has been found to enhance students' literacy skills by naturally invoking their interest and motivation, and eventually strengthening the reading-writing relationship. Children can…

This article describes a lesson on bats developed for kindergartners, which uses models of bats to teach about their physiology, diet, and habitat. The lesson uses craft sticks, wax paper, and colored construction paper that kindergarten teachers can use to help their students compare the features of 4 different kinds of bats. The use of online…

In this article, the author describes a self-portrait project that encouraged students, boosted their self-confidence, and got them excited about their artistic abilities--while producing amazing results. This lesson effectively develops artistic ability by compelling students to see that drawing is quite simply breaking down objects into the…

In this article, the authors describe a project that integrated computer technology skills with art history, photography, and layout/design. Approximately 160 fourth graders became photographers and created books on the following concepts: position words, numbers, colors, alphabet, shapes, and patterns. The books were professionally bound and…

This article describes a take-home literacy project in which kindergartners took home books, a stuffed animal, a camera, and a shared writing activity to complete with their families. The children later shared their writing and experiences in school. The resulting written responses and photographs depicted a level of involvement with the families…

Kilkhampton Junior and Infants School is a rural primary school of 83 children aged 4-11 years, situated on the Atlantic Highway (A39) just inside Cornwall and close to the coast, beaches and walks. In this article, the author describes the school's work beyond the classroom as part of the National Trust Guardianship Scheme.

This article describes Bob Montgomery's Famous Kindergarten First Graders! project. The aim of the project is to assist his students in learning about each other, to introduce them to digital photography using iPhoto (they participate in a group lesson in editing as well), and to introduce them to moviemaking using iMovie software. The project…

Because many kindergarten activities do not require paper and pencils, digital photography gave one class in Bronx, New York, a quick, easy method of saving special moments and documenting experiences. The children quickly learned to use the camera, download pictures to the computer, and use software to crop and alter their pictures, sometimes…

Photovoice is an educational action research tool that embraces visual communication through photography and allows for individualization. In this article, the author describes how a visual teaching method known as photovoice led to improved engagement with peers and learning materials for two young boys with autism. The author also describes how…

This article describes a project on chickens and eggs undertaken by 5-year-old children in a bilingual school in Mexico City. It describes the three phases of the project and includes photographs and other documentation of the children's work.

The concept for the piloting of a contemporary early childhood kindergarten in China was visualised by the chief executive officer of TMC Academy, Dr Chin, in July 2002 when he participated in a Singaporean-led mission to Liaoning Province in China. Shenyang Creative Kindergarten is the result of that concept. It opened for children in September…